Closer to Home

Ezekiel 34:1-8; Acts 17:22-31; John 14:15-24

My mom used to say, “Home again, Finnegan,” when ever we pulled
into our driveway. Mom played catch with us while pregnant with our sister
Sue. She grew up with 5 brothers and 2 sisters, all athletic. Since our Dad had
died, she was both mom and dad when she put on that glove. Just wanted to
honor her today. She was quite a lady.
Speaking of baseball, it is the game where you leave home to get home.
“The ache for home lives in all of us.” (Mya Angelou) “Mid pleasures and
palaces though we may roam / Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like
home.” (John Howard Payne) “Homeward bound / I wish I was / Homeward
bound.” (Paul Simon) Obviously “home” carries profound meaning for
humans. Sometimes, “home” can be a trigger for trauma or memories. Not a
victims’ fault, the memory of “home” can be polluted by human brokenness.
This corruption spills over into the lives of innocents. Thus “home” and its
memory is toxic and reveals a place of terror and pain. May God free us from
those memories and that trauma.
Today we want to talk about our true home. Because God is looking for
a home, too. Not that God needs a home. All of creation is God’s home. The
earth is God’s “footstool.” The Book of Common Prayer asks its readers to
learn to love God “in all things and above all things.” “God isn't far from any
of us, and he gives us the power to live, to move, and to be who we are. ‘We
are his children,’” Paul tells the Athenians. Again, it is this idea, the
theological notion that God is everywhere and is eager to give aid and help
to those who reach out and ask for help—a generous Creator God who
provides a home for widows and orphans, gives rain and sun to the just and
the unjust, a God of grace, of hesed or undying love or mercy.
And Jesus reminds us, as we edge nearer the ascension, he is sending
the Helper, Holy Spirit, to help us be witnesses, help us tell the story, to
personally and powerfully proclaim the Gospel of grace. In order to do this,
God generously makes his abode in us by his Spirit, in our “neighborhood.”

“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.” (14:23)
What does it mean to keep his word? It does not mean seminary,
though it could for some. Bible knowledge is a good thing! That comes over
time in worship, listening to sermons, reading scripture, practicing
discernment, Bible studies, finding mentors, or a spiritual director. A mentor
can be a fellow church member but one can also look to scholars like Gene
Peterson, NT Wright, Miroslav Volf, Barbara Brown Taylor, Ann LaMott—just
to name a few. I’m preaching to the choir!
Bible study is always an adventure. One maxim—A text without a
context is just a pretext. Each Testament has a unique context. How are they
related? How does one illustrate the other? Jesus shows us a God who loves
a pedagogy grounded in creation. That is, the Creator shows up in person, as
a creature, and uses the stuff of creation to illustrate the reality and
presence of God’s Kingdom. God’s Reign is like a mustard seed, leaven, soils,
treasure in a field, etc. There are no ethereal trips of fancy where the soul
leaves the body only to discover some higher bodiless plane of existence.
Meditation is great! Pondering scripture will keep you grounded, literally!
Body and soul are meant to be together, a unit or unity, because
human beings will be renewed body and soul in the New Heaven and New
Earth. This is a whole-life faith! We are to embrace our human embodiment
as Jesus himself did (and still does!). Jesus never stops being a human being!
I had to get an artificial hip put in right here 8 weeks ago. This body is
not made to last forever. That is why it will be changed into a body that
needs no artificial hips, knees! So, when I think about the Bible, I think about
the Creator’s meta project: Make new all of creation that eagerly waits for
the revelation of the children of God—our renewal. Jesus “freed us from our
sins by his blood, as he makes us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and
Father “(Rev. 1). We are an abode of God. This has always been God’s project
with Israel, Gentile believers, the Church, the world—";as the waters cover
the sea!” This prospect, promise gives hope! God’s word cannot be
cancelled.

Second, this hope is an animated hope. Jesus secures this hope when
His Kingdom is inaugurated by his death/resurrection. Hope, an active
catalyst in God’s agents, God’s children, Jesus’ disciples, you and me. We live
in the tension betwixt and between. NT Wright, “(I)n the New Testament
that task of coming together is accomplished through the coming of God in
Jesus and the spirit; and God’s future world, achieved and revealed in and
through Jesus, is now overlapping with ‘the present age.’” Not a tidal wave,
this movement has history, but is also mystery. We do not know the day.
Thus, we should not predict or engineer its coming. We groan, says Paul,
without words, lamenting, as we await the great change, the great finale of
God.
No action in Christ is too small or ineffectual—mustard seed, leaven.
When Ezekiel derides leaders for neglecting weaker members of the
community, “with force and harshness you have ruled them,” we see where
God’s heart lives. The question—how have we treated the least of these: the
marginalized, the sick, the stranger, the homeless? A key Biblical motif at the
core of our faith! This deep kindness and generosity are at the heart of Jesus’
mission. True of the Church? Are we closer to home?
Home again, Finnegan? NT Wright, “(W)e are called to be custodians of
the home that God the Creator has made for himself—the earth, made to
overlap and integrate with heaven! —and which he will one day come to
inhabit fully with his rescuing and transformative power.” We are home
because God is at home in us. We are closer to Home than we were
yesterday. Home; where all things are made right, creation is renewed,
humanity reigns as priests before God—forever God’s children. Behold, says the Lord,

I make all things new! Amen, come Lord Jesus!

Reverend Peter T Johnson