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It is good to be home again. After three Sundays away from worship at RHCC, It is wonderful to be among you once more – Lifting praise and thanksgiving, Lifting heart and voice to our living and loving God. Because there’s no place like home, Is there? There’s no place like home. While these words were first uttered by Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, the sentiment came long before red shoes and dreams of Kansas. Psalm 84 – The song written thousands of years ago and proclaimed by our foremothers and forefathers in faith – sings the melody of this desire, this longing for home. And home was particular to them: the dwelling place of God, the temple in Jerusalem. The song, scholars tell us, is a song of pilgrimage. It is one the men and women, The children and families, might sing on their way to Jerusalem for a festival celebration. After being away – for a season or a year or even a lifetime – they are coming back home to the place of joy and happiness, the place of feasting and dancing and singing and renewing connections. They are coming home – and they can’t wait to get there! I can’t help but wonder if we modern day worshippers approach our sanctuaries, our places of worship with the same desire. Maybe we’re just a tad bit uncomfortable with the sensuousness found in today’s biblical text: Souls longing, hearts fainting and Flesh crying out with joy. We modern day worshippers like our homecomings a little more ordered, A little more neat and clean. We don’t often wax poetically – even lovingly – about our places of worship, our churches, our sanctuaries. Our family went to Bermuda on vacation this year. And as we often do, We toured a few churches while we were there. My favorite was St. Peter’s in the city of St. George’s. St. Peter’s stands out – A beautiful white structure atop a hill in the oldest city in the island. The day we visited was hot and sunny, And the contrast of the white church against the blue sky was absolutely breathtaking. St. Peter’s is the oldest continually worshipping Protestant church in the Western hemisphere. They first gathered to worship in 1612, And the current building was erected in 1713. St. Peter’s a simple, beautiful structure with exposed Bermuda cedar beams. As you look around, your eyes take in a veritable feast: The original altar from 1612, a baptismal font over 900 years old, walls filled with commemorative plaques. We were guided in our looking at this visual banquet by a woman named Elsie, an elderly church member, who also happens to be the church organist. As she talked of her community I saw in her eyes and heard in her voice the same emotion and desire found in Psalm 84. The deep love she had for the sanctuary and all that it held – its physical structures, its memories, its historical significance. I commented as such to her. How wonderful to worship in this place, I said. How marvelous to be surrounded by such amazing pieces of beauty and history. Elsie looked at me and then she paused for a moment – You know the way wise women pause before they say something. Oh, yes, she said. It is marvelous to be surrounded by such amazing things. But it is even more marvelous to be surrounded by God’s amazing grace! God has been good, she said, God has been good to me – And to this community – in this place. Friends, Elsie’s emphasis is the same one made in Psalm 84. If we read the psalm closely – If we hear the psalm more deeply – We discover that there’s more than the celebration of the temple, For the Temple is only an access point to the reality of God. The true power of religious structures and institutions – then and now – is that they are the dwelling place of God, the place where God lives. The psalmist reminds us that the Temple – And our church sanctuary – and yes, even Chapin Hall – are God’s dwelling place, And so today, God’s spirit hovers here, God’s love permeates the spaces in between us, And God’s grace is woven in and through. Walter Bruggemann, The preeminent Christian Old Testament scholar says it this way: What appears to be a poem about a place is actually a doxology about a person. The psalm is filled with so many names and images of our God: Lord of hosts, living God, God of Gods; God of Jacob and my God and King who is sun and shield and water and nest. This God, Our God, of many names and images dwells here and now among us. And this God, OUR God of many names invites us to come home. This invitation is ours each time we come to worship. This is why we prayed today in our prayer of invocation as we do many other weeks – Open our hearts and minds to know you again, We declared. We echoed the prayer found in the psalm: Not making the usual request or petitions, But just a yearning to be in the holy presence, to know communion, to be at one with God. And so let me ask, Have you experienced the presence of God yet this morning? Maybe it was during a piece of music, Or during the prayer of invocation, Or even as you shared the peace of Christ with your neighbor this day. Perhaps it was a feeling of peace, or a moment of insight, or the clarity of conviction, or an overflow of love and joy. Or maybe the experience is yet to come – Worship is not over yet. Dear friends, it is this communion, this oneness of God that is the goal – of our worship and of our lives. For the biblical witness and our faith declare that God’s dwelling is not only in our sanctuaries, but throughout the universe: there is no place where God is not. Each day – Each moment, really - we make a pilgrimage as our forbearers did. As we make this journey, The psalm helps us, Because it gives us some priorities in our life. It is better to dwell in the house of God than in the tents of wickedness. One day in the presence of God is more desirable than a thousand elsewhere. And as one preacher who interprets this text says, It is better to be in low places and be near to God than in high place and be far away from God. So my prayer for you and with you today is that as we walk in the days ahead, We will know longing and desire to be with God and the great joy when we finally arrive home – not just in our sanctuary, but to the very heart of our God. May it be so and may it be soon for all of us. Amen. It is better to be in low places and be near to God than be in high places and be far away from God. |