A Home For Us

 John 14: 1-14  Easter 5 May 3, 2026

 

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 told them that he was

going away, and Jesus just told Peter that he would deny him

three times before the cock crowed.

This would be the last time he and his disciples would talk.

 

And then Jesus starts his farewell discourse in Chapter 14.

“Do not let your hearts be troubled.

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

 

This has been read countless times at funerals.

It’s used as a metaphor for heaven.

Basically telling people there is plenty of room for their

loved ones in God’s house. I have used it many times.

I believe that fact. It’s very comforting.

 

But is that what Jesus is actually telling them with this?

Is this what the disciples were worried about?

Were they worried about going to heaven?

Or were they worried about more immediate things?

 

They have left their own families and followed Jesus.

The disciples had made their home in Jesus, following

him around and doing ministry with him

and now he was talking about leaving them and going

where they couldn’t follow any more.

It seems like they were more worried about their

present life than their eventual death.

After Jesus left them, where would they find home again?

I think that longing to go back home is true for

a lot of people. A place where you belong and are comfortable.

That home with a capital “H”.

 

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 20 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. “

 

I’ve had that longing for home. Especially when I was young.

I think that’s true for a lot of people at that age.

I was born in Queens New York in a town

called Woodhaven. It was where my great grandparents

settled after they moved from Eastern Europe.

When I was a kid, 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. The elevated trains

the graffiti, the stores, the people, the whole thing.

 

But when I was eight, my father was transferred

and I was wrenched out of New York and moved

to Houston and I hated it.

I promised at eight years old while sitting on the

swings at our new apartment complex in Houston

that I would live in New York again one day.

  

I spent the next 20 years feeling out of place and not fitting in,

wherever my family was, Houston, then San Francisco,

and then 20 years later, I finally did it.

I moved back to New York.

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

 

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 mostly looked like the same place I had grown up in.

But it wasn’t the same at all.

 

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 that

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.

 

This was probably more the fear of the disciples,

not dying, not going to heaven.

They had left their homes and found their home in Jesus.

and now that home was being wretched out of their hands.

Where were they supposed to go?

 

Sensing this, Jesus tells them that line. About Home.

Now the translations says: “In my Father’s

house there are many dwelling places (monai).”

Some translate that as many rooms,

the King James translates it as many mansions.  

 

The word is not a common word, when it’s used again,

it’s in the same chapter in verse 23 where Jesus says:

“Those who love me will keep my word, and my 

Father will love them, and we will come to them 

and make our home (monen) with them.”

So a better translation of our passage today might be:

“My Father’s house has many places to call home.”

 

Jesus is telling his disciples that their home

is not just one place, or one person, or situation

The home that they found in Jesus could be found elsewhere too.

And then Phillip asks Jesus to tell them how to get

to this new place of Home.

 

And Jesus says, “I am the way and the truth and the life”

The Way of living that Jesus showed them when he was with them.

(Did you know that in the first century,  

In My Father's House
There are Many Mansions
Irving Amen

Christianity was called “the Way”) and Jesus said, if we follow that way,

we can find that Home again.

So if they were feeling lost they should do the things

that Jesus taught them: 

Grace, love, sacrifice, forgiveness,

healing, feeding, caring, 

that’s where they would find Home.

 

In the second reading from Peter’s first letter that we heard today,

he makes all kinds of metaphors about stones.

Which is appropriate, because Peter means rock or stone,

He says we should live like Jesus lived,

as “living stones” and he goes on to say,

“Let yourselves be built into a spiritual house.”

 

Let yourselves be built into a spiritual house,

We ourselves – the living stones – make the house

all put together, the people of the church

make the dwelling place of God.

 

With Jesus as our cornerstone,

we follow the path and way of Jesus,

we share the welcome that he did.

And we become that Home for each other.

 

Soon after I moved back to New York,

and figured out that my childhood home

would not be my home anymore,

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 joys, faults and issues –

to be the place that I have called home.

 

And I know wherever I can find a place

where people follow Jesus call and way,

I know I can always find Home again.

 

Christ Lutheran Church is not a building,

it is not made of wood, and sheet rock, and stucco.

it’s not even just the people that gather here.

It’s more than that.

It is a community made of living stones.

God has gathered us into a spiritual Home.

 

Jesus promised the disciples that he wouldn’t

abandon them. Even though he was leaving,

he wouldn’t leave them alone.

And that promise is for us too.

 

Do not let your hearts be troubled,

believe in God and also believe in me.

In my Father’s house there are many Homes.

And there is a Home for all of us.