Is There Room?

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Is There Room?

John 14

· Sermon,Community

Do you know me at all? If you do, then it must come at somewhat of a shock that THIS is the text chosen for today’s message. There are so many things in this text to wrestle with, and so many things that are of issue to my faith and to my theology. But those things aside, there is a message here that has been gnawing at my very bones since sometime in February…there are words here that jump out and speak to me, and no matter how much I’ve tried to shove them aside and follow my own preaching agenda for this day, these words will not go away. This snipit…these few words from verse two have not left my heart or my mind since I started pondering them 2 months ago…

In my Father’s house there are many rooms.

For years this passage has been translated to mean that there is a big heavenly mansion for each believer. The King James Version translates the passage as “In my father’s house there are many mansions” and there is a persistent belief that Jesus is goin’ up to heaven to build mansions for all the believers that will follow. This is not the case. The description of a house with many rooms is a metaphor, and one that is used often in the New Testament and in the gospel of John. Now, there are lots of word studies and scholarly works out there regarding this passage and I’m sure there are just as many opinions among the scholars here at Lexington Theological Seminary. But those things aside, what does this phrase mean? The word used here for “rooms” is best translated as “dwelling place” or “abode” and actually comes from a verb meaning “to remain.” So perhaps a better translation would be… within God there are many ways to remain… or there are many ways to abide. This is relational imagery…this is about the mutuality between God and Jesus and between God and us. In this way of thinking, this “house” is the mutual abode of God and God’s people. I think this is Jesus saying that there are many ways to have a deep and abiding relationship with God, there are many ways to dwell in this abode with God and Jesus is an example of one of those ways. Jesus says that he is making room…preparing space for those who believe. He is making room for people to dwell with god by providing an example and by showing what such a relationship might look like.

The thing that keeps resonating is this notion of there being many dwelling places in God and the importance of making room. Jesus speaks of preparing a place…of making room. In so doing he gives an example of the ministry of hospitality. He models what it means to make room in the dwelling for others. This passage, in my opinion, is about hospitality. It is about making sure there is enough room for everyone to dwell within God, even if their way of dwelling is not the same as our way of dwelling. It isn’t about conforming people to fit the dwelling place…its about making room for them to abide with God.

What does it mean, then, to make room?

When I answered the call to ministry and decided to attend LTS, I was left with a dilemma. How would I continue to live in Louisville and be a student in Lexington. How could I afford the gas or the time on the road, or how could I afford rent or the cost of a hotel room here in town? These turned out to be little issues, because someone made room for me. My friend Christy opened her home to me. I have my own bed and my own key to the front door. I have a home away from home here in Lexington. When Christy married and her family grew to include a husband and two step daughters, they too welcomed me and continued making room for me in their home. I am part of their family and they are part of mine. They made room for me so I could continue here at seminary. They showed me the definition of hospitality.

For the church, the hospitality can be practiced in many ways, but I think the most important places for making room are in:

Our language for God and humanity
Our methods of worship
Our understanding of community
Our celebration of table

We show hospitality in our language for God and humanity. It goes without saying here at LTS that the language we use for god is important. We hear in our classes about the importance of inclusive language for God an humanity and we know that the words we choose teach both conscious and subconscious messages. We know all this! But what is more important than the words we choose is our willingness to accept other persons names for God. We need to be able to stand side by side, one person calling God mother, another calling God Father, and still others calling God by the multitude of names we can assign. Hospitality is more than choosing our words carefully, its honoring other people’s understandings and making room for their language as well as our own. Just because I see god as a mother doesn’t negate someone else’s right to see god as a father. The act of hospitality though insists that we not assign more worth to our own beliefs than those of another. When we make room for other systems of belief and other understandings of god, we are practicing hospitality. We make room when we acknowledge and honor the many names we use for God, even the ones that challenge us personally.

We can show hospitality in our methods of worship. We can make room in the ways we choose to do worship and in the places we practice worship. This may be as simple as ensuring that our sanctuaries are wheelchair and walker friendly or that there are alternatives for the hearing and sight impaired. But this also means that the music we sing and the sermons we preach should make room for a variety of traditions and cultures. Ruth Duck says, that it’s “more than sharing pews with people whose heritages stretch back to five continents. It is more than starting a committee on diversity…it is more than saying a few words in Spanish or reading a scripture in several languages or singing a new song. It is being united to God and one another—finding sisters and brothers we never expected to have.” We might have to step out our own comfort zones, and we might have to encourage others to step out of theirs. We might have to shuffle the pews on Sunday mornings so that people can feel comfortable sitting where they wish. We might have to explore ways of preaching and teaching that engage people who learn in different ways. We might have to use illustrations in our preaching that make sense to a sixteen year old as well as to a sixty year old. Everything we say and do in our worship can be an act of hospitality and can welcome people into our churches and into closer relationship with God.

We can make room in our understanding of community. Letty Russell says that “hospitality is an expression of unity without uniformity. Through hospitality, community is built out of difference not sameness.” The best illustration for this understanding of community comes from the movie Lilo and Stitch. In the movie, we meet Lilo, a strange little orphan girl who feels friendless, and we meet stitch, a blue alien monster who is bent on destroying everything in his path. The two are joined when Lilo adopts Stitch as her dog and finds in him someone to talk to, someone to share things with and confide in, and someone who relieves the pain and loneliness she feels. And Stitch, in the care of Lilo, realizes his own aloneness, and his need for love and acceptance. A word that keeps getting repeated in the movie is, to me, the definition of hospitality in Christian community. OHANA…Ohana means family, family means no one gets left behind or forgotten. Making room means that we ensure that no one is left behind or forgotten. It means that we struggle to work through differences without demeaning those we strive to include. As Michael Kinnamon reminded us last week, we must value diversity of perspective because unity doesn’t mean that we agree on everything. It does mean that everyone is invited to share and that no one is left behind or forgotten.

The celebration of table is the place where this “making room” can be most visible. I believe God’s love becomes tangible when the community gathers around the table. It is through communion that we can truly experience the love of God as revealed in Christ. God calls us to live in a spirit of love, but that love must be with out boundaries of age, sex, or baptism or any other human made border. Because God’s love is borderless love and it rejects the often artificial limits imposed by our world. At the table we can put aside all of the human made divisions and celebrate together in ways that affirm our own faith tradition and our own beliefs. It is no coincidence that communion and community share the same root—communis—which means mutual participation. It is mutual participation that honors the differences we bring to the table. When we practice hospitality at the table, we learn how to practice hospitality in community. When we make room at the table, we celebrate the diversity that each person brings to the community and we make room for everyone to abide in God.

In my Mother’s house, there are many rooms.

But I ask you…
Is there room in this house?
Is there room in this house for Conservatives?
Is there room in this house for liberals?
Is there room in this house for children?
Is there room in this house for young adults?
Is there room in this house for older adults?
Is there room in this house for Gays?
Is there room in this house for Lesbians?
Is there room in this house for Bi sexuals?
Is there room in this house for trangendered people?
Is there room in this house for women?
Is there room in this house for men?
Is there room in this house for mental illness?
Is there room in this house for learning disabilities?
Is there room in this house for physical disablilites?
Is there room in this house for Mother language for God?
Is there room in this house for Father language?
Is there room in this house for African Americans?
Is there room in this house for Latinos and Latinas?
Is there room in this house for Muslims?
Is there room in this house for Jews?
Is there room in this house for Catholics?
Is there room in this house for Protestants?
Is there room in this house for the poor?
Is there room in this house for the hungry?
Is there room in this house??

And if there is not…what are we going to do to make room?