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A sweet memory from 2008…

I’m so very excited today! My grandson Ryan is here for a visit. Six years old, going on thirty! Wise beyond his years. Smart as a whip. Multi-talented. A comedian. And a negotiator, too. When Ryan misbehaves and his parents tell him to go to his room, he says, “Well, I suppose I could go to my room…or, maybe I could just go downstairs and watch TV very quietly.”

That Ryan is really something else!

Ryan and I have a little musical ensemble called the “Ryan and Papa Marty Crazy-Boy Band”. He plays the drums, and I play any household item that happens to be available, and we sing and dance and act crazy to songs like “Hava Nagila” and “Down in the Meadow Where the Itty-Bitty Boop.”

So this is going to be an awesome week with Ryan here! I just know it!

Oh, and did I mention that his parents are here, too?

Seriously, Ryan is blessed to have the parents he has – our daughter-in-law Melissa and our son Peter. Some of you know that Ryan was a preemie baby, weighing in at just 3-pounds. He was in the Newborn ICU for about 45-days after birth and during that time, we saw Peter and Melissa transformed before our eyes into wonderful parents. All of a sudden, their whole lives revolved around helping their tiny son survive, and it was amazing to see them operate, especially considering that Melissa was so sick from the pregnancy, and yet, there she was cradling her little baby. And Pete had to care for both his wife and his child. They are terrific parents whose hands daily guide their son into his growth as a person. And what a great person Ryan is already, at 6-years of age.

I wonder what would happen in the religious world if we stopped seeing God as an outside-the-world Deity keeping track of all our rights and wrongs. What if we started seeing God as a mother and father caring for their little children – like Pete and Melissa care for their child – brooding over us, rallying care to us, rocking us to sleep at night and singing a gentle lullaby? What would happen if we thought of God that way?

Strangely, if you read through the Bible, the image of God as parent is the most common description of all. Most often, God is called our Father although God describes himself in the Bible with “mother” images too, and I don’t think God would be offended if we also embraced that. The most important thing is that we see God for who God is – our Parent in whose strong, gentle, loving hands our lives are nurtured and sustained.

Trouble is that this wonderful God (who looks an awful lot like Pete and Melissa caring for their boy Ryan) has been snatched away and turned into a distant, fearsome Judge who doesn’t like us very much and who does not so much send us to our room to think things over when we misstep as he sends us to hell – to burn – in the fire – forever.

I can’t imagine Pete and Melissa doing that to their child. Can you imagine doing it to yours?

In our scripture lesson from John 14, we are confronted with this very question about what God is really like. Is God the ruthless critic of humankind, much more aware of our sins than our strengths? Or is God the loving parent of humanity? Whether you realize it or not, this is perhaps the most fundamental question of faith, and in this passage of scripture, Jesus hones in on it.

John 14 is all about God as a loving Parent. Listen to Jesus in the 6th verse:

“I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the…Father… but by me.”

These words of John 14:6 are probably the most misused and abused words in all of scripture. Lifted completely out of context, many Christians use these words to prove that everybody else in the world is going to hell but them. Unless you believe in Jesus, there is no hope for you. So that pretty much rules out all the Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, agnostics, atheists, animists, and even any brands of Christianity that don’t agree with our particular slant on things. And, I don’t know if you realize this or not, but this interpretation excludes the vast majority of people who have ever lived because most have never even heard the name Jesus let alone believed in him.

But, that’s not what the passage says.

In fact, the word “believe” does not even show up in John 14:6. We THINK it does. But it doesn’t.

The 14th chapter of John is not about believing, but about MEETING – meeting a God who is far different than the god we used to know.

John 14 is about a Father.

It begins with Jesus – just before his death – assuring his disciples that everything will be okay. He’s going home to God, and while that seems to be a very sad thing, its really not. Jesus says that heaven is different than anything we’ve ever imagined! Its not a place of clouds. Its not like a great big cathedral. And its definitely not like a dry county where they don’t serve beer.

No, Jesus says heaven is like your Mom and Dad’s house!

“In my Father’s house, are many rooms!”

Can you picture it? Heaven is like a really big house with a whole lot of rooms. Then he says,

“I’m going there to prepare one of those rooms for you, and when its ready and the time is right, I’ll come and take you to it.”

Do you remember when a new child was expected in your family and all the effort that was put into getting the room ready? Everything was so important to be just right – the color of the walls, the crib, the pictures, the little footballs, and dolls, and cuddly toys.


“I’m going to the Father’s house to get YOUR room ready. And when the time is right, I’ll come and take you to it.”

The late great preacher Peter Marshall saw in these words of Jesus a very hopeful and comforting description of what death may be like. He found in this passage the image of a sleeping child being carried to her room.

One of the life experiences we human beings do not and cannot remember is falling asleep. We may be aware that we are very tired, but people do not ever remember falling asleep. Look at the person next to you who’s sleeping through this sermon. Give them a poke and ask them if they remember falling asleep! They won’t! Falling asleep is something humans can’t remember.

Do you recall what used to happen when you were little and you fell asleep during the drive home from your grandparents’ house?

You don’t remember falling asleep. What you do remember is – what?

Waking up!

And where did you wake up?

In your own bed. In your own room. Surrounded by familiar sights, sounds, smells, and people’s voices!

And how did you get to your room?

You were carried there.

In the arms of a loving parent.

“I’m going to get your room ready” Jesus said, “and when the time is right, I’ll come back to get you and carry you there.”

I love that image – heaven as a great big house with rooms for all of us – and filled with family and friends and familiarity!

That’s quite a different idea of heaven, isn’t it?

And notice what Jesus said about whose house this is.

It’s our FATHER’S house.

I think the disciples must have been stunned by this idea!

Here, in John 14, Jesus is dismantling the idea of God as some distant Deity sitting on a mountaintop somewhere, looking for us to slip up, and always ready to send a flood, or a tornado, or an illness our way to punish us for our sins. This is not a picture of God sitting outside the world with his hand on the red button of destruction.

No, this is a God who is a loving Parent with a house big enough for all God’s children.

So the disciple Thomas asks the obvious question, “How can we get there? How can we get to the Father’s house?”

And that’s when Jesus says those famous words that have been so misused and abused.

“I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the…Father… but by me.”

There is nothing for you to believe in these words. Nothing for you to do. Jesus is not giving us a commandment about something to believe or something to do. He is simply stating a fact. And here it is the wonderful fact:

When it comes to carrying the children to their rooms in the Father’s house,

Jesus is the one who does the heavy lifting,

Jesus is the one who prepares the rooms,

and then at just the right time,

Jesus is the one who carries the children.

Jesus is the one who brings us to the house, and to our room, and to the Father who loves us.

Amy Jill Levine over at Vanderbilt Divinity School puts it right when she points out that you and I do not determine who gets into the Father’s house.

Only Jesus can do that.

Then the disciple Philip pipes up and says, “Well, just show us this Father and we’ll believe!”

And Jesus says, “Philip, look at me and you’ll see the Father.”

You know, a lot of people know about God only through the filter of what others have told them, or through their experience with a church, or through the teachings of a religion, or what they have concocted in their own imagination.

But here, Jesus is asking us to see God through him – through his Way, through his Truth, and through his Life.

Look at Jesus and you’ll see the Father…

…taking care of His children – tax collectors, sinners, doubting Thomases, the unloved and unwelcomed, moms and dads with sick children, rich people, poor people, ordinary folks just trying to make it in this world – Jews, Samaritans, Gentiles, even magi from the East. When you look at Jesus, you see the Father at work loving His children!

So our passage begins with Jesus telling us about our Father’s house. And then we learn that Jesus is the one who gets to decide who to bring to the Father’s house. And third, we discover that Jesus himself is the image of the Father, and that he opens his arms to EVERYONE!

And then, Jesus tells us what it means to have faith in him.

In verse 12 Jesus says, “Anyone who has faith in me, will go and do what I’ve been doing.”

Open your arms to the world! Open your heart to love everyone! Open your hands to take the hand of others and walk with them through this world! Open your mind to grasp the largeness of God’s grace and God’s good will toward ALL God’s children! Open your faith to embrace a God who is like Ryan’s parents, doting over their son, never thinking anything but good toward him, and using discipline not to punish but to teach and to grow.

Our Father has a house that’s full of rooms!

Isn’t that great news?

There’s a room for every last one of us!

And Jesus is in charge of getting us there!

And all we are asked to do is to proclaim that message in word and deed.

The words of Psalm 31 are good words to carry with us as we leave here today.

“My times are in God’s hands.”

I think those words beautifully reflect what Jesus said:

“In my Father’s house are many rooms. I’m going there to prepare a place for you. And when the time is right, I’ll come and carry you home.”