Lyndon Johnson had a long and prolific career in elected politics before he became president. He represented Texas in the House of Representatives for 12 years, then the Senate for another 12 years.
Johnson was well-loved in Texas for serving his constituents well, especially in and around Johnson City. Back when I lived in Texas, driving through this area of the Texas Hill Country, I noticed a surprising number of little rest stops along the road. They weren’t fancy like the rest areas we are used to now, with all kinds of amenities for weary and bored travelers. These rest areas consisted of a couple of picnic tables and benches, a trash can. They were well-tended and attractive. And they popped up about every mile or so.
One could argue that this was excessive, a profligate number of rest stops. But no one could ever accuse LBJ of neglecting the needs of his constituents. If they needed work – well, there would always be jobs building rest stops. And this ensured there would always be a place to stop and rest for the weary traveler.
I thought about this unusual feature of the Hill Country landscape as I was thinking about the words Jesus speaks in our passage from John’s gospel: In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. Because a dwelling place may be temporary as well as permanent. A dwelling place is a place to rest.
And Jesus offers this as comfort: In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.
I have often been drawn to this passage for funerals. The image of God’s many dwelling places, or rooms, gives us some comfort when we are trying to imagine where our dearly departed ones are now.
I sometimes let my imagination run with this and try to envision just what this person’s dwelling place might be like. I think about the special gifts they had in their life here on earth and how might God continue to allow room for those gifts to flourish in heaven.
It’s an image, a promise, that many of us are hungry for. Many times I have been asked by someone to help them understand where we go after we die. We wonder for our loved ones who are no longer here with us. We wonder also for ourselves when the time comes.
I remember several conversations with a woman thinking about her own death, which she knew would come soon. Her overwhelming fear was that she would not know where to go, how to find her loved ones, how to find her way in a strange place. For times when we are anxious or confused about life after death, something we simply cannot know in this life, these words of Jesus give comfort. There is room for you. I will be there with you. You know the way there. And so I have found this passage from John 14 to be a wonderful source of comfort and hope at the time of death.
But as useful as it is for imagining eternal life, this is not the only way for us to understand these words of Jesus. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. I go to prepare a place for you. You know the way to this place because you know me.
And I wonder: Do these words offer any guidance, hope, or comfort for our earthly sojourns? Because even if in the great scheme of things our individual lives here are brief, it doesn’t really feel that way while we are living. Every day of our lives provides new opportunities to wonder how to go forward. To be searching for the way. To desperately wish we had an operator’s instructional manual. Perhaps you, too, have cried out in prayer, “Lord, how can I know the way?”
We may feel that ache of longing for home, knowing deep in our hearts that home is just beyond our reach in these mortal bodies. We deeply desire a resting place, a safe and peace-filled room where our worries and fears dissipate, our needs are filled, where there is joy. Contentment for our souls. And we worry, often, that we don’t know how to get there.
Thomas and Philip were worried. They stood in the same room with Jesus as he spoke these confident, assuring words: this is where I am going. It will be good, for all of us. You know the way there. Yet they were not convinced. Just show us the Father. Which sounds a little like, “I want to see the manager because I don’t believe you have the final word here.”
They were uneasy, because they didn’t feel like people who know the way. Actually, they felt so very far away from home.
This is a feeling that resides within people of faith, more or less – like this earth is not really our home, that we are aliens here who long more than anything to return home. It isn’t that we want to leave all that we love in this life. We would just sort of like to be re-situated, with all that we love, in a better place.
I think the feeling comes through in the verses of Psalm 35. In you, Lord, I seek refuge. From all that is threatening and harmful in this world, I seek my refuge – my safety and peace – in you, O Lord. God as a living and moving fortress.
Yet, there is something even more that Jesus wants to say to his followers. You know the way, he insists, because you know me. Has he not shown them, throughout the time he has spent with them, the way to live? And is this not living in Christ Jesus himself? The way, the truth, and the life?
We do not just follow him, we find our life in him. And when we live in him we live with the Father. When we live in him, in this dwelling place created for us, we are a part of the work he came for.
It seems to me that it is our mission then, as the church, to be such a dwelling place for those who seek it. Even in this place that is not our heart’s home, together we create something like home – a dwelling place for all who seek God in this world. And, in one way or another, we are all seeking to fill that God-shaped hole within us.
What does that mean for us, the church? To seek out the least ones, the lost ones? Those who are most in need of a dwelling place are the ones who suffer most on their journeys through life.
There is a little story by Gloria Naylor about a woman whose longings were simple, very modest, much like our own: she longed for a place to call home. She dreamed of a little bungalow with a picket fence, green in her imagination. She envisioned geraniums all around the house, because they are so bright and strong. She liked the idea of flowers that weren’t too delicate. Geraniums were durable, able to withstand all kinds of adversity.
It was a dream she held for her whole life. It was amazing that she managed to hold on to the dream even while everything worked against her. No matter how hard she tried to be good, to work hard, to overcome – still, the world was hard on her and in the end, she could only find that dream of home in a bottle of cheap wine. Night after night she would go looking for that home.
This is someone who needed a dwelling place – a safe place, a caring community, a place to rest. Home.
In the Father’s house there are many dwelling places, a place for every one of us, built and sustained with God’s steadfast love. Let us be shaped into such a place.
In the name of our Savior, Jesus Christ.
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