This week three houses in Boston blew up. Three families lost their homes in an instant. The father of one of the families said to an interviewer, just after his house disappeared, “now we have to figure out how to tell the children that their home is gone.”

I thought when I heard it: What a strange remark. As if he himself had been unaffected. But of course, he had been horribly affected. He just hadn't figured out how to tell himself that his home was gone. What could he say to himself about the loss of a center of his and his family's life. He was suddenly homeless. Although they had a temporary place to live, suddenly they had no place in which they could feel “at home.”

I've been thinking a lot this week about what home means, and what it means to not be at home. Partly it's because of the three houses that blew up in Boston. Partly it's because of the fires in Los Alamos that devoured 400 homes and all that was in them.

Partly it's because I was thinking about people moving. About Jeff and Kay moving into the city and about the move Jeanne and I will make soon. About people moving from houses in which they've lived most of their lives into other places like the Living Center. About where Pam and Kim are going to find themselves, and Jason. And Tim and Jennifer. All these moves are occasions for both grief and joy. It's hard to change your home.

And partly it's because I knew that many people from this congregation would be traveling this Sunday, and not be here where they belong. When you are not at home, something is out of place. People feel more fragile. Terrie called last week before she left for the Midwest. She asked that we all pray for a safe journey for her and her family, which of course we will do. Really, she is probably as safe on this trip as she is driving around Boston-safer, maybe. But she's not at home.

And when you're not a home, there is a spot at home that misses you. You leave an empty place when you leave home.

I see that lots of people are not here. How can I see that? How can I see something that doesn't exist? I see those empty places that belong to them.

The people who are away from Faith today leave little hollows here in the church. Right there, where Dawn usually sits, or there where Eric and Vivan sit, or there where Kay sits. Way back there where Trevor and Katherine sit. Or there next to Lily where Mark and Diane sit. That's not just an empty pew. That's a missing person, away from home.

And you know, I see lots of other empty spaces that are a church home for somebody else, some other people. There are people who belong to those spaces. Somebody belongs over there. And back there. And over there. There are homes for people. We just don't know yet who they are. But we will, by God's grace.

In the first chapter of the Gospel of John, Jesus calls his first disciples. Two followers of John the Baptist spy out Jesus, and they run after him. “What are you looking for?” asks Jesus. And the disciples say, “Where are you staying?”

They are asking more, I suspect, than whether Jesus is spending the night at the Westin Copley Hotel. “Where are you at?” they want to know. Where is the place in which you belong? Is it a place I want to be, too?

The word that the Gospel writer uses for “staying” is an important word for John. (The Greek word is meno.) In John, the same word is translated as “remain,” “endure,” “continue in,” “have a place in,” “dwell,” and, especially in today's lesson, “abide.”

At the baptism of Jesus, John the Baptist says “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him.” The Spirit stayed with Jesus; the Spirit abided with Jesus.

Jesus says “I have come as light into the world, so that everyone who believes in me should not remain in the darkness.” Shall not live in darkness, not abide in the darkness.

In today's gospel lesson and the few verses that follow it, the word appears ten times. Abide in me as I abide in you.

To abide in is more than just hang out with. It means where we live. Where we feel at home. Where we feel safe. Where we go back to, to get refreshed. Where, as Robert Frost's character says, when you go there, they have to take you in. Where we are missed when we are away.

In the Gospel of John, Jesus promises a home for us in him. In God. Better, more durable, more permanent than any home we could build, there is a home in Jesus. A place in which we can be safe. A place where God has promised to take us in, a place from which we are missed when we wander away.

But in John, strangely, there are two abodes and two abiders. We abide in Jesus, and Jesus abides in us. Abide in me as I abide in you. Those who abide in me and I in them, says Jesus, bear much fruit.

This abiding thing seems not to be a one-way street. It is not only that we go to God to be taken in and cared for. It is not only that we find a home in God, but that God finds a home in us. This image is something more than humanity finding comfort and strength in a caring God.

This image is of a God who likes to be here with us. Who feels at home here. Jesus is not just compassionate and watchful, Jesus lives here. Jesus belongs here. God does not come to us only to save us, John implies, but comes by preference and longing to live with us.

But it is not just to live with us, either. Not just that God and we live in the same household, but that we live in each other.

I have to confess to you that I'm not sure I understand how this works. Perhaps you understand it better than I do, and you can help me out. Scholars like to call what John is talking about “mutual in-dwelling.” That's nice, but it doesn't explain it.

My guess is this: That we are created to be at home in God and at the same time to be a home to God. And that when we feel estranged from God, when God seems far away, that we feel like those families who lost their homes this week. And that--amazingly--God feels the same way.

This church is our home. It is a place for people to be at home. To be safe. To be refreshed. In each of these pews there is a seat for someone, a person we know now or will someday know. And in each of these pews, God sits, too.