There's A Home For All Of Us

 John 14: 1-14  Easter 5 May 7, 2023

 The place I considered my home

for the first part of my life is in Woodhaven, in 

Queens, New York.

It was a house that had been owned by my family

since the early 1900’s

It was a two family house and

and we moved there when I was three

We lived in one apartment and my grandparents lived in the other.

 

The house was built in the 1800’s it had skylights and dumb waiters,

and porcelain tile in the bathrooms.

There was a basement filled with all sorts of

treasures and toys and games and pictures

from all generations of my family.

 

Queens was a great place to be a kid,

In the 1970’s New York could be dangerous place,

but Woodhaven where we lived was a sweet neighborhood.

Milk was still delivered to people’s porches

there were parks and libraries and stores.

One of my second cousins owned the bar around the corner.

My great uncle lived a few streets over,

our church was on the corner.

Walking along the street we would always

see at least one old friend or family member.

 

That was home to me. Not just the house,

but the neighborhood, the other people,

the stores, the graffiti, the elevated trains.

 

And it was my home,

until my father was transferred to Houston, Texas

and we moved down there where we weren’t

familiar with anyone or anything.

  

For a long time, about 20 years,

While living in Houston and then living in San Francisco

I clung to the fact that Woodhaven was home

From the age of 8 on, I wanted to get back there.

I dreamed of getting back and living

in that house or at least that neighborhood.

 

And when I was about 27, I finally moved back to New York.

And one of the first things I did was go to Woodhaven.

It stirred up all those feelings of familiarity.

 

It pretty much looked the same.

There were all of the same buildings, restaurants,

some of the same graffiti was there,

my elementary school, the five and dime store was still there.

The house was still there.--There were some changes,

but it was mostly the same place I had grown up in.

But strangers were living in it.

 

And I went our family’s favorite pizza place

that we had eaten in 20 years ago,

and as I was sitting there eating this great pizza,

I realized that Woodhaven was not my home anymore.

The people I knew had moved on and

I had moved on. It just wasn’t the same.

It was not the enchanted place I remembered

The best I could do was visit and be a visitor.

 

It was not my home anymore.

But if Woodhaven was not my home,

then where was my home?

For a while after that I was feeling really lost.

 

Maybe some of you can relate to my story.

A lot of people have longings to go home.

Whether it is a place, or a time, or a sensibility.

We have the need to go back to a place that we can call home.

 

Many people feel that longing for home

even when they’ve made a new home for themselves.

- Some people feel that even if they still live

in the very same place that they grew up in.

- Some people feel that even when they have never ever

had a place that was secure and safe.

 

Maybe we all have that longing to go Home.

Home with a capital “H”

But at times we’re not quite sure how to find it.

 

I found a lot of profound quotes about Home

while I was writing this, some by Maya Angelou, 

William Shakespeare, Emily Dickenson 

but the best one for me was from one of the series 

of the children’s book that came out about 15 years ago

by an author who called himself Lemony Snickett. He wrote:

 

“One's home is like a delicious piece of pie you order

in a restaurant on a country road one cozy evening –

the best piece of pie you have ever eaten in your life –

and you can never find again. “

 

Over the next three weeks, we will be reading

a portion of John’s Gospel that is called the Farewell Discourse.

This is the last discussion, sermon, monologue, that Jesus

shares with his disciples.  This is what he says at his last supper.

He has already washed their feet, and Judas has gone out 

to betray Jesus to the religious leaders. He knew he was going to die

and that this would be the last time he and his disciples would talk.

 

Jesus disciples are worried.

They have left their own families and followed Jesus.

They left the places that they called home

because they thought they had found that capital H Home in Jesus.

But now Jesus was talking about dying and leaving them and

going off somewhere. Where would they’re Home be now?

But he tells them not to worry, believe in God and believe in Jesus

When he tells them that he will show them the Home again.

This particular part of the farewell discourse,

the beginning of it, has been read many times at funerals.

“In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.”

Many people use this text as a metaphor for heaven.

I have used it countless times. It’s very comforting.

And then Jesus says the line that has always bothered me:

“no one gets to the Father except through me”

 

Unfortunately, this part of the text has been used

as a proof text to show that the only way to heaven is

by being a Christian.

 

And that makes it tough for pastors, like me, because at a

funeral there are often people who are Christian and there are 

children and siblings and relatives and friends who are not,

and they hear this text and then instead of being comforted,

they’re concerned because it can sound like a threat.

 

Honestly, it has struck me that Jesus was being callous

to his disciples going from comfort for his disciples 

to salvation doctrine in the same breath and conversation.

 

Now some pastors will plow right through that and tell a

bereaved congregation that, basically, their mother is going to heaven

but you’re never going to see her again unless you change your ways.

Or, more horrifying, is that they tell a bereaved congregation

that they don’t really know if mom is going to heaven

because she didn’t change her ways soon enough

and then leave it for the first year associate pastor to clean up.

 

This is why it’s so important to ask, like I told you last week,

What is Jesus actually saying here? What’s his objective.

 

Krister Stendhal, was a very prominent Lutheran Swedish bishop,

of the 20^th century his son, who is a pastor in the ELCA, 

quoted one of his father’s lectures where he said this about this and other texts:

“when you apply the right answer to the  wrong question,

it will always be wrong, even if—or especially if­ the answer is God’s Word.”

We can’t apply, what might be the right answer, to the wrong

question and then question

“do we have to be Christian to go to heaven?”

is not the right question here in this Farewell discourse.

 

Stendhal said about John 14,

It strikes me very odd to take a passage from the most intimate and tender conversation  with the most intimate and closest circle of disciples, from a context in which their hearts  are full of foreboding with the imminent fear of relations about to be severed, to lift a  word from that conversation, and use it in answering the question of Christianity’s relation  to other religions. It is just not apropos.

 

So Stendhal is saying that Jesus is not being callous after all.

Jesus is not in a conversation with the disciples about how

people get to heaven. He is telling them, his closest friends 

and followers how to find their way back to him after he’s gone from their presence. 

There is no “must” in Jesus words here.

There is all grace and comfort. And that’s how we should read it.

 

The disciples are feeling lost.

They had found their home in Jesus,

and now they felt that their home was slipping away.

 

But Jesus tells them,

“I may be leaving, and you might feel lost, but trust me,

you already know what to do. I am the way. 

Do what I have been doing. You who believe in me will do greater things than I have.

Just keep following the way that I have been 

showing you while I’ve been here: forgiveness, healing, sacrifice, dying to yourself,

that is the way, and the truth, and the life.

follow the way that I showed you how to live.

That is God’s way. That is the way home“

 

He is telling them about that narrow gate again.

That is the way home for these disciples when they feel lost.

The way of living that leads to abundant life and Home.

  

When Jesus says there are many rooms in my Father’s house.

I don’t know that anyone really thinks that Jesus

is talking about a house, like the one I knew in Woodhaven

with skylights and dumb waiters,

or the one that you might have grown up in.

But it’s still a great image.

 

Jesus promises us Home. Home with a Captial “H”

Home for eternity, and a Home here on earth.

Whenever you’re feeling lost, just look for the rooms.

The rooms of assurance, grace, love, and forgiveness 

and you will find God’s house. 

There are many rooms in my Father’s house.

Enough rooms for everyone.

 

Soon after I moved back to New York,

I found Trinity Lutheran Church of upper Manhattan

a place where I heard for the first time out loud

about God’s unconditional love and grace for us,

and where I saw people try to live it out in their lives.

And since then, I have considered the ELCA,

this denomination, with all its faults and issues,

to be the place that I have called home.

 

Jesus life, death, and resurrection have made a community on earth

that is built around God’s promises and Jesus way of life.

 

The ELCA is Home for me.

Some people have found Home in other denominations,

some in other religions, some are still searching,

some have stopped searching all together.

But the rooms are still there for us.

 

Do not let your hearts be troubled,

believe in God and also believe in me.

In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.

 

There is a Home for all of us.