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Sunday August 23, 2009 "Where God Lives" Psalm 84 |
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Location: Blogs Brad's BlogBrad's Sermons |
 | | Posted by: Brad Miller | 8/24/2009 2:35 PM | What is so important about church?
In particular, what is so important about the building we call the church? It is only bricks and mortar. As to the collection of people who call themselves “the church”, what makes them any different from a group of people that gather this morning at the YMCA, or at a social club?
On the surface, there might seem little difference between the people gathered here and at the Y. We have a purpose in mind when we come to this place, just as they do. We enjoy this particular church and if we didn’t, we might seek out another church, or we might just decide that we can just stay home and read our Bible instead of coming to church. The people at the Y also have choices: they could go to a health club, or even buy home workout equipment so they wouldn’t have to go anywhere.
But of course, for those of us sitting here, there is something different about coming to church.
Our Hebrew ancestors were on to something.
They believed that the importance of the temple in Jerusalem was rooted in the fact that God lived there. Ever since the temple was built by Solomon, it was God’s home. For years, God traveled with the wandering Hebrew people in a portable tabernacle that they would set up wherever they journeyed. Their entire journey was protected by God’s presence. God’s presence made the wandering bearable.
When Jerusalem was settled as the capital of King David’s Israel, the tabernacle was set up and David made plans to build a temple – a house for God. You may remember that God, through the prophet Nathan, advised David not to build the temple…leave that task for the son who would succeed him.
And that is what David did. His son Solomon, true to Nathan’s prophecy of God’s desires, built an amazing temple in Jerusalem, a temple that became the center of Jewish religious life.
The temple is gone now, all except one wall that ran along the western side of the temple. To this day, faithful Jews make pilgrimage to this wall known as the “wailing wall.” It is an amazing feeling to be at the wall on a Saturday, the day of worship for our Jewish brothers and sisters. To make your way to the wall, to stand where the people in Solomon’s time stood. To be connected to the millions of people who have made their way to this sacred place.
It is hard not to be overcome with emotion standing with hundreds of people praying at the remnant of the mightiest house of God the world has ever known. It is easy to see why our Hebrew ancestors made pilgrimage to that very same spot. It is without a doubt, where God lives.
It really is an amazing sight. During the Sabbath photography is forbidden or I would have brought pictures to share with you. But think of a courtyard about the size of a football field. And along one side, a huge stone wall, pieced together with large stone blocks. The wall is probably 80 feet high. In an area in front of this wall, hundreds of people gather. Some take their turns standing directly in front of the wall, swaying, chanting and praying. A few yards behind them is where the bulk of the activity takes place. All around there are tables and rolling carts, their tops, covered with books and scrolls stacked and strewn about. Small knots of people listen as different people read from the books and scrolls. In some groups discussion is taking place, in some, group prayers. If you listen closely you notice that you hear different languages. Mostly Hebrew, but here and there you hear English and Eastern European languages and Spanish and others. It is chaotic and reverent at the same time.
Why? Why is this crumbling ruin of a temple destroyed so many, many years ago so important? Is it still seen as that place where God resides, exclusively?
It isn’t always easy to understand these things. Our Jewish brothers and sisters certainly revere this site as sacred and important to their history, but they no longer believe that it is the exclusive home of God. During the time when the Hebrew people where overrun by the Babylonians, they were scattered to the far flung corners of the known world. In each of these places, they set up their own places of worship, their own sanctuaries where they could gather and worship together. This was the beginning of the synagogue system of worship.
With the final destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 A.D., almost 2000 years ago, the synagogues around the world became the center of Jewish life for the many and varied communities that existed. It is a system that exists to this day.
But still, the temple site is held in the highest regard and modern Jews pray for the day when the temple will be restored to it’s original glory.
Several psalms were written that celebrate the majesty of the Jerusalem Temple, but none are as loved as the Psalm we heard read this morning: the 84th Psalm.
The lyrical beauty of the words; the description of the joy that is felt by those traveling to the temple; the understanding that this is not simply a beautiful structure, but a sacred one. The appeal of the temple is first and foremost, religious. The psalmist correctly captures the reason for making pilgrimage to this sacred space: because the pilgrim yearns for God in their lives. To be in the courts of the temple are to be unmistakably in God’s presence. One day in the courts of the temple is better than a thousand days elsewhere. It is better to stand at the threshold of the temple than to reside comfortably among the wicked. It is the place where the Psalmist comes in direct contact with, as he writes, “My king and my God”, a double title that refers to both God’s all encompassing creative powers and the calming center of the psalmists personal life.
It is easy to feel the power and the beauty of the temple when we hear the words of the psalmist. It is easy to understand why so many millions of pilgrims made, and make their way to this sacred place. The pilgrimage is a profound symbol of the centering and the ordering of all life. It is an act of faith that allows the pilgrim to stop, pay homage to God and to rededicate their life to taking that feeling of God’s presence wherever they go.
Today, we Christians do not cling to the idea that God is present only in the single space of the Temple mount in Jerusalem. We believe that God came among us in the form of Jesus of Nazareth, and through our Jesus, came to a fuller relationship with God. One of the tenets of that relationship is that God is with us, now and always. Jesus promised that an advocate, God’s holy spirit would come to be among us, and we have been the recipients of that gracious presence ever since.
Yet still, we cling to some of the ways of our Hebrew ancestors. If God is everywhere, and if we have a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ, why do we need this place? Why is this place so important to us?
When I was a boy, the church was the center of our lives. Oh, school was important, and we did spend most of our time there, but church was where the important stuff took place. Recreation programs, youth programs, choir, Sunday school, special family nights, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts…all of these things took place at the church. I would hazard a guess that we spent some part of 5 days a week at the church. It was even right next to our neighborhood park and there was a place you could crawl under the fence to get to the church property. So, if we were playing at the park, and needed a drink of water or to use the rest rooms, we would simply wriggle through the opening in the bottom of the fence and head into the church.
Inside the church there were 3 floors of rooms to explore, not counting the labyrinth that was the basement – which not everyone knew how to access. We discovered the entrance at Boy Scouts one night and it became a great place to play hide and seek. As you can tell, I carry a lot of fond memories of the St. James Church. It played a central role in helping to shape who I am today.
But there was one room in the church that we rarely entered. It was a room that commanded our respect and reverence. If you did enter that room and there was no one there, you entered softly, never speaking above a whisper, almost tiptoeing in, so as not to make any noise. It was a room that could be a little scary at night, shadows from the large windows looking ominously like ghosts or otherworldly beings. There was an echoing sound to any noise you made. If you made your way into this room when no one was around, you found illumination from a single candle a hanging near the front wall of the room.
Yet, when I did go in alone, I would tip toe in, hardly breathing and find a place to just sit and be quiet. It was sacred space. The silence heighted the feeling, and the shadows that danced in the flickering candlelight were somehow comforting.
The room of course, was the sanctuary of the church. That place where we gathered each Sunday as a community. That place where I heard countless sermons and sang countless hymns, and prayed countless prayers. That place where I would sit with my mother and look for my father as he processed in with the choir. The place where I heard announcements of births, and hospitalizations, and more than once, of unexpected deaths of members of the church. The place where nothing could intrude. For me, it was the place where God lived.
I still get that feeling when I walk into this sanctuary. When I come in during the week just to sit, or to give a visitor a tour, I come in reverently, quietly. Knowing that this is sacred space.
Our Hebrew ancestors were on to something. There is something special about going to God’s house. They made pilgrimage, sometimes for days, to get there. We,too, make pilgrimage when we come to this place. They believed that the temple and the ark of the covenant were visible signs of God’s invisible presence. We believe that cross and the table are visible signs of God’s invisible presence. They found something fulfilling in going to God. We find something fulfilling in that same journey.
The going to God is important: not just for personal reasons, but for theological reasons, too. When our Hebrew ancestors made their way to the temple, it wasn’t simply the temple and the trappings that were important. When we come to this place every Sunday, it isn’t simply the beautiful architecture of the welcoming table that are important. For them, and for us, what we find when we gather here is equally important.
What we find here is, each other. What we find here are fellow pilgrims seeking to be touched by God. What we find here is not simply the place where God lives, but where God’s people come for sustenance and strength. And we find that strength in God’s presence and in each other.
The pilgrimage is not a solitary journey. It is a journey best undertaken with brothers and sisters in the faith. A journey that is most fulfilling when it is done within a community of faith dedicated to honoring God. It is a journey where the destination is not nearly as important as the going itself.
Where does God live? God lives in this place. God lives in the streets of Atlanta and on the battle fields of Afghanistan. God lives in the most beautiful temple and the most rustic mountain chapel. God lives where God’s people live and work and play and study and pray. And most importantly, God lives wherever 2 or more gather to glorify God’s holy name.
We understand what the Hebrews understood when they entered Solomon’s temple. We too, want to make sure that the gathering space for God’s people is as beautiful as we can make it. It is why we have been working for months to come up with a plan to renovate this sacred space. Because God lives here.
And because God lives here, we are drawn here, too. Because God lives here, we are able to leave here with the power of God’s presence guiding our every word and action.
Because God lives here, we are strengthened to be God’s witnesses, the Body of Christ made real to a world in need of hope.
The day that I stood at the wailing wall in the shadow of the temple mount in Jerusalem, I was overwhelmed by the sounds all around me. I was moved by the sense of community that existed between people from all over the world. And I was thinking of this place. I was thinking of this community. I was thinking of God’s gracious presence in our lives.
After I said my prayer at the wall, I took a slip of paper out of my pocket, carefully folded it into a small square, reached up as high as I could and pushed the paper into a crack in the wall as far as I could.
On that slip of paper was a prayer for my wife Carol, my family, my friends, and for the Brookhaven Christian Church. Because while I was standing in front of the place where God lives, I was giving thanks for the most important place where God lives: my heart.
Let us pray: Gracious God, we give you thanks for your abiding presence. Help us to honor all those sacred spaces in our lives by being all that you would have us be, by spreading your Good News to all we meet, by simply being with you, today, tomorrow and always. This we ask in the name of Jesus, who is the messiah. Amen. | | | Permalink | Trackback |
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