Sunday, May 10, 2020

God's Dwelling


May 10, 2020
St. John’s United Church of Christ, Union, Illinois

John 14:1-14

If you have been to a funeral, you have probably heard this passage. It is one that I have used many times. In this passage from John, Jesus is talking about leaving the disciples. He is trying to prepare them for what is coming. Jesus gives them this vision of heaven. When Jesus tried to describe heaven, he used words that meant home: love, and peace, and family. “In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places… I go to prepare a place for you” (v. 2). There is a place prepared for each of us. We have a home that is beyond this world. A home filled with love and peace. A home where God welcomes us like a father or a mother.

When Jesus spoke of God, he used the word “Father.” Joseph, the human father of Jesus, must have been a wonderful father. His family must have been his true passion. Joseph loved his family so much, that when Jesus had to choose one word to describe God, he chose “Father.”

Jesus might have used the word “Mother.” After all, it was his mother who outlived Joseph, raised Jesus on her own for at least part of his life, and stuck by her son as he became a traveling preacher and healer. She even tried to get him to come home when she feared the authorities might come to take him away. Mary was even there at the cross, despite all the horror, pain, and loss. Mother was always there.

God’s love for us is unconditional, like the love of our mothers and fathers. Jesus assures us that we have a home with God, a home where we will be welcomed like a devoted child. There are many dwelling places in the house of God. There is room for everyone. There is a place for you.

These words of encouragement were part of the farewell message that Jesus gave the disciples in order to prepare them for what was to come. Their hearts were troubled, as Jesus is telling them he is leaving. What they had been expecting is not working out they way they thought. They have been following Jesus all this time and yet they still aren’t truly understanding his message, vision, and mission. They have found the Messiah in Jesus, yet he’s not what they expected.

They may have expected the Messiah to be immortal, but he is about to be crucified. They may have thought that he would lead them to liberation from the Roman occupation and restore the kingdom of David, but their defeat seems assured. Jesus isn’t rallying the troops, but saying goodbye. His death will mean the death of their hopes and dreams. Their understanding of who he is will be transformed; but in this moment, they begin to grieve the loss of what they have known and believed.

I have read some articles in a collection called “Quarantine Journal: Notes from Inside.” One letter by Justin Smith, who was experiencing the beginning symptoms of the coronavirus, addresses the changes we are all experiencing. He writes:

I find that I am generally at peace, and that the balance between happiness and sadness on any given day is little different from what it always has been for me. I find that there is liberation in this suspension of more or less everything. In spite of it all, we are free now. Any fashion, sensibility, ideology, set of priorities, worldview or hobby that you acquired prior to March 2020, and that may have by then started to seem to you cumbersome, dull, inauthentic, a drag: you are no longer beholden to it. You can cast it off entirely and no one will care; likely, no one will notice. Were you doing something out of mere habit, conceiving your life in a way that seemed false to you? You can stop doing that now.[1]

While we are experiencing the loss of some things, new things are being born. New ways of relating to one another, of understanding the natural world, of what it means to live and work and learn are coming into being. The changes in our lives may be painful, but they are part of the transition to new life.

In the upper room, death and birth are revealed. Rev. Shannon Pater, a minister in Atlanta, describes this moment as both the hospice and birthing room. “In both the maternity wing and the hospice room, the family is changed—all things are being made new.”[2] What is old – who they have been, plans and dreams now shattered – is dying. Their sense of self, built over years of following Jesus, passes away. In that moment, what is new – the hope of the resurrection, the church, the mission of the apostles – is being born. In that in between moment, Jesus is the hospice chaplain and the midwife, guiding the transition.

In our own rooms, our homes where we shelter, leaving behind an old way that is dying, and not yet knowing what is to come, we need the presence of one who reassures us as we transition. Just as Thomas asks “How can we know the way?” (v. 5), we too are unsure what the future holds for us. Like Phillip, if we could just see what lies ahead, that would be enough.

In the upper room, Jesus assured the disciples that no matter what happened, no matter the horror and loss to come, the most important thing would remain unchanged. There is a place prepared for you, with many dwelling places. I will come and take you there. The relationship you have with me, the relationship you have with God who is in me, will continue, even through all the change that is to come.

The change in the relationship the disciples had with God was a movement from outward seeking to inward dwelling. For all the time they had spent with Jesus, the still looked outward: who do we follow, where do we go, how do we find God? What they did not know, what they needed to be pointed out to them, was that God was always with them. Jesus begins with himself, “Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?” I haven’t done all these things on my own. “The Father who dwells in me does his works” (v. 10). Are you looking for God? Look right here! “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (v. 6). You know God, and you know the way, because you know me.

In the days to come the disciples will lose much that they had known and understood. But they would witness the new birth of the God of resurrection. They would know the God of life that could not be extinguished. They would know the Holy Spirit, the presence of God dwelling within them. If we seek to know where God is, and how we get to the house of God, we need only look within. The Holy Spirit of God dwells within each of us. No matter what comes after this plague passes over, our relationship with God remains. Let the Comforter heal your hearts and strengthen you to stand firm in the coming transformation. Amen.


[1] Justin E. H. Smith, “It’s All Just Beginning” in The Point, March 23, 2020. Online at: https://thepointmag.com/examined-life/its-all-just-beginning/.
[2] Shannon Michael Pater, Pastoral Perspective on John 14:1-14 in Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, Year A, Vol. 2, David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, General Editors (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), p. 468.

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