I’ve been reverting to childhood lately. Finding my favorite books from when I was a child and adolescent. The timing of this probably means something…
I’ve always liked the stories with pictures of towns, and floor plans.
Especially the Richard Scarry children’s stories with Lowly Worm hopping around on one foot, Bananas Gorilla throwing banana peels everywhere, and Mr. Frumple’s car slipping on the banana peel, and Huckle Cat out on an adventure.
There were always these wonderful drawings of Busytown, with buildings and rooms all over the place, full of characters with their own stories going about their lives, overlapping story lines all played out in the colorful illustrations.
I’ve always had recurring dreams, as well, of mysterious houses full of giant hidden rooms and elusive secret passageways, much like many of the stories from my childhood.
Rooms. Many dwelling places. Lots of room. Lots of space. Roominess if you will. For a child it is a source of constant invitation to go exploring, room for insatiable curiosity.
We do get kind of settled in our ways later on. We wonder less about what is behind every door. Our relationships grow more closed as well. Our interest and capacity for making new relationships grows weaker. Our circles of friends tend to become more closed.
There is less room.
Much has been made of the Gospel lesson today, about room in heaven, or Jesus being the particular presence of God, or Jesus being the exclusive presence of God. Jesus is reduced to a line in the sand, you want to be on the right side if you want a pleasant afterlife, rather than eternal torment. Get Jesus right or else.
I think it is about something else.
All through John’s Gospel the relationship of Jesus and the Father to each other has been reemphasized and re-expressed over and over, the intimate oneness of the Father and the Son.
The Father’s house is Jesus body. And it is a relationship with lots of room that we are invited to share in, like a child with an endless capacity for new friends.
We miss the point when we think this is about a nice place to go when we die, it is about living in communion with God right now, living in that life right now, living in that resurrection right now, that kind of life and vitality is there for us, right now.
It isn’t about us getting it right. It is about what God is like.
The Gospel today, the good news today that we hear right now is that God makes room when we have run out of room.
God makes a way when there is no way.
God speaks the truth when there are only lies.
God shines light when there is only darkness.
And we are told that this un-troubles our hearts. God un-troubles our hearts. Jesus is the untroubling of the troubled heart of the world.
Honestly. The Reggae song, Don’t Worry, Be Happy, is closer to the Gospel reading today than most sermons about the reading. We have turned the Gospel into exactly what it is not.
This isn’t about having a pleasant afterlife.
This isn’t about who is in or out, or who makes the final cut when they die.
It is about who God is and what God does.
God makes room. The good news is that God has been revealed as the one who makes room, and Jesus is that roominess of God.
God has been revealed as making a way, speaking the truth, shining light, untroubling hearts.
That is what God is like. And that is good news. And we share in that.
And these works that Jesus has done, we continue in them.
We make room.
We speak truth.
We make a way.
We shine light.
We untrouble hearts.
And there will be more, much more.
This isn’t about getting it right so we go to heaven.
That isn’t the lesson today.
It is about becoming like a child again, a child of God, and discovering all over again, for the first time, all the room in the world.
The Gospel invites us to live that and share that right now. Open the door. Who knows what we might find?