Many of you know that early on Tuesday mornings, every other month, a group gathers in the Emmanuel Room to ponder a passage of scripture – one of the passages coming up on the next Sunday. This past Tuesday, it was John 14:23-29, our Gospel lesson for today. If you’re anything like these early morning skeptics, if they are somehow representative of the parish (and my guess is that they are), some of you just heard that Gospel reading as comforting – loving words about a deeper peace than the world can give. Even though Jesus was leaving – in fact, dying, the spirit of his words (The Word) would be with them, his peace would be with them – they did not need to be afraid. They were going to be cared for and defended by the spirit of God.

If you’re anything like the early morning skeptics, some of you just heard that Gospel reading as having a sharp edge – as sounding harsh, too conditional, too sexist with regard to the language used to refer to God. You heard the exclusivity of a christocentric theology and felt the weight of the centuries of a church trying to teach about unconditional love while placing all sorts of conditions on believing and belonging.

And if you’re anything like the early morning skeptics of this parish, some of you didn’t hear the Gospel reading just now because you were sleepy or pre-occupied with other things! That’s one of the reasons, in our early morning gatherings, that we listen to the passage being read three times, each time by a different person. I find that even when I am paying attention, I notice something that I hadn’t noticed before when I hear a reading in another voice.

I’ll confess to you that the first time it was read I felt irritated at the sexist language for God and irritated at the edge that this reading has that I think has to do with the competitive rhetoric the early church adopted when it felt threatened. Even the earliest gatherings of Jesus followers couldn’t seem to take in Jesus’ peace. They couldn’t or didn’t hear Jesus’ words about not being troubled or afraid. When this passage got read the first time, for example, I didn’t even notice the part where Jesus says, “Peace I leave with you, my own peace I give to you.” That was a sign for me of how guarded I was – in fact, how troubled I am about the rhetoric of the Church and how much harm it does. I didn’t even hear the promise of peace; or the reassurance of the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, the Defender, who Jesus says will teach us everything we need to know and remind us of everything he said.

Just before this passage, another Judas (not Iscariot) asks Jesus how he will be revealed to his followers. This is Jesus’ response: “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.” I’ll tell you, I don’t think often about God or Jesus making a home with me. It occurs to me to think of church or temple as a House of God – as God’s home – but not to think of my home as God’s home. I mean, we say grace before meals and say our prayers – and I’ve got walls of bookshelves full of what my family calls “God books” but God’s home? The mere idea makes me want to go home right now and clean!

Jesus is saying, those who love him will live it out by loving one another – and God and Jesus will stay beside them. That’s the literal translation of home: a place for staying beside. It actually doesn’t have as much to do with a house – the rooms, the bookshelves, the kitchen or the bathroom. (So it turns out that cleanliness is not necessarily next to godliness.) It has to do with a place for staying beside. And it’s not so much conditional as in prerequisite (you know, ‘if you really love me you will do this or that for me’). It’s not that. It’s more of a description of a condition as in a state of readiness. When (and whenever) we show our love by living in mutual, right relationship, by engaging in justice with compassion, by caring for one another, God’s home is made in us – we are at home in God wherever we are. What Jesus is trying to tell his followers is that “relationship with Jesus does not depend on physical presence, but on the presence of the love of God in the life of the community. And the love of God is present whenever those who love Jesus keep his commandments [to love one another].”(1)

I have to tell you I’ve never thought I’d preach a sermon on Mother’s Day about Mother’s Day (and I think I still won’t), as much as I love my mother and much as I love being a mother. But I’m really struck by the idea in today’s Gospel of Jesus and God as homemakers, and how seldom I hear someone (female or male) describe their work as homemaking these days. I often hear “work at home” or “stay-at-home-dad or mom” but not “homemaker.” In the Gospel of John, in the midst of a very complex set of ideas, in a very long farewell discourse, here is the relatively simple idea of Jesus with God desiring to be homemakers in us.

There’s a song that I couldn’t get out of my head as I reflected on homemaking. I’m going to sing to you, in spite of my scratchy allergy voice.

The disciples have been asking Jesus a lot of questions – endless questions -- in response to his seemingly endless farewell instructions to them that they are to love one another. Interestingly enough, they don’t say directly, “how can we do that? It’s too hard.” Instead, they ask: “Lord, where are you going? Why can we not follow you now? Lord we do not know where you are going -- how can we know the way? Lord, show us God – how can we know God? Lord, how is it that you will reveal yourself and God to us?”

Jesus’ answer to that last question is that when they love one another, he and God make a home in them. Referring to God and himself, “we will come to them and make our home with them.” I think it’s such a startling and lovely idea – there’s so much in Christian discourse about our making our home in God – sometimes it’s a house of worship that is referred to as the house of God, sometimes it’s some kind of never-never land heaven where God lives. Here Jesus is explaining that God’s home is not a building – not a house or a church or a temple -- and it’s not a place on earth or a place in heaven. God’s home – Jesus’ home – is made in everyone whose actions are loving.

American author Dwight Young says this about home: “home is … an emotion, a deep-rooted sense of welcome and permanence and belonging. It’s the safe, intensely personal realm where you can permit yourself to throw off everything that isn’t fundamentally, essentially you. It’s a complex, messy stew of throat-catching slants of light, kitchen smells, and déjà vu. If you’re lucky and the place has been around for a while, it can connect you – with people you never knew. Some people have a home from childhood; others spend a lifetime looking for it. Once you recognize it, you’re bound to it forever – even if it sits in an extreme locale. Even if it disappears.” I wonder, could we recommit ourselves to creating a space like that for love so that God can make a home in us? Or if we know that God has already made a home in us, I wonder if we can we add on? Can we give God some more room?

Imagine that the “You” in the refrain of the hymn that I’ve been singing to you has a capital Y and refers to God. Imagine that the Holy One is the Weary One. (Now I’m well aware that this is not what the hymn composer, Will Thompson, intended. I am taking considerable creative license, I know. And maybe the last line of the refrain needs to get changed from “sinner” to something else – or maybe not – but that’s for another sermon!) Imagine God homemaking in you. The bigger the love, the more room in the home! For most of us, it’s a fixer-upper. But God can see the potential.

Jesus’ promise is that we don’t have to figure this out alone and we don’t already know everything there is to know. The spirit of God will be our advocate – our defender – the spirit that will teach us what we need to know and remind us of the essence of what Jesus taught. The spirit of the Holy One will nudge us, tutor us, challenge us to remember that actions born of love, not fear, are what God wants for God’s people. Love, not fear, is what will allow God to make the most generous home out of our lives. Peace.