Holden Evening Prayer – Becoming Together Through Generosity: People to Place

John 14:1-14

Jesus said, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling-places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going.”

Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.”

We usually hear this scripture reading at funerals. It’s comforting to hear Jesus as a pastor and friend, assuring the disciples that the distance between this world and the next cannot separate them from the love of God. Jesus is preparing them for his suffering and death, trying to explain that their relationship will be changed, but still intimate and important. 

So he draws on a metaphor from their ministry together. Traveling all over the region has meant searching for food and lodging, hoping for a hot meal and safe shelter, banking on the availability and kindness of strangers. They know what it feels like when someone has prepared a place for you — and they know what it’s like to be turned away. 

Jesus says, “Friends, I am not leaving you so much as I am going ahead of you. I am going to prepare a resting place for you so that, when you arrive at my Father’s house, we will be ready to fling wide the doors and receive you as guests. You will not need to search around for welcome or sing for your supper — you will find home, gathered in by the hospitality and grace you have known on your journey with me.”

It is a beautiful image, this house with many rooms, this heavenly abode that stretches to receive all who are weary and in need of a resting place. It is a beautiful way to envision a loved one’s resurrection or your own sacred belonging at the end of days — a welcome beyond the pain and limitations of this world — where God says, “Come. We’ve been expecting you. There is a room ready.”

Today we get to hear this passage through a different lens. We’re thinking about our call as People to Place (creatures designed for connection with our locations) and how following Jesus transforms the way we experience belonging and create hospitality in this life. 

Perhaps your imagination about place has been stifled by the way we talk about place in 2020. I know mine has.

While community health guidelines encourage us to stay close to home during this pandemic, it’s easy to think about our location in terms of a street address or neighborhood. 

But what if, instead, we remember this place as indigenous land? Here in Minnesota, we live and work on Dakota land that was, until recently in its long history, an oak savannah and wild prairie. 

What if, instead of locating ourselves within city limits today, we consider the flow of our watershed, remembering the ways this region stayed connected long before freight and highways?

Both of our church properties were, at one point, on the very edge of town. The Minnetonka campus stood in between farmland and the road into the big city. The Minneapolis campus was a place for travelers to tie up their horses before catching the streetcar downtown. 

Sure, a lot has changed since then, but location has always mattered. 

When I zoom out and think about location with a deeper sense of time, beyond the boundaries and systems we have created in its most recent history, I tap into wonder and hope for what’s true in every time and place: 

• Being received into safety and belonging is a basic need. 
• Hearing that you will be welcomed when you arrive is a big relief.
• Seeing that there’s a place for you offers dignity and peace.

There are a lot of ways you show up as People to Place.

Our call as People to Place takes shape in our expression as One Church in multiple locations: two campuses, Spirit Garage, our homes, and online!

People to Place is expressed in the ways we practice gathering and hospitality — standing in open horseshoes instead of circles so there is always room for another. Inviting folks we don’t already know to join our small groups. A wonder and determination to be the church in this time and place — 2020.

And our call to be People to Place is still being formed in our passion and commitment to housing for all of our neighbors. 

You make and serve meals for families experiencing homelessness through Families Moving Forward.

You show up at city council meetings to speak as people of faith and neighbors who want affordable housing built in your neighborhood.

You make phone calls with other members of Beacon congregations to make sure COVID doesn’t mean mass evictions.

You join a crew and build with Habitat for Humanity or volunteer with ZOOM House. 

You care about building a world in which everyone belongs and everyone has a safe place to call home. Because you are known and loved by a God who does, too. 

Not just later in heaven. But right here, right now. 

And I want to name how overwhelming and disheartening this care can be. We have unhoused neighbors living in public parks, alongside highways, and an overflowing shelter system. It is emotionally risky to care deeply about building a future in which everyone is safely housed because we are experiencing layers of social crisis and making a dent in this goal can feel impossible.

So why do we lean in anyway, answering the call as People to Place?

We believe God cares deeply about building a world where everyone has a place because God cannot stay away. God put on skin and came into this world to be just like us, to experience the uncertainty and fragility of “place” in this world. 

We believe in Jesus, who was born in between a census road trip and a midnight escape across borders, whose parents forgot him in the temple for a few days when he was 12, who taught his friends how to show up as themselves with not so much as an extra tunic or a Cliff Bar. He spent time with those who had no place in their communities. He used his body at dinner tables to challenge assumptions about power by moving chairs and washing feet. He commented that the birds have nests and the foxes have holes, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head. 

Folks, I love this story about God’s heavenly home and enough room for all, and the promise that offers for later. But when it comes to Jesus, later is never the only promise.

You see, Jesus is the ultimate sign that heaven is sneaking in through the cracks of this world right now. What could be is being revealed in glimpses and glances, relationships and proximity and moral imaginations stretching.

God desires a place for everyone here and now. God is bending heaven’s belonging into our reality here and now. God is restless on behalf of those in need of home and safety and dignity here and now.

When the table is ready and we pray for Jesus to come and be our guest, he shows up. And when we pray like Jesus taught us, “Thy kingdom come,” we had better believe it does.

It’s a terrifying prayer, when you think about it. We are asking God to interrupt our limitations and divisions about what’s possible in this life, which makes us accomplices. The Lord’s Prayer implicates us in all the ways heaven pokes holes in our careful calculations about what’s possible in this life.

My son Jasper thinks this was poor planning on God’s part. “Why didn’t God just create us with all the information we would need in our brains when we were born? It would make things a lot easier.” 

It’s no coincidence he’s asking these questions three weeks into distance learning. I imagine fourth grade would be a LOT easier with all the answers ready and waiting. He watches the morning news, so he’s noticed the adults are struggling. And he’s figuring out how much parenting we make up as we go along. For Jasper, more information from the jump would make God’s job and our lives a lot easier.

I still don’t have an answer for Jasper about why God made us this way — but this conversation between Jesus and the disciples has me thinking: I don’t think information is the issue. We have a wisdom issue. 

The disciples are sad and weary and scared — just like us. They’re scrambling for all the Jesus information. “Input the data, before you go!”

They are worried they will mess up this charge to follow when they can’t see Jesus. “How will we find you again? We don’t know the way.”

But Jesus has not been speaking about a far off destination or a specific route that avoids traffic. He’s been reframing location and place as interpersonal connections. He’s inviting them beyond information, into mystical and relational discernment about what they know to be true.

Jesus says, “I am the way. We have been practicing this sacred belonging all along. We have been building a beloved community day in and day out. You have seen the wine stretch and the bread sustain. You have been welcomed and blessed. You have stood by the last and the least. You have been steeped in stories about grace that is plentiful and belonging that’s true. When you trust and do this, you are with me and it is the way that heaven will keep sneaking in to receive everyone with a place to rest and abide.”

He is talking about wisdom they already have — and so do we. 

Church, we are the body of Christ, who invites us to be ushers for the kingdom of heaven here and now, the promises of God’s house in our lifetimes and locations, the dignity and welcome of home for every neighbor and stranger. 

This world is filled with information that says it cannot be done, that God means to manage this later after death, that we do not know the way.

But the Spirit and wisdom of God, says it can be done. She is always restless for mercy and eager for justice. And God means to manage this in every age, so we dare to pray that the Kingdom comes on earth, just like in heaven. And we know the way, Lord, we know the way! Jesus shows us the power of sacred location and love for our neighbors.

I’m beginning to think we have all the information we need to turn down the volume on the world’s limitations and tune into sacred wisdom from heaven, showing us the way and what’s possible in this world God loves. 

Keep rooted to these sacred places with the heart and mind of Jesus, who is still near and still working through you to welcome the whole world home.