John 14:1–14, 22–27         20 April 2008

Beryl Turner

For some time now we’ve had this rainbow cloth on our communion table,

and it’s a wonderful symbol of our commitment to inclusivity and hospitality—

a rainbow to symbolise multiculturalism and diversity, our desire to be inclusive of all sorts of people, and a table, around which we gather to celebrate and share

the grace of God with us in Christ.

Our communion table is like a picture on earth of an image of heaven as we find it in today’s reading, an image of heaven as a welcoming and hospitable place

with space enough for everyone.

Today’s reading records some of Jesus’ last words where he is speaking to his disciples who are fretting about how they are to function when he’s gone.

He tells them they are not to worry,that he’s going to make a place for them in heaven, so they can live in God’s house.

In my father’s house there are many rooms, many places to live, many mansions – there are numerous translations. So I checked out that word in the Greek and Syriac (of course!) and it has a variety of meanings, like place or inn or home or residence,

so it seems to be a place that one can expect to come to and to live in even if it wasn’t your home in the first place. (It occurs in one other place in the gospels, in vs. 23, and I’ll talk about that later.)

There is a place for us in God, a place where we can live. Lots of places.

We get the feeling there is a rainbow dimension to heaven as well— there are many rooms. And if it were not so, said Jesus, I wouldn’t be telling you it is.

It’s a word of comfort and reassurance. And acceptance. And welcome.

I guess many of us are familiar with this passage being read at funerals.

It was read at my father’s funeral. That event was one of the rare occasions my father ever entered a church. He was certainly not a believer, just an ordinary bloke.

But the minister read this passage and said that God had a roomy heart.

And we were comforted.

This open acceptance stands in some contrast then with what Jesus says next:

I am the way, the truth and the life. No-one comes to the father but by me.

This doesn’t sound so inclusive any more. So how do we hear this?

It seems to me to say that it is Jesus who says who is in and who is out.

No-one comes but by me. So, whom did Jesus say would be included and excluded?

First, who were threatened with exclusion?

In the gospels, it was the religious, those who considered themselves to have made it, those who worshipped regularly and who made up the rules and then pointed the finger at those who didn’t obey them; they were the ones who were threatened with a hard time.

Jesus told them that the prostitutes and tax-collectors and sinners would get into heaven before they would. Those who said Lord, Lord, weren’t necessarily guaranteed a place. And they’re about the only ones who got a hard time.

So whom did Jesus include? Whom did he stay with, eat with, make his home with?

Tax collectors, prostitutes, sinners, children, little people, lepers, outcasts,

anyone who welcomed him. Anyone who could see they weren’t going to get to heaven without help. Anyone who wanted to join him in saving the world from itself.

Anyone, really. Sinners of all denominations.

But he didn’t tolerate anyone pointing the finger. Remember the woman caught in adultery? (John ch.8) He said to those who accused her, ‘Let whoever is without sin cast the first stone.’ His dividing line was unexpected. He didn’t even seem to care about which religion they belonged to, if any. Samaritans, Canaanites, Jews, Gentiles—he wasn’t fussed about religion.

Remember in Jn 4 the Samaritan woman at the well asked him, ‘Which religion is right, the religion of your ancestors or the religion of my ancestors?’ And he said, it didn’t make any difference. In fact, neither.

God is spirit, and those who worship must worship in spirit and in truth. The brand of religion wasn’t an issue.

And so we have a picture of who might find a home in the heart of God. A huge and unlikely variety. Just as well there are many rooms.

So what might it mean for us?

I once heard the church described as a colony of heaven, an outpost, that functions differently from the host country. So here we are as the Brunswick Baptist colony

that is an outpost of heaven, gathered around a table with a rainbow cloth,

and working out what it means to be followers of Jesus who has gone ahead to prepare all those places in his father’s house.

How are we to be the welcoming inclusive community that reflects those many rooms of heaven?

Cheryl spoke to us last week of Jesus as a shepherd who was attentive, compassionate, watchful, taking risks with his own safety on behalf of the sheep,

and knowing his sheep by name. It’s an image of the Church’s role in the world,

providing a home: safety, security, nourishment, healing and rest for a hurting world.

Do we know the needs of the people around us? she asked.

Homelessness is a big one, and as a church we have been addressing that with the CEC and Sanctuary.

But there are different sorts of homelessness.

I was recently in conversation with some people who had church backgrounds and would like to belong to a church but who don’t because their sexual relationships are other than what the church is known for accepting.

And I have to say that while I was ok with straight and gay relationships, I’d never given thought to bisexuality, polyamory, or transgender people and the rest.

What if they also came here and said, this is who I am, I can be no other, and I want a church home? Where I can worship and join in and be treated like everyone else?

Would they find a room in their father’s house? I think they would.

But would our rainbow community welcome and respect and include them too?

I confess I hadn’t given it any thought up until that point. It hadn’t occurred to me that some might want to belong to a church, but there are those who do, and sadly

they know better than to turn up to a church and expect to be welcomed, to be invited to belong, and then to be treated just like any other Christian.

These people invited me to come and join their discussion group to find out who they are as people and not to just relegate them to the sin bin just because in some irrelevant details their relationships are not like the majority. And I say irrelevant because Jesus never mentions sexual practice; and except for cheating he didn’t condemn any sexual activity— it’s the church that picked that up— he only condemned the self-righteous who pointed the finger and he told them that the prostitutes and sinners will get to heaven before they would.

And these people I met with are not prostitutes or greater sinners than the rest of us.

But now I’ve mentioned prostitutes—and Jesus did talk about them—

what about them? There are a number of brothels around here.

How colourful is our rainbow?

How many rooms in our father’s house?

And if we shudder to think of any of the above “them” coming to our church,

can we leave our sense of self-righteousness at the door like the burden that it is,

so we can then squeeze through the eye of the needle knowing that we are saved by grace just as they are?

Getting in the door of our father’s house might be a challenge after all, and not necessarily the challenge we expected.

But there is room enough for everyone in the house of God, and Jesus wants to assure us that his attitude to us on earth will be reflected by God’s attitude to us in heaven.

It’s a very inclusive picture and one that, as the body of Christ on earth, we can accept as being how the church should function.

It is a place that we can come to and feel at home.

Now I’d like to turn now to that other mention of the word “home” or room or place that I mentioned earlier. It’s in vs 23 where Jesus said that he and God will come and make their home with his followers.

Vs 2 spoke of our home in God; this is the flip side now of God making a home in us.

Everyone is invited to find a home in God’s house, and it’s up to us as to whether we do so. Then Jesus invites us to make a home for God within ourselves.

The way to do that is to love God and to do the work that Jesus did:

“Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them,

and we will come to them and make our home with them.”

And if we want to do that, he will help; he will send the Spirit to help us understand and to follow and to do the work that he did, and even more than he did.

And with the spirit will come peace.

Not peace as the world gives,but the peace of God that passes all understanding.

The peace that comes from knowing that we do the will of God.

So we have in this passage two invitations: one: to find a home in God, both in the church and in heaven. It is up to us to respond.

And two: to allow our own lives as individuals and as a community to be a home for God, so that God in Christ can make us into a home for the world.

We’ve been blessed here with a very special church home.

Let’s continue to make it a very special church home for others like a room, a place prepared by Jesus so that others may come and find grace, and life, and love in this outpost in Brunswick of the kingdom of heaven.