Sanctuary

Micah 4:1-4, John 14:1-3, 18-27

When I was growing up on a farm, we had a very large barn. I had a special place under the top most roof, in a no longer used area that used to have chickens below it. One of the old feed storage bins, about three feet square (I wasn’t very big, nor was I very old) was my special place. Nobody could bug me there. So if I was particularly put out at my brother, or just needed a break from people, that is where I went.

Of course I went there to be alone; it had a certain security in that it was my secret place. It was a place where I could take a break and gather myself.

Sometimes, we need that kind of place. The trouble is that I was alone. I only had my own counsel. And when I was upset with myself, and of course that is the person we all get most exasperated with, I was too much present!

I was extremely lucky, because my home and family were the true safe havens for me. Sure, there was correction and discipline as well as ridiculing siblings, but I was safe. My family would do me no harm, only good, and would not allow anyone else to harm me. There, I was accepted for who I am. And when I was upset at another child or teacher, scared about the world, or exasperated with myself, there was always home.

You know the feeling, I hope. You close the door and lean against it, "Whew, home at last!" My safe place of home was a place where I could share what was going on, or didn’t have to. In short, it was a place where I was affirmed.

Maybe true safe havens are places of affirmation, where there are people who don’t just tolerate, but affirm who we are, people who sometimes see what we, or the rest of the world think are warts, as beauty marks.

It has been said, "home is the place that has to take you in." Perhaps it is all the more powerful, that church is that place that chooses to take you in!

I wish all of you could have sat in on the first Stewardship Committee meeting this year. I know you have assumptions about that committee, as their job is to put together the Stewardship Campaign and, what… cajole, invite, strong-arm, or somehow convince you to willingly and joyfully give time and money, over which you have control, to the church. I am sure that some of you, when you receive the stewardship mailings, once you get onto the theme so you know what‘s in the envelope, don’t open it immediately, or read it carefully (I wasn’t born yesterday).

When this group gathered, there was no hand wringing about, "What do we do this year? How can we wrest more money out of these people." It was automatically a celebration of Plymouth Church in our lives and in the life of this community and beyond. It was totally focused on the character and ministry of Plymouth. We talked about how much richer our lives are for being part of Plymouth. There was a kind of involuntary shutter as we spoke of how our lives would be different without Plymouth Church.

As we talked about Plymouth Church, testimonies arose among us about feeling safe here, about hearing others—from middle-aged, married, straight men; to lesbian and gay sisters and brothers; to single adults; and those who have come from other fellowships; who have found a safe place here. Unfortunately, church generally has the reputation of being the one place where you can’t be yourself, where we act much more reverent, holy, pious, and generally put-together than we are.

To have it be the place where we feel safe is, I believe, a sacred thing. And goodness knows we need it. Many of you work in places or have family or neighbors who don’t accept or respect your beliefs and passion. Lots of you have extended families or work with folks who are insensitive enough to think that everyone shares their conservative religious perspectives or perhaps political perspectives. Or even more insensitive, are people who simply don’t care about, or discount you for having a different perspective. In many places, you don’t feel free to share what you believe, nor what or who you care about.

Indeed, we need shelter from the storm. As our lives go too often at a frantic pace and, as many of you feel as I, that most of the things I care about dearly are under siege, and the religious, economic, and political powers that be are actively on the attack. We need a place that affirms the God and the world we know and believe in, a place that affirms us: where we don’t have to keep hidden our thoughts, hopes, whom we love; a place where we don’t have to hide the tears in our eyes when we recall our own times of rejection or the death of children in Iraq, or Africa, or Pennsylvania, or the south side of Grand Rapids.

We need a place that won’t allow us to take our selves too seriously; to laugh at our missteps and humor, a place where people can be open about their sexual orientation without that being their sole identity or reason for being here. We need a place where those who believe that all people are children of God can be friends and family with one another without having to defend ourselves to the world for believing that we are richer when our circle of friends and community is greater and more diverse.

Let’s be clear, this is no "cop out" kind of safe haven. This is not a "God is in "his" heavens and all is right with the world," or "all will be better bye and bye." Rather, it allows us to be truthful with ourselves and others, to lament that things are not as they should be, to call on God, ourselves, and others to make it right!

Indeed, sometimes it seems like God is in the heavens and that is a long way away, and all is not right here. No, this kind of safe haven is not "I am safe here, I’ve got mine, too bad for you." Rather, it takes God and God‘s promises seriously. It expresses a faith that allows us to care and curse deeply at our own loss and the world's injustice knowing that to do so will not blow us apart or destroy God.

Maybe this kind of sanctuary comes from a community of people who know deep in their heart what I have said many times, especially since my own son’s death, "Beneath is not a great abyss, but the hollow of God’s hand."

No doubt the more active and out-looking one’s faith is, the more important a sense of safe place is. To be out-front on many of these things that characterize Plymouth, even to care deeply and to believe it matters, is to be at odds with many. It is to be made to feel "crazy," out of step, scorned by many as well.

As the Stewardship Committee further thought about it, it became clear that our ministry at Plymouth is about safe haven. It is about creating, sharing, and enabling a safe place, sanctuary— seeking not only for us, but also for others, a safe place. And seeking ultimately the world as a safe place. Whether it is in the Sunday Sessions classrooms, creating a place for our Interfaith Hospitality families to truly be "at home," providing temporary shelter under a tent and wrapped in a blanket after a Tsunami or Hurricane, or resettling a persecuted Muslim Russian family, it is about sanctuary, that all might be at home in God’s world.

Jesus said, "In my father’s house are many mansions, I go ahead and prepare a place for you, that where I am, you may be also." And he promised his Holy Spirit, that we might know of his presence with us all the time.

Too often this is taken to refer only to after death. But when Jesus talks about the reign of heaven, he never means simply "after death." Jesus, above all, is clear that this world is the world of God’s domain.

The world is God’s house; is it not to be that safe haven heralded by the prophets: "where the wolf will lie down with the lamb, the child will play over the hole of the asp ... where each will sit under her own vine and fig tree, and no one will make them afraid."

Jesus goes ahead, not only into the next life, but also in this life, clearing a path, making a safe place so that anywhere we go, Jesus is already there, that wherever we walk is holy ground. Maybe that is what it means to be followers of this God, this Christ. It is called Sanctuary: seeking, creating, sharing, offering, building, allowing, celebrating the God who makes a way where there is no way, the God who will not leave us desolate, the God who welcomes us back home when we have gone astray, the God who so loves this world as to give the Son.

My friends, this is the kind of world I want to live in. This is the kind of world I want my son to live in. This is the kind of world I want the church of which I am a member to long for, to pray for, and to work for. I want to be part of a church where nothing and no one, except perhaps God, will make me afraid.

In many and glorious ways, you are that church. Praise be to God.