“I go to prepare a place for you,” Jesus says.

          A place.  For me.  For you.

                   A special place, a reserved room …

                             A reservation in heaven?

 

When I go to visit friends some distance away,

          it always makes me feel so welcome

                   when they show me to my room,

                             and there are all the things I need for comfort:

                                      a bed freshly made, towel and washcloth at the ready,

                                                a bedside lamp,

                                                          and sometimes a special little gift:

                                                                   maybe a square of dark chocolate.

 

A place prepared for me.

          Have you ever wondered who would be waiting for you in heaven?

 

Those you have loved in life:

          mother, father, brother, sister, child;

                   maybe a special teacher,

                   maybe those people in Scripture

                             with whom you have a special affinity:

                                      for me, Gideon, Sarah, Mary and Martha, Peter.

 

And of course Jesus – I picture him greeting me with open arms,

          and a gentle “Welcome home!”

 

There is something extremely comforting about knowing

          that no matter what happens,

                   no matter where we go or what we do,

                             we have a place, somewhere, waiting for us.

 

Those who have gone off to college or even made a new home

          with a significant other,

                   only to have their parents sell the house they grew up in,

                             knows how it feels not to have that literal place anymore.

 

But when I was at seminary,

          I knew that I had a place in my father and stepmother’s house

                   even though I’d never lived there.

                             I had a place in their home because I had a place in their hearts.

 

When I was serving as interim pastor in a variety of churches

          and living in church housing,

                   it was a comfort to me to know that I had my own house,

                             in Lake Luzerne, to go home to.

 

“Home is where,” Robert Frost wrote,

          “when you have to go there, they have to take you in.”

                   It’s where you belong.

 

“I go to prepare a place for you,” Jesus says.

                  

Jesus:  the cornerstone, who has been a stumbling block for so many!

          Jesus, the living cornerstone.

                   And, the author of first Peter writes,

                             we shall also be living stones,

                                      “built into a spiritual house…”

 

The House of God, that house that has so many dwelling places –

          or mansions, or rooms –

                   isn’t, I think, a building at all, but a household.

                             The household of God.

 

We often get hung up, when we read the 14^th chapter of John’s Gospel,

          between what seems like a conflict between the universal and the particular.

 

We read that there are many rooms, many dwelling places,

          many family groupings, perhaps, in God’s house,

                   and we think that perhaps that means that God’s love

                             is big enough to include not only Baptists

                                      and Presbyterians and Methodists and other Christians,

                                                but people of other faiths as well.

But then Jesus says that he is “the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

          No one comes to the Father except through me.”

                   And we wonder:  does this mean that the promise of a place for us

                             is reserved only for Christians?

                                      What about our Jewish and Muslim brothers and sisters?

                                                What about Buddhists and Hindus?

                                                          And agnostics?

 

Harvey Cox points out that every faith tradition has its particularity,

          but he also asserts that

                   every world faith, if it is truly a world faith and not a local cultus, also generates a

                        universal vision.  Brahman embraces all ages, each drop of water and every

                        savior.  The Koran names a God who created all people equal and who decrees

                        that a unified human family should mirror his sublime unity.  The dying Christ is

                        raised to life by a god who favors the outcasts and the heartbroken and who

                        summons all tribes and tongues into an inclusive community of service and

                        praise.  The Bodhisattva compassionately refuses to enter nirvana until every

                        sentient being can enter with him.  Thus each world faith as both its axis and its

                        spokes, its sharply etched focus and its ambient circumference.  Further, it is the

                        mark of a true world faith that these two dimensions not only hold together but

                        strengthen and reinforce each other.  [“Many Mansions or One Way?  The Crisis in

                                 Interfaith Dialogue”, The Christian Century, Aug. 17-24, 1998, pp. 731-735]            

 

I have long held the conviction that we in the church need each other:

          we liberal, progressive, whatever you call us, who lean toward universalism,

                   need our conservative, evangelical, brothers and sisters

                             who hold to particularities.

 

This is why I hear of whole congregations leaving my denomination

          I am profoundly sad, and feel a sense of loss.

                   Although in some ways it would be easier

                             if everyone was on the same theological page,

                                      who would be there to stretch us –

                                                or to call us back to center when we stray too far?

 

I believe very strongly that God has called us together

          as the human family so that we can learn from each other,

                   and learn to live together in love.

 

Harvey Cox suggests that we can work within the seeming contradiction

          between the “many mansions” and “the Way, the Truth, and the Life”

                   by looking at the way that Jesus lived his life,

                             how he dialogued with others,

                                      and how he treated both followers and strangers.

 

“Do not let your hearts be troubled,” Jesus says,

          “I go to prepare a place for you …

                   I will come again and will take you to myself…”

 

Jesus’ disciples had troubled hearts, hearing that he was soon to leave them.

          John’s community was suffering persecution.

                   We, too, have our troubles.

 

But Jesus has prepared a place for us –

          a permanent relationship with God through our relationship with Jesus.

                   This is a place in God’s family, that lasts forever.

 

Jesus is the way, the means to our coming into intimate relationship with God.

          Rather than an exclusive arrangement,

                   this is inclusive:  a relationship that includes us.

 

Gail O’Day approaches it this way in her commentary:

          The particularism of John 14:6-7 does de factor establish boundaries; it says, “This is

            who we are.  We are the people who believe in the God who has been revealed to us

            decisively in Jesus Christ.”  [NewInterpreter’s Bible, John]                          

 

Rather than a means of condemning others,

          this is instead a doxological statement of who we are as children of God

                   through Jesus.

 

In his blog this week, Rick McMorley reminds us that when Jesus says

          “In my Father’s House there are many mansions”

                   It’s not our mansion.  Not our marble.  Not our four car garage and personal

                        theatre.  It’s God’s House… Jesus promises to prepare a place in His Father’s

                        house for us.  And that’s where this passage strikes me in the gut:  In God’s

                        House, where His Name is worshipped, and where He dwells … I have a place. 

                        A spot.  Made ready just for me.  By the Savior of the World.  I am invited in. 

                        You’re invited in.  We’re invited in.  At that point I don’t care what the thread

                        count is on the sheets, or how many inches the flat-screen 3D TV is above the

                        fireplace.  We get a spot in God’s House.  Prepared just for us.  Isn’t that enough?

                                                                        [Rick McMorley, A Garden Path, www.rmcmorley.com]

 

Yes, I’d say, that’s enough.

          It’s even enough for me to realize that it doesn’t matter to me

                   exactly how many other mansions there are,

                             or who they’re reserved for.

                                      There’s a spot for me.  And for you.  And that’s enough.

 

To God be the glory, forever and ever.    Amen.