Easter 5A
Grace Lutheran Church, Lakeland, FL May 8, 2020
Acts 7:55-60 Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16
1 Peter 2:1-10 John 14:1-14
Grace to you and peace from God and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
The words of our Gospel and Epistle hold many references to construction and architecture, to dwelling places, to building materials, to preparing a dwelling place. Don’t we all cherish the notion of “home.” Even when we’ve been on a long-awaited vacation, toward the end of our days away, we may find ourselves saying, “It’ll be good to get home.” A college student home for a semester break, walks in the door and relishes the familiarity of it all. A patient in the hospital remarks, “Golly, it will be good to sleep in my own bed.”
And yet in these times, some of us may be experiencing just a little too much of “home” as we plan “daytrips” from our den to our living room to the patio and back again. But in spite of the certain familiarity we have all had with our homes over these many weeks of being in quarantine, most of us would prefer being home to being elsewhere. Yes, we all want a stable place to be, place to live.
Where do we find our home? In the gospel reading for today, Jesus offers these words that may confuse us – In my Father’s house there are many rooms (dwelling places)… and I go to prepare a place for you. We miss something in the English that is evident in the Greek – a word play of sorts. The Greek for “rooms” is “mownay” (pronounced like the artist Claude Monet). Those hearing this would have had the similar word “menno” brought to mind; this word means to abide in or remain with. Now, Jesus was not speaking of heaven, though we often read these words that way. Rather he was talking about relationship, the relationship between him and the Father. A relationship of mutual indwelling. Jesus goes on to say, “I am in the Father and the Father is in me… and the Father dwells (menno) in me.”
If we think about it, our home is all about relationship, even those of us who live alone. It is in our home that memories are found, sometimes tucked away in a drawer, sometimes displayed on our refrigerator doors with magnets, sometimes forgotten until we decide to clean out that closet. So, our homes, our dwelling places, are imbued with relationship. We are reminded of these words from our Christmas Gospel reading in John – In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God… and the Word became flesh and dwelled among us.” The mystery of the incarnation lived out in Jesus’ presence with us, even now.
And then in I Peter we read, “like living stones, let your selves be built into a spiritual house.” The people reading those words were like exiles, strangers in a strange land. As followers of Jesus, they had lost the identity and status that society would have conferred upon them. And Peter is confirming a far greater sense of identity – hear these phrases –
Chosen and precious in God’s sight
Holy priesthood
Chosen race
Royal priesthood
A holy nation
God’s own people.
And then he concludes in verse 10, “Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people.”
These days as we are separated physically from our friends, from our fellow-workers, from our church building, these days that we are hunkered down at home, we may feel that we have lost a bit of our identity. Please remember this – in our baptisms, we have been made a people, the people of God, with Christ at our center. We have been made a people because of what God has done, the covenantal promises made in our baptisms. Even if we are not gathering at 745 S. Ingraham Avenue, we are still a people, a community of faith. As has been said often during this “safer-at-home” time, “the building is closed but the Church is still at work.”
Part of our community of faith being at work is the clothing and food drive that is being organized for Rez House in Dade City which ministers with and to the farmworker and migrant community. Part of our being at work is the care that is being expressed one for another of us through phone calls, notes and messages. Part of our community of faith being at work is the food that has been provided to Anchor House and other community organizations in this time of need.
You have heard me say that two of the most important words in Scripture are “So that.” We are “a chosen race, a holy nation, God’s own people, SO THAT you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”
All of this SO THAT we may proclaim the good news – the Gospel that God dwells among God’s people because of Jesus. Not in a distant place or distant time. But right here and right now.
Thanks be to God! (Wash your hands )
