Sermon
3-23-14
Outside, life's a mess.
No one's pure of spirit any longer.
There's no wrong or right,
just wrong and wronger.
People have amused themselves
to death.
Outside, life is grim.
Filled with smut and scandal
to the brim.
I suppose there may be room
for Him -
Frankly, I don't plan to hold
my breath.
But here within these walls,
days are filled with grace.
God is in his place,
his wisdom still respected.
Here within these walls,
life has a different pace
from life beyond our doors.
And for what it's worth,
this life's now yours!
Here within these walls,
Life is truly blessed!
Here you're God's own guest
Celestially protected.
These are words from the song "Here Within these Walls" from the musical Sister Act. As I listened to the words sung by the Mother Superior on Friday evening it struck me how different what she was saying was from the message that Jesus delivered both through his words and the way he lived his life.
The Mother Superior spoke as if the church was the only place where God's grace could be found. She spoke of celestial protection within the walls as if that same protection did not exist outside of them in the streets where "life's a mess, no one's pure of spirit any longer, there's no wrong or right just wrong and wronger, outside where life is grim even questioning whether there is room for Him - room for God outside the walls of their sanctuary.
As I listened to these words I thought about how little of Jesus' ministry was actually done inside the walls of the temple and then I thought of Jesus' words to the woman at the well in our reading for this morning: "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem."
Jesus tells this woman that God isn’t confined to mount Gerazim (the Samaritan woman's place of worship) or in the temple in Jerusalem (the Jews place of worship). Those who worship God will do so "in Spirit and in Truth."
Here within these walls we know that we can encounter God. In the words of scripture Old and New Testaments. In the words of songs written by those who have encountered the Divine. In the waters of the baptismal font and in the ordinary elements of bread and wine, made extraordinary somehow by God’s Divine presence, we encounter God. But… we don’t have a corner on the market of where God is present. God’s Holy Spirit doesn’t just reside inside the four walls of Augustana Lutheran Church or for that matter any other church in this city, the country or our world.
God is present everywhere. God is out there in the world doing amazing things. God is on the streets of our city where young lives are being torn apart by gang activity. God is in the homeless shelters where men and women huddle with their meager belongings hoping for a safe, warm night free from confrontation with another person. God is in the central park mall where homeless teenagers huddle for warmth and security – teenagers who have left home or been kicked out of their homes many simply because of their sexual orientations. God is with those who are working hard struggling to make ends meet.
God is out there in the refugee families who are trying to begin new lives in a strange land with completely different customs, traditions, laws and expectations than they are accustomed to. God is out there working amongst God’s people… because God is in God's people.
“A God encountered outside the walls, encountered “in spirit and truth,” one theologian said, must be a God who dwells among flesh and blood. No grumpy old man in the sky who refuses to take us and our disappointments seriously, no dispassionate supercomputer-like mind that cannot be affected by love and rejection or progress and loss -- this is a God we risk losing sight of if we cut ourselves off from our neighbors and if we define too tightly the terms of what it means to belong to “God’s people.””
Jesus’ disciples were astonished when they saw Jesus talking to this woman because for them she was “out there” outside the “walls” of the community – outside God’s grace. Jesus showed them and us that God’s people are found "out there" as well - in our relationships with those outside the walls of this congregation. We will encounter God in those we meet in our daily lives at work, home, school, and the leisure activities and community work we invest our time in during the week.
So am I saying that we don’t need to gather in this place inside the walls of Augustana Lutheran Church? Well… since I am your pastor here in this place I am guessing you already know my answer to that question is no. So why? Why do we gather here if we know that we can meet God out there in the world? Why not just meet God on the golf course, in the bleachers at a sporting event or at the campground? Why invite people to join us within these walls when God is loose outside the walls doing amazing things?
Remember those to whom the woman at the well shared the Good News of this man who told her everything she had ever done? John tells us that after the woman told them about Jesus they left the city and were on their way to him. They were compelled to meet this Jesus. At his feet they heard his word. They didn’t just hear the woman’s story of how Jesus had touched her life – the way in which God worked in her life through this One who knew everything about her. They heard the story from Jesus himself saying: “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.”
It is here in this place that we hear the story for ourselves. We hear the words of scripture and encounter the deep love of the Divine for ourselves. Here we learn of God's kingdom values so that we might be equipped to see the activity of God's Spirit beyond these walls - so that we might be equipped to point to God's work in the world. Here we are fed and nurtured so that we might be able to join in that work - so that we might be willing to risk relationship with those that others might push aside. It won't be neat and tidy and clean and sterile like the Mother Superior in Sister Act perceived the inside of Queen of Angels church to be but we will be as she said: “celestially protected” because God is out there doing amazing things inviting us to see God’s presence in places and in the lives of people we might never have imagined! Amen.