Easter 5, Year A – April 20, 2008

I Peter 2:1-10; John 14:1-14

St. Giles Church, Northbrook IL – The Rev. Cynthia J. Hallas

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

If there is a Top Ten list of favorite scripture passages, this one is probably on it.  When we hear that phrase, what kind of image does it suggest to us?  In the beautifully poetic inaccuracies of the King James Version, this phrase is translated “In my Father’s house are many mansions”. 

It appears we’ve been downsized, and that’s probably a good thing.  After all, mansions are huge and generally rather self-sufficient and distant from one another, often built on acres of land (unless, of course, they are constructed on suburban lots that formerly accommodated affordable 3-bedroom bungalows – but, I digress). 

We know that the Greek word oikia, from which we get the word “house” can also mean “household”, and from that word come our more familiar words “economy” and “ecumenism”, about which I’ll have more to say in a moment.  So, what kind of image comes to mind when we hear this passage? 

Other translations say, “In my Father’s house are many rooms”.  This is actually a more correct rendering of the original Greek text.  So perhaps a hotel comes to mind, with long sterile carpeted hallways and a series of identical locked doors, perhaps with trays from last night’s room service outside, where guests pass one another in those hallways, either nodding politely or avoiding eye contact altogether. 

Or maybe some of us think of an apartment building: slightly more living area and at least the chance of encountering people we recognize –people we might call neighbors – on a regular basis.  Or maybe just one big house, where everybody gets his/her own room; if you grew up sharing a bedroom with a sibling, this could be a dream come true!

I confess that when I conjure up a vision of John 14:2, I think of something a bit more communal than a mansion or a hotel or an apartment building.  More communal, and also much busier, much more engaged and intentional.  I think of something like a tribal village, where the living units are small and close together because there is so much interdependence – perhaps like the teepees or wigwams or adobe huts of indigenous peoples, or the Shire in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings as interpreted by Peter Jackson in his movie trilogy. 

This quote from Jesus historically has been taken as a description of what heaven is, or will be, like, and I think that’s why it is so often chosen for funerals and memorial services.  And it is comforting, isn’t it?  Jesus says, “I go to prepare a place for you”.  Now there’s a picture: Jesus arranging the furniture and dusting the shelves and stocking the kitchen cabinets, waiting for our arrival when we depart this life? 

But what if Jesus wasn’t speaking of the afterlife?  I am aware, of course, that the context in which Jesus is speaking to his disciples here in John’s gospel is his approaching death and that while they have followed him all those many months, there is one place he must go alone where they cannot follow – at least, not for a time – and that he will come back to them having prepared their place in the Kingdom.  And although they ought to know the way by now, they ought to recognize God in Jesus: as the uncertainly and ignorance of Thomas and Philip point out, they still aren’t quite getting it.  Or maybe they are in denial, afraid of what Jesus’ words really mean.

Remember, too, that Jesus was addressing only his immediate followers, that little band of brothers - and sisters – and not those who would eventually hear the Good News from them and embrace it.  If we take this passage at face value, it has nothing to do with you or with me or with any subsequent-generation disciples of Christ.

But we also know that when Jesus spoke of the kingdom, he wasn’t really talking about life after death.  He was describing a vision of how the world would look if the Good News was made manifest and fulfilled in real time and in the world as we know it.  And he invites us into that kingdom in the here and now; imperfect though we are, we his followers continue to strive toward that kingdom vision.

Part of that kingdom vision is the unity of all Christians in the Church – in fact, Jesus’ beautiful prayer “that all may be one” occurs later in this same gospel.  As most of you know I spent the better part of this past week holed up in a hotel of the type referenced earlier in this sermon.  In my capacity as the Ecumenical and Interreligious Officer for the Diocese of Chicago, I attended the National Workshop on Christian Unity.  Christians from a number of traditions – Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Reformed, Protestant, and Anglican –come together once a year for shared worship and for educational and fellowship opportunities.  We extend invitations to our Muslim and Jewish neighbors, meeting with them, listening to them, learning more and more to appreciate them as fellow believers in the one God whom we all worship.  Mostly, we pray – formally and informally.  We’re very serious about the work we do, but we mange to have fun together as well. 

We celebrate the fact that baptism is a common sacrament that unites us; while at the same time mourning the fact that in some of our various and several traditions the ‘rules’ do not allow us to come to the Eucharistic table together. 

Bringing all Christians together in unity is painstaking, slow work.  It doesn’t mean we all seek to look or to be the same in terms of liturgy, polity, piety, or theology – what someone has dubbed “Cuisinart Christianity”.  It does mean that all of us can recognize, celebrate, and lift up the unique gifts of each of us, and that one day when we say that we are all welcome at the table, we will mean the Eucharistic table and not just the conference table.  Now THAT would be a sign of the kingdom come!

In the meantime, we can celebrate what we have, by God’s grace, been able to achieve.  Full communion between Episcopalians and the Evangelical Lutheran Church.  Interim Eucharistic sharing between Episcopalians and United Methodists, and between Episcopalians and Moravians.  We don’t have too many Moravians in this part of the country but where I used to live, in eastern Pennsylvania, they were quite strong.  Like us, they have three orders of ordained ministry.  Like us, they are very sacramental.  They’ve been ordaining women longer than we have.  And they seldom if ever celebrate a liturgy that isn’t sung!  The next General Convention will probably approve full communion with them.

And there’s a United Methodist-Roman Catholic dialogue going on.  And an Orthodox-Anglican dialogue. There’s even a Mennonite-Roman Catholic dialogue (actually, the Catholics are in dialogue with pretty much everybody – it’s a very good example they’re setting for the rest of us!)  The Mennonites are looking to receive the gifts of sacrament, while the Catholics understand what the Anabaptist peace tradition can do for them.  

“In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.”  God makes room for all of us; can we do any less for one another?  You may have heard the joke about an angel taking a group of people on a tour of heaven.  They pass a number of doors, behind which are various groups: Methodists, Presbyterians, Baptists, Lutherans, etc.  Then they get to the door labeled “Episcopalians” and the guide says “Shhh!  They think they’re the only ones up here.”

I’ve heard that joke a number of times, with the names of various denominational bodies inserted into the punchline.  We laugh; we laugh at ourselves as we recognize that the punchline in fact points to a painful reality of our current existence.

Can those of us initiated into the body of Christ in baptism, who encounter the risen Lord in the breaking of the bread – even if the breaking of that bread also symbolizes our own fractured communion with one another – those of us named as a royal priesthood, God’s own people possibly refuse to see Christ in our brothers and sisters and to value the different but equally important understandings of those brothers and sisters?  Do any of us have a corner on the truth market?

In all his life and teachings, Jesus constantly pointed beyond himself to God.  Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life because by his example, his perfect example of human existence, he was able to show us a way of life that allows all of us access to the divine.  Over the centuries we’ve slammed that door in others’ faces, we’ve shut it behind us, we’ve pushed others away, often violently; we’ve attempted to lock that door and throw away the key.  But Jesus leaves that door wide open, because after all it isn’t our house – it’s God’s house.  We don’t make the rules there, and what rules we have made are slowly but surely passing away.  “In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.”  And God will surely, ultimately bring us out of the darkness of our sad division into the glorious light of unity and community as God’s people.