Creating a Dwelling Place
World Communion Sunday 2019
Ephesians 2:14-22
Luke 13:18-19
Every year at this time two traditions come along within weeks of one another.
In the Christian tradition, the first Sunday of the month come World Communion Sunday. And in the Jewish tradition on the 13th, this month is Festival of the Booths or Sukkoth.
For those who haven’t heard or can’t remember, During the week of Sukkoth, booths or structures called sukkahs are built as a dwelling place. In the book of Leviticus, Moses on behalf of God instructs God’s people to live in these temporary shelters for one full week. I’ve never met anyone who actually lived in one for a week, but I know that many temples build them and use them throughout the week.
The purpose of this festival is, like other festivals in Judaism, is to remember. To remember that the Israelites lived in these temporary dwelling places after God freed them from slavery in Egypt. Remembering not just with the mind like recalling something intellectually, but remembering with the whole body, the whole experience as a reaffirmation of trust in God who provided shelter for God’s people before they entered the holy land. In the Christian tradition, when we come to the table for communion we do a similar kind of remembering, with our whole mind body and spirit; do this in remembrance of me…
If you’ve ever looked up how to build a sukkah (and I know you all have) the rabbinic teachings are very specific in the details. Different kinds of branches from different kinds of tress are to be used because they represent the different kinds of people, some with knowledge of the law and other with knowledge of good deeds, or mitzvahs, others with knowledge of both.
The roofs are to be kept open, reminding people that when it rains on one, it rains on all and that we all live under the same stars.
And then there’s an empty chair inside. The purpose of the empty chair is to make a dwelling place for the spirits of ancestors who may be passing through and need to rest. But it’s also used to invite guests in real-time as well. This is again a reminder that there are those who are traveling still, seeking refuge, seeking peace. The empty chair becomes both a reminder for what their ancestors suffered, but more importantly what God has done for God’s people in freeing them, and what God has done for us, we now do for one another.
A dwelling place for others, for the weary, for strangers….because they too were once strangers in a foreign land.
In our Ephesians text this morning, we also hear about a dwelling place…
18-22 For through Christ, we (both) have access to God by one Spirit. Consequently, you no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens…. members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him, the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. 22 And in him, you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.
Through Christ, we are being built together to become a dwelling, in which God lives by God’s spirit. We become a dwelling place for those who are in need. Individually, with a hospitality of the heart, and collectively as the church, and in light of world communion Sunday, this idea of creating a dwelling space for one another in need is extended into the world.
This Sunday is the one that reminds us of what this world could be if only we, together with all of humanity and creation lived and loved one another as God and Christ have loved us.
This Sunday is the day we recall what God’s kingdom could be, Our closing hymn says it best -
Come! live in the light!
Shine with the joy and the love of the Lord!
We are called to be light for the kingdom,
Luke gives us this parable from Jesus….
Then Jesus asked, “What is the kingdom of God like? What shall I compare it to? 19 It is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his garden. It grew and became a tree, and the birds perched in its branches.”
The kingdom is like a tree that becomes a dwelling place for birds. The kingdom is like a seed, which humanity takes and plants….until it grows to become a dwelling place for others…
Our world is a mess to be sure…And coming to gather on this day is surely not enough to fix it. But it exists as a reminder that we carry these seeds in us, these small seemingly insignificant ways of living that may just grow, with God’s help into becoming a dwelling place that is the kingdom.
Writer Nancy Janisch for the Christian Century magazine writes this…
What if I don’t do a big thing? What if all I do is take one meal to someone, say hello to people I pass on the street, Do these little things matter?
A person can tell me I was helpful to them. But did I do something significant? Did I make a lasting difference? Who knows? Honestly, I only know my own heart…. (and)If my heart becomes a little more open, a little more sympathetic, slightly more compassionate, somewhat more aware, incrementally more Christlike—that is perhaps all I can reasonably hope for.
As far as I can tell, big things are not God’s primary way of being in the world.
God chooses to work with Abraham, one guy, and his family out of all the people in the world. God chooses Israel—one nation, and a little one at that—out of all the nations in the world. God becomes human as Jesus, one poor Jewish guy. Jesus talks about giving the thirsty a cup of water. Jesus tells parables about the kingdom of God using the images of a mustard seed and leaven. Jesus tells parables about searching for the one pearl and the one lost sheep. After the resurrection, the followers of Jesus are a small number of men and women who are mostly confused and frightened.
It seems to be the doing that matters, not the size. Faithfulness isn’t about numbers. Smallness doesn’t seem to be a problem for God. I wonder why it is a problem for us?
In our prelude…you heard this line “go ask Alan shepherd when he’s standing up on the moon staring at that pearl of blue…
That pearl of blue is our dwelling place for all of creation-
Carl Sagan called this pearl of blue, our planet, a pale blue dot. he named it that after seeing the picture of the earth that Voyager 1 took in 1990 at his suggestion. Voyager 1 was about 4 billion miles away and 32 degrees above the ecliptic plane (whatever that means) Caught in the center of all these light rays, the earth appears as a tiny point of light, a crescent only .12 pixel in size. (whatever that means)
Carl Sagan writes this…
Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it, everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and every peasant, every young couple in love, every mother, and father, every child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every supreme leader, every saint and every sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust upended in a sunbeam.
In our obscurity, in all vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
As Christians, we believe that help came already in the second person of the trinity. Christ came to save us from ourselves. That lives in every little thing we do, with the awareness of just how small we are. Sagan calls on us to cherish that pale blue dot as the only home we’ve ever known. This is also God’s call. In the smallest of ways, we are called to take care of the only home, the only dwelling place we’ve ever known.
Let this day, this ritual and the holy sacrament of communion remind you….that you are loved by a God who believes in the big and the small holy ways of love. Come to the table to reminded of how that love lives within you, as a seed planted the moment you were born. Let the table remind you that as you grow you become a dwelling place for others to rest in, to find hope in and to be loved by. Come to this table without judgment, without fear, as a reminder that we live under the same stars and when it rains on one it rains on all. Come called to the hope for peace, where all God’s children dwell together as one.
Amen.