Fifth Sunday of Easter – May 7, 2023

John 14:1-14

She walks into her new room. The biggest change is that it’s her room…a room of her own.

She carries all her clothes and a couple of toys and books in an old suitcase.
Since her parents all but abandoned her…she’s been shuttled from one shelter to another.
From one foster family to the next.
Now she’s been adopted by our next-door neighbor…Carey.
Carey is a single woman…never been married…middle aged.
Her new 9-year-old daughter’s name is Chrystal.
Carey is kind and understanding.
Carey has lots of loving support from our neighborhood and her family that lives nearby.
Carey has made a place for Crystal.
A place of welcome and care.

It’s her first day at a new high school.

Because of my vocation…our family has moved to a new church call in Seminole, Florida.
But changing high schools in midyear is a new thing.
And a frightening experience for our daughter.
Katie asks a student for directions to her first class.
After quick introductions…she tells the student that this is her first day.
After giving Katie directions to her class…
The student invites her to meet her for lunch in the cafeteria.
There she introduces her around and she makes her first friends.
Her new high school seems a little less intimidating now.
The students have made a place for her.

We are lost and overwhelmed.

Susan and I nervously inch our way into Peace Lutheran church in Hong Kong just as worship is starting.
A greeter sees us and comes over to help us.
We struggle with Mandarin…so he asks us to wait a moment.
He walks up a side aisle and motions to a parishioner to come to the back.
The parishioner smiles at us and begins to speak to us in English.
Translating the Mandarin into English as the worship progresses.
When worship is over…the parishioner escorts us to the narthex where he and his family are gathered.
The family and the people around the family smile and welcome us.
And make sure we come for the post-worship coffee hour.
That congregation in Hong Kong made a place for us at their table.

In his Last Supper farewell to his disciples…Jesus assures them that he goes “to prepare a place for you” in “my Father’s house.”

As Christians…we live in the eternal hope of one day living in God’s dwelling place.
But that “place” of hope and compassion and peace exists here and now in the places we make.
Where the poor and sick are cared for.
Where the fallen are lifted up.
Where the lost and rejected are sought out and guided home.
In the places we make for our sisters and brothers…
We begin to find the place Jesus has prepared for us.
In this way…we build God’s house in this time and place.

The forge in the makeshift blacksmith shop glows orange and lets off a low roar.

The furnace fires up to 2,000 degrees…hot enough to soften metal.
The blacksmith goes to work…slowly and carefully hammering the glowing hot metal resting on the anvil.
Shaping and re-shaping it.
Before long…it’s finished:
A trowel…a small shovel used to plant flowers in a garden.

Just a few minutes before…it was a shotgun.

The “blacksmith” is not working at some small outpost in the Old West but in Guilford, Connecticut.
He is one of dozens of volunteer smiths who are part of Swords to Plowshares Northeast.
An organization that takes the guns collected in police department buy-back programs and repurposes them into gardening tools:
Shovels…picks and cutting blades.
The finished tools are donated to community gardens and agricultural high schools…
That grow and harvest vegetables for soup kitchens and homeless shelters.

One of the volunteer blacksmiths is retired Episcopal Bishop James Curry.

He is one of the founders of Swords to Plowshares.
Inspired by similar Mennonite programs…
Bishop Curry began organizing Swords to Plowshares after the tragic shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
Bishop Curry officiated at the funeral of one of the young victims at Sandy Hook.

Bishop Curry sets up his “portable” forge at churches around Connecticut to demonstrate the process.

And he invites parishioners to take the hammer themselves to transform a weapon of death into a tool for life.
Bishop Curry is emphatic that his group is not “anti-gun” but “anti-gun violence.”
“We focus on voluntarily given-up guns that are unsafely stored.
A lot of guns are just plain forgotten about.”

The cross that Bishop Curry wears around his neck is a constant reminder of that transformation.

“It is made of pieces of an AK-47.
The piston that creates the automatic action and the sights” used for shooting…Bishop Curry explains.
“But God takes that element and God’s love breaks it apart.
Reshapes it…then transforms it into the sign of greatest hope…the cross.”

On the night before he dies…Jesus asks his disciples to take up “the work that I do”:

The work of humble servanthood that places the hurts and pain of others before our own.
The work of charity that does not measure the cost.
The work of love that trumps limits and conditions.

The “work of God” that Jesus asks us to take on is to use whatever means we have.

The trowel made from a shotgun is the perfect image of today’s Gospel.