Rector's Sermon - Sunday, April 28, 2002

First Reading	Psalm	Epistle	Gospel
Acts 7:50-60	31:1-5, 15-16	1 Peter 2:2-10	John 14:1-14

      Two years ago this May, I found myself in a place I never had imagined I'd ever be. It was at the baccalaureate service for my daughter before her graduation. During my own graduation, the possibility that some thirty years hence I might be seeing my own daughter receive her diploma, never crossed my mind, and that she would graduate from the same college, shaking hands with the president under the shade of the same large sycamore trees as I did while my parents looked on, was light years beyond any stretch of my imagination.

      The speaker, chosen by the students, was the women's soccer coach. The coach recalled that as they had huddled before each game she knew that some of her players in the past week had fought with their roommates or had problems with their social life, or had heavy papers and reports to prepare in the following week. Yet on those crisp fall mornings they would they would lay all these things aside and accept the gift of the moment. They would go out and play four fifteen minute quarters, knowing that there was no other place they would rather be. Of course why I remember that baccalaureate address so well is that on that June morning, there was no other place on earth I would have rather been.

      Today's passage in John's Gospel occurs following the last supper. Shortly Jesus and the disciples would leave for the garden where during the night Jesus would be arrested. The disciples are emotionally exhausted. Holy Week has given then more experiences than they can possibly process and comprehend. Thomas bravely asks Jesus for assurance. Jesus does not disappoint, but offers words that return again and again to generations of followers. "I go to prepare a place for you. I go, so that where I am, there you may be also. The many rooms or mansions or dwelling places of Jesus' reply is really a translation of the verb form to abide. Literally Jesus is saying there are many places to abide in God's house. How much of John's own polemic interests influences Jesus' statement on being the way, the truth and the light is subject to debate, but I suggest that this was an occasion in which Jesus emphasized an accessibility and a presence not far off in the future or in the distance, nor subject to conditions or exceptions, but here and now. Despite what anyone in the world may claim, regardless how the world may ridicule or tempt faith, Jesus offers "I am here for you and I have a place for you."

      I suspect the wisdom in remembering this passage after the resurrection is to remind us that whenever we are exhausted, or on emotional overload, facing traumatic change or loss, the spirit of the living Christ is likely to be close by. We often speak of a spiritual life in terms of a journey. Yet a real problem of journey terminology is that a journey often implies that we are headed out; pushing forth into some far distant unknown and somehow, in the future and across many miles, we finally will find Jesus.

      Our life may indeed take us to through uncharted territory, but we are not necessarily always going towards the presence and habitation of the living Christ, rather Jesus assures us that more than we might first suspect, we are going with the presence of the living Christ.

      Many addresses and speeches at graduation exercises speak of the future ahead, of the beckoning mountains to be scaled, and of all that awaits the courageous and brave down the road of continued accomplishment. Perhaps that is why graduation speeches are routinely quickly forgotten, but I will remember an address that called us to appreciate the gift of the present. The times in our lives when we encounter the light of Easter, when the spirit of the living Christ seems to be in our presence are the times when we exclaim, "Ah ha," and know that there is no place on earth where we would want to be.

      And I offer this to you in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen