Searching for a dwelling place

May 7, 2023

Scripture: John 14:1-14

I believe that a healthy and balanced faith understanding is one which is able to hold both belief and imagination at the same time. Each playing a part in shaping our understanding, and informing how we live our lives. A healthy faith is one that welcomes the work of the Holy Spirit in opening our hearts and minds to ever deeper understandings of our God, while holding on tightly to very little, other than a deep and abiding belief in God’s love.

That said, I think that often it is the understanding of just who God actually is, that gives us the most challenge.  And as Christians, it is made all the more difficult trying to wrap our minds around the concept of a God who is one, yet somehow at the same time three; a trinity of Father, Son, and Spirit. And especially at this point in our church year during the Easter season, where we have just wrestled with Jesus somehow being fully God, and somehow being fully crucified unto death as well, that our faith understanding is most open to question or at least to a lack of clarity…really…who is it that is our God? And I think the answer to that question, will in fact show us where it is we are called to dwell as followers of the Risen Lord.

But before that, I think we need to clarify a few things. For I believe that if we are honest we will admit that we tend to reserve separate definitions and understandings of each of these three ‘persons’ of the Trinity.  Often tending to see the ‘Father’ as wholly different from and quite a bit more serious than ‘Jesus’. Preferring to think of Jesus as one who seems like the friend we would definitely like to have by our side whenever we have to go before the Father. And then of course, there is the ‘Holy Spirit’…a delightful, ethereal sort of inner voice of love, care, and shepherding that seeks to guide us, as well as to intercept us should we take a stroll down a wrong or a dangerous pathway.  Honestly, I think we tend to view the three persons of the Trinity so differently that it is not that much of a stretch to assert that at times, Christianity seems as though it is a tri-theistic faith, worshiping three separate but equal Gods.

But that was definitely not the case with the writer of our gospel reading today. John had no difficulty celebrating the absolute oneness of God. In fact, it can be argued that the thrust of his whole gospel was centered on a fierce determination to show that Jesus Christ was in fact the very incarnation of God…the full embodiment of God…that Jesus fully was God…that these, who seemed to be two, were in fact one. 

You find this emphasis throughout John’s gospel starting at the very beginning with his opening words in Chapter One…you remember, ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. ’

Here at the very beginning, John begins to build the case for his community. He wanted to share that the true nature of God is in fact relationship. That our God…our three-in-one expression of God, is in fact the picture of perfect love in relationship. In perpetual and holy relationship from before time even was, and forever into the future.  John’s understanding of who Jesus was, focused on the full presence of God coming to be in the person of Jesus.  John taught that Jesus and God are truly one in perfect relationship, and that Jesus’ return to the Father after his resurrection and his subsequent gift of the Holy Spirit somehow opened this same door to holy relationship for each of us…inviting all to be in divine relationship with our triune God.

David Burpee touched on this last week when he reminded us that we all have been sent out by our Lord into the midst of a world deeply divided and deeply wounded. And of how we are asked to pass the peace of our God, letting our words and actions of love welcome God into our every interaction with everyone we meet. Of how we need to always be ready to say hello, always ready to offer kindness, always ready to accept and even to celebrate difference…as well as being willing to see ourselves, and all our brothers and sisters as members of one family, children of one all-loving God. David reminded us that our true calling is to celebrate and practice loving community in full relationship with each other.

        Today’s passage from John touches on this notion of holy relationship in a number of ways.  First, when Jesus says he is ‘going to prepare a place in his Father’s house for his disciples’, he is not speaking about a heavenly realm after death, but rather about the way for ‘new relationship that opens as a result of his act of returning to the Father’.  ‘In my Father’s house’ is not referring to some far-off, eventual heavenly dwelling place, but rather to that dwelling place that results from being in holy relationship…relationship with God and with Jesus, and with each other.  In this passage Jesus is telling us that we can go there right now through his opening of the door…through the life, witness, death, and resurrection of Jesus, we now have eyes to see the goodness of our God. Not only can we dwell in a relationship with the fullness of the Trinity, but even more astounding, the Trinity of our God can now dwell within us! God seeks to indwell our spirit and soul just as we seek to dwell within holiness.  ‘Draw near to me’, the scripture says, ‘and I will draw near to you.’

        Later on in our passage Jesus follows up his promise of a ‘preparing a dwelling place’, by saying that after he returns to the Father he will come again and draw the disciples unto himself.  He is not forecasting some sort of future, personal visitation or deliverance, but rather John is saying that as Jesus is glorified with the Father, as the fullness of the resurrection takes effect, and Jesus is again one with the Father…then we are one with him. For through the gift of the Holy Spirit, Jesus has already brought us to himself.  Each of us is now able to be fully one with God, living, breathing, working, laughing and loving together within that relationship prepared for us by Jesus…worked out and made possible through his passion and resurrection unto fullness and completeness.

Indeed, there is a new, in fact a wholly new reality available to anyone who will take these words promising fullness of relationship at face value…a whole new reality is available to anyone who believes Jesus’ words that the Kingdom of Heaven which he promised, is in fact upon us and waiting for us to participate in its unveiling.  For full relationship with God such as this, while we are very much still alive, will by its very nature call us to action on behalf of God. This new dwelling place to which we have each been invited, in fact allows God to do what God has already promised, using our willingness, our hands, our voices, and our ability to love and embrace one another, to bring about a new day where profound and holy peace may begin to rule the age.

Now, that is not necessarily an easy road to just get up and walk upon however. For we are so used to believing that we must provide for ourselves…and that to trust that God would actually supply all our needs is quite high-risk. And yet, that is the actual message of our faith…that is what has been promised.  And that is what makes a life of faith so challenging…truly letting go enough, to allow God to catch us, in order to keep from falling. 

So…all that said…what are you really trying to tell us John?  Are you telling us that Jesus is one with God and that through a relationship offered to us by Jesus we can somehow enter fully into a relationship with God?  Are you saying that the dwelling place you prepared for us is in fact that place of relationship, one with another?  And are you calling us into that fullness of relationship here and now in order that we might continue the redemptive work you started, and for which you truly have promised to supply all our needs?  Are you really telling us that the picture we have from the gospels of Jesus, is in fact an accurate and fully complete picture of God as well?  And finally, are you saying that a relationship with God should be the defining motive for our lives…our whole reason for being? And that our whole way of being and doing our ‘faith’ together must somehow reflect that relationship?

Yes John, I believe you are saying all of that to us…even as you invite us into this blessed community…

…may your most challenging words cause us to search for this holy dwelling place promised to us by our Lord…

…amen