Dr. William A. Ritter
First United Methodist Church
Birmingham, Michigan
Scripture: Psalm 26
November 7, 2004
Let me begin with a story from one of the great preachers of our time.
One of the feuds in which I once shared concerned a sandy knoll overlooking a quiet lake. The knoll was backed by a grove of pine trees. It was a favorite evening spot of campers. Here you could sit at dusk and watch the lake pull the blanket of shadows up about its neck as the setting sun slipped behind the trees and the cool night air crept into the darkness. You could usually count on an evening show by a flock of cedar waxwings in the higher branches of the dead tree across the way, as they darted to and fro to gulp a few mosquitoes for a bedtime snack. A silent cheer went up from the campers at each successful swoop. One down, eight billion to go! By the time they had their fill, the lake would be tucked in and a whippoorwill would serenade us from the woods behind.
There were a few logs drawn up and scattered about for the more dainty ones to sit on, but outside of that concession, there were no human additions. That is, there did not used to be.
The property was part of a church campground, and most, if not all, of those who used it were campers who were there under the direction of the church. One year a group of us returned to our favorite spot and found that civilization had arrived. Log steps had been installed leading up the knoll, the jumble of logs had been arranged in neat rows and a large wooden cross had been erected on the crest. The steps, I could reason, might have been helpful to an older person; the logs in rows I could accept as the action of a compulsive arranger, and the cross is central to Christian worship indoors or out, although I did not feel it always had to be displayed to be real. The real gasp came when I saw the railing. All around the side of the knoll was a wooden railing about four feet high, serving no earthly purpose I could think of except, I suppose, to try to say to the visitor, “Now you’re in church.” We learned that those responsible had called the spot “The White Sands Chapel.” Heretics that we were, we called it “The White Sands Corral.”
Where do we get our compulsion to build walls and separate the sacred and the secular, to attempt to say, “Here you can worship, here you cannot; this is church, this is not”?
When were those words written? Over twenty-five years ago. And who wrote them? Carl Price, in a little devotional book entitled Worship Without Walls. Carl was right, of course. He usually is. Church can be any place….maybe even every place….given the Bible’s contention that God has no discernable need of “temples made with hands.”
Carl, as you know, is uniquely gifted at helping people experience holiness and awe in the great out-of-doors. It recalls the words of a sacred solo, once favored by tenors forty years older than Russ Ives:
I know a green cathedral,
A shrouded forest shrine,
Where leaves in love join hands above
And arch your prayer in mine.
The world of nature has inspired no small amount of worship over the years. After all, have we not been known to sing:
This is my Father’s world,
He shines in all that’s fair.
But does He also shine in all that’s cruel? I have never forgotten the line of the late Carlyle Marney, who (in a critique of nature-based theology) reminded us at Yale that “nature means to kill us, and may well succeed in the end.” My friend, Henry Roberts, who does what I do for a living (only at First Church, Pensacola), knows the truth of which Dr. Marney speaks. It was an emotional moment with Henry in Atlanta earlier this month, listening to him describe the after-effects of the hurricane. There were 16,000 homes destroyed in greater Pensacola, several of them belonging to members of Henry’s church. The cost of the deductible (meaning the church’s portion) for the roof repair to Henry’s sanctuary was $117,000. Said Henry: “I was secretly glad when the tree fell on the Florida room of my home, because I didn’t want to be the only person I knew who hadn’t experienced loss or damage.” In his sermon after the hurricane, Henry told his congregation: “All of the things that separate us….left and right….black and white….young and old….gay and straight….separate us no longer. We are in this together.” But nowhere in that sermon did Henry suggest the hurricane was of God.
We can have church anywhere….with anybody….in any circumstance. And God may, indeed, have no need of temples made with hands. But we do. Or it seems that we do. Otherwise, why would we keep building them, filling them, and waxing poetically (even prayerfully) over them? Temples, I mean. I love the centuries-old prayer of St. John of Damascus:
I am too poor to possess books,
I have no portion for learning.
I enter the church, choked by the cares of the world.
The glowing colors attract my sense like a flowering meadow,
And the glory of God steals, imperceptibly, into my soul.
So you tell me: how does that differ from the lines of the psalmist (the lines which form the signature text for this year’s campaign):
I love the house where you live, O Lord,
The place where your glory dwells.
If you listened to me read the whole of Psalm 26, you know that the writer is in trouble. Bigtrouble. Someone has accused him of something….someone he considers unscrupulous. Charges have been brought against him….charges he believes to be lies. “I did not do such things,” he cries. “Neither have I associated with those who do,” he continues.
The psalm is his plea for vindication. He seems to be saying: “You know me better than they do, O Lord. Right this wrong. Restore my name. But above all, do not sweep me away from the place I most love to be….the house where you live, O Lord….the place where your glory dwells.”
Is he talking about a particular place….a definable and locatable place….a four walls, floor and ceiling kind of place? Of course he is. He is talking about the temple in Jerusalem. He can’t imagine not entering it. Neither can he imagine being banished from it. But that is precisely the prospect he faces. Hence, his plaintive appeal.
As I wrote in Steeple Notes, I came into the ministry when there was much talk about “a church without walls”….a case I could make with the best of them. How was I to know I would spend the next forty years of my life worrying about walls? When to erect them. How to pay for them. How to repair them. What color to paint them. What kind of art, banners and posters should be permitted to hang on them. And, in the case of these four walls in which we gather, how to stiffen or otherwise acoustically improve them. This place is precious, and I have spent a dozen years of my life treating it so. Just last week we had four men spend four days climbing all over our roof….inspecting….sealing….caulking….soldering. It cost a small fortune. When they were done, they had replaced over 100 slate tiles. To which half of you would say, “So many?” While the other half of you would say, “So few?” Frankly, I don’t know whether 100 tiles are, in the grand scheme of things, many or few. All I know is that most churches put such matters off until a tipping point has been reached and passed….so that the next bad tile becomes one-bad-tile-too-many, thereby allowing rain, snow, ice and wind to have their way with “the place where the Lord’s glory dwells.”
Lindsay Hinz keeps reminding me that our campaign theme, “It Happens Here,” is not about buildings. But I tell Lindsay that everywhere I turn, I see pictures of this building. Tomorrow, all of you are going to receive your third and final campaign mailing. Which will include a gift…. this gift that I am holding in my hand….just for you. Given the shape of the plastic enclosure, you will believe it’s a CD. It’s not. It’s a calendar. A desk calendar. Open it up (like this). Fold the top under the bottom (like this). Set the cards in the slot, month by month (like this). Note that each month’s card contains pictures of the church as well as dates for the month. Then turn each card over and read the testimonies of church members printed on the back. Each picture is a colorful rendering of our church building or one of our windows. I predict you will love this calendar as much as you use it. Because it echoes the words of every church-shopping bride who, upon entering our sanctuary, says: “I want to get married here. It looks like a church.” Closely followed by their mothers, who say: “And it feels like one, too.” Can I explain that? No. Do I understand that? I am beginning to. How did the poet of Damascus put it?
I enter the church, choked by the cares of the world.
The glowing colors attract my sense like a flowering meadow,
And the glory of God steals, imperceptibly, into my soul.
But Lindsay is right. What happens here is more than buildings. And in spite of two capital campaigns and twelve years of creative renovations, most of us know that. Kris and I were so glad when Julie and Jared chose to get married here rather than in California. And we were doubly glad that they were ready to get married while we were still intimately connected with this place. Not because this place is beautiful, traditional, or even functional. But because this place is personal. It is all about who we are….whose we are….and all the things that have happened to us, good and bad, along the way.
I cannot read Hebrew. But I know where to find people who can. Which is how I learned, just this week, that our signature verse (Psalm 26:8) is moderately mis-translated. In most Bibles it reads:
I love the house where you live, O Lord,
The place where your glory dwells.
It should read:
I love to live in your house, O Lord,
The home where your glory dwells.
The Hebrew word maqom translates “home” far better than it translates “place.” Which is what many of you keep telling me. It feels like home here. Even to those who don’t get home very often.
Many of you know of my affection for Fred Craddock. Fred does what I try to do each Sunday about as well as anybody….and better than most. Several years ago, Fred told a touching story from his own life experience. He said that when he was growing up in north Tennessee, his father refused to attend church. Instead his father would wait at home and raise a fuss about lunch being late on Sunday. Occasionally the minister would come and try to talk to Mr. Craddock, but he was rough on the minister. He would say: “I know what you fellows down at the church want. You want another name and another pledge. Isn’t that the business you’re in? Another name and another pledge?”
This would so embarrass Fred’s mother that she would retreat to the kitchen and cry. Then once a year, the visiting evangelist would drop by with the minister and they would double-team old Craddock. But even the two of them could not get through to him. He would always say: “You don’t care about me. You just want another name and another pledge. That’s how the church operates.” Fred’s father said that a thousand times. But there was one time he did not say it.
It was in the veteran’s hospital. Having heard the news, Fred rushed across the country to see his father, who was down to 74 pounds. They had taken out his throat, but it was too late. Radiation had burned him badly. The tube in his throat enabled him to breathe, but he couldn’t speak. Fred said he looked around the room and saw flowers everywhere. There were flowers on the table….flowers in the windows….even flowers on the floor. Looking at the cards attached to the flowers, he read: “Men’s Bible Class, Women’s Society, Youth Fellowship, Children’s Division.” Old Mr. Craddock saw Fred looking at the cards. Unable to speak, he picked up a pencil and wrote on the side of the Kleenex box a line from Shakespeare’s Hamlet:
In this harsh world, draw your breath in pain to tell my story.
Fred read it and said to his father: “Dad, what is your story?” And the speechless man took the Kleenex box and wrote a three-word confession:
“I was wrong.”
Well, that’s all right. Over the years, a lot of folks have been wrong about the church. Most likely, you, from time to time. Even me, from time to time.
I tried to say in my sermon title what I have tried to tell you so many other times in so many other ways: “I love this place.” It has asked more of me than I thought I had it within me to give. And it has given back to me more than I had any right to receive. But twelve years ago, there was a part of me that almost didn’t come. Kris, too. For we had an image in our heads of the word “Birmingham.” It was an image having far more to do with rumor than reality. And more than a little to do with fear. Leading both of us to ask:
Will we ever fit in there?
Can we possibly succeed there?
We were not the bishop’s first choice. Which we knew. And which didn’t help. Although we were this church’s first choice. Which we also knew. And which did help. As to whether we were God’s choice, I don’t know. Such a claim would be both arrogant and presumptuous. But whether this appointment was of divine design or no, God has allowed us to grow here. Which, at the end of the day, is about all you can ask of a home.
I love living in your house, O Lord,
The home where your glory dwells.
Note: The remembrance of Carl Price can be traced to a devotional booklet by Abingdon Press entitled Worship Without Walls. Unfortunately, it is now out of print. The story about Fred Craddock’s father can be found in the now-famous collection called Craddock Stories, which is very much in print. As for the lines of “I Know a Green Cathedral,” I have heard them rendered differently, depending on the singer. My choice of lyrics was lifted from the Internet. As concerns the prayer of St. John of Damascus, I don’t have the faintest idea where one might find it. But as a member of the Albion College Choir (1958-62), I sang a stunning rendition of it, arranged by the late David Strickler.
