Today’s gospel reading (John 14: 1-14) comes right after the long discourse in which Jesus tells his disciples some bad news: one of them will betray him. Jesus will be leaving them soon. Peter will deny him three times. In today’s reading, Jesus is reassuring the disciples that they will be all right and will be with him in the end. He also tells them that after he leaves, it will be up to them to do his work. As usual, they have a little trouble understanding what he says.
Imagine what they must have been feeling. Most of us, at some point, maybe several times in our lives, have made the transition from student or trainee to doing a job without constant supervision. It’s often a little scary, but imagine your teacher is Jesus and the job is bringing people to God. And maybe you hadn’t quite grasped that someday it would be your job.
Now he’s telling them that he’s leaving, but he’ll be back for them. Who wouldn’t be confused?
Jesus promises that he will prepare rooms, or dwelling places for his disciples in his Father’s house. We hear these verses often at memorial services, so it’s easy to imagine that he’s talking about personal luxury suites in the afterlife. But Jesus isn’t usually that literal, is he?
So what are those places? I was a literature major, and I’m capable of squeezing every drop of blood out of a metaphor. My favorite translation is “rooms”. A room is a contained space, can be large or small, might have a single purpose or many…. Well, you get the idea. What are the rooms that Jesus is preparing for his disciples, and by extension, for us?
My best guess is that the phrase points to the places in ourselves where faith dwells.
For me, that place feels like a room. The door is always open, in the sense that I believe I’m on the right path by trying to follow Jesus. But most of the time I don’t quite feel that I can get all the way in, to the space where I trust that I’m truly walking with Jesus.
This uncertainty reminds me of a line from the movie, “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”? It’s about some British senior citizens who answer an ad for a retirement hotel in India. When they arrive, they find it’s not quite the luxurious place they were promised. The owner tells them not to worry, because everything will be all right in the end. And if it’s not all right, it’s not the end.
I actually think that’s a pretty good philosophy. The trouble is, we’re not in a movie, where there will be a few tears and some laughs, and everything will be resolved in a couple of hours.
We’re in a real world where things are not all right at all. Even if we have enough faith to believe that it will get better, we can’t help feeling angry about what’s happening and fearful about what might happen next. I can’t help wondering, when will everything be all right?
Friday evening, I had a conversation with a neighbor who was justifying her failure to get to the demonstration that afternoon by the fact that it wouldn’t do any good, because the government doesn’t care what we do, it would just have been to make herself feel good.
I’ve thought a lot about that conversation. I wondered why I seem to feel less discouraged than she does.
And I realize, for me, it all comes back to faith. I really do believe that a better world is possible, and I feel a responsibility to do whatever I can, however small, to bring it about. Not to be silent in the face of evil. And I believe that if enough of us are out there, they’re going to have to start listening.
I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have the faith and the commitment to do it without the support of this community. This is the room where our collective faith dwells.
We know what happened to the disciples after their final meeting with Jesus. They did, in fact, do the work of Jesus. As we try to do, in the hope that everything will be all right in the end.
