"Where God is Quite at Home"
A Sermon by the Rev. Dr. Hilary J. Barrett
Preached at Pleasantville UCC, June 6, 2010
Deuteronomy 6:4-9 and Ephesians 2:11-22

“Now he's using you, fitting you in brick by brick, stone by stone, with Christ Jesus as the cornerstone that holds all the parts together. We see it taking shape day after day—a holy temple built by God,
all of us built into it, a temple in which God is quite at home.”
(Ephesians 2:19-22, The Message)

On the door posts of observant Jewish homes you will find a small narrow box affixed to the upper right-hand portion of the door frame.  Inside this box there will be a piece of parchment inscribed in Hebrew with verses from the Torah.  These verses include the Jewish prayer known as the Shema: Shema Yisrael, Adonia Elohenu, Adonai ehad: Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.  The Shema is the most important prayer in Jewish liturgy.  It “encapsulates the monotheistic essence of Judaism.”[1]  In a world filled with temptations to bow down in reverence to the idols of material possessions and the false gods of political ideologies, the Shema stands as a constant reminder that monotheistic belief requires the continual recollection that there is one Sovereign God, and no other.  “Take heed to yourselves, lest your heart be deceived, and ye turn aside, and serve other gods, and worship them” (Deuteronomy 11:16). 

Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone.
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
and with all your soul, and with all your might. 
Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart.
Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home
and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise.
Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead,
and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

Keep them in your heart.  Recite them to your children.  Write them on the doorposts of your house – which is to say, let the words of your faith be a continual and public reminder to you and to others of what you believe in.  It sounds like a pretty good way to keep the faith.

We need continual and public reminders of what we believe in.  It is very common and very easy to forget otherwise.  We are daily bombarded with messages from the culture that entice us to believe in other things.  In the morning, as I dress for work, I turn on the television and watch the news.  On my drive in, I listen to the radio to learn more about what has happened in the world since I went to bed.  When I sit down at my desk and begin to write I work on the computer and engage with the Internet.  When I return to my home at the end of the day, it is only then that I can face the morning paper which has been waiting for my attention.  All day long, we interface with information intent upon shaping what we believe, and how we live.

Keep them in your heart.
Recite them to your children
talk about them when you are at home
and when you are away,
when you lie down and when you rise up
write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates

It’s good instruction for people who want to keep the faith.

Today is a day for making memories. 

Keep them in your heart.
Recite them to your children
talk about them when you are at home
and when you are away,

Today is a day that I hope will go right on the ‘hard disk’ of our children -- because today is the annual church picnic.  It is, in some ways, the single most public event we engage in on a yearly basis.  After worship today we will pour out of this building into the church yard to spend a few relaxing hours enjoying one another’s company, savoring the delights of Betty Maurer’s Lemon Sponge Cake, Rob Scarrow’s Apple Pie, Louise Wolfgang’s Deviled Eggs, Ralf Wilhem’s BBQ’d chicken.

Today we will decorate the graves of the Saints with flowers.  We will listen to the music that floats on the breeze.  We will speak of old friends and make new ones.  Today we will teach our children that being part of a church is not only delicious but fun – and trust me, my friends – that very basic bit of learning goes a long way in getting our kids to keep the faith.

Today as we gather, others will drive by and notice what we are doing.  They will notice the life that pours out of this place.  They will see the new building and notice its progress.  They will see the new Sanctuary and notice that there are as yet no windows, no doors, that you can look right in and see right through and that there is plenty of open space for someone new like them.

Today as we gather, it is very possible that we will be ministering to people who drive by here today; ministering to people for whom it will be a blessing to see the Body of Christ assembled in joyful community; ministering to people who need to know that such things still happen; that such places still exists.

Today we will be living out the truth of the apostle, Paul’s, words when he said:

God is building a home. He's using us all—irrespective of how we got here—in what he is building.  He used the apostles and prophets for the foundation.  Now he's using you, fitting you in brick by brick, stone by stone, with Christ Jesus as the cornerstone that holds all the parts together.  We see it taking shape day after day—a holy temple built by God, all of us built into it, a temple in which God is quite at home.

When a new place of worship is built, it is customary to consecrate that space.  To consecrate something means to set it aside for holy purposes.  And so, part of the process of bringing our new Sanctuary into being will be the acts of consecrating it – setting it aside for holy purposes.

The consecration of this building has already begun.  Every aspect of the designs has been carefully and lovingly discerned by members of the congregation who have worked tirelessly on our behalf. 

The builder who is working with us to construct the new Sanctuary and the new addition comes to us from Lebanon, Pennsylvania.  The construction crew has included several Amish men who worked together with elegant efficiency to raise the massive beams that support the new Sanctuary roof.  Those of you who saw it go up know that it was like a giant holy barn-raising. 

Not long ago, one of the members of the congregation told me that he regularly stops by at night to stand in the still-under-construction Sanctuary and pray.  We have every reason to hope that our new Sanctuary is, even now, a hallowed space.

Today, we will add yet another layer of blessing to this place which will, in time, be hallowed by prayer and baptism, word and sacrament, Confirmations and weddings and funerals and the hymns of the Church sung by young and old alike.

Today, we will be invited to write prayers of blessing or passages of Scripture on the floor of the new Sanctuary so that, when the space is completed and the carpet laid down, we will know that beneath the things which can be seen are countless prayers raised up to God that this house of worship might come into being.

Deuteronomy teaches us that in order for our faith to be lasting and strong we must keep the love of God in our heart, recite it to our children, and let it be a continual and public reminder of what we believe. 

The presence of Pleasantville United Church of Christ here in this little corner of God’s world is bearing witness in a very public way to what we believe.  We believe in a God who keeps promises.  We believe in a God, who makes miracles happen.  And we believe that when God’s people work together in a spirit of Christ-centered love, all things are possible.

God is building a home. He's using us all—irrespective of how we got here—in what he is building.  He used the apostles and prophets for the foundation.  Now he's using you, fitting you in brick by brick, stone by stone, with Christ Jesus as the cornerstone that holds all the parts together.  We see it taking shape day after day—a holy temple built by God, all of us built into it, a temple in which God is quite at home.

Thanks be to God!  Amen.