Jesus presents many different possibilities for a preacher in these few short verses. But what I find myself most drawn to are his references to his Father’s house where there are many dwelling places, and how he is going there to prepare a place for us. In other words, Jesus is talking about “home, sweet home.”

Speaking of home, these past six months have been quite bizarre for me, when I have essentially been living out of a suitcase as I’ve accompanied my son on the odyssey of his recovery from his stroke last October. Any sense of home I’ve had for half a year has not been geographically oriented.

I’ve been gone long enough that New York City, my home for 18 years, no longer feels like home. I still have my apartment there, but it’s basically self-storage at this point for all my worldly belongings.

I don’t yet live in Arlington, even though I’ve officially been your pastor for over a month now, and I’ve been daydreaming about how the parsonage will become home for me.

I’ve been in Phoenix all this time, living amicably in the home of my former wife, but with the knowledge that my being here is a temporary arrangement, a holding pattern.

In short, I am longing for a place to call home! [And I am glad that I am scheduled to fly to DC to take up residence with you all in Arlington on May 12! At last, thanks be to God!] If you count my six months in Arizona, I’ve lived in eight states so far – the Commonwealth of Virginia, then, will be my ninth state of residence in my lifetime. This adds up to a lot of hometowns for me in my 58 years.

Meanwhile, I think of you in your circumstances. Sheltering at home, places where you’ve lived perhaps for years or decades, may feel very different for you. You may be longing finally to get out of the house. You may want to see the wider world more regularly than a weekly visit to the grocery store, brief visits which allow you to stay home still more.

In whatever our circumstances, “home” is a powerful, beautiful, but sometimes fraught theme for human beings. A house might not necessarily be the equivalent of home. That is, the places where you live may not always feel like home to you. You may feel more at home elsewhere than the place where you spend most of your time.

Jesus said, “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.” (John 14:2-3)

When Jesus says this kind of thing, it’s clear he’s not talking about a house made of stone or wood or some other material that we associate with our domestic dwelling places. After all, Jesus tells us elsewhere that “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” (Matthew 8:20) In other words, Jesus has no specific, geographic place to call home.

The saying of Jesus about his Father’s house having many dwelling places, or mansions, has provoked the imagination of Christian thinkers, writers, and mystics for two thousand years.

Inspired by this passage, Teresa of Avila, the16th Century Spanish mystic, wrote about the Interior Castle, the dwelling places or mansions of which denote stages of the spiritual journey that lead to greater union with God.

In my own explorations with the psychological field over the years, I’ve discovered the fascinating archaeology of my own inner life in which the distinct eras of my decades are kind of stacked one on the other. It’s compelling to seek to plumb the depths of this inner reality, where memories and experiences are often stored up in different parts of my body.

Human consciousness, with its levels of awareness – subconscious, preconscious, and conscious awareness – makes for an incredible universe within us.

In our busy world, we tend not to spend much time and energy on our inner life – to our peril, I would say. But it is this inner world that Jesus in John’s Gospel explores in depth and with great intimacy.

Are we at home with ourselves? In ourselves? Sometimes the busyness and the noise of our lives serve to distract ourselves from the voices and energies of our inner life which clamor for attention, because we don’t actually feel at home with what’s going on inside.

But think of the truism, “Home is where the heart is.” And what is the heart but the inner core of our most profound identity, an identity ultimately grounded in being a child of God, created in the divine image. That’s nothing we need to fear! Quite the contrary.

Theologically and spiritually-speaking, home is not so much a place as it is a state of being, a quality of presence wherever we happen to find ourselves. So it is that I’ve been able to feel at home in each of the many different geographies where I’ve lived in my life. Here’s the crucial thing that might put us at greater ease with our inner world: It is precisely when we discover, or are discovered by, this sense of “at homeness” in ourselves that we realize that our hearts are no longer troubled. In short, being at home with ourselves calms our troubled waters.

How do we access this sense of home that can be found in each of us? For Lutheran Christians, and for the Counter-Reformation Catholic, Teresa of Avila, for that matter, the access centers on the means of grace, dwelling with God’s word, living our lives in close proximity to the sacramental life of the church, accompanied by holy conversations with other persons of faith – these are the reliable ways to find our way home through the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

It’s not about navel gazing or a kind of spiritual athleticism at all, or pursuing mountaintop mystical experiences. Rather, it’s doing the basics of the Christian life, the activities we all do together, and to do it prayerfully. When we live close to the means of grace in the Christian basics, and slow down and breathe and are still long enough to listen, that’s when our fears tend to dissipate and we find ourselves reconnected with the peace which passes all understanding, that is, the peace of Christ. Yes, Christ is ever present beneath the terrors of our wildest imaginations.

Here’s another comforting thing for those who are scared of being alone: finding our way home to our inner realities is not a solitary activity. The paradox is that we often find our deepest selves in the company of other people. Which is to say, Christian spirituality at its best is all about community, our connection to each other even when we are apart.

Perhaps the most profound discovery is that being at home means that we are grounded in the Trinitarian family life of God, made possible by Word and Sacrament in Christian community. I believe that Jesus is pointing to this Trinitarian familiarity in his mind-bending teaching in today’s Gospel, where he says: “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…. Whoever has seen me has seen the Father… 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.” (John 14:6-10)

Here, Jesus speaks of the intimate interdependent relationship he has with the God whom he calls Father, Abba, daddy. Sounds like home doesn’t it? Elsewhere in John’s Gospel, Jesus explores in some great detail the work of the Holy Spirit, who is imparted when Jesus, the Son, breathes on his disciples after the resurrection, the very Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son who has been guiding us into all truth for all these centuries. There’s still more good news for a world that desperately needs it: our homing participation in the Trinitarian life of God is not a passive state. It doesn’t stay in individual interiority, or even within confines of our congregations, nor is it reserved for some future reality. No, not at all. The eternal life with God that Jesus talks about in John’s Gospel is now, and it is active, generative. It bears the fruit of good works. Again, as Jesus said, “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.” (John 14:12) Through our good works done in faith in thanksgiving for God’s gracious home-coming welcome to us, works undertaken through the generative creativity of the Holy Spirit, a needy, broken world benefits in healing ways.

So, in conclusion, when it’s all said and done, “Do not let your hearts be troubled,” for God, who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, dwells in you and amongst us in community. That is the fundamental reality that none of our current troubles in life and in death can alter. The means of grace, basic Christian practices, are gateways that allow us to see, to know, and to experience this reality.

Now I invite you to slow down, breathe, and be still, in order to listen, dwell with, and to stand firm in this good news.

In fact, you may even want to take a few minutes in quiet now to abide with an awareness of the unshakable, foundational reality of our Trinitarian God within and among us. That will quiet your troubled hearts.

For Christ is risen. Christ is risen indeed. Alleluia. Amen.