GOD BEING AT HOME WITH US

If you know you are going to die what do you say to those you love. You do not beat about the bush. Time is too short for that. You want to hit the key points.

Read the four chapters yourself, but not quickly. The way Jesus speaks in this last speech has a way of breaking through and making us think again and think deeply. Take these words for instance. “If anyone loves me he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we shall come to him and make our home with him.”

The Father and the Son want to come and be at home with us. This is not are we at home with God? This is God wanting to be at home with us. And not just being at home with us, but making a home with us. I find this an amazing statement: God wants to make a home with us. This is not some forced occupation. This is not squatters moving into an abandoned dwelling and living there. This is God making a home with us.

We are all well aware of the difference between a house and a home. A house is a dwelling made by builders with whatever features its owners want. It becomes a home when the people who move into it make it that. At home we can be ourselves without fuss or pretence. There is a sense of comfort and easiness. At home we are challenged, nurtured, welcomed, valued, loved, cared for. We belong. Those in our home know us and still value us.

God makes a home with us by letting us see up close and personal who the divine self is. God makes this home with us by valuing us, being interested in us, making room for us, not giving up on us when we deliberately speak rudely and abrasively, act selfishly. Matters will be talked through not swept under the carpet and we shall grow.

Jesus knew he was going to die. He wanted us to know that this is what God had planned to do for us: make a home with us. Today, sit down with God, not in the all powerful, thunder and lightning mode, but as one who washes our feet when we are foot sore and grubby, sets a meal for when we are hungry, talks to us when we feel no one is interested.

Fr Adrian Farrelly