The Home & Hospitality of God

Sermon for the Fifth Sunday of Easter, Year A

The Church of the Epiphany | Washington, DC

John 14:1-14; Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16; 1 Peter 2:2-10

Where does God live? 

I remember wondering this as a young child. Where exactly is God’s home—is it in the sky, somewhere in the clouds? Is it in the old repurposed movie theatre where my family went to church every Sunday? Or maybe—since most of my questions at that age sprung up in the dirt of my mother’s vegetable garden—is the place God lives somewhere in the soil of earth?

Where do we go to find God? I didn’t realize at that early age just how theological the question was—but of course the best theology is often found in the curious wonderings of children. Even still, many properly trained theologians have reflected on the place where God dwells. 

And this same concern is shared by the disciples…

When they gather for a last supper, Jesus tells them he will be departing soon and then begins giving farewell instructions. And when the time of his eventual absence comes, “Don’t let your hearts be troubled.” Put in the words of this morning’s Psalm it might sound like, “I go to prepare for you a place of refuge. My father’s house is a crag and stronghold, and I will bring you to that castle to keep you safe.”

These words of comfort are often read at funerals. But when they land on Thomas’ ears he responds, “We don’t know where you are going. We don’t even know the way. How will we find you?" ...If only Jesus would just tell them where to find the mysterious place that God dwells.

In a book titled ‘The Home of God: A Brief Story of Everything,’ the protestant theologian Miroslav Volf uses “home” as a metaphor for understanding the Christian story. This story we tell and live provides a vision for the world as a place of flourishing where God chooses to live. And we might think of the Gospel of John in particular as an expression of God’s desire to dwell with humanity; as The Message Bible puts it in contemporary language, “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.” This is where God dwells.

Central to Christian faith is the affirmation that our lives also dwell (or “abide”) in God. So, for each of us here and beyond these walls—regardless of our different backgrounds, and even our different religious traditions—it is the Spirit of God that animates our lives. No matter the partisan affiliation or creedal affirmation, all that has life and breath is upheld by God. 

Along with neighbors of all kinds around us, we dwell in God. This is the very cornerstone of our lives. And it is in this story that each of us might find the shelter we desire. It is within the presence of God that we live and move and have our being. But, let’s be honest, this isn’t always so easy to access or even remember; sometimes that presence just feels missing altogether. An inevitable experience in the life of faith is confronting the absence of God. 

If you try to follow Jesus long enough—much like the anxiety-riddled Thomas we find in our lesson—you will eventually face the place where it feels God is nowhere to be found. A time when the only evidence for Spirit in our lives is sheer silence. And this is true even in the lives of saints like Mother Theresa—it is perhaps especially so for saints…

For several decades during her ministry caring for the sick and dying, Mother Theresa experienced what she called “the silence of God;” a kind of painful dark night of the soul when she could not hear God’s voice. Absence was something she knew well. Imagine that. Somehow though, even through the confusion of that time, she managed to continue serving faithfully. 

She writes, “In the silence of the heart God speaks.” In her reflections she suggests practicing prayer and silence was an important discipline because through it she created a kind of emptiness within herself that could then be filled with the presence of God.

And this is of course something we also affirm in our faith: that God actually dwells within us. As the Apostle Paul writes, “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?” 

You are the place within which God dwells, and through which God works in this world.

Embracing this though isn’t exactly easy either. Sometimes it may even be difficult to believe there is enough good within us to even call home for ourselves, let alone a temple for the divine. 

I think the Sufi Muslim poet, Rumi, gives us an idea how we might go about tending to this home of ours in his poem titled Guest House:

This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival.  A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still, treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight. The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in.  Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.

Rumi’s poem is also a fairly accurate description for a spiritual practice called the Welcoming Prayer; which is a simple method by which one consciously notices their thoughts or feelings, however pleasant or unpleasant they may be, and says “Welcome.” Doing so is a way of consenting to the presence and action of God within the ordinary activities and emotional reactions of our day.

Like Mother Theresa’s practice, it creates more space to know God’s presence within the uncomfortable or otherwise mundane moments of our lives. Both the Welcoming Prayer and the Guest House are about practicing a spirit of generous hospitality that is every-so-subtly transformative—which is just precisely what Jesus has in mind…

In his words spoken to the disciples, the "dwelling places” in his Father’s house describe a place where space is in abundance, where all are invited to find a place to stay. A place of rest. A place of radical welcome. This is what a flourishing vision of home looks like.

It might not be the kind of home we come from or one we’re familiar with. And for some of us it might sound strange or entirely foreign. But I think it's the kind of home we want our neighborhoods and our nation to be. 

So, how do we get from where we are today to living in that vision of God’s home?

“Like living stones,” Peter writes to the Church, “let yourselves be built into a spiritual house.” A place that exists for others. A place that responds to the great spiritual hunger of our time.

…Where does God live? Or—as we may at times ask ourselves—where did God go? If you really want to catch a glimpse of where God dwells, look to your neighbor.

Gaze into the face of someone God chooses to welcome in—a mother or father, brother or sister, friend or enemy—and there you will surely find God. And when we too extend this same spirit of hospitality to one another, the place where God dwells will be revealed to us. 

No matter how absent Christ may at times feel in our world, we know how to find our way.

Through the extravagant welcome of love, we will find the way and the truth, the life and the home of God.

Amen