The Home Inside Us - John 14:23-29

A while back, my wife and I were walking the dog around the neighborhood, and she made the comment, "Boy, it seems like everyone is having something done to their house."  No matter where you look, it just seemed like almost everyone had some kind of van parked outside their house delivering something or providing some home improvement.
 
Giving further thought to it, I think that there are reasons to believe that as a rule, we as a people are growing more and more preoccupied with our homes in this Extreme Home Makeover era.  It’s been said that we have gone from simply cocooning in our homes to burrowing into them, effectively shutting out the world to a large extent.  For many of us who this weekend have been working out in our yards, we may have spent time reintroducing ourselves to our neighbors who we hadn’t seen since the weather changed in the fall of last year.
 
How many of us can remember the old days, when the kids were out playing in the neighborhood streets until 9 o'clock at night when the street lights came on?  I remember many a summer evening as a kid, hanging out with neighbors, visiting especially with an elderly lady across the street who was always out on her front porch, entertaining fellow neighbors, just chattin’ on her porch swing.  Her name was Wilma. The only Wilma I’ve ever known, other than Fred’s wife (Fred Flintstone). Wilma was always so inviting and pleasant, and was an extra set of eyes watching over us kids playing in the street.
 
But times have changed. Commercials tell us to "Decorate your home!   Invest in your home!  Make it the home of your dreams!  These days, our homes give us a sense of security.  They reveal who we are, and who we want to be.  We own our homes and they own us.
 
Our preoccupation with our homes, the place where we dwell, makes for an interesting discussion, but let’s take a step back from that for a second. There's more to life than the dwelling that we happen to live in.
 
What if we re-engineer our thinking for a moment to consider a different angle to home ownership?  Jesus says today, "Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him."  Can we consider for a moment, ourselves, each one of us, as a dwelling place, as a home?
 
Our home is not only the four walls around us.  There is also a home inside each of us. We can choose to be aware of this home inside us, and manage it well, or we may neglect this home, remain absent from it or fill it with stuff that is of no value. The condition of the home inside us is much more important than the building that we happen to live in.
 
One reason the home inside us is so important is that here is where God desires to be our guest.  The promise Jesus makes at the Last Supper that I just recited suggests God is competing heavily, every day, to be, not just on our guest list, but a permanent resident.
 
Unfortunately, the home inside us, may be filled from floor-to-ceiling, cluttered by all kinds of undesirable stuff that we’ve collected since we were kids. We may have started out as an empty vessel, but we've added our preoccupations, things that we are attached to, and our resentments- all those things that crowd the space where God would be.  The home inside us has become loaded with... ourselves.
 
Christian author, John Ortberg explained this unbridled preoccupation we have with ourselves by drawing this comparison to little children. He said it this way: “The very first word a child learns is NO, and the second word is MINE (unfortunately they seem to learn “mine” before they learn “yes”). So even from an early age, kids are beginning to establish their own little kingdoms. As they grow up and sit side-by-side in the car, they clearly decide what’s theirs and practically draw an imaginary line down the center of the backseat.
 
How dead on was that comment? I can remember my only sibling, my little sister and I having that very same skirmish going on: We’d say, “Don’t you dare come over here, this is my ‘propedy”
 
Ortberg continues, “When one kid crosses that line in the back seat, they start fighting and protecting their turf, don’t they?…until dad suddenly slams on the brakes. As both the kid’s heads wrench forward, practically hitting the back of the seat in front of them, their father powers up and asserts that this is his car and he will turn it around if they don’t start behaving. Now they are subject to his kingdom, right?  
 
Unfortunately, by this time, dad is totally stressed out, stomps on the gas pedal and start speeding down the road… until he hears a siren. Without warning, his life becomes subject to another kingdom: that of a police officer, who has been given authority to enforce the laws of the land.
 
Isn’t this how the world works – one turf war after another? And it’s why we always feel the need to protect what’s ours- to own, to fight and to defend our turf, our home inside us.
 
Living the Christian life however is more of an exercise in clearing out than in adding on, in emptying rather than accumulating. We're called upon to fight our temptation and preoccupation with things and consumption.  
 
We see that true humility is only possible when we understand that blessed are the empty: when we make Jesus welcome in the home inside us, to dwell in us, and bring the peace that the Gospel promises.
 
Emptying, then, is saying to God, “not my kingdom , but Your Kingdom , not my will, but Your will, not my church or pew, but Your church or pew, not my propedy, but Your propedy!”
 
We are encouraged today to surrender what we think is our “right” to enforce our kingdom inside His Kingdom. Recall the situations where we’re trying to control processes and outcomes unnecessarily. I know that I’ve got to be amongst the worst at that.
 
I don’t know about you but, sometimes I wonder how much time I’ve squandered in my life formulating in my mind, while away from the workplace, how I’m going to effectively “protect my turf” when I return to work the next business day. Perhaps some of us may have been spending time today, here a Mass, doing that very thing.
 
Jesus constantly tells us, as he does again in today’s Gospel, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” Said in another way, “Accept what is, let go of what was, and have faith in what will be.”
 
So, in the week ahead, let's think about doing a home inventory, and if necessary, a home makeover.  Maybe we need some plumbing done on our physical house, windows repaired, shingles replaced, mulching done outside.  But maybe what we need more than those things is to do a spring cleaning on the home inside us.  Are there some relationships that need mended?  Do we need to prune some sinful habits?  Do we need to put out a new welcome mat? 
 
Christ invites us today to be like my old neighbor lady Wilma who put herself out there, on her swing, welcoming all visitors, accepting all comers.  We accept that invitation to be like her because we know that each one of those visitors to our porch represents Christ.
 
God desires our company, our companionship, our kindness.  We don't get points for what we've done as much as... who we are.  Better yet, whose we are.
 
So, let us pray today that God will continue his work in us, to make each of us a more worthy dwelling place, and that with him residing in us, we will be able to experience his peace, his joy, and ultimately, his kingdom.
 
Amen!