The Rev. Peter M. Carey
Easter 5 Sermon
6 May 2012
Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Greenwood, VA
Where do you live? It’s a simple enough question on the surface, and we’ve all probably asked or been asked the question hundreds or thousands of times. Where do you live? Is perhaps a polite way to be curious about someone, to have them share a bit about themselves. Also, it can of course be a signal for one’s social class, neighborhoods can connote wealth or poverty, especially in cities and urban areas. Living in Harlem signals a different style of life, perhaps, than living in Greenwich, Connecticut. Living in Keswick signals a different style of life, perhaps, than living in Belmont. Of course knowing where someone lives does not immediately give a fulsome understanding of who they are, but it can be a signpost toward greater understanding.
I realize that most of us ask the question out of courtesy, or perhaps out of our awkwardness to know what to ask when we meet someone. It can be confusing, however, when you move to a new area and you don’t know the various towns, neighborhoods and areas. When we were living just outside Philadelphia I was constantly confused. For example, we lived in “Conshohocken” which is about 15 miles up river from Philadelphia and whose name means “pleasant valley” but Conshy, as it is known is not much of a valley anymore, it was a multiethnic working class community of 1 mile square. While we were there, some major high-end housing and retail development was going in along the river and it was becoming one of the “the places” to be. So what was this cool and quirky town once known for its “stills and hills” and in earlier centuries was a “pleasant valley” was now becoming a hip place for people in their 20s to live after college.
Where do you live? Is a question that must have been around for centuries and even millennia, whether it was merely courtesy, or if it was a way to get a polite snapshot of who the person might be. Even in Jesus’ time, the question was asked of him in the beginning of the Gospel of John, “where do you live” or…as John recounts, “where do you abide?” And here, this question based in courtesy or curiosity gets transformed into something far deeper and more eternal.
You see, for Jesus, it is not where he is staying the night, it is rather where he abides. For Jesus, it is not where we may be laying our heads, but where we lay our hearts. For Jesus, it is not whether we live on the 9th green or behind bars on our windows in the ‘hood or whether our town is full of “stills and hills” or organic food stores. For Jesus, it is where we abide that matters. For Jesus, it is where he abides that matters. And where does Jesus abide? He abides in us. And where do we abide, we abide in him.
“God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him.” “By thi we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.” “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.”
When we turn our minds to God, when we place our hearts in God, then we abide fully in his love. Whether we live here or there is neither here nor there, what matters is where we place our hearts and minds. What matters is where we abide. And when we abide in Him, he abides in us. And in abiding in God, we are abiding in God’s love, and we have the urge to share this love with others. “We love because he first loved us. Those who say, ‘I love God,’ and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen…those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.”
So, where do you live? Where do you abide? Can we see that the door is open? Can we see that our hearts have already been grafted onto God’s abundant vine? Can we feel the ways that we are already joined one to another and to God in God’s love? We abide in God and God abides in us. Whether we live in Keswick or Greenwich or Belmont or Harlem or Conshohocken, God abides in us, and we in Him. When we allow our hearts to abide in God, we also turn our hearts outward, and we do God’s work in the world. Jesus said, “I am the true vine…Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.”
Wherever you live, you have been given the deed to God’s home. Wherever you live, God wants you to abide in him. Wherever you live, God wants you to abide in love, for those who abide in love abide in God and God abides in them. Where do you abide?
