Lynn Jones: The Home Court Advantage
By Lynn Jones
The “home court advantage” is a major factor in ball games. Generally, coaches feel that playing on your home court is worth several points in a game.
That’s understandable. When you are playing on your home court, you are comfortable with the playing court, the goals, and the routines. In addition to that, the home crowd roars its approval when you do anything well. It’s only natural that playing on your home court would provide a competitive advantage.
In life, however, it doesn’t always work that way. In Mark 6:1-6, there is the story of Jesus’ going back for a visit to his hometown of Nazareth. Unfortunately, things did not go well. The people in Nazareth did not respond to His ministry. They found it difficult to accept Him as the Messiah. Instead, they saw Him as the village carpenter. They knew His mother, His brothers, and His sisters. The result was that they “took offense at Him.”
Because of this chilly reception, Jesus left Nazareth behind and made Capernaum His headquarters in Galilee. Mark 6:6 says that “He was amazed at their lack of faith.”
Ernest Campbell told of a preacher who used this text as the basis for his sermon. The title of the sermon was, “The Home Court Disadvantage.”
Living the Christian life and sharing your faith in your hometown or in your own home is often a difficult thing to do. Sometimes it’s difficult because we do not model the Christian life very well. One preacher’s wife said that the most difficult thing for her was to put up with her husband all week and believe that he was the voice of God on Sunday. (Please do not ask my wife how she feels about the matter.)
Our families know us very well. They know our strengths, and they know our weaknesses. Living the Christian life in the daily routines of life is difficult.
Also, it is often difficult to talk about Christ with those closest to us. Because of our close relationship to those around us, we may be hesitant to interject a subject that could produce some tension. Any witness to Christ must be offered with great sensitivity and love.
John Drakeford once wrote a little book on family life entitled, The Home: The Laboratory for Life. It is in the home that we experiment and try new approaches. In the home we do trial runs with the knowledge that if we fail, we are still going to be loved and accepted. That’s what a laboratory is for.
Given the choice of playing a game at home or away, most teams will always choose to play it at home so that they will have the “home court advantage.” It may not be so simple with our Christian witness. Pray for God’s leadership and grace to overcome the “home court disadvantage.”
Lynn Jones is a retired pastor who lives in Oxford. He does supply preaching for churches in his area and often serves as an interim pastor. Jones is also an author, has written two books and writes a weekly newspaper column. He may be contacted at: kljones45@yahoo.com.
