A Sermon by Pastor Tom Lacey . . .

HOUSE OF GOD

Psalm 84, Preached at Congregational Church of Boca Raton, August 23, 2009

One Sunday morning, the pastor noticed little Johnny standing in the foyer of the church, looking at a large plaque that hung there. The pastor walked up beside him and said quietly, "Good morning, son." "Good morning, Pastor," replied the youngster, not taking his eyes off the plaque. "Can I ask you why are all these names listed on here?" "Well, son, these are all the people who have died in the service," replied the pastor. Soberly, they stood together, staring up at the large plaque. Little Johnny's voice barely broke the silence when he asked quietly, "Which one, the 8:30 or the 10?

A Sunday school teacher asked her little children, as they were on the way to church service, "And why is it necessary to be quiet in church?" One bright little girl replied, "Because people are sleeping."

Church is nice, isn't it? Calm, quiet; like easy listening music on the radio. Not all churches, not all worship services are this way. Some are loud, emotional, hand-waving affairs; others involve processions with banners and incense burning. But ours is reasonable with splashes of color, emotion, majesty, traditions, and beauty mixed in with the help of our window, ceiling, and hymn selections. It's a good place to come to get away from the pace and passions of the world; this is a good place to turn to seek something more, someone more. Maybe there isn't a bunch of noise and an outpouring of emotion, fragrant smoke or colorful processions, but we still expect to find something here that we can't find anywhere else. We still anticipate God's touch every time we wake and make the decision to take the journey to church. Don't ever let that hope fade. Remain excited about coming to God's house. Seek the Spirit's touch, the Lord's word, God's power for your heart and life. Adore the Lord.

Of all the psalms that celebrate Zion/Jerusalem and its temple as God’s dwelling place, the eighty-fourth has been the favorite. The exuberant anticipation of coming to God’s presence and the references to traveling in verses 5-7 and to entering God’s house in verse 10 suggest the psalm was used in processions by pilgrims to Jerusalem. From its opening exclamation to its concluding beatitude, the psalm celebrates the joys of God dwelling with mortals. God’s place is beloved and sought out because we yearn for the Lord's presence. This is why our sanctuary speaks to us and calls us back time and again.

Over 1500 years ago, St. Augustine famously wrote, “Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee.” With those words he captured the sense of spiritual longing to which the psalmist also gave voice in Psalm 84. We have an urge, a need, to be in the presence of God and to enjoy the Lord our God above all other things.

In other writings, St. Augustine sought to show how God was different and would always be different from other “things” in the world, how God was not a thing at all to be used, but the one to be enjoyed. Augustine did this by making a distinction between the Latin uti and frui. Uti stands at the root of our English word “utilize.” Frui is the Latin base for the English “fruition.” Augustine forcefully pointed out that we cannot uti God, we can only frui God. God cannot be used for anything; God can only be experienced and related to as enjoyment in the purest and deepest sense of love for love’s sake. You may get a little more sense of this from a rabbinical stor. At the moment Adam first opened his eyes, he looked at creation, and said to God, “This is utterly fantastic!” “I know,” said God. “But tell me,” Adam asked, “what is the meaning of it all?” God, taken aback, replied, “You mean it has to have meaning?” “Of course,” Adam answered. “Well, I am sure you will think of something,” God said and sauntered off. Not everything is supposed to fit our grasp. Not every animal can be domesticated; in fact, human kind has not domesticated another animal for the last 10,000 years. God will never be domesticated, or used, or made captive. Thank God for this. This is why God is the God above all gods, the Lord of lords. There is only one who is the Lord of hosts, and in this psalm, we hear God called the Lord of hosts four times. This title is particularly associated with the ark, not Noah’s ark, but the Indiana Jones Ark of the Covenant. This is the “box” where the Ten Commandments were placed and solid gold cherubim angels composed the top portion of the ark’s lid, their wings forming the mercy seat of the presence of the Lord of hosts, God almighty. For Israel, this is where God's presence would abide, and when placed in the Temple, where true worship of God take place.

When the psalmist says, “my king and my God,” we hear a double title that means something like “the sovereign power of the universe and the center of my personal life.” So to draw near to such a God by journeying and entering the sanctuary for worship is the highest good, the best thing to do, in life. As Teresa of Avila said, “Let your desire be to see God; your fear, that you may lose God; your sorrow, that you are not having fruition of God; your joy, that God can bring you to eternity. Thus you will live in great peace.” This is best for our lives here, now; it is also our highest hope and good in our life yet to come.  

The story is told of a rich man who was determined to take his wealth with him into the next life. The Lord finally gave in to his fervent prayers. There was one condition: He could bring only one suitcase of valuables. The rich man decided to fill the suitcase with gold bullion. The day came when God called him home. St. Peter greeted him but told him he couldn’t bring his suitcase. “Oh, but I have an agreement with God,” the man explained. “That’s unusual,” said St. Peter. “Mind if I take a look?” The man opened the suitcase to reveal the shining gold bullion. St. Peter was amazed. “Why in the world would you bring pavement?” What is of precious value here will be par for the course there.

The psalmist doesn’t care about money; he just wants to be in God’s presence. Worship is a tiny glimpse, a stained-glass window, into that holy possibility, when all material issues will fall away in the presence of the Lord's holiness. This is the primary reason we do not make a big deal about money at our church; we want people to come and worship. We certainly don’t make as big of a deal about money as some churches do. We don't continually talk about money, about how we all need to give more or whatever. Of course, all of this does cost, and we have to be faithful stewards directed toward God in our personal giving and living; but even though the psalmist is talking about the Temple, and the Temple cost a lot of money to build, our psalm is about the pure, unadulterated joy of getting to and worshiping God. And that's what truly matters.

It is questionable when it comes to worship whether even a building matters. Zion's Temple was amazing and majestic, but Jesus said it would all come down, and it did within some thirty years of his death. But Judaism didn't die. It became a synagogue faith, not a Temple-based faith. Is our faith this building? Is Church the church? Of course not. We know that. There are churches today that look like movie theaters with theater seating, a stage, a screen and no crosses or windows. Totally not my idea of where I want to worship but it seems to make sense to a whole bunch of other people, which reminds me of a pagan who asked a rabbi, “Why did God speak to Moses from the thorn bush?” The pagan thought God should have spoken instead in a peal of thunder on the peak of some majestic mountain. The rabbi answered, “To teach you that there is no place on earth where God's glory is not, not even in a humble thorn bush.” It's true. God's glory is everywhere. It's also true we have a tough time seeing it, focusing our vision and values on such a wide dispersion of God's grace. But here, here in our sanctuary we see it gathered together, brilliantly, quietly, colorfully, God's grace and glory, the wordless word we hear in our hearts and souls.

 Southern author Walker Percy was a man of deep Christian faith, a Roman Catholic, whose faith was interwoven in his wonderful novels. I want to read a powerful section from his Self-Interview, when he was both interviewer and interviewee. "How is such a belief possible in this day and age? What else is there? What do you mean, what else is there? There is humanism, atheism, agnosticism, Marxism, behaviorism, materialism, Buddhism, Sufism, astrology, occultism, theosophy. That's what I mean. To say nothing of Judaism and Protestantism. Well, I would include them along with the Catholic Church in the whole peculiar Jewish-Christian thing. I don't understand. Would you exclude, for example, scientific humanism as a rational and honorable alternative? Yes. Why? It's not good enough. Why not? This life is much too much trouble, far too strange, to arrive at the end of it and then be asked what you make of it and have to answer, 'Scientific humanism.' That won't do. A poor show. Life is a mystery, love is a delight. Therefore, I take it as axiomatic that one should settle for nothing less than the infinite mystery and the infinite delight, i.e., God. In fact, I demand it. I refuse to settle for anything less."

The easy answer to the question as to who we worship here is God. The obvious symbol that focuses our attention is the cross. But if we had to tell a little bit more of the story, if we had to speak to someone and explain to them who this God is and what does this cross mean, then what would we say? If you had to fill in the space of this room, this sanctuary with a story, a story that would say why you are here, what story would you tell? Perhaps this story speaks to you about who God is to you, for you, and why you are here, even to us who do come here, to church. Perhaps you will remember it and use it if the need, if the opportunity, arises.

A chaplain in a state prison received a request from a father of a young man who was in the prison. The young man had committed a robbery and had been sentenced to many years in jail. He was embittered. This father came each week to visit him, but he steadfastly refused to see his dad. The chaplain was asked to intervene, to plead with the man to see his father. But the young prisoner refused to reconsider. Despite his refusal, the boy’s father took off work every week, boarded a bus, and traveled over two hours in the hope of seeing his son. Every week. And every week it became the young chaplain’s difficult task to ask the son, “Do you want to see your dad?” He then had to bear word of the refusal to the waiting father. The father would thank the chaplain, gather his belongings, and head toward the door for the bus trip back home. One day, after telling the father the same thing, the chaplain said, “No one would do what you are doing. Your son is an embittered, defiant young man. Go back home and get on with your life. No one would put up with this kind of rejection, week after week. Nobody would do this.” “He's put up with it century after century, one person after another,” said the father, turning his eyes upward. Bending over, he picked up his belongings and headed out.

This is the God we seek time after time, Sunday after Sunday, in his own house.

Return to Sermons (table of contents)

Return to Homepage of the Congregational Church of Boca Raton