Is Jesus the once and future real estate agent?
by Tripp Hudgins
Gospel Reading: John 14:1-14
For Sunday, May 22, 2011: Year A - Easter 5
How spacious is the Father's house? Is everyone really invited? Rob Bell famously and recently took it on the chin for even opening that question up to the rest of us who are in the Church. It is a living question about universalism, salvation, and God's love. We suffer from a shortage of imagination, I think, when it comes to imagining God's house being large enough for all. We suffer from our own culture of scarcity in the Church, spending physical and spiritual resources on ourselves when we should be making room for all.
Available Real Estate
This is part of John's Last Supper narrative. More lengthy than the other versions, John attempts to share more of Jesus' mind with us through his conversation with the disciples. Judas has already left to go get the authorities. Peter has been told that he will deny Christ three times. Now we have Jesus trying (once again) to explain where he's going and why. He first describes the real estate available to everyone. Everyone is going to God's house. Of course, Thomas has to ask the First Century's version of [TheHardestQuestion], “How can we know the way?” You can always count on Thomas. Jesus responds with this well known verse: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.”
"I'm Coming Back"
I usually read this verse at funerals. It's all about the afterlife. Jesus is preparing a heavenly place for everyone. Sometimes I think we've back-ended the afterlife into this passage. We know Jesus is going to die. We know that the apocalyptic pronouncement of “I'm coming back” should have us quaking in our boots and wondering if we'll indeed be ready. I cannot get through this verse without making some list and hoping no one slipped anything into my bread and wine causing Satan to enter into me in some way. “The Devil made me do it” really doesn't hold up like it used to.
A Recognizable Place
But when we read Revelation and take Jesus' worldly ministry seriously, I see that the Kingdom of God is here, now, with us, always lighting the way to God. It's not some netherworld that we cannot reach without magical map making from the Messiah. Jesus is the map. His life, his very fleshy and challenging life is the way to the dwelling that we each have in God's house, in this City of God.
House. City. Land. Kingdom. No matter what the metaphor, we know it's a place, a recognizable place. The trouble is that our relationships with these places are often so polluted that, like Thomas, we cannot even begin to imagine that God's dwelling might actually be a house, a city, a land, or a kingdom. And most of us cannot imagine that there's room for everyone.
According to Juliet B. Schor's book, Plenitude, in 1980 the average square footage of a home in the United States was 1,740 sq. ft. By 2000, that number had increased to 2,521 sq. ft. with 95% of those homes having two or more baths, 90% with air conditioning, and 19% with three car garages (p. 45). The desire for more space places impossible demands upon our natural resources, and as we recently discovered, our bank accounts. Surprisingly, Schor connects this inflation of square footage with a culture of scarcity.
The Hardest Question
Is there really enough room for all or is there a mortgage crisis in the City of God? Is God's house in foreclosure?
Tripp Hudgins is baptimonastic, mandolin-playing Jesus enthusiast, a preaching pastor, baptist cantor, liturgist, ecumenist, writer of articles, tangentist, and husband. He is the pastor of The Community Church of Wilmette in Wilmette, IL, a suburb of Chicago. His blog can be found at www.anglobaptist.org and he tweets as @anglobaptist.
