“God’s Holy Sanctuary” Colchester Federated Church, July 14, 2024, Eighth Sunday after Pentecost (Psalm 24)

This morning, we hear the sweeping words of Psalm 24—a psalm about the worship of God.  It begins with the Earth and moves to the mighty gates and ancient doors of the Temple itself.  Psalm 24 is often classified as an entrance liturgy as shared in The New Interpreter’s Bible.  Specifically, this is an entrance liturgy for worshipers coming into the Temple.  There’s an opening profession of faith and an exchange with the priests about entering the sacred space of the sanctuary.  This moves into responsorial liturgy—call and response (like the Call to Worship we say every Sunday).  The gathered people were ritually preparing to enter the Temple. 

Some Hebrew Bible scholars believe Psalm 24 could be the formal liturgy offered when the Ark of the Covenant was brought into the sanctuary.  Remember that the Ark of the Covenant is that ancient object that is as fascinating to people as the Holy Grail (thanks in part to Indiana Jones who went looking for both sacred objects).  The Ark housed the two stone tablets that contained God’s instructions in the form of the Ten Commandments.  So, Psalm 24 may have been recited by the people and the priests together (call and response style) as they prepared to bring the Ark of the Covenant into the Temple while formally processing.  These words may have been a ritual symbolizing the coming of Yahweh into the sanctuary and passing through Temple gates that were heavily guarded to protect the sacred site.[1] 

We can imagine how this looked and place ourselves inside the story.  We can imagine how important it was to prepare the sacred space.  Listen to the words again:

Mighty gates: lift up your heads!
    Ancient doors: rise up high!
        So the glorious king can enter!
Who is this glorious king?
    The Lord—strong and powerful!
    The Lord—powerful in battle!
Mighty gates: lift up your heads!
    Ancient doors: rise up high!
        So the glorious king can enter!
Who is this glorious king?
    The Lord of heavenly forces—
        he is the glorious king![2]

Doesn’t this feel like a powerful liturgical moment?  It must have been something to behold.  Now we’re not sure if this was an entrance liturgy offered to the community often or just once a year.  Were these words passed on from parent to child like we pass on the tradition of lighting our candles on Christmas Eve (that one special time a year) as we sing “Silent Night”?  Were these words that almost took your breath away as you watched the Ark of the Covenant pass through the guarded gates as that holy item was taken into the sanctuary?  We don’t know for sure.  Yet we know that there is power in these words because we can feel it.  There is power whenever we ritualize our faith in community.  It is powerful when people gather to worship God. 

The truth is that the images we encounter in Psalm 24 may or may not be what speaks to our hearts when we consider the worship of God.  These images of the mighty gates and the ancient doors.  The personification of God as the glorious king—strong and mighty, powerful in battle, the Lord of heavenly forces.  Well, the image of God powerful in battle and the Lord of heavenly forces possibly smiting our enemies, there may be some appeal there (at least some of the time anyway).  Though the truth is that the images and language used in this worship setting may feel different than our own.  We live in a different world and in a different time than those ancient worshipers bringing the Ark of the Covenant into the sanctuary of the Temple. 

While the worship of God is a constant, the way we worship God has changed and evolved over time.  That’s a good thing.  There is a reason why one of the mottos of the United Church of Christ is that God is still speaking, and to never place a period where God has placed a comma.  It truly is up to us—people of faith in every generation—to wrestle with scripture to understand how God is still speaking today.  It’s up to us to figure out how to live out Jesus’ call for us to love God, love our neighbors, and love ourselves.  What does that mean?  What does that look like?  How do we do it?  Who are our neighbors anyway?  Because to believe is to care, and to care is to do.  What we believe causes us to care, and that caring can result in doing some good in this world, God willing.

Some of this process of making the Christian faith our own reminds me of the important work of Rachel Held Evans.  Rachel Held Evans was a best-selling author and speaker, writing about faith, doubt, and life in the Bible Belt before her untimely death just a few years ago.  One of her most famous columns appeared in The Washington Post: “Want millennials back in the pews? Stop trying to make church ‘cool.’”  As a millennial, this column just made my heart sing.  Because in that column (written in 2015) Rachel Held Evans lamented, “When I left church at age 29, full of doubt and disillusionment, I wasn’t looking for a better-produced Christianity. I was looking for a truer Christianity, a more authentic Christianity: I didn’t like how gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people were being treated by my evangelical faith community. I had questions about science and faith, biblical interpretation and theology. I felt lonely in my doubts. And, contrary to popular belief, the fog machines and light shows at those slick evangelical conferences didn’t make things better for me. They made the whole endeavor feel shallow, forced and fake.”[3]  In some ways, the search for a more authentic Christianity is what she spoke about and wrote about, and being honest about that searching helped many people of all ages.

Before she died, Rachel Held Evans was outlining and writing drafts of children’s books about faith.  What is God Like? is a beautiful book that offers images of God (in both words and illustrations) based on scripture.  It’s a book that came to be because of Rachel’s loved ones carrying on the work in memory of her.  And it’s another example of helping people make the Christian faith their own, authentically their own. 

What is God Like? encourages readers of all ages to think about what makes you feel safe, brave, and loved.  For this is what God is like.  We can read in its pages, “God is like an eagle, sharp eyed and swift, with wings so wide you can play under their shadows.  God is like a river, constant and life giving.  When you grow near God, you’ll sprout up strong as a tree.  God is like a fort, strong and secure with walls that are mighty and safe.  Inside there are hidden places to hold you when you’re scared or need a quiet place to rest.  God is like a gardener, patient and nurturing.  God is like the flame of a candle, warm and inviting.  God is everywhere, swirling throughout the world, whistling across mountain ranges, rustling through trees, and pressing against your cheeks on a breezy day.”[4]  And on it goes—God is like an artist, a mother, a father, three dancers, a rainbow, the wind, a shepherd.  “God is like the stars, forever present and bright.  Even when they feel far away, you can always look up and see them winking at you.”[5]

I have never viewed it as my job as your Pastor to get up here Sunday after Sunday and tell you that you must believe everything I believe (or else)!  I do my best to share historical and theological contexts and examples and stories to help us all further develop our beliefs, to make the Christian faith authentically our own.  That is part of the beauty of belonging to a faith community.  We worship God together in this holy sanctuary.  We walk through those ancient doors to praise God.  We sing and pray.  We listen and learn.  We give our offerings so that the work of the Church can be financially supported.  We gather around the sanctuary and bless one another as we enter another week.  We leave this place to put our faith into action—to not just go to church, but to be the Church!  Let us always take heart as we journey on, for as the Psalmist declared, “The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it, the world and its inhabitants too.”[6]  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

[1] Commentary on Psalm 24 in The New Interpreter’s Bible: A Commentary in Twelve Volumes, Volume IV, 772.
[2] Psalm 24:7-10, CEB.
[3] Rachel Held Evans, “Want millennials back in the pews? Stop trying to make church ‘cool.’” The Washington Post, April 30, 2015, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/jesus-doesnt-tweet/2015/04/30/fb07ef1a-ed01-11e4-8666-a1d756d0218e_story.html.
[4] Rachel Held Evans and Matthew Paul Turner, What is God Like?, illustrations by Ying Hui Tan.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Psalm 24:1-2, CEB.

Photo by Joshua Earle on Unsplash