Sermon, Easter 5A, John 14:1-14

Where is home? It's been said that home is where you hang your hat. I've always been a little leery of that. I've “hung my hat” in a fair amount of places in my life and I don't think it's that simple. I think home is the place where you seem to fit. Home is that place that calls to you. Home is the place that draws you, the place that takes you in.

Just about seven years ago (six years and nine months, actually), my family, Mrs. Ref and The Kid and I, moved from our home in Spokane to the great and vast flatland of Chicago. Up to that point, as I mentioned, I had lived in many places; primarily in Washington, but also Oregon and California, and always on Pacific Time. In August of 2001, that all changed as we moved inland by 2000 miles and two time zones.

For three years our home became a smallish, three-bedroom, cinder block apartment. That was, so to speak, where we hung our hats. We did our best to make it home. We painted bedrooms. We hung pictures. We transported traditions.

But when we made our way down Sheridan Road (yes, the school is on Sheridan Road) and Cece broke into tears as I saw the spires of Seabury-Western and declared, “We're home!”; or when I watched the second plane fly into the second Tower at 7:30-something local time and realized that nobody I knew knew this was happening . . . and the list goes on . . . I knew we really weren't home.

It was about eight months later when I had to meet with my C.O.M. back home, of all things, in Spokane when I really realized where home was. I had flown into Seattle and rented a car, because that was cheaper then flying directly to Spokane, and drove to that meeting. As I was driving across Snoqualmie Pass it occurred to me that home was out west. And when several parishioners at our adopted parish began making noises about offering me the position of Assistant Rector, I politely told them that they didn't have enough zeros in their budget to keep me in Chicago-land.

Home is the place that calls to you. Home is that place that takes you in. And while not my place of birth, or my beloved city of Spokane, this is home. This valley and these mountains, these people, and our congregations are home. For you have called to me and taken me in. You have given me a dwelling place and this is home.

In the gospel today, Jesus tells his disciples that there are many dwelling places in his Father's house. Dwelling places. Have you thought about that? A dwelling place is more than a hotel room for a week. It is more than a place where you hang your hat. A dwelling place is also an abiding place. My friend Jane, who is much smarter than I, informed me that that word, abiding place, in Greek carries a sense of permanence, an anchored home.

Be my strong rock, a castle to keep me safe, for you are my crag and my stronghold.

Every time I read that line I feel safe. There is a sense of permanence in castles and rocks. I feel as if God is drawing me to himself and surrounding me, protecting me, like maybe a parent or grandparent surrounds and protects a small child. And maybe that's why I feel at home surrounded by the mountains. Strong rocks and crags that keep me safe. The place that draws me in. A God that takes me to himself.

So that dwelling place, that abiding place, that place of permanence and place of anchorage, is being prepared for us. God is calling us to come home. He is drawing us in, and Jesus is taking us into himself. Jesus then becomes our home. He becomes the place that calls to us. He takes us in to himself and becomes the place where we dwell . . . the abiding place, our anchored home.

If Jesus is our home, where do we see him? People have said that we can see Jesus in our enemies and our neighbors. We can see Jesus in the poor, hungry and homeless; the least of these. And that we see Jesus when we see the ordinary as extraordinary; when we see the holy in the mundane. All of that is true, I won't argue with it; but I will always contend that the place we really see Jesus, the place that calls to us and draws us in, is in the Eucharist. It is there where we meet Jesus and are taken in.

Two weeks ago we heard the story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus. They recognized Jesus when he took bread, blessed and broke it. They went back to Jerusalem and testified that he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread. We pray for this very thing in our Eucharistic prayer, “Risen Lord, be known to us in the breaking of the bread.” The Eucharist takes mundane elements, bread and wine, and makes them holy. The Eucharist is where the ordinary becomes extraordinary.

“In my Father's house there are many dwelling places . . . and I will take you to myself.” When invited to church, many people tell me, “I can meet God in the mountains,” or on the lake or in the forest or wherever. I don't disagree with them. We all enjoy that Rocky Mountain High experience, or the peacefulness of feeling the sun on your face and the gurgling of the river past your feet. But you know what? We can't live there.

We can't live on that mountain top all alone. We can't sit and feel the sun and listen to the river forever. Jesus may be calling us to that type of geography; he certainly called me out of the flatlands back into the mountains. But he also called me, and calls all of us, to be part of a community of believers. He calls us to the abiding place of his love. That abiding place, that strong rock, that castle, is found in the broken body and shed blood of Jesus Christ. And it is in that breaking of the body, the breaking of the bread, that Jesus is made known to us.

Jesus calls to us. He takes us in to himself. Home, it would seem, is right here.