In our epistle for today, Paul tells us, “. . . you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself the cornerstone.” Take a few minutes to reflect on the image of “the household of God.” What comes to mind? How does it speak to you? The first thought I had was that this was another way of expressing “the kingdom of God,” “the kingdom of heaven,” an attempt to focus on the immanence of God rather than the transcendence, a way to bring the kingdom to a more personal level to those worshipping God in the house churches of the day. It is a comfortable, comforting image for me. Then I remembered Jesus saying, “In my Father’s house are many dwelling places [mansions, KJV].” (Jn.14:2b) That has always been a welcoming, inclusive image for me. The idea that we don’t all have to be just alike, to worship the same way, to find a place in God’s house is especially comforting when we hear the words read in a funeral service. For me that context segues into the image of the “cloud of witnesses” described by the writer to the Hebrews (11:1—12:2), those countless generations of the faithful who have preceded us in going home to God. Having recently experienced the death of my mother, I am very conscious of the reality of that cloud and how very close it hovers around us. And that brings to mind the “communion of saints” which might be another name for the household of God as it includes us who are living along with those who have gone before. Elizabeth Johnson’s view of the communion of saints in her book Truly Our Sister: A Theology of Mary in the Communion of Saints has recently stretched my understanding of the concept. She says: “This community stretches backward and forward in time and encircles the globe in space, crossing boundaries of language, culture, race, gender, class, sexual orientation, religion, and all the other human differences, stretching into eternity. The inmost depth and the outermost horizon of this communion of holy ones remains God’s Holy Spirit, who vivifies creation, weaves interconnections, saves what is lost, and makes holy the world.”(p.307-308) She points out: “While the phrase “communion of saints” itself arises in a Christian context and often functions for Christians themselves, the Spirit does not limit divine blessing to any one group. Within human cultures everywhere God calls every human being to fidelity and love, awakening knowledge of truth and inspiring deeds of compassion and justice. Happily, those who respond are found in every nation and tongue, culture and religion, and even among institutional religion’s cultural despisers. . . At its most elemental, then, the communion of saints does not refer to Christians alone but affirms a link between all women and men who have been brushed by the fire of divine love and who seek the living God in their lives.”(p.306) That radical inclusivity speaks to me of the oneness of all creation, the womb of God “in whom we live and move and have our being”(Acts 17:28), what the physicist David Bohm calls the Divine Enfoldment, which I may now refer to as the household of God. One never knows where the Spirit will lead us when we take time to reflect on God’s word and choose to participate in “the Divine Unfoldment” (as Nan Merrill puts it in her Psalm 144, Psalms for Praying: An Invitation to Wholeness, p.299) of the household of God.