Sermon Text for May 8-9, 2010

Easter 6C
John 14:23-29
Salem Lutheran Church
Sycamore, Illinois

Jesus says today, "Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them."  (John 14:23)
In this season as all of our schools are making the final countdown to the end and as our seniors stand on the threshold of something new, especially as we honor our own graduates this week-end, I find myself remembering my own high school graduation. As I recall, it was a beautiful spring night and the festivities were held outdoors on the football field. After the speeches, the handing out of diplomas, the hand shaking with the dignitaries. After singing the school song and throwing our caps in the air in a tradition that doesn't ever seem to die, I found myself alone standing on the corner waiting for my ride.  Hoping I wouldn't be forgotten in that time before cell phones and when many families got by with just one car.  It was a good night, as I remember it, but in some ways, felt long over due.  For you see, I had known for some time where college would be for me, and I think I had already started to move on. They called it Senioritis back then.  I don't know if that's what they still call it today, but I think it's something young people still experience.  That sense of still being in one place, but itching to be somewhere else.  That restlessness which is a mixed up combination of hope and fear for what is to come next.  I had been feeling that for months, but it was that night alone on a corner by the football field in Rochelle when I sensed something new: a flash of understanding that it wouldn't be the same after this.  That what had been home, wouldn't still be home, at least not in the ways I had experienced it for the last 18 years.
Parents and children both can attest to the truth of this. Whether they stay nearby or try their wings in new places right away, it all changes somehow.  And we find ourselves hopeful and fearful all at the same time.  It may all be very good, but it may leave you feeling a little wistful, too.  For the passing of time and all the changes that come somehow do have us yearning for home --- sometimes even before we've fully left it.
Jesus and his disciples are in the midst of a conversation about that right now.  This time it's not the disciples who are about to leave.  Rather, Jesus is on the verge of leaving them.  And like any teacher, perhaps like most any parent, he's telling those closest to him to remember what they've been taught.  And then he makes promises about the protection that will still be theirs.  About he and the Father somehow making a home with them.  About the Holy Spirit who will always be with them, with us, to comfort, to teach, to guide…
It happens all the time here as well, although in ways quite a bit less remarkable than what Jesus points to today.  Still, even now in this life among us, home tends to get redefined.  It moves, we move, or it follows us.  Or we make it in new ways.  For me?  That 'home', that connection, that protection came in this way.  My folks arranged for the one night each week when we would agree to talk on the phone. And then my mom proceeded to write to me every day.  In those days before e-mail, she sat down every single day of my freshman year of college and wrote me a letter.
Now I have to say, those letters weren't all that exciting.  Still they kept me connected.  They held everyday tidbits of information about what was going on at home. They might offer some bit of encouragement for a paper or big test that was coming up.  And once a week or so, she would tuck in a check so I'd have some extra spending money.  She said she remembered her mother writing to her brothers every day when they were in the service.  Only I wasn't on some far distant battlefield.  I was on a college campus in Iowa.  Still, she was going to make sure that home made its way to me.
A few years ago, I read in my college magazine that those old mailboxes were for sale.  I still remembered the number and as you can see, I bought it.  I keep it nearby as a reminder that home may not look like home always did. But home can still make its way to you.
In even more amazing ways, this is also true in Jesus' promises today.  Only its not letters from home he promises those disciples, it is the Holy Spirit: whose presence assures them that no matter how far away they get, they will never be alone.  Whose presence promises them that no matter how lonely or frightening or uncertain it may feel sometimes, God will be right there with them in it. Whose presence assures them and us, that we can't go any where, we can't do anything, that will put us out of reach of God's love.
That is a word for all graduates this spring…. For all of us as we move from one season of life to the next… Whether you are donning cap and gown or not.  Whether we feel 'at home' in the world where we are right now or not, the promise is that God is yearning to make a home with you.  To make you safe when you feel afraid. To wipe away your tears when sadness overflows.  To fill you up when you are empty.  To remind you that you do belong even when you feel out of place.  God is yearning to make a home with you and to see that reflected in how you make a home for others in this world.
This is a word for all graduates this spring… for each and every one of us, to be sure, but my hope today is that it will be heard most especially by those who do put on cap and gown, whose moms and dads and grandmas and grandpas and neighbors and friends are bursting with pride and hope and maybe a little sadness and fear, too.  This is a word for all of you. God will make a home with you.  God will always make a home with you.  And you will be given all that you need as you seek to be the person God has made you to be.  And as you seek to show and share with others these gifts of God that you've already known.  Amen.