There's no place like home

I have in my library a book that is dear to me and treasured. It was written over twenty years ago by Father William J. Bausch, who is now a retired priest of the Diocese of Trenton, New Jersey, and is still writing, lecturing and mentoring people in faith. The book is called The Yellow Brick Road, and it is subtitled A Storyteller’s Approach to the Spiritual Journey.

In the book, Father Bausch uses his all-time favourite film, The Wizard of Oz, to explore the spiritual journey. He says that the storyline of The Wizard of Oz is as old as the hills. It’s about a person on a quest who searches for a goal, or a treasure, or the Emerald City. On the journey there are problems and trials and opposition, and the hero or heroine returns home much wiser. Bausch says it’s a metaphor for our spiritual journey, as we evolve from self-centredness to awareness of our spiritual selves.

So there’s a chapter called “Glinda,” about the blessings in life. There’s a chapter about imperfection, which he calls “Munchkinland.” There’s a chapter about wounded hearts called “The Tin Man,” and there are chapters about the Cowardly Lion and fear, and the Scarecrow and failure and guilt. There’s even a chapter about flying monkeys; it’s about sin. And throughout the book Bausch regales us with story after story — sixty different stories — not for entertainment, but to help us think and ponder as we move deeper into our faith and our faith journey.

And I was thinking about The Wizard of Oz as I was thinking about our gospel lesson today, because the gospel lesson is set in a discussion of a journey.

The gospel lesson is set in the long piece of John’s gospel which is called the farewell discourse. Traditionally, we’ve understood this discourse to be at the Last Supper, where Jesus has his last meal with his disciples. It is a little confusing when you compare the gospels, because John’s gospel talks about the day before the Passover, and doesn’t make it clear that this is the Last Supper, the Passover meal. In John’s gospel there’s no institution of communion; instead there’s a foot washing. And in John’s gospel this meal, which we presume is the last meal, is four chapters long, or about one fifth of the gospel. It is the longest speech by Jesus, by far.

And one of the big themes of this speech is where Jesus is going — what journey Jesus is going on — and Jesus comforting the disciples and answering questions. But in typical Johannine fashion, there always seem to be deeper meanings than the surface meaning. And the disciples in John’s gospel often don’t get it. They don’t get the deeper meanings, and typical of this is the fact that they keep asking questions. There are four questions that the disciples ask, indicating that they’re not quite getting the full import of what Jesus is saying.

Now, we who read the gospel almost two thousand years later are reading it from the perspective of knowing that Jesus went to the cross; knowing that Jesus died; knowing of the resurrection and the resurrection appearances; knowing of the ascension; and having the scriptures themselves. We have a lot more idea today about Jesus’ journey than those disciples did. But in other ways we can be just as lost and as confused as those disciples about where Jesus is going, what kind of journey this is, and where Jesus is abiding, or staying, or remaining, or living.

So Peter starts with the first of the disciples’ questions. When Jesus tells the disciples that he’s going, and they can’t come with him, and gives them the new commandment to love one another, Peter says, “Lord, where are you going?” And Jesus, instead of answering him directly, says, “Well, Peter, you can’t come at this time, but later.” “Why can’t I go with you, Lord? I’m ready to die for you.”

The next question is from Thomas. Jesus tells them there are many rooms, many mansions, many abiding places in his Father’s house, and he’s going there on purpose, to prepare a place for them. And Jesus tells them that they know the way. But Thomas says, “Hey, we don’t know where you’re going. How can we know the way?” Jesus tells him that he is the way.

And then Philip, confused about where Jesus is going, says — and I’ll put this into my own paraphrase — “Well, if you’re going, Lord, could you at the very least show us the Father? If you can show us the Father, then we’ll have some assurance that all is good.” And Jesus tells him, “Well, if you know me, you know the Father.”

And then Judas asks a question. John wants to make it clear that this is not Judas Iscariot, the traitor who betrays Jesus. Some think that this Judas has another name, Thaddeus, because that’s the name of the disciple given in the list in Matthew, which doesn’t contain the name Judas son of James. Judas’ question comes after Jesus tells them that they will see him again, but the world will not see him again. And Judas’ question is, “Well, how is it that you’re revealing yourself to us? Wouldn’t it be better to reveal yourself to the whole world?”

It’s all very confusing. Is Jesus going? Where is he going exactly? Is he coming back? Is he just coming back to the disciples? Why doesn’t he make it clear to everybody where he’s going?

And it’s further confusing to us, because we know where Jesus is going physically. We know he’s going physically to the cross, to his death, to be raised, and then to the ascension. And that’s what the disciples are thinking about, too. They’re thinking about his body, and where he’s physically going. And yes, there is a sense that Jesus is going somewhere, and his physical body is not going to be with them.

But the deeper sense of where Jesus is going is found in our gospel lesson today: “I am the vine, you are the branches. Abide in me as I abide in you.”

The King James Version of the Bible reads, “Abide in me, and I in you.” The Revised Standard Version has, “Abide in me, and I in you.” The Good News version has, “Remain united to me, and I will remain united to you.” J. B. Phillips’ New Testament has, “You must go on growing in me and I will grow in you.” And The Message, by Eugene Peterson, reads, “Live in me. Make your home in me just as I do in you.”

Now, the key Greek word here is transliterated menō, and it’s translated from the Greek as stay, remain, abide, live, continue, among other words. It’s translated by a whole lot of different words. But it is this concept, this sense of staying, remaining, abiding, living, continuing in, and it’s used a lot in John’s gospel, this word menō.

In chapter 1 of John’s gospel, John saw the Spirit descending like a dove, and it remained on Jesus: it menō’d on Jesus. And again in chapter 1, two disciples say to him, “Where are you staying, Jesus? Where do you menō, Jesus?” Jesus says, “Come and see.” And that day they menō’d with Jesus: they stayed there, remained, continued with Jesus.

In chapter 8, Jesus said to the Jews who believed in him, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples” — if you remain, if you stay, if you live in my word, you’re my disciples. In chapter 4, when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. He menō’d with them: he remained, he stayed, he lived, he abided with them.

And in chapter 15, which we read today: “I am the vine, and you are the branches. Abide in me, and I will live in you.” Menō in me, and I will menō in you. And again we read, “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love”: stay, continue, remain, live in my love.

In chapter 14: “In my Father’s house there are many mansions.” There are many rooms, there are many abiding places — there are many menō-ing places.

And the key, I think, to understanding all these places Jesus is going to and coming from is to stop thinking of a literal place, and in particular to stop thinking of a place called heaven. Not that there is not a heaven; of course we believe there’s a heaven. But this isn’t, I’m sure, exactly what I think Jesus is referring to. Instead, think of a relationship.

Jesus is not going to and from a physical place — and in particular, we often think, heaven. Jesus is going physically to the cross, and physically to die, to make it possible for Jesus, in relationship, to go to you: to be your friend, to be your family, for you to know him and for him to know you. Where’s Jesus gone? He’s going to you, to live in you. And you can live in Jesus; you can abide in Jesus; you can have a relationship with Jesus.

Every time you pray, or think about Jesus, or love or help people, or are a safe place for people, Jesus is abiding in you and you are living in Jesus. Every time you worship, or read scripture, or read books about faith or about Jesus, or tell someone about your life and your faith, you are abiding in Jesus, and Jesus is living in you.

“In my Father’s house there are many mansions.” I think there used to be a hymn, “I’ve got a mansion just over the hilltop.” That’s what the King James Bible reads, and you know, I read that for years, and I thought of heaven. And I began to see that there’s great diversity in heaven: many rooms, many mansions, up in heaven. And so I started widening my understanding of just who was going to heaven. I started to believe that God was going to have so many more people in heaven than I thought were going to go to heaven originally. So I understood that there were many rooms in heaven, that Jesus was going to prepare a place for us, and that it was vast and large and diverse, with billions of places for us humans.

And it’s not that I don’t believe there’s a big, diverse heaven. Of course I do. But I think there’s another meaning to “In my Father’s house there are many rooms” — or mansions, or abiding places, or dwelling places, or menō-ing places.

And what I think it might mean is that it’s God’s house, or God’s body, in which there are many different dwelling places, and that Jesus is actually referring to us. We are the many rooms, the many abiding places, the many places Jesus goes to and lives.

Instead of the dwelling places being heaven, for after we die, the dwelling places are the vast diversity of people on this earth who, in the words of John in his first letter, everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. You are a dwelling place for Jesus. I am a dwelling place for Jesus. And there are literally millions, or hundreds of millions, or billions of dwelling places for Jesus. So when Jesus says there are many dwelling places, many rooms, many mansions, he means a lot.

And just for instance, the lectionary writers give us one of those dwelling places today, when they give us the story of the Ethiopian eunuch in his chariot on the road leading out of Jerusalem into the wilderness. A road, Luke writes, that is a wilderness road: a wilderness, a road that is lost and unused any more. And I think he includes that for a reason, because he’s making a connection to people that many of us think are lost, or unused, or in the wilderness, and he’s including them.

And this Ethiopian eunuch is one of those people who they would have thought was lost and unused. He’s an Ethiopian official. He’s been to Jerusalem to worship, and is presumably on his way back to Ethiopia in his chariot. He’s an Ethiopian; he’s a stranger; he’s a foreigner. I am guessing, although the scripture doesn’t say explicitly, that he’s got a different skin colour. He’s a eunuch, which means his sexuality does not fall into the usual categories of male and female, and he is certainly considered lesser. In the Hebrew scriptures, he would not be allowed into worship.

He’s probably quite rich, because he has his own chariot. He even has his own scriptures, and in those days the common people did not own books. You didn’t go down to the five-and-dime and buy a novel or anything. Books were very rare; we didn’t have printing presses until fourteen or fifteen hundred years later. He works for the queen of Ethiopia; he seems to be the finance minister for the country. He’s probably rich, but he is different.

And what’s crazy is that he says he’s been to Jerusalem to worship, and the scriptures are very clear — I think it’s Deuteronomy, chapter 23, verse 1 — that eunuchs are not permitted to worship. He wouldn’t be allowed in. He’s also a foreigner, so there’s a good chance he wouldn’t have been allowed in because he was from a different country. So it’s weird that he says he was up there to worship, when he couldn’t actually go in to worship.

And as the story unfolds, Philip comes alongside. The eunuch is reading from the book of Isaiah, one of what we call the suffering servant passages, and I think he’s really resonating with the story of someone who was treated miserably: like a poor sheep about to be killed; treated as someone with little worth; a man who was killed and had no children to carry on his name. Remember, eunuchs don’t have any children to carry on their name. And maybe, as someone who’s different, he himself has struggled with persecution and hardship and torment and vulnerability, and people saying things behind his back, even though he’s well-to-do. I’m sure a lot of people treated him as less than a man, or as someone who was worthless, because he was a eunuch.

And yet he says to Philip: “What is to prevent me from being baptized?”

What is to prevent me from belonging to the family of God? What is to prevent me from being a place where Christ lives? What is to prevent me from living in Jesus? What is to prevent me from breaking down the barriers and walls and fences and obstacles that keep Jesus from outsiders, the different, the strangers and the sinners? What is to prevent me from being a friend and family with Jesus? What is to prevent me from being Jesus’ home, a menō-ing place for Jesus, an abiding place for Jesus?

And the answer is: nothing. Not a single thing.

And we would do well to just stop and drink the living water right here and now, and savour that. What is there to say, when the Spirit has already said it?

Let me quote from Debie Thomas’ article “When All Are Welcome,” from the Journey with Jesus webzine:

This is a stunning post-Easter story — if only we, the church, could find our way into its astonishing answer. It’s a vivid picture of a liberation that leads to the waters of baptism and belonging. But we hesitate, don’t we? How long have we pondered the eunuch’s question, and worried about it, theologized around it, policing its borders, because we find the Holy Spirit’s answer too unruly and too frightening? How many barriers have we erected around the font, the communion table, the altar, the Word? How often have we, consciously or unconsciously, communicated the message that those who don’t look, think, worship, live, speak, work, love and practise like us do not and cannot belong? How many times has the Spirit invited us to a wilderness road, a place for an encounter that might convert us to an authentic post-resurrection ethos and hospitality, only to have us resist and turn away?

I don’t ask these questions lightly, as if they’re without cost or consequence. Because the fact is, if the story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch is true — if the post-resurrection world really is a world where all are welcome — then we’re going to have to change a lot. Let’s not kid ourselves. Change is hard. Change hurts. Change makes demands on our hearts, minds, lifestyles and liturgies that we’d rather avoid. But this is the work of conversion. This is the ongoing work of growing in faith. So let’s be consistent. Let’s practise integrity. Let us not demand the hard work of conversion from others when we remain unwilling to engage it ourselves.

Debie Thomas, “When All Are Welcome”

Being a home for Jesus is not easy. Being an abiding place for Jesus, and abiding in Jesus, is not always easy. It’s actually easier to comfort ourselves with Jesus going to heaven and making a mansion, or a cottage, or a room up there in heaven for us. A lot easier, because we don’t have to do anything. It’s harder to be the room where Jesus hangs out and loves all people — with the emphasis on all.

And so the question I have for us today is not where Jesus is going. Jesus is going to make his home in people wherever there is love. The question is, where are you and I going? And I don’t mean physically, after we die. I don’t mean going to heaven. I mean: are we going to go with Jesus, and remain with him, live with him, abide in him, menō in him, and be his home?

For after all, as Dorothy said in The Wizard of Oz, there’s no place like home.

Amen.