The Fourth Sunday of Easter is called in the church year "Good Shepherd Sunday," for it is the Sunday in which we hear the words of the familiar 23rd Psalm: "The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. . . . He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul. . . ."

And it ends with that beautiful promise, to which God's people have clung for generations and generations: "Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies. Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever." And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. . . .

All those of you of a certain age attend many memorial services here, and most times we recite the words of this Psalm together. And, in that context, those words about dwelling in the house of the Lord forever cause us to think of eternal life. For in those precious times of remembrance and celebration of the life of one of God's saints, we also hear Jesus' words that "in God's house are many mansions" and that he has gone there to prepare a place for us. We are comforted and reassured, affirming that our loved one, and we ourselves in due time, shall, indeed, dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

On this Mother's Day, we give thanks for all of our mothers and grandmothers and great-grandmothers, mothers-in-law, and daughters, who, indeed, are now dwelling in that heavenly home, at peace in the everlasting light and joy of God's love. Thanks be to God, who creates for us that home, that abiding place, not made with hands but eternal in the heavens, where we are forever safe and at rest.

This morning, we might be well served to expand our sense of that abiding place, the house of the Lord, that place of love in which we dwell. For that house is open to us and ready for us not only in death, but also in life. And Christ invites our spirits in to dwell there now, in life in all of its fullness, so that when death comes, we will already be at home.

I had a very strong sense of this once in that privileged moment of spending time with one of our elderly members nearing death. She was confined to her bed, barely alert, but her breathing was still strong at times. Her nurse and the hospice nurse with her were the best. They were tender, caring, strong and gentle. I watched as they bathed her and rubbed lotion into her skin and changed her bed linens and made her feel comfortable and very much loved.

I knew that for many, many years she had been in worship every week-that she had lived her life in the house of the Lord. The words of this Psalm came to me and I knew that her nurses were enabling her to feel truly at home there, in her bed. That the comfort of the lotion and the clean sheets and their tender touch all communicated to her deeper than words that she was, indeed, still dwelling in the house of the Lord, in which she had been abiding all her life, and in which she would abide in the life everlasting.

And so, when there was a quiet moment, I went to her side and prayed and recited this Psalm, confident that on some level she was hearing the familiar words that had meant so much to her for so long. In life, as in death, the house of the Lord was the place where her heart was at home.

How fortunate are those children who grow up in the house of the Lord and also in homes that are loving and safe, so that the physical home and the spiritual home mirror each other. The homes in which we are raised are perhaps the first place where we experience that sense of belonging and care. In this day and age, fathers, as well as mothers, contribute to that work of home-making. But, today being Mother's Day, I want to lift up the work that mothers do to create that place of beauty and love and early faith by saying a couple things about the mother of our founder, John Wesley.

John and Charles' mother, Susanna, is famous in her own right. And thanks to our own Ralph Hedges, she is very present here in our sanctuary as one of the featured portraits in our history window. If you haven't seen her, be sure and climb the stairs as you leave this morning and take a look. Greg Batson is sharing some of this with the Partnership/Double Ring class this morning, so you can ask him later for some more Susanna Wesley stories. Let me just say that she gave birth to 19 children! Imagine that!

Susanna Wesley was well versed in theology and in the issues of the day, and she must have been one of the world's greatest organizers. She had those kids taking care of their younger siblings and the household. She made it work, probably without much help from her parish priest husband, who was most likely away from home way too much of the time.

She gave her children a deep grounding in love, so that from the earliest age they were truly at home-in their own home and in the love of God, the house of the Lord. And even in the midst of all the work that entailed, she dedicated an hour each evening to the spiritual instruction of each of them. Some of the fruits of her love and dedication are abundantly evident in the lives of John and his brother Charles.

To abide in the house of the Lord, to dwell in the house of the Lord, is to be rooted and grounded in the love of God. The great spiritual teacher of our time, Henri Nouwen, observed that many people, however, have been given that home, but can't find it. It's as if we've forgotten our address and are living at the wrong place, that is, as he put it, in the house of fear, instead of the house of the Lord.

Scripture tells us that this happens to God's people over and over again in the Bible-that we forget, or get confused, or are reluctant to move out of the house of fear and into the house of the Lord. It's almost as if we keep one foot in each, afraid of letting go, but not quite faithful enough to let ourselves be scooped up by a love waiting to bring us home.

Perhaps many of us here this morning have moved spiritually from the house of the Lord, the house of love, to the house of fear, without realizing it. In this difficult and challenging time in which we live, fear has invaded every part of our lives, and has only increased since September 11, 2001. We are anxious and nervous. We are afraid of economic decline and worry about the costs of our children's education, our health care, and our retirement. We are afraid of the world, of foreigners, of potential terrorists. We are afraid of people of other faiths, especially Muslims, and we question their motives and their trustworthiness. We are afraid of disease-AIDS, the West Nile Virus, and most recently, SARS. We are afraid of what we know and of what we do not know. We are afraid of change and afraid of standing still. Nouwen described the house of fear as the place in which despair and depression prevail; in which fear and power shape all our decisions and choices.

The alternative to this house of fear is the house of love, the house of Christ, in Nouwen's words, "the place where we can think, speak, and act in the way of God, not in the way of the fear-filled world." In the Gospel of John, Jesus, our Good Shepherd, offers us this house even now, in the midst of our anxious and fear-filled world.

The church dwells in, abides in Christ, the house of love, free from worry, fear, anxiety, violence, competitive and self-destructive behaviors. In the church, God's new creation, this family, this home, relationships are characterized by mutual vulnerability, gratitude, peace and celebration.

I think that's maybe why churches are so often involved in building houses for people who need them. It's because we've caught a glimpse of where God longs to have us live all the time, a spiritual home. And even if we aren't quite spiritually mature enough to move in and settle, we want to make tangible for people that same love and freedom we know exists, maybe convincing ourselves along the way that the house of the Lord is meant to be our place of primary residence.

This congregation is full of house builders. We have built homes through Habitat for Humanity. We have dreamt and built Upward Bound House across the street, a visible sign of all that it means to live in the house of the Lord. Do you know that since it opened in 1997, the outreach of this congregation has given a home to 162 families, helping them from homelessness to independent, productive lives in apartments and homes of their own? Do you know that because of this, 281 children from this community are no longer living on the street? Living in Family Place, these kids and their moms, mostly moms, have been given a safe home, and when you hear them talk about what this has meant in their lives, you know that their souls have found a home, as well.

This summer, a team of our youth and their leaders will travel all the way across the country to build a home in Breathitt County, Kentucky. Since 1979, youth from this congregation have participated in the Appalachia Service Project, a ministry of home repair and home-building associated with the General Board of Discipleship of our United Methodist Church. Since its founding in 1969, over 200,000 volunteers from across the U.S. have worked on thousands of homes, blessing the lives and the faith of both the workers and the Appalachian families.

I hope you haven't missed hearing our Team talk about how much these new homes mean in the lives of the people who will live in them. And, almost more than that, I hope you've heard our youth talk about how the hard work of digging and plastering and plumbing and roofing and painting has changed their lives as well. How the hard work has moved them to a whole new place of gratitude and generosity. How the hard work has helped make real in their hearts what living in the house of the Lord is really about for us Christians. It's about being rooted and grounded in love, and that makes us caring and generous and grateful and full of love for one another.

Habitat for Humanity, Upward Bound House, Appalachia Service Project-Christians build houses for those who need them, because we know that God has first built a house for us. We build houses for others because we know that God has called us out of fear into the beauty and security of the house of the Lord. We build, because we've come to know our real address. It is the house of love, the house of the Lord, where we are at home now and forever.

Come home, people of God. Come home.

Amen.

© Patricia E. Farris, 2003. Permission is given for brief quotation with attribution. All other rights reserved.