Christ the King Epiphany Church, Wilbraham

The Rev. Martha S. Sipe

May 3, 2026 / Fifth Sunday after Easter

John 14:1-14

Near the end of the classic 1939 film The Wizard of Oz, after her many adventures with her friends on the road, Dorothy Gale wants to go home.  So Glinda, the good witch, waves her sparkly, star-topped magic wand, instructing Dorothy to click her ruby red shoes together three times, while thinking to herself, “There’s no place like home.”  In the film, we then see Dorothy obediently repeating over and over again the witch’s words.  Dorothy’s face fades from the screen, replaced by spiraling lines and then a spiraling house falling down from the sky, and we’re back in Auntie Em and Uncle Henry’s modest Kansas house.   Dorothy is overjoyed to be back in the place where she had formerly been so discontent.  Her fantasy journey has helped her to learn a very real truth:  There’s no place like home.

But what is home?  Is it the place where you grew up?  Or the place where you lived the longest?  Is it the house, the apartment, the condo where you currently reside?  Is home even a place at all?  We know instinctively that it couldn’t have been the place to which Dorothy was so keen to return.  A Depression era house on the Kansas plains could never compete with the technicolor marvel of Oz.  But what Dorothy was homesick for was, of course, the people.  The family and friends.  The relationships. 

When we read the beginning of the 14th chapter of John, we hear words that are often spoken at a funeral – and for good reason.  There is probably no more comforting passage of Scripture at the time of a loved one’s death than these words of Jesus:  “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.”  When heard at a funeral, these words are a clear promise from our Lord that there is a place for us in heaven when we die – a place in our Father’s house.  Thanks be to God – full stop.  But these words aren’t only for a funeral.  In their original context, they are words that Jesus spoke to his disciples on the night before his death.  In John 13, just before the passage that Deacon Michael read a couple of minutes ago, after Jesus and the disciples had shared the Last Supper and Jesus had washed their feet, he had told the disciples that he wouldn’t be with them much longer. The disciples’ response was one of anxiety and distress.  I imagine they must have been brokenhearted to think about “losing” Jesus.  To follow him, they had uprooted themselves from their families and their homes.  Jesus had become their new home – their place of refuge and their primary relationship of support.  If he was going to leave them, they must have felt that they would become “homeless” all over again.  Homeless, uprooted, alone. 

I suppose we could read Jesus’ words as promising the disciples that eventually, when they died, they would see him again.  And that is true, of course.  But I suspect that Jesus’ words were intended also to give them comfort and assurance in the short term.  Because just like Dorothy’s longing for home was more about longing for the people than the place, I think Jesus’ words were directing the disciples not toward a place – in a physical house in heaven – but to a relationship with God the Father through him, a relationship that they already had and would never lose.  I suppose that’s why Jesus got a little testy with Philip.  Philip wanted to see the Father.  And Jesus was like, “Dang, Philip, you’ve been with me all this time and you still don’t understand who you’re looking at?  When you see me, you are seeing the Father.  You’ve already got a relationship with the Father.  So even if I go away for a little while, the Father is still doing what the Father does – inviting you in, calling you home, home to God’s heart.”  Jesus was reminding them that, with God, they were already at home.

The pull of home, the desire for home, is universal.  And it is strong.  Just for fun, I googled famous quotations about home, a few of which I’d like to share with you.  Because what I noticed was that, in each of these quotations, if we replace the word home with being in relationship with God, the meaning doesn’t change, except maybe to get stronger.  So I’m going to ask you to help me share these quotes.

• T.S Eliot said, “Home is where one starts from.”  We might say “Being in relationship with God is where one starts from.”  It all starts here, doesn’t it.  Everything about us starts with being connected to God – which, thanks to Jesus, we are.
• Former Secretary of Education William J. Bennett said, “Home is a shelter from storms – all sorts of storms.”  We might say “Being in relationship with God is a shelter from storms.”  It doesn’t mean the storms won’t damage us; but it means that the storms will never damage our relationship with God.
• Oliver Wendell Holmes said, “Where we love is home.”  We might say “Where we love is in relationship with God.”  Love is home.  God is love.  God is home.
• Pliny the Elder said, “Home is where the heart is.”  We might say “Being in relationship with God is where the heart is.”  Our hearts are held and cherished by God.
• And L. Frank Baum said, “There’s no place like home.”  And we might say, “There’s no place like being in relationship with God.

There’s no place like home.  Those words are true.  And I can only imagine how wonderful our heavenly home will be.  But we needn’t wait until we die to feel the security and peace that comes from dwelling in God’s house.  Because that’s where we live – we live in relationship with God through Jesus.  Wherever we are, God is.  So wherever we are, we are home.