May 4, 2008 - "Sanctuary"

Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Louisville, Kentucky
Ascension Sunday
May 4, 2008
W. Gregory Pope

SANCTUARY
A Celebration of 81 Years in the CHBC Sanctuary

Acts 1:1-14; Psalm 47:1, 6-9; 93:5; 68:3-6, 10, 32-35;
1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11; Luke 24:44-53

It is true what they say: God does not only dwell in buildings. God is everywhere and can be worshiped anywhere. King Solomon said as much in his prayer of dedication for the Temple: “Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, O God, much less this house that I have built!”

And yet, there is much to be said about profound experiences with God in sacred places. In a world where very little is sacred, or where so many trivial things are considered sacred or have become for us sacred idols, we all need places that are truly sacred.

A sanctuary is such a place. It doesn’t have to be a sanctuary. There are many sacred places other than sanctuaries. But I believe we need places like this where we can come to participate in the most sacred act in all of human living - the worship of the living God.

I believe it is good and right to put the very best of what we have into places dedicated for the worship of Almighty God. Great detail and importance is given in scripture to the building of temples, places for the worship of the Holy One. The finest of everything was to be used. It was built for the glory of God, and only the best and most glorious would do.

Down through the centuries, magnificent cathedrals and sanctuaries of worship have been constructed to the glory of God. One ancient cathedral, to show evidence of its purpose of glorying God, used the best and most intricate brick and stone on the outside at the very top of the cathedral, not to be seen by the human eye, only the eyes of God.

In our sacred spaces we desire beauty. Worship is greatly enhanced when we see beauty. We all need places of beauty that remind us of the beauty of God and evoke worship from us.

A few years ago I took a trip to Washington DC with twenty-six fifth graders. As we walked into the National Cathedral I overheard a ten year old girl say, “This is beyond Wow!” Walking into a place like that you cannot help but say to yourself, “This is a holy place meant for the worship of God.”

I love the beauty of this space. And many people in the past eighty years have given their best to make this a place of beauty. Giving sacrificially of their money, some even mortgaging their homes. Others using their hands to repair and restore. Others preparing the space for the Holy to enter. Today we give thanks to God for them and for their faithfulness.

But even the grandeur of cathedrals and the beauty of sanctuaries and all the sacrifice that makes this space available does not mean worship always takes place. It is easy to make of this hour something other than the worship of God.

Religious advertisements and catalogs come to the church every few days filled with books and ideas on how to liven up worship. They have titles like “Worship That Will Turn Your Big Church Into a Really Big Church.” Many of the books have to do with punching up your preaching: “Fifty Funny Stories for the Pulpit,” “Sad, Sappy Stories Guaranteed to Make Them Cry,” “Safe, Simple, Shallow Sermons,” “Alliterative Outlines that Gladden, Glorify, and Glitter Gracefully,” and for the less articulate preachers, “Sermons That You Can Mime.” They also address other elements of worship like, “Hymns That You Can Whistle.”

It reminds me of the Garrison Keillor story of a touring evangelist who brings her “Gospel Birds” to Lake Wobegon Lutheran Church. She comes out in a white robe with colored birds all along both arms. They fly across the sanctuary in “V” formation. At the time of offering, members of the congregation hold up their dollar bills and the birds fly from pew to pew to pick them up. The show also features a re-enactment of the Noah’s ark story in which the birds, dressed up as other animals, enter the ark two by two. [1]

A couple of weeks ago we actually had our own gospel bird in here - a pigeon had flown into the sanctuary through an open window. Bill chased it around but we never found it. So you could be surprised today in worship. Some of you have been asking for a little more spontaneity in worship. Well the opportunity is here. I’m just kidding. Bill got it out. We think.

The cynical among us, and we know who we are, think that it’s easier than ever to miss the point. Why do we keep coming to worship every Sunday? If we’re here to be entertained, then we ought to admit that this isn’t much of a show. If we’re here for self-improvement, then we need to know that therapy might be more useful. If we come here in order to feel good, then breakfast in bed with the newspaper or a good novel might be a better choice.

We are called first and foremost to be a house of prayer and worship for all people. The only reason good enough to bring us here is the worship of God. There are secondary purposes: being together, building community, sharing concerns. But first and foremost, we are here to lift up our hearts to the One Who Made Us in order to be transformed by the One Who Is Redeeming Us. If not, we’re missing the point.

As we reflect upon our church living into a new century of life together, worship and prayer must be at the very center. In worship and prayer we find our vision and our strength to be the people of God. Jesus made it clear when he said, My house shall be called a house of prayer for all people.

Worship, above all else, is prayer. Every element of worship should be designed to help you pray. To help you say to God, “I love you, God” and “thank you, God” and “help me, God” and “God, please help these others.”

All true worship is prayer, helping you offer yourself to God, and helping you listen for God. The church is to be a house of prayer and worship where we come to seek God, to know God, and to love God.

It is important to know that such prayerful worship can be a dangerous activity. You never know what might happen to change your life. Perhaps we should post large signs on the doors of the sanctuary that say, “Enter at your own risk!” For Jesus just might walk in and start overturning hearts and lives, never to be the same again.

You may want to keep your children away. They might just listen one day and hear a call to something different than what you have planned for them. Don’t let the beauty fool you: Houses of prayer and worship are dangerous places.

They are also places of joy when they are houses of prayer for all people. Only then are they true sanctuaries. God’s house of prayer is not a house for the morally and spiritually superior. It is a house of prayer for all people. The true church is the church that opens its doors of worship, prayer and fellowship to all and extends the welcome of Christ to all without distinction and with no hierarchy of sins and sinners. No one is excluded from God’s house. No one is a second class citizen within its walls or beyond them. Whosoever will come we must welcome as Christ welcomes. The true church is a house of prayer for all people.

I am grateful that so many people throughout the years have found the welcome of Christ in this house of prayer when they could not find it any where else. I would much rather be a part of a community guilty of welcoming too many than turning away any whom God loves.

Such inclusivity brings the joy of the gospel into our midst, and it fills our worship with a gladness beyond the walls of this world. It is a reminder that we are all children of God in need of grace.

Theologian Karl Barth said about preaching what is also true about the entirety of worship. He says, “Never lose a sense of humor about yourself.” A sense of humor in worship is not only a sign of humility but also a celebration that signifies the gospel’s great good news. “With Easter,” says Jurgen Moltmann, “the laughter of the redeemed. . . begins. Because God in Christ has broken the power of sin and death, congregations and preachers are free to laugh at themselves. They can mock hell and dance on the grave of death and sin.” Joy. And great laughter.

Tom Long, who teaches preaching at Candler School of Theology at Emory in Atlanta, tells of growing up us a child and worshiping in a small clapboard church in the red-clay farming land of rural Georgia. They were a congregation of simple folk, farmers and schoolteachers mainly, and the ministers led worship wearing inexpensive and ill-fitting dark suits, believing that robes were a sign of ostentation. (Can you imagine people thinking such?)

During the heavy heat of the summer months, Sunday worship included the waving of funeral home fans and the swatting of gnats. All the windows and doors of the sanctuary were opened wide to accept whatever merciful breezes might blow through.

On some Sundays, however, it was not a draft that blew in the church door but a neighborhood dog, a stray hound of indecipherable lineage who somehow found the worship service irresistible. He was not there every Sunday, but his summer appearances were frequent enough that some joked he had a better attendance record in worship than many of the church officers.

The ushers knew better than to try to run him off. They tried it only once and that drove him bounding toward the pulpit. So while the congregation sang hymns, the dog would sniff around at the ankles of the worshipers. Ushers would step around him on their way to take up the offering, and during the prayers of the people the dog would wander aimlessly about the room. He was an endless source of laughter and entertainment for the children, and he occasionally served as a handy and spontaneous sermon illustration with such references as “no more sense of right and wrong than that dog over there.”

Long reflects on that time. I give you his words:

Looking back on it now, I realize what a trial it must have been for our ministers to attempt to lead worship and to preach on those Sundays when this mongrel was scampering around the building and nuzzling the feet of the congregation. I readily confess that I do not covet similar circumstances for myself, but there was something wonderful about those times as well. Whatever else it may mean, a dog loose in worship unmasks all pretense and undermines false dignity. It was clear to us all that the grace and joy and power present in our communion, and these were present in abundance, were not of our own making. We were, after all, people of little worldly standing who could not keep even our most solemn moments free of stray dogs. I want to believe that even our dark-suited, serious-faced ministers were aware of the poetic connection between a congregation of simple farmers and teachers in their Sunday best with a hound absurdly loose in their midst and a gathering of frail human beings astonishingly saved by the grace of God, grace they did not control but could only receive as a gift. If so, then in some deep and silent place within them they were surely taken with rich and cleansing laughter - and if they were, they were better (Christians and) preachers of the gospel for it. [2]

There have been high and holy moments of transformation and laughter in this place. And we are better Christians for them.

This sanctuary has been a holy place for literally thousands of people. A great cloud of witnesses gather here every week. When Paul Duke preached here a few weeks ago afterwards he said he could actually see the faces of the past scattered around this room and where they used to sit.

What a sacred space! What a holy history!

Built 81 years ago, this house of worship has been a sacred place for many of us.

We have been married here.
We have grieved here.
(Hopefully not at the same time.)

We have laughed and cried here.

We have heard the summons to follow Christ in this place and been washed in the waters of baptism.

We have come to cast our anxiety upon God and have found hands beneath us and arms around us. We discovered in this place that the One Who Made Us is the One Who Loves Us Most.

We have come here week after week in search of transcendence, something beyond ourselves, and raised our heads and seen God’s shining face.

In this place, we have come face to face with our own sin and felt the touch of grace and forgiveness upon our tongues in bread and wine, and upon our hearts in a spoken word, a moment of silence, a song, a prayer, a hymn, an anthem.

We have come, as the psalms instruct us, to lift songs to God with hearts full of joy, accompanied by the triumphant sounds of organ and trumpet or the gentle strings of guitar and cello.

And as Jesus did the disciples, we have felt Christ lift his hands and bless us and our children.

We have come to offer prayers for those we know who are suffering.

And, like the disciples, praying and waiting for the Spirit to come at Pentecost, many of us have found our calling in this place to go where God sends us and the courage to be a person for God out in the world.

That’s what happens when we meet God in authentic worship. Tears of repentance. Songs of joy. Cries of grief. Moments of transformation. Sounds of silence. A touch of healing and blessing. And yes, laughter. The great laughter of redemption.

If these walls could speak . . . Who says they don’t?

___________________

1. Garrison Keillor, “Gospel Birds,” audio book, 1989.
2. Thomas Long, The Witness of Preaching, 16-17.