John 14:1-4 (NRSV)
[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.”

Ikkyu
Many paths lead from the foot of the mountain, but at the peak we all gaze at the single bright moon.

Progressive Christians like us tend to read the Bible with an eye toward historical-critical scholarship and metaphor. This passage from The Gospel of John makes the need for that lens painfully obvious.

If we read John 14 literally, we reduce Jesus to a cosmic hotel hospitality worker, busily preparing a room for us at the Holiday Inn Heaven. That chore accomplished, he then powers up the quantum limo and comes to escort us to our new eternal home, even though he just told us we know the way and, in fact, are already there.

Worse, and in typical Capitalist fashion, Jesus’ daddy, God, owns Heavenly Resorts, Inc., so in the ultimate insult to Jesus’ humility, this reading also turns him into a spoiled little rich heir to a reality-controlling dynasty, even if he is currently doing some light housekeeping.

The original hearers of this story would have understood Jesus’ speech (often called his “Farewell Discourse”) very differently. For them, this isn’t a story about a heavenly afterlife reward for being a good follower of Jesus. It is a metaphor about God’s spiritual inventiveness and the need for acceptance of human religious diversity.

A late First Century, CE listener, especially one in the community of John where this text was developed, would have heard a speech about God’s unconditional acceptance and love for God’s people regardless of religion.

You know the way to the place I am going, Jesus said.

And where is Jesus going? Well, where he already is, directly to God. Only, Jesus is going a new way and showing his followers a new path to God—still Jewish, but different. It’s simultaneously a reminder of the Exodus, when God travelled with the people, and a new interpretation of God’s presence as not merely with the people, but within the people.

Jesus teaches that there is no physical journey to take, to God, in this life or the next, because God dwells within us 24/7. There is no getting rid of God because God is the fabric of our being. Jesus doesn’t have to pick us up and move us into a spare room in God’s house after we die because we are living in God’s house right now. We are God’s house. And this I mean quite literally. God is our animating force. Which is why Jesus quickly reminds us that wherever he is, we are there also, if only we’d stop being so literal about where “there” is.

We always dwell in God. We are enfolded in and by God’s love all the time. Finding our way to that peace requires inventiveness and a mind open to new religious thoughts. Movement toward a more personal relationship with God requires us to scan religious ideas the way we scan TV channels. It’s okay if we only stay on a channel for 30 seconds. Click around until you find a channel that speaks to you. Stay for as long as it makes sense. Feel free to click around the God Channels.

We have a difficult time giving ourselves permission to click around the God channels, though. Typically, someone has told us that one of the various isms that provide guidance for our many spiritual journeys is the only true ism, so we should stayaway from all those others. In part, this is because many of us have been told those other channels lead awayfrom God. There’s only one channel telling the truth, of course, and it’s usually the channel our parents grew up with, or that our culture insists we follow, usually too literally.

I’ve heard religious people proclaim the most hurtful, ridiculous things about other religions because they’ve fallen into—or been indoctrinated into—the trap of “my religion is right and yours is wrong.” This is a very dangerous mindset, the kind that led people to reject Jesus and other brilliant, forward-thinking prophets. It’s the mindset that leads people to commit horrendous atrocities like holocausts and lynching in the name of God.

The idea that there are many paths to God—and that Jesus teaches and represents a new one—was important to the Johannine community. They had been excommunicated from their Jewish brothers and sisters for calling Jesus “Messiah.”  It’s important to note that the word “Messiah” did not mean then what it means to Christians today. “Messiah” was an honorific used by the Jewish people many times before Jesus for both ordinary heroes and heads of state—both domestic and foreign.

In the most traditional sense, a messiah delivers people from captivity. Moses led the people from Egyptian slavery. Jesus continues to deliver us from the root cause of slavery, and every other human ill: Intolerance. And in this passage of John, Jesus delivers us from religious intolerance.

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We have the privilege of living in a society that allows us to not only be Christian, but also to critique Christianity. This was not the case for Jesus’ first followers. Believing Jesus was not only a, but the Messiah, bitterly divided families. Brothers and sisters moved miles away from one another, physically and spiritually. Traditions changed. Much of John’s gospel is spent reconciling and accepting the idea that they are now on a different path to God, and that’s okay. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.

In my father’s house are many dwelling places.
Jesus’ speech is an incredibly clever metaphor about religious diversity. Most likely, the authors were commenting on the rifts in Judaism that were creating many unique sects in the early First Century, CE. Some of these sects would go on to become new religions like Christianity.

Jesus must have been aware of his own unorthodoxy. The Jewish leadership was always trying to trip him up theologically, sociologically, economically—in whatever way they could think of until they finally gave up and bribed someone to turn him in for crimes against the state. The system only fights back that viciously when it knows its position is untenable.

It was that same system—mired in tradition, lost in meaningless ritual—that was fighting communities like John’s, too. Yet still, mired in the heartbreak of breakup, they discovered a new dwelling place for God (or, more specifically, they became aware of a dwelling place that had always existed) and the ability to see God within the plethora of religions that exist today, each a path to Oneness.

Jesus goes to prepare a place for his followers with the clear implication it is a place, not the place. Jesus’ is one of manyeternal dwelling places in a God who inspires followers calling themselves many things: Jew, Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist.

Today as we awaken to God’s invasive, all-encompassing presence, we discover God in the bittersweet melodies of birdsongs, salty ocean breezes., mountaintops, malls, and online meetings.

God fills our senses here and now, wherever we are, because in God there are many dwelling places. So many, that God is almost impossible to miss.

Amen.