Fifth Sunday of Easter

John 14:1-7

Grace and peace to you.

Earlier this week, I went over to the sanctuary. We have not worshiped together in that space since March 8th and I haven’t led worship there since March 22nd. I thought about today’s gospel text as I removed the purple Lenten paraments and carried away stones and branches that adorned the altar. I’ve heard from altar guild volunteers that preparing the sanctuary for worship is a kind of devotional practice, and I could hear Jesus’s words, “I go to prepare a place for you” as I hung a new season’s paraments and replaced the wooden candlesticks on the altar.

These are also verses we often hear at funerals, and for many of us, it may be hard to separate them from images of heaven, or the life we have been promised after death.

It’s true that this passage is part of Jesus’ farewell discourse when he is telling his disciples goodbye, but he isn’t merely consoling or comforting them in their grief and sorrow.

When Jesus talks about the many “dwelling places” that God provides, Jesus is talking about God, Emmanuel, the God who is with us, here and now.

Back in the very first chapter of John, the Fourth Evangelist told us, “the Word became flesh and lived among us….” (John 1:14) Johannine scholar and preaching professor Karoline Lewis teaches that the verb here means “to tent”.[i] God pitches his tent alongside ours. Or as Eugene Peterson writes in his paraphrase The Message, “God moved into the neighborhood.”[ii]

That is good news when we are separated from each other and from our traditional worship spaces, the very places we think of when we hear the words “in my Father’s house.”

So, I want to hear from you what space you are in as you are worshiping today? Your living room, a bedroom, a basement? I invite you to use the chat or comments to name the space where you are.

Now, hear this promise:
God abides or dwells there with you.

After Jesus tells the disciples that he is going to prepare a place for them, he says, “And you know the way to the place where I am going." (John 14:4) And immediately, Thomas leads the disciples in questioning him and says, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” (John14:5)

When we are anxious or living in uncertainty, like Thomas we jump to those How, What and Why questions, “How can we know?”, “What do you mean?”, “Why is this happening?”

But Jesus answers the “Who” question instead, saying “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.” (John 14:5-7)

Jesus explains that the Way isn’t something we find on any roadmap. It isn’t a set of directions from Google maps or a GPS. It is a way of being in the world, living in relationship with God, and living in the image of God, in our daily lives. God shows forth who God is through God’s own good creation — us! God speaks through our lives as we bear God’s merciful love into the world.

Fourteenth century English mystic Julian of Norwich served as an ‘anchoress’, or spiritual counselor, in her community about 100 miles northeast of London. Cloistered in an approximately 12-foot square room attached to the church she participated in worship through an open window and people visited her in her cell for spiritual direction. [iii]Methodist pastor Kate Hanch imagines Julian, sheltering in place in her cell, mindful of the suffering she still witnessed in the world – illness, poverty and famine – mouthing the refrain attributed to her, “All shall be well, all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”[iv]

God’s promise to dwell with us is not that that God will end all adversity, calm all the storms, prevent death or even cure all the disease. The promise is that God is right there in the disruption and uncertainty with us. Confident of God’s abiding with us, we can pray in the words of Julian of Norwich:

In you, Father all-mighty, we have our preservation and our bliss. In you, Christ, we have our restoring and our saving. You are our mother, brother and savior. In you, our Lord, the Holy Spirit is marvelous and plenteous grace. You are our clothing; for your wrap us and embrace us. You are our maker, our lover, our keeper. Teach us to believe that by your grace all shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well.
Amen.

[i] Lewis, Karoline M. John (Fortress Biblical Preaching Commentaries) (p. 17). Fortress Press. Kindle Edition.
[ii] ibid
[iii] “About Julian of Norwich.” Julian Centre. http://juliancentre.org/about/about-julian-of-norwich.html
[iv] Kate Hanch. “Amid this pandemic, can we say with Julian of Norwich, ‘All shall be well’? https://baptistnews.com/article/amid-this-pandemic-can-we-say-with-julian-of-norwich-all-shall-be-well/?fbclid=IwAR3j2dWUhkCLlZ9_YWAuqjPcf559FaBoDk0303wtlb_JLQCjGsfgcPlo5_w#.XrbWxWhKhBz