Sermon - 5th Sunday of Easter (5/10/2020)
Acts 7:55-60; Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16; 1 Peter 2:2-10; John 14:1-14
Last fall, I had the opportunity to hear Bishop Gohl of the Delaware-Maryland synod speak about his experience as a newly called pastor. He told the story of meeting an older member of the congregation who said that he was actually hoping that he would die soon and go home to be with the Lord. Bishop Gohl said he asked the man why he felt that way, and the man said: I remember when we had the King James Version of the Bible, and Jesus said, “In my Father’s house are many mansions.” Then we had the Revised Standard Version, where Jesus said,” In my Father’s house are many rooms.” And now we have the New Revised Standard Version, and Jesus says, “In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.” I just want to get there before we are down to cells.
Now, I think Bishop Gohl was telling a preacher’s story, which means nobody actually said this to him. But it’s a good story nonetheless, and it illustrates very well how when we in the 21st century hear Jesus refer to his Father’s house, we immediately hear “heaven,” where we go after we die to be with God forever. Perhaps because this gospel text is the most common reading at funerals, our automatic reaction is to assume that Jesus is speaking of what happens after death when he says at the Last Supper, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. In my Father’s house are many places to dwell, and if I go to prepare a place for you there, I will come back to take you with me.”
But I think the disciples of Jesus, not having heard this text read at a lifetime of funerals but hearing Jesus say them live and in person for the first time, would not have immediately thought Jesus was referring to the life hereafter. Gathered as they were at the Last Supper in Jerusalem, when Jesus said “my Father’s house,” they probably assumed that he meant the Temple, the House of God, which was then still standing right there in Jerusalem, where they would have been probably earlier that very day.
In fact, the only other time Jesus is recorded in John’s gospel using the expression, “my Father’s house,” he is clearly talking about the Temple – when he says, “Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” (John 2:16). And remember what happens next in that story. Jesus is challenged for his cleansing of the Temple, and he says, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.” They said to him, “This temple has been under construction for 46 years, and you will raise it up in three days?” And John says, “But he was speaking of the temple of his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.” (Jn. 2:19-22)
After Jesus was raised from the dead, the disciples understood that the Temple – the dwelling place of God among human beings, the place where the presence of God can be seen and felt in a physical, tangible way – was not simply a building. But that Jesus himself was the living presence of God. “And the Word became flesh,” John writes, “and made his dwelling place among us” (John 1:14). Whoever has seen me, Jesus says in today’s reading, has seen the Father. Jesus himself is his Father’s “house.” Jesus himself is the place where God dwells among human beings, on earth as God is in heaven. If you want to see the invisible God, if you want to know the mysterious and hidden God, look at Jesus.
But Jesus says these things at the Last Supper. He is about to die. And does than mean that when Jesus dies, God will no longer be present among human beings? Will we only be able to know the presence of God by reading about Jesus, this historical person who lived thousands of years ago, but like other historical figures is only accessible to us through written records – things like the Bible? “Do not let your hearts be troubled,” Jesus says. For my Father’s house is bigger than you imagine. There are many dwelling places in my Father’s house. And I have come to take you with me, so that where I am you also may be.
The earliest Christians were convinced that, when Jesus was raised from the dead, he brings all of those who believe into his risen life, so that we together now become the body of Christ, we together become the place where God is present. Peter brings all this together in today’s reading: You are a living stone, you are being built into a spiritual house, together you are the people of God. God’s presence in Jesus is not ended when Jesus is crucified, because when Jesus is raised from the dead he prepares a place in the Father’s house for you and for me. In the Father’s house there are plenty of places to abide in Christ, more rooms than you can count where you and I – and so many others – can dwell in God and the Spirit can live in us.
The Church has never been just a building; in the Christian understanding the Church is always a people, living stones in which God takes flesh and God’s love and mercy become present for the sake of the world. This has always been true, but even more so now, that we cannot safely use our building, when we can only be together online or by telephone, that we see even more that our connection to each other is rooted in the risen Jesus who has brought us together with him into the presence of God. We need technology to be together now, but we have always needed God’s technology, so to speak, which is called the Holy Spirit, into order to be the living presence of God. Maybe it was harder to see our dependence on “God’s technology” when we met together in a building and saw each other face-to-face, and I hope we can keep remembering that in the weeks and months to come.
But this is how Jesus continues to make God present and alive in the lives of faithful people who abide in him and dwell in the Father’s house together with him. So, as Jesus says, when I’ve gone to the Father’s house, and I live in you and you in me, you will do the same works that I do. People will believe, because they see the works. Even if they don’t believe in me, they will see the works. You will do even greater works than I do, because the Spirit will be in you, and you will be many, you will be in every place and in every time. Not just the 33 years that Jesus lived in one place a long time ago. But Jesus is now present in every place and in every time because he is alive, he is risen, and he is in you and in me – and we are all dwelling together with him in the house of God, in the living temple of God.
We see that in the first reading today – Stephen, in the Acts of the Apostles, on the point of death. Stephen is being attacked, just as Jesus was attacked, for the same message. Two things of note. One is that Stephen sees the Lord present in heaven, he sees the Father, he sees Jesus at God’s right hand. He sees and understands even at the moment of death, even at the moment of intense suffering, he sees who God is and how God is present in Jesus. And so he is able to do the same things that Jesus did, he does the works that Jesus did, he is able to forgive the ones who are attacking and killing him. He is able to commit his whole life and put it in God’s hands, even at the moment of death, just as Jesus did. And so Stephen becomes a witness, someone who shows us how to live the way Jesus did and so make God visible in our world today. Because we too can do the works that Jesus did.
The house of God, the Temple of God, the dwelling place of God, is the body of Christ, and the body of Christ has plenty of room for you and for me and for countless others. Because Christ is risen our dwelling place with Christ in God cannot be destroyed even by death, and so we are right to take comfort in this promise at funerals and times of death. But we don’t have to wait that long to dwell in the Father’s house. We don’t have to wait that long to do the same works that Jesus did. We don’t have to wait that long to bring God’s presence, God’s love, God’s mercy to one another and to a world still seeking to know God and God’s presence. May we though faith be able to see how God’s Spirit is present in us, that we can make God present, to help God to work through us to bring all creation to completion. Amen.