May 22 Sermon Notes John 14:1-14, I Peter 2:1-10

This is a time for graduations. As young people say hello to a new chapter in their lives, they prepare for a series of goodbyes as well. That's one of the reasons parents are there with tears streaming down their faces. Our passage from John  is the beginning of a long farewell set of speeches that will go through the end of chapter 17. Jesus is preparing his friends for his death. He is preparing them for reconfiguring their lives on their own. Where will they go? Jesus responds, I prepare, get ready,a place for you, just as David prepared a place for the ark of the covenant. Maybe it will be individualized as well as collective presence, I like to speculate that heaven will be fitted well to our particular individual and social needs. For that matter,. God's way is in relationship, not alone. they are promised the presence with Christ-not alone-not abandoned.Not lost where is the way? I am the way-It is part of  Let not your hearts be troubled-assurance, as predestination was meant to give. 
Jesus is saying look, the image of God is right in front of your face-what is God like? God's image is in Jesus Christ. We don;t have to look for special experience; we don't have to look for special information. Know Jesus Christ. As Chesterton wrote:"it is a track of feet in the snow/it is a lantern showing a path/it is a door set open"
 It may well just say that in God's house there is plenty of room for everybody. In the generous love of god, there is not need to be cramped. It is interesting how  folks from different sides of the religious spectrum try to limit the capacious love of God. I could speculate that parts of heaven will have very high walls to allow some folks to think that they are virtually alone in Paradise.The right wing has a long list of words and beliefs that must, must, keep loads of people out of God's world here and in heaven. The liberal left lifts up some of their favorite charities and maybe even a justice issue or two and use that as the litmus test. For the left, God will show no tolerance for the intolerant.

An interesting interpretation is that  Jesus prepares a place within us and among us. My father's house can alos mean household, the number and type of relationships that make a house a home. Living spiritual stones church here and the church triumphant-what a marvelous organic image. Just as buildings are constructed of stone, so the living organism, the church, is composed of living stones, fitted together.(see bowker on unity v. uniformity) I am the life is the marker of a whole life, not one divided between our role sin lfie, not evenone divided between this world and the next. It means a life saturated with, walked in the way of jesus Christ.It is an invitation to a whole life, not an usher keeping us out of an exclusive club, not a velvet rope separating the common herd from the elite. I will take the living stones image further. In this wrold, the many dwelling places refer to a vertical descent, fi you will, from god's to us. God takes the individual living stones of our lives and fits them into an ever-developing structure to make this world a better place. God respects the raw materials at hand, and doe snot insist on a uniformity of materials, but fits them together depending on their size and shape. God not only uses as as building blocks for the church, God takes our indiviudal lives and fits them together to help form heaven. Unity does not insist on uniformity. John Bowker wites" that God has shaped us to find our rest in God.The sculptor take shte hard stone of our lives, as it takes on the form God has intended for it."