Waters of Grace Lutheran Church, Frazee, MN
Pentecost 2/June 2, 2013/Commissioning of Laurie Albertson, SAM
1 Kings 8:22-23, 41-43
We’re right here, right now because that’s what Christians do.
Christians come together, meet at an appointed hour,
rendezvous at a certain place, encounter one another person-to-person…and in so
doing we meet the God who became a human person in Jesus of Nazareth.
Christians come to church to be church and “do church”…..even
though “church” often gets a bum rap, nowadays.
Two weeks ago, on Pentecost Sunday, our family worshiped at
Christ Lutheran on Capitol Hill in St Paul.
During worship representatives of
neighborhood ministries who share space in Christ Lutheran’s building offered
greetings.
One of them was an African American pastor by the name of
Sylvester Davis who works with a ministry called “Rock of Ages.” Pastor Davis walks around his neighborhood
meeting all sorts of folks who are skeptical about the church.
“Folks say to me: I
can be a Christian without going to church,” Pastor Davis shared with us. “But I ask them—are you sure about
that? Are you sure that you can be a
Christian without going to church?”
“Travelers who want to go somewhere by bus—they meet at the bus station to get
picked up, don’t they? And people who
plan to fly somewhere—they gather at the airport so’s the plane can pick them
up—right? Seems to me that if you want
God to take you somewhere, the best place for God to pick you up is at church!”
As creatures of space and time, embodied souls who crave
connections with others, we need to come together to figure out again just who
we all are. Andrew Root who teaches at
Luther Seminary in St Paul says that persons ARE their relationships. I am who I am only in relationship with you
and who you are….and one of the best places I meet you is church, where God also
regularly shows up—the same God who took on flesh and became a human person in
Jesus Christ.
….which is why we set
aside space and time so that creatures of space and time can find one another
and be found again by God.
Our First Lesson for today is part of the dedication prayer
of King Solomon, who built the first brick-and-mortar church building in the
Bible—the great temple in Jerusalem.
Solomon knew that God and God’s people had mixed feelings
about whether this Temple should even exist.
Solomon realized that God isn’t going to ever “hang his hat”
or permanently reside in any structure made with human hands. God is too wild and free for that--which is
why before Jerusalem’s Temple was built God mainly encountered the people of
Israel in a Tent, a portable worship-space that could be folded, picked up and
moved around like an Army M*A*S*H unit.
God refuses to be “boxed in,” which is probably why it took
so long (20 years!) for Solomon’s Temple to be conceived, imagined, planned and
constructed.
And when Solomon dedicated the Temple, the first line of his
dedication prayer reminded everyone that God didn’t need the Temple they had
created. “But will God indeed dwell on
the earth? Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, much less
this house that I have built!” (I Kings 8:27).
God didn’t need the Temple, any more than God needs the
church….but you and I do. We need the
church and we need to become the church for one another, because we’re persons
related to one another and related to Jesus Christ the person in whom God meets
us.
Moreover, the world—all our neighbors who aren’t church
folks—the world needs the church, too, to be a point of encounter with one
another and with God. In the words of
our First Lesson: “when a foreigner
comes and prays toward this [Temple]…, then hear in heaven your dwelling place,
and do according to all that the foreigner calls to you, so that all the
peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you.” (I Kings 8:42-43)
Today, in this unfolding green season of Pentecost, we declare
that being Christian and being church are one-in-the-same. We give thanks for all the places and times
God meets us in Jesus Christ….whether it’s at 1401 Madison Avenue in DL….or at
the Frazee Event Center….or in over 4000 congregations of our companion synod, the
Andhra Evangelical Lutheran Church in India…or wherever else Christians meet
and gather and re-connect with God and one another.
We take this church-thing so seriously that we keep planting
churches, which is why we’re commissioning and supporting Laurie Albertson to
invite and gather God’s people in Frazee so that Waters of Grace Lutheran Church
might become another “Temple”—another touchpoint on earth where the God of
heaven will show up and meet us, person-to-person, in Jesus Christ, and in the
people Jesus Christ is pleased to call his church.
In the name of Jesus.
Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment