Description: The House of Dior and other well-known "Houses" have defining characteristics that are keys to their longevity. In this session, you'll identify characteristics of the House of Jesus and discover how to implement them into your ministry. As Robert Shaw was not the first to point out, in medieval times the church saved the arts; however, in postmodern times, the arts just might save the church.

Introduction: The high fashion industry is organized according to houses.

· House of Dior
· House of Valentino
· House of Versace
· House of Givenchy
· House of Gucci
· House of Jean Paul Gaultier
· House of Faberge
· House of Ralph Lauren
· House of Pierre Cardin

For the hoi-polloi, the common people, there are surrogate fashion houses: like Martha's World at K-Mart, or Michael Graves at Target. "Michael Graves Targets Everyman." Companies are trying to become more like houses, with company signatures coming in the form of architect Michael Graves, or lifestyle maven Martha Stewart. Each wants to be your Total Fashion Designer, and to provide you with a Life Style, or what Bruce Mau calls "Styling Life." (Life Style [London: Phaidon, 2000], edited by Kyo Maclear with Bart Testa).

The House of Dior or Martha's World have defining characteristics that are keys to their longevity. Each house, like that of the House of Lauren, is a corporation with franchises and manufacturing plants on multiple continents; hundreds and even thousands of shops carry his name, not to speak of specialty boutiques. And these houses sell everything – perfumes, cosmetics, luggage, shoes, eyeglasses, clothes. They produce objects that are carriers of meaning, beauty, identity.

In past ages, life happened to you. Your class happened to you. Your marriage happened to you. Your occupation happened to you.

No choice.

Today we choose life, which is another way of saying that each of us is a director and producer of our life. In Bruce Mau's words, "That's what style is. It's producing life. Rather than accepting that life is something that we passively receive, accept, or endure, I believe that life is something we generate. We use our capacities. And that all boils down to style. Fundamentally style is a decision about how we will live. Style is not superficial. It is a philosophical project of the deepest order." (Bruce Mau, Life Style [London: Phaidon, 2000], 27).

This is the radical promo idea. You can create your own future. Life is not passive, but active. Cultural barriers, environmental barricades, all these things are gone.

To take control of your life is not to bring your life under your control: it's to design a life.

But at the same time "I choose, therefore I am," the challenge of establishing identity is becoming more difficult in this global image economy. There is a self-help genre of literature that sells big for a reason.

The problem with most design-mavens and self-help gurus is that while the exteriors of the house may look great, the interiors, despite elaborate window-dressing (and floor-dressing, and counter-top-dressing, and furniture-dressing)is an empty, soulless space. Instead of the style designing a life, the style becomes the life. And these turns in the wheel of fashion come fast and furious, as the wheel of style turns again and again like the treadmill that goes nowhere it truly is.

The challenge for the disciple of Jesus is not to accept life on your own terms, but to accept life on God's terms.

Jesus knew what it took to make a "house of..." a home. As his disciples slowly began to realize that Jesus' ministry was leading to its culmination, to a final moment of separation, they were filled with anxiety. Sensing their dismay Jesus, opens his after dinner remarks with words of love and comfort:

Do not lot your hearts be troubled...(14:1)

The disciples should feel trouble-free because they are being promised a gift of great contentment – a home. More specifically, a dwelling place in the house of God.

The gospel writer chooses his terms carefully, for he wants to make sure his readers know Jesus is not simply offering heavenly rooms for rent. This dwelling (menos) or "abiding with" is a spiritual, not a spatial move. The Father's house (oikia) is a household, a family – not a building (oikos), not a place.

It's perhaps surprising that Jesus, who intentionally choose rootless-ness and wandering as marks of his ministry ("foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head" – Matthew 8:20, Luke 9:58) refers to the sense of house and home in order to offer comfort and promise peace to his disciples. But the fact is that while Jesus may have been without a settled space to call his own, he was always at home in the house of his Father.

Jesus, as the divine Logos, was eternally indwelling with his Father ("I am in the Father and the Father is in me" – John 14:11). The house of God was also entirely the house of Jesus. Because Jesus was never separated from the Father's spirit, wherever he went he was always home. Jesus may have had no place to lay his head, but his heart and his soul were always at rest in that house.

Because the Father's house is Jesus' house, Jesus can boldly offer housing to all his disciples. He promises to prepare a place for them and to return to them as their guide to this heavenly address.

Have you listened to Jesus' invitation to his home? Do you have that address in your pocket, so that you may never get lost or have to spend the night alone in some strange place?

[You can either end your sermon here. Or if you have more time, you can expand on this "House of Jesus" theme and continue along the lines suggested below.]

In the "House of Jesus," there are certain rooms. In fact, the Scriptures tell us what these rooms are.

The House of Jesus is a House of Praise

The House of Jesus is a House of Prayer. In fact, Jesus himself said "My house shall be called a house of prayer."

The House of Jesus is a House of Faith. ("Household of faith" – Galatians 6:10).

The House of Jesus is a House of Justice. ("Be dressed for action..." – Luke 12:35a).

The House of Jesus is a House-not-made-with-hands House (the people are the Temple – 1 Corinthians 3:16, 6:19).

The best summary of what the House of Jesus looks like, with all these rooms, comes from German theologian Jurgen Moltman. The House of Jesus is a place where there is "a new kind of living together," a place where (Jurgen Moltman, The Open Church, 33):

· "No one is alone with his or her problems"
· "No one has to conceal his or her disabilities"
· "There are not some who have the say and others who have nothing to say"
· "Neither the old nor the little ones are isolated""
· "One bears the other even when it is unpleasant and there is no agreement"
· "One can also at times leave the other in peace when the other needs it."