By Pastor Bethany Walker:
A long time ago I stopped using the language of shut-in for those parishioners I visit in their homes because their circumstances keep them from being able to regularly attend worship. I started using the language of homebound because it sounded gentler and less confining. This is not new language. Many pastoral leaders use the word homebound. What is new for me is the double meaning of homebound as it relates to the oldest saints among us. When we label parishioners “homebound”, we are naming their present situation, one that bounds them to their homes because of their age, mobility, health or another limiting factor. However, such people have something important to teach us as it relates to our faith in the God of resurrection. These people are also homebound, that is, they are well on their way to life everlasting, bound for the home where Jesus has prepared a place for them. Reframing this word and their circumstances gives us a grace-filled reminder that whatever they are suffering presently will not plague them forever and does not define them in their belovedness before God. Perhaps playing with the language of homebound can help us reframe our ministry to the homebound. Maybe some of our pity will be replaced with promise and some of our grief will be replaced with gratitude as we learn something new about the generous love of God and the promise that all of us are bound for a home that will simultaneously welcome us and set us free.
