Remembering the Past...
        Planning the Future

    Park Christian Church
                                                                    (Disciples of Christ)

July 12, 2009

Scripture:         2 Samuel 6:1-5

Sermon:           “Home Is Where You Hang Your Hat”

            I want to draw your attention to our scripture lesson for the day.  In 2 Samuel we will read together the first five verses of chapter 6.  That is on page   of the Old Testament, or Hebrew Scriptures, in the pew bibles.  I’ll give you a moment to find that if you like.

            In the mean time some of you might notice that a sacred relic has returned to its place in the sanctuary.  Above my head hangs the lantern with the eternal flame.  Now, since I am the one who removed it a couple of weeks ago, I’ll tell you that it’s really an electric light bulb up there.  But, the thing is no less sacred because of that.

            Some seventeen years ago this congregation left what was for generations the holy shrine down next to Scribner Park.  And, yes, if you are new around here that is why we are called Park Christian Church.  This building belonged to another family of faith that could not sustain the finances.  And our congregation decided to relocate.

            But, the good folks here at the time brought along many of their sacred objects to make this place their new home.  It’s kind of like when you move your family into a new house, you bring along the stuff you own.  And when you get the house all settled, that house has enough of you inside of it to make sense.

            There are hanging in these walls now paintings that used to adorn the old sanctuary down by the river.  Jesus knocking at the door.  Jesus praying in the garden.  This pulpit, these chairs, the communion table—all of them can be seen in a photograph of the old sanctuary out there in the hallway.  And the stained glass windows were refit to adorn this sanctuary.  Then, too, is the eternal light above.

            What the congregation did then was something like what happened long ago as David, the King of the Israelites, brought the Ark of the Covenant from its resting place up to the city of Jerusalem.  A new time and a new place still required a connection to the sacred memory of the people.  And that’s something of what we are reading.  This is the word of the Lord…

            David again gathered all the chosen men of Israel, thirty thousand.  David and all the people with him set out and went from Baale-judah, to bring up from there the ark of God, which is called by the name of the Lord of hosts who is enthroned on the cherubim.  They carried the ark of God on a new cart, and brought it out of the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill.  Uzzah and Ahio, the sons of Abinadab, were driving the new cart with the ark of God; and Ahio went in front of the ark.  David and all the house of Israel were dancing before the Lord with all their might, with songs and lyres and harps and tambourines and castanets and cymbals.

            Do you want to know about this ark of God?  Would that be helpful?

            Maybe what you recall of this Ark of the Covenant comes from Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark.  And if that’s the case, you’ll be just fine.  Steven Spielberg did a pretty faithful job in recreating the ark from its descriptions in the bible.  It was a large box made of acacia wood and covered entirely in the purest gold.  The lid of this box had on each end golden cherubim, which were creatures believed to be very close to God in heaven.  Winged serpents, you might say.  They stretched out their wings toward one another so that between them could be a throne for God.  But, you’ll notice that there is no image of God there.

            God once said to Moses that the people should use this ark to keep the stone tablets that the Ten Commandments were inscribed upon.  That way the people could carry with them their most sacred memory of what God had done with them.  God had made a covenant with these people.  A promise.  God delivered them from slavery and promised to make of them a nation.

            Now, in the days before there was a temple in Jerusalem, the ark would go with the people from place to place.  Sometimes it would stay in a sanctuary in this town or that.  One day the ark became the centerpiece of the great temple, residing in the Holy of Holies where one priest could approach it once on one day of the year.  The ark was believed to have a powerful connection to the presence of God.  Before all of that, however, there were many times when the priests would carry it before the army as they marched into battle.

            And one day this ark was taken away from Israel by the victorious army of the Philistines.  In their celebration of victory, the Philistines took the ark of the Israelites and set it up in the temple of their own god, Dagon.  But, then terrible things started to happen to the Philistines.  The statue of Dagon was found each morning to be lying down prostrate before the ark of God.  And the Philistine people began suffering from hemorrhoids and boils on their skin.  Mice were running rampant in their cities.

            The Philistines arranged to have the ark taken back to the Israelites.  And good riddance as far as they were concerned.

            Here’s the thing.  King Saul never took the ark of God back to the sanctuary where it belonged in Shiloh.  In the book of Chronicles it is written that the people were not accustomed to consult the Ark in the days of Saul.  The Ark just stayed put at the house of a man named Abinadab.  Sitting out in the garage, you might say.

            The Lord Almighty did not live in that box, of course.  And God is no more present in one place on earth than in another.  Having the ark or not having the ark was not some magical way of getting God to be in a certain place and do certain things.  But, do you think that Saul might have been trying to get the people he ruled to focus more on him than on God?  Saul was king, after all.  Why shouldn’t he be the center of his people’s attention?

            The days of King Saul came to an end.  David rose to power in his place.  And everything about this new king seemed to be different from the old one.  So much so that one of his first priorities was to go and get the old Ark of God and set it up again in a sanctuary.  And that is what we just read from the Bible.

            David went down to the house where the Ark had been sitting for twenty years while Saul ruled and brought it up to Jerusalem.  All the while the king danced in front it as it went along, which is not a very kingly thing to do.  But, for David, God was going to be at the center of his life and the lives of the people.

            God didn’t live in that box.  But, having the ark somehow reminded folks that God was in the center of their lives.  It was as if wherever they found themselves, the ark made it home.  The ark drew their attention to a reality they couldn’t always grasp—God really was present among them.

            I carry around in my wallet a small piece of notebook paper.  It’s faded and falling apart.  My wallet’s been through the wash a few times, but this thing has survived somehow.  I had just graduated from high school when the words were written here.  They are words of affirmation shared by a small group at church camp on the last day of our week together.  These are things that other people thought of me some twenty-one years ago.  These are things that I would have never dared to think about myself.

            I sat in this circle of people who all told me the parts of me that they appreciated.  We did this to each other and wrote down what we said.  And the unconditional love that I experienced was so incredibly powerful that I was just certain for a moment that God was breathing in my ear.  I think I keep this with me because I want to hear it again sometimes, God’s breath.  And when I feel out of sorts for whatever reason, this little fragment somehow gets me from one place to another.  I don’t know how.

            I don’t think we are capable of saying really uplifting words to one another very often.  We don’t say to each other, “I think you are amazing.”  And I don’t think we are capable of hearing really uplifting words about ourselves very often, either.  We walk past a mirror and come up with a list of things we’d like to change.  It’s hard to imagine that there is a God who is completely and madly in love with us.  Maybe that is how this little piece of paper keeps working its magic.  God doesn’t live here on it.  But, somehow…

            Do you have something that works like the Ark of God for you?

            A friend of mine is a hospice chaplain.  She says it is the most life-giving work to spend your time with folks who are dying.  I don’t know how that works, exactly.  But, that’s what she says.  People who know they are dying often seem to be aware of God in ways we don’t get.  And that doesn’t make much sense at first.

            She told me about a younger man dying with AIDS.  He was in his forties.  Every day she’d find him lying in his bed at the hospital clutching a spoon with his hands.  A spoon.  Just a simple spoon.  He’d rub his fingers along and just breathe in deeply with contentment.

            “I used to feed my mother with this spoon,” he told my friend.  “She couldn’t do it anymore.  So, I fed her with this spoon.  And do you know that is when I discovered God?”  He said, “Jesus was right about that.  When I fed that person who was hungry, I was feeding the Lord himself.  I could sense it.  I could feel it.  And when I hold this spoon, I feel like I’m at home already with God.”

            God didn’t live in that spoon.  But, somehow…

            The eternal light hanging overhead.  The Ark of God.  A scrap of notebook paper.  A spoon.  Something to remind you that God chooses to dwell with you wherever you go.  And you are home wherever it is that you hang your hat.  God is there.  God is here.  If we could only grasp that all the time.

            You know the Ark was supposed to have in it what was left of those stone tablets where God spoke of the Law.  And somehow that reminded folks of who they really were—loved and redeemed people.

            What does it mean when the prophet Jeremiah said that one day folks would have the law written on their hearts?  Does it mean that we might be able to carry with us God’s very presence?

            Jesus said to his disciples, “Remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”  Remember.

            Desmond Tutu says, “God loves each and every one of us—passionately.  If we could only believe that.  But, we can’t.  We can’t love ourselves enough to believe that.  So, we rarely remember that he is with us always.”  Maybe that is why we carry around an ark, or a spoon, or whatever.

            Maybe it is true, nonetheless.  Despite all of our reasons for not remembering that God really is within us, maybe it is true that God lives in us anyway.  Paul wrote, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit?”  Our bodies, which we spend so much time despising and abusing, are where God dwells.  You can’t go anywhere, then, without God.

            You are, then, just like Jeremiah said.  You’re carrying around God’s presence like the ark with the law written on your heart.  If only we could remember that.  If only we could see that.

            May you know for certain that God has chosen to dwell within your very body, within your very soul, within your very life.  May you know at this moment and remember that there is nothing more sacred than the place where God lives and that is in you.  And may nothing you do and may nothing anyone does to you ever disguise that from you again.

Rev. David James Brown

Park Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)