Dear friends in Christ, grace and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Amen.

One of my favorite cartoons as a young boy was Tooter Turtle. It was cartoon series that first appeared on TV in 1960 about a young, adventurous turtle and a wise lizard with a distinct German accent known as Mr. Wizard.  The introduction to the story was always the same. The young Tooter knocked on the cardboard box where Mr. Wizard lived, having “another favor to ask.” The lizard had the magic power to change Tooter’s life, usually sending him back in time and to some other place.  Inevitably, as Tooter was fulfilling his destiny, there would be a catastrophe, and the turtle would cry out to the lizard, “Help me, Mr. Wizard, I don’t want to be here any more!” Mr. Wizard would then rescue Tooter with the incantation, “Drizzle, Drazzle, Druzzle, Drome, time for this one to come home.” When Tooter was standing before Mr. Wizard, the lizard would always give the turtle the same advice: “Be just what you is, not what you is not. Folks what do this has the happiest lot.”

Tooter Turtle could have easily slipped from my memory for all time, if I hadn’t been responsible for young missionaries in Central Europe. For ten years, I traveled every August to Bratislava to hold orientation for our young American Lutheran teachers who would serve in Slovakia, Hungary and Poland. Many of these recent college graduates were barely older than their future students, and they were a lot like Tooter the Turtle out in the world for their very first time.  Overwhelmingly, they were successful and thrived in their new setting, but not everyone and not all the time. And so inevitably, it was my job to whisper the incantation, “Drizzle, Drazzle, Druzzle, Drome, time for this one to come home” and they would return.

I can’t imagine that the Apostle Paul had or needed a supervisor to call him home, but he knew when it was time to take his leave.  Our reading this morning begins, “After staying there for a considerable time, Paul said farewell to the brothers and sisters, and sailed for Syria” and I might add, and then-home.

Until the middle of the 20th century, missionaries often returned to their home country on a regular basis. The usual pattern was four years on the field followed by one year of “furlough,” at “home”, and this was repeated as long as they served overseas. They usually traveled by cargo ship with all their possessions in oil drums. There was no other means. When they went to the field, and when they returned home, they were in transit for several weeks aboard ship, often with other missionaries. There, they had time to talk with the other missionaries in this small group of travelers and reflect on their work.

Today most missionaries can board an airplane and be “home” within 48 hours from nearly anywhere in the world, but with no opportunity to rest and debrief.  In my work as a supervisor, I often warned returning missionaries. “Your things will arrive home before your soul does.”  For our years as missionaries, this every other summer experience was known as home assignment.  It was not to be confused with vacation. We were expected to “hit the ground running” meeting with supporting congregations, preaching in different churches every Sunday as well as special mid-week mission services and pot-lucks, attend a missionary conference, all in addition to scheduling medical and dental visits for our growing children, and, if possible, visit our parents and relax. Our poor sons travelled as many miles by car in a single summer as the Apostle Paul on his second missionary journey.  They heard the same jokes in my stump missionary sermon so often that would shout out the punchline before I could say it.  By the end of our home assignment, we needed to get back to the mission field of Eastern Europe to rest.  But home leave was also truly a blessing.   Over and over, we were able to share the good news of Jesus Christ at home and overseas.  Home leave was a regular, restorative part of our years as missionaries, so we never needed to cry out “Help me, Mr. Wizard.”

The Apostle Paul’s home leave was not so different than ours, but with one significant difference.  Paul had been under a vow. According to the Book of Numbers, in thanksgiving and gratitude for God’s faithfulness, servants of the Lord were to cut their hair at the end of a Nazarite vow. There were countless reasons Paul could have chosen to make such a vow: for a fruitful ministry in Corinth, the completion of his journey in Greece, the positive judgment of the Proconsul Gallio against him in the court in Corinth, or simply that he was honoring the ancient tradition of the Jewish people to whom he belonged and to where he was returning on his home leave.  It was customary to collect the shorn hair and then burn it along with a sacrifice at the temple in Jerusalem.  This would be the culmination of his journey.  From there he headed to Antioch for his “home leave”-which as we read in Book of Acts was “some time.” No mention of medical or dental visits, family reunions or a summer missionary conference, but “after some time he departed and went from place through the region of Galatia and Phrygia, strengthening all the disciples.”

Now you may be wondering, why would Paul choose to spend his home leave in Antioch?  Surprisingly, his decision reminds us of the purpose of every missionary’s “home leave: including our own.

The ancient city of Antioch was an important place for Paul.  It was the city where the followers of Jesus were first known as Christians. According to the Book of Acts, Paul began and ended his three recorded missionary journeys there. So it’s not surprising that he would spend his home leave there as well.  It was not, however, his birthplace or a childhood home. That was Tarsus. But Antioch was where he was nurtured as a preacher, where he was commissioned as a missionary, and where he was forced to reflect on his own troubled, sinful past.

How ironic it must have seemed that the very people in Antioch who sent Paul as a missionary and nurtured him in his “home leave” were the very ones who once feared him and fled his wrath when he persecuted the church in Jerusalem. After the death of St. Stephen the Martyr and the St. James the Apostle, many Jewish Christians living in Jerusalem and in the surrounding region sought refuge in Antioch.  Indeed, the Christian community became so large, so quickly, that the church leaders in Jerusalem decided to send Barnabas to Antioch to organize the church. Barnabas, in turn, sought out Saul of Tarsus, who had since been converted by Jesus on the road to Damascus to be his companion in ministry.  Barnabas encouraged the church in Antioch to welcome Paul and to forgive him and trust him. And I don’t think Paul ever forgot Antioch’s courageous act of love, encouragement and forgiveness. He was forever indebted to them.

So for the Apostle Paul, home leave, first and foremost, allowed him time to step back to the place where he could focus on God’s message to the world. Awkwardly, in Antioch, he was still referred to by his neighbors as Saul. They recalled his earlier hatred of the church.  They remembered how he had zealously persecuted the first Christians and travelled off to Damascus to arrest them and bring them back to Jerusalem. But they also saw the changed man. For Paul, it was painful, but it also helped him understand his most important Christian teaching. A person’s past does not have to determine their future.  One of society’s most effective tools in holding people back is reminding them of their troubled past. So often they find themselves lamenting, “I’ve made too many mistakes in my life for God to love me” or “I’ve done too many bad things to ever have a good life and serve God.” Paul had a different message. In Jesus Christ, change is possible.  The late radio broadcaster Paul Harvey, who always knew the rest of the story once criticized the loss of Paul’s missionary zeal in the Christian church today.  He said, “We’ve strayed from being fishers of men to being keepers of the aquarium.”   Home leave in Antioch allowed Paul to reflect on the possibilities of his own change and the possibility that God offers in Jesus Christ to all.

For Paul, home leave was a time for growing contentedness but not to become so contented that he was ready to leave it all behind.  True, missionaries work on behalf of others a church, a denomination or mission board. They are the one who ultimately wave their magic hands and chant, “Drizzle, Drizzle, Druzzle, Drome, Time for this one to come home.” But there is a personal connection that develops as well. Missionaries often invest their own personal time, money and resources, and yes, their own heart and soul into reaching people that they have grown to love.  Jesus said, “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” But when a missionary finally leaves their mission, a part of their life is left behind. You have to grow content with the work that you have done that many people will never see nor imagine nor visit.  Home leave in Antioch allowed Paul to reflect on Jesus’ words, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.”  That is an invitation for every believer.

Finally, home leave is a time for missionaries to share the story of what God is doing in the world. The 19^th century British missionary to China Taylor Hudson once said, “The Great Commission of Jesus. to go and make disciples of all nations is not an option to be considered; it is a command to be obeyed.”  Regretfully, many Christian churches today have decided that sharing the gospel need not be the focus of its ministry. Some pride themselves on shepherding their own flock, or striving for social justice for the sake of their neighbors- which are admirable goals, but they see little need in sharing the gospel and its hopeful perspective on salvation and eternal life. Lutherans might be surprised to discover the reformer Martin Luther’s own words on the subject. “Live as if Christ died yesterday, rose this morning and is coming back tomorrow.”  That is a message that changes lives.  Paul’s home leave in Antioch allowed him to share those stories.

My friends, God doesn’t send us all out into the world like Tooter Turtle waiting for us to fail, simply to hear us cry out, “Help me. Mr. Wizard.” But every day, God sets before us men and women who have not heard the good news of Jesus Christ, and those who feel that that have fallen so short of God’s purpose, that their life is worth saving.  You have a story worth sharing, and what a difference it may make in the life of that person who has not yet heard. As Mr. Wizard said to Tooter Turtle.  “Be just what you is, not what you is not. Folks what do this has the happiest lot.” Amen.

May the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.  Amen.