Or the anthem our Chancel Choir sang just last Sunday, an evocative Isaac Watts Psalm paraphrase. The last verse always does me in: - 1 -

Transcription

1 HOME May 18, 2014, The Fifth Sunday of Easter John 14: 1-12 Michael L. Lindvall, The Brick Presbyterian Church in the City of New York Theme: In Christ, we trust that we have a home here and now, then and there. Gracious God, from whom we come, unto whom we return, and in whom we live and move and have our being, welcome us into your House of Scripture that we may be nourished with your word and sheltered by your truth. And now may the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, My Rock and My Redeemer. Amen. All three hymns we re singing today include the word home in at least one of their verses. And there are so many others I might have selected. Indeed, there s a surfeit of hymns that sing of home. The third verse of Amazing Grace for instance: Tis grace has brought me safe thus far, And grace will lead me home. There s that sweet old gospel number, Softly and Tenderly Goes like this: Patiently, Jesus is waiting and watching, waiting and watching for you and for me, and then that lilting chorus: Come home, come home, come home. And there s my favorite, a 19th Century hymn based on the largo melody from Dvorak s New World Symphony Going home, going home, I m just going home, It s not far, jus close by, Through an open door, I m just going home. Or the anthem our Chancel Choir sang just last Sunday, an evocative Isaac Watts Psalm paraphrase. The last verse always does me in: - 1 -

2 O May your House be my abode, And all my work be praise, There would I find a settled rest While others go and come, No more a stranger, or a guest, But like a child at home. Few words pull at the human heart like the word home. In an essay our own Doug King wrote years ago, well before he became our Associate Minister, he wrote this: What a luxury it is to be invited to where you are known and people prepare for your arrival. I think of college freshmen coming home after their first semester away, or when good friends make a journey to spend time together. A room is prepared freshly laundered sheets on the bed, flowers in a vase by the window, a fire roars in the fireplace..., at the door a welcoming hug, the burden of your bags taken from your hands, you are escorted to the most comfortable seat in the house and offered you favorite drink, before long old jokes are being shared and the room is filled with laughter. Then Doug asked this rhetorical question, Is this what awaits each of us? In the passage Jay just read from the Gospel of John, Jesus says that the answer to that question is Yes. On this, the last night of his life, Jesus says to his anxious disciples, Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father s house there are many dwelling places I go to prepare a place for you One of the disciples, Thomas, asks how they might find the way to this place, this home. Jesus familiar answer is, I am the way, the truth, and the life. And then a footnote to that answer that many people find troubling, No one comes to the Father except through me. We hear those words and imagine that Jesus is saying that Christianity is the only way to God. But comparative religion was not the topic of the evening. When these words were spoken, there was no Christianity yet. This wasn t a philosophical discussion about religious exclusivity. The cross looms over the night; the air hangs heavy with it. These words are part of Jesus struggle to make his disciples understand why there was no way around that cross. He s the Way, the Truth and the Life and that Way, that Truth, that Life are about - 2 -

3 to be made visible precisely in the Cross. Jesus sharp point is that there is no way to the Father except by the way before him self-giving, obedience, trust, and love. Jesus is telling his disciples that the deepest truth about the nature of God will be made visible in what is about to happen. And note that Jesus does not say there is no way to God except through me. He says there that there is no way to the Father, rather than no way to God. He s reminding his disciples and us that he s not speaking of God in some general or abstract sense; he s speaking of the parent-like God with whom he has a filial relationship, the God he and we can trust in the way that children trust a parent who loves them fiercely: God like a loving father who prepares their place for them, God like a mother who welcomes her children home with outstretched arms. This Bible passage is often read at funerals of course. But it should not be read only at funerals. In context of a death, these words are about the many dwelling places of then and there, a heavenly home if you will. Jesus is indeed making just such a promise, but the promise is more than that. The promise implicit in these words is also a promise that he s preparing a place for those disciples and us a place in the here and now, a home in this life, a place where they will find welcome and peace, acceptance and love. Remember, though this is the last night of his life, it s not the last night of theirs. The earthly home Jesus pledges will be in one another s company. This home will be in a community of welcome and grace where they and you and I always have a place waiting for us. People often talk about their church home or their church family. They do so for good reason. I m halfway through Donna Tartt s best-selling novel, The Goldfinch. I can t put it down; it s keeping me up late. The protagonist is a 13-year-old boy named Theo. When the story begins, he lives in Manhattan and goes to private school. At the end of chapter one, he s a 13-year-old without a home. He s an only child. His mother, with whom he lived and by whom he was passionately and well loved, has died in an explosion at the Metropolitan Museum, of all places. His father is a drunk who had vanished years earlier. Theo has nowhere to go

4 At first, the parents of a school chum take him in. They re a dysfunctional family of well-meaning Park Avenue bluebloods, aptly and ironically named the Barbour s spelled in the Brit way: ou. They provide a roof over his head (a very nice roof) and food to eat (very fine food), but they don t provide him a home. He s an obligatory houseguest, treated politely, and just as politely resented. Then, out of nowhere, Theo s alcoholic father shows up to take him to live with him and his latest bimbo girlfriend in the deserted desert exurbs of Las Vegas. Again, it s not a home, just a house a new, huge, and empty one, rented on the cheap during the housing crisis. His father has become a professional gambler. He took his son in partly if not mostly to get his hands on the modest estate the boy s mother left him. I ll spare you narrative detail (I don t want to spoil it if you haven t read the book and may). Suffice it to say that Theo escapes vacuous Las Vegas and runs back to New York, not knowing precisely where in New York he will go when he gets there. He decides against the icy Park Avenue family that had grudgingly taken him after his mother s death. There s only one other option, a live-in antique shop in Greenwich Village presided over by a man he had met in the days after his mother s death, a man who shares his pain, perhaps the one person who knows the depth of Theo s pain. His name is Hobie, and to this Christian reader at least, Hobie is a Christ figure, a mortal God metaphor. Hobie is a carpenter of sorts; he restores antiques, that is to say, he makes old broken thing like new. Hobie is self-giving; he serves the finest food, true and nourishing, and (though not to Theo) the finest wine as well. But most importantly, Hobie shares Theo s pain. He has suffered what the child has suffered. Theo s early acquaintance with Hobie was bare as is often our acquaintance with God but the boy trusts him anyway, innately and wisely. So Theo heads down to the Village on a bitter November night, hungry, cold, and sick with something. Here s Tartt s telling of the coming-home moment. Theo is speaking: My heart sank. I stood on the street for a long moment or two before I worked up my nerve - 4 -

5 to ring the bell. It seemed that I stood for ages listening to the faraway echo, though it was probably no time at all when the door opened very suddenly It s me, I said quickly. I was afraid he was going to shut the door in my face. Theodore Decker, the boy says. Remember?... Theo, is Hobie s one word answer, all that needs to be said. His hug was strong and parental, and so fierce that it made me cry even harder. Then his hand was on my shoulder, heavy, anchoring hand that was security and authority itself. It s wonderful to see you His hug was strong and parental, and so fierce that it made me cry even harder. Then his hand was on my shoulder, heavy, anchoring hand that was security and authority itself. It s wonderful to see you I wish I could sing the old hymns for you: Tis grace has brought me safe thus far, And grace will lead me home. O May your House be my abode, And all my work be praise, There would I find a settled rest While others go and come, No more a stranger, or a guest, But like a child at home. Going home, going home, I m jus going home, It s not far, jus close by, Through an open door, I m jus going home. Softly and Tenderly Patiently, Jesus is waiting and watching, waiting and watching for you and for me, and then that lilting chorus: Come home, come home, come home

6 Welcome home, everybody! In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen