Sermon Title: "At Home With God"
Date: August 23, 2009
Minister: Rev. Charles Ensley

Lesson:  Psalm 84

Back in 2000, on a trip to Alberta, Canada, Peggy and I spent a few days in Calgary.  I had not been back since my dad was transferred there from 1955 to 1958.  I drove by the home where we lived, and the elementary school I attended.  And on Sunday, we worshipped at the same United Church of Canada my family belonged to.  It was a nostalgic experience for me, and I met the now-retired minister who performed my sister’s baptism in 1958.  As we were leaving after the coffee hour in the library, I said to Peggy that I wanted to go down a certain hallway, one which the signs said led to the fellowship hall.  I wanted to look inside, because that was where we worshipped in the ‘50s.  The sanctuary we worshipped in in 2000 wasn’t built yet in the ‘50s.  The present fellowship hall was where I remember Joan being baptized on the stage.

I have a similar experience whenever I worship at Community Congregational United Church of Christ in Los Alamitos, where my family joined in 1958.  They have a beautiful, airy sanctuary, with a flexible chancel area of which I’m envious.  It’s as wide as the sanctuary, and takes up one-third of the room.  You could stage a play or have a 100 voice choir up there.  My mother was on the building committee and, appropriately, her memorial service was held there.

But sitting across the plaza is a building with more meaning for me.  Typical of churches build in the 1950s and ‘60s, it was the multipurpose room used for both worship and fellowship prior to building the sanctuary in later years.  Now used as their fellowship hall, I look at that room and think back to when my two sisters were confirmed there, where I delivered my first sermon as a seminarian, and where I was ordained in 1973.  I see it as it is now, but in my memories, I remember it differently.

Two Sundays ago after worship here, as I was picking up my sermon and prayer cards in the pulpit, a man I hadn’t see before stood there looking all around the sanctuary.  When I introduced myself, he told me he was visiting from Bakersfield, but used to attend here in the ‘50s.  He said he was walking back from getting some early morning coffee, noted that worship was at 9:30, and hurried back to his relatives to change out of shorts.  I told him he didn’t need to worry about that.  This is a beach community and we’re used to seeing shorts here.

Then last Saturday, at Fran Lang’s memorial service, an older woman introduced herself to me at the reception.  She said she used to come here before the sanctuary was built, and remembers when they worshipped in the Concert Hall in the 1930s.  She looked about that room and said she had a lot of good memories here.

I suspect by now I’ve either got you thinking about your experiences in some particular portion of Bay Shore Church, or you’ve already been transported down memory lane to the church of your past, or perhaps where you got married.  All of my illustrations so far suggest the particular feelings one has for a church building, and the memories it holds. 

Evidently, the psalmist of old had the same feelings about his place of worship.  Jewish pilgrims traveled to Jerusalem for festivals at the Temple.  A memorable story from Jesus’ life—the only recorded one of his boyhood years—revolves about his family’s annual Passover trip to the Temple when he was twelve, how he got separated from his parents, and how they later found him back at the Temple listening to and questioning the religious leaders.  (Luke 2:41-52)

One of the dominant images in Psalm 84 is the gift of God’s presence expressed in metaphors of home.  Listen to the words the psalmist uses to convey this:  dwelling place, home, nest.  Those who have been on the road—and remember, these folks were not traveling in the comfort of air-conditioned SUVs!—and exposed to its dangers are given the promise of sanctuary.  Even the sparrow is assured a nesting place next to the altars of God.  The holiest of places gives room for a “nursery” to one of the smallest, and not always most welcome, of creatures.  I know that whenever a bird flies into our sanctuary through an open door, we consider it a nuisance or a distraction, or, at least I do, for it seems to always make its presence known during the sermon as it flies from beam to beam.  I’ll try to remember this passage the next time it occurs!

Yet the presence of those in a temple or church who some might consider a nuisance indicate that the church represents more than just a center of worship.  All during the month of June, a homeless woman named Denise slept on the porch of the church, in the alcove just outside my office.  Two Decembers ago, she spent her nights there.  You might not have seen her during the night, but in the daytime sitting in front of the post office on Second Street.  Denise never once asked me for money, but thanked me repeatedly for letting her sleep here.

I told you previously that I ran into Denise last summer, quite by surprise, in Ashland, Oregon.  So on my trip to Ashland last month, I was on the lookout for her.  One day, while walking down Main Street with Amy, I sighted her about four stores ahead, just as she exclaimed, “Why, I can’t believe my eyes!  It’s Pastor!”  While she is chronically homeless, she is intelligent in conversation, and a child of God.  After both stays, while I did ask her to move on after a month, she is still worthy of being treated with respect.

Last Thursday afternoon, a man in a wheelchair and a guide dog came into the office, asking to speak to a pastor.  His name was Joseph; he went off to Vietnam at age 17, where he lost one leg on a landmine.  He is also homeless, spending his nights outside Our Savior’s Lutheran Church, and his days rolling around with his dog Lucky.  Like Denise, he did not come to ask for money, as many drop-ins do.  He asked two things:  Did I think God would ever forgive him for what he did in Vietnam?  And, as a former Catholic, he asked if I would give him communion.  I told him if he ever wished to worship with us, he’d be welcome, along with his dog Lucky.

Both Denise and Joseph saw this church building as a place of sanctuary—not sanctuary as the room we are in, but sanctuary as a place of safety, of peace, of retreat. 

James Mays, a foremost commentator on the psalms, writes:  “Every visit to a temple or church or meeting of believers is in a profound sense a pilgrimage.  We ‘go’ not just for practical or personal reasons; we go theologically.  Christians have read and sung Psalm 84 and through it praised the God to whom we ‘go’ in different ways.”

There are many reasons persons come to a church.  Certainly for worship, for fellowship and friendship, for Christian education and outreach to others, for a sense of belonging, for comfort, for solace, for finding ones self when lost in despair or sin, even for shelter.

In a chapter on the church in a book of devotions, an unknown writer wrote these words, which seem to echo the message of Psalm 84:

                     MY CHURCH

My church to me means life;

A more abundant life, enlarged, full-grown;

Unchanging in a swiftly moving age

When hope has flown.

My church to me means love;

An all embracing love, secure, serene.

With hands outstretched to help the passing throng;

With self unseen.

My church to me means home;

A happy, cheerful home, within whose walls

An undivided circle kneels in prayer,

As evening falls.

My church to me means hope;

A never-failing hope when light descends,

For in that hour it lights the evening lamp

And comfort sends.

My church to me means faith;

Triumphant faith, clearing the cluttered way

Toward that City where for us awaits

Eternal day.

My church to me means service;

A place to serve with others day to day,

Remembering always how the Master toiled to win

[People] to the Way.

“My Church,” author unknown; Words of Life, (New York: 

Harper & Row, Publishers, © 1966 by Charles L Wallis), p. 43