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Fourth Sunday after Pentecost
July 2, 2006
Delivered by Reverend Sandra Stayner
Deuteronomy 15:7-11
2 Corinthians 8:1-9,13-15
Mark 5:22-24,35b-43
“Almighty God, you have built your Church upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone: Grant us so to be joined together in unity of spirit by their teaching, that we may be made a holy temple acceptable to you; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen”
I wonder what it would mean for us to be made a holy temple, acceptable to God. It’s a question that many in our church are asking at this time and coming up with very different answers. This is a very difficult time for the Episcopal Church as a body, and indeed for all of us who love our church and hate to see the kind of struggles and divisions that are happening in our midst. In the light of all that has happened as a result of the General Convention of the Episcopal Church, the scripture readings and the collect for today seem to be especially appropriate for us as a community, because the very question we have to ask ourselves as the people of God, is the thing we prayed for in our collect today. “Lord, grant us so to be joined together in unity of spirit by the teaching of the apostles and the prophets that we may be made a holy temple acceptable to God.”
Something that is holy has been set apart for the purposes of God, cut off from profane use because of its association with God. This church building is holy because it has been set apart as a place to worship God. Most of us come here expecting to find the presence of God in this place. Sometimes during the week I will find someone in the church, a person I may never have seen before, quietly sitting in a pew praying. They have most often come here because they want to be close to God. The Eucharistic vessels on the altar are used solely in the celebration of Holy Eucharist. They are holy! We don’t go and get one of the chalices out when we need a wine glass for dinner. These vessels have been reserved for the purpose of revealing God’s presence to this congregation in the breaking of bread and pouring of wine as we share Holy Eucharist together. The great temple in Jerusalem, in which was housed the ark of the covenant in an area called the holy of holies, was recognized as the most holy of all places because it contained the presence of God. “Take of your shoes” God said as Moses approached him in the encounter at the burning bush, “your feet are standing on Holy ground.”
I wonder how often during a week we think of ourselves as holy, our lives set apart for purposes of God. As we go into stop and shop to buy our groceries do our interactions at the checkout counter allow God’s presence to be revealed? Do we faithfully go to the gym after work and get in our daily workout, not simply because we want to look good but also because we recognize our bodies as a gift from God to be taken care of and used for God’s glory? For everything we are, everything we have, everything we do, we must do for the glory of God. The way we care for one another, the kind of respect we offer one another, the desire to hear God in each other’s stories will determine our ability to grow into God’s holy temple, acceptable to God. What is being called for in our relationships with one another and in the way we live is a greater awareness of the holiness of each one of our lives and a desire to deeper that holiness until God is glorified in everything we do. We are the holy temple of God, and that holiness must not be profaned.
The great Hebrew scholar Walter Breuggeman tells us that at the time the Hebrew people were sent into exile from Jerusalem, a terrible time of dislocation and confusion the priests called the people to a deep personal holiness. “I am the Lord your God, sanctify yourselves therefore and be holy. You shall not defile yourselves….You shall be Holy as I am Holy. (Lev.11:44-45) The writer of the book of Leviticus advocates the most stringent notions of holiness with detailed instructions about how to maintain purity and shun defilement, a way of life that would be pretty much impossible for us to follow. But there is a very important lesson to be taken from the example of the Hebrew people and that is the utmost importance of an intentional resolve to reorder and recover life through communion with God if we are to remain faithful to God during a time of dislocation and upheaval. Bruggeman says of the Hebrew people: “They understood that life in faith is not happenstance or accidental. It does not happen automatically. It requires attentiveness. This holiness without which we cannot live is not available upon request, but comes in and through practices that invite God to come and dwell among us. Indeed, according to priestly tradition, the community must prepare a suitable habitat for God’s presence. This beginning for the holiness that recovers and reorders life is indeed Sabbath.”
If we are to find our way through the disagreements that are tearing our church apart we must all commit ourselves to becoming the holy temple of God. Instead of pointing fingers of judgment at brothers and sisters who seem to have a very different idea of what holiness means than we do, we must find ways to intentionally practice ever deeper practices of worship and prayer and study of the scriptures. Above all we must become the kind of community we read about in Deuteronomy that is generous in giving to the poor, not hard-hearted or tight-fisted but willing to give to meet the need. One way to live a more holy life might be to study the causes of poverty in the world and work as a community towards the elimination of hunger and disease in whatever country that might be. There is an interdenominational group with a chapter in this country called “jubilee” that is seeking to eliminate the debt that keeps some of the poorest countries in the world in the most terrible poverty and distress. Perhaps if our eyes were focused on our mission to the world instead of looking inward all the time, we would find ways to resolve our differences and understand more deeply the holy life to which we are being called.
We have found new ways to offer more opportunities for us as a community to increase our knowledge of scripture during the adult education hour on Sunday, starting in the fall. We will soon be encouraging you to participate in new spiritual practices as you learn more about prayer and worship. Something called an “At home retreat” will provide you resources to deepen your prayer life at home. As more and more of us commit ourselves to more regular attendance at Sunday morning worship we will begin to find God’s presence is more powerful in our midst. We will hear the word of God more clearly through Word and Sacrament. We are all being called to practices of prayer and worship that will allow us to be made a holy temple, acceptable to God.
Shortly before I was ordained to the diaconate I went on retreat at S.S.J.E. in Boston. The monastery chapel is a large stone building with a sweet smell of incense and because the brothers pray in that space five or more times every day, the walls themselves seem to whisper prayer. Hanging just behind the altar is a very large crucifix – an image of Jesus being crucified on the cross. My spiritual director, one of the brothers, encouraged me to pray anywhere in the chapel wherever I felt drawn to sit or stand or even lie. I desperately wanted to sit at the foot of the cross, touching the feet of the crucified Christ, but could not bring myself to go there. After some conversation with the same brother, I realized that I could not go to the foot of the cross because it would mean sitting behind the altar, and in spite of the fact that I was soon going to be ordained, in this place, this most holy place the altar must be reserved as it had been throughout my childhood, for men only. As a woman I could not bring myself to enter what I perceived to be the holy of holies. It was of course, exactly the place God was calling me to go – to the foot of the cross, to a place behind the altar. It was prayer that allowed me to do something that was almost unthinkable. It was prayer that took me to a place that some people still think a woman should not inhabit. In the gospel of John, Jesus says, “I have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when the Spirit of truth comes, the Spirit will draw from what is mine, and reveal it to you.” None of us understand why God didn’t simply plant the fullness of this knowledge in us from the beginning. We know that Jesus encouraged women to be part of his fellowship in a way that would have seemed quite extraordinary to the holy people of his day, but it took years before the church formed in Christ’s name, could accept women as full members of the community. The church is confused not only because of Gene Robinson’s consecration as Bishop of New Hampshire, but also because of the presence of women at the altar. I believe it is God’s will that I stand at the altar today though many good and faithful Christians who lived before me would consider it an abomination for me to be here. We will only find our way through the confusion and dislocation of the controversy in our church as insist on staying together at the table, committing ourselves to a life of holiness and worship, loving the lord our God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind and loving our neighbor as ourselves.
In the name of Christ
Amen
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