Sunday, June 2nd, 2024: "Sacred Places"

 

Watch the Sermon here

First United Presbyterian Church

“Sacred Places”

Rev. Amy Morgan

June 2, 2024

Psalm 46

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

 2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea;

 3 though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult. 

 4 There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High.

 5 God is in the midst of the city; it shall not be moved; God will help it when the morning dawns.

 6 The nations are in an uproar, the kingdoms totter; he utters his voice, the earth melts.

 7 The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. 

 8 Come, behold the works of the LORD; see what desolations he has brought on the earth.

 9 He makes wars cease to the end of the earth; he breaks the bow, and shatters the spear; he burns the shields with fire.

 10 "Be still, and know that I am God! I am exalted among the nations, I am exalted in the earth."

 11 The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. 

Theme: God makes all places sacred

Trouble in the text: The world feels chaotic and frightening

Trouble in the world: The world feels chaotic and frightening

Grace in the text: God is very present in everything, offering us refuge and bringing order

Grace in the world: God is very present in everything, offering us refuge and bringing order

Need: How can I feel God’s presence?

Image: Rivers

Mission: We can experience God’s presence anywhere and sometimes in particular places

Between 1824 and 2024, usage of the word “sacred” has decreased almost 75%

a very present help in trouble. “present” in Heb. from the verb for finding; addition of “maode” intensifier interesting – very

contrast of turmoil and destruction vs. refuge and strength

Chris Brown hiking Pacific Crest trail vs. Joel hiking the ancient Camino de Santiago de Compostela. What makes one sacred and not the other?

increasing popularity of pilgrimage and meditation, psychedelics

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

These words were sung by God’s people when it felt like the world was out to get them. Through natural disasters and human violence, through inner turmoil and all-out war, Israel felt the presence of God in all their troubles. And God’s presence was not just a comfort – it was a refuge, a place to hide and be safe. It was their strength, their ability to be resilient and to endure their struggles. It was their help, something that actually assisted them in times of trouble. God was not just present in trouble, God was very present. 

This is a strange place to use this intensifier. The Hebrew word meod is fairly common in the Psalms, but we typically see it intensifying praise or despair. To say that someone is very present seems odd. It’s like saying someone is very pregnant. When talking about presence, it seems like someone is either there or not. They can’t be mildly present or very present. 

And what’s even more interesting is that the word used here for “present” derives from the Hebrew verb meaning to find or attain. There’s this sense that Israel is desperately seeking God, and when they find God, it’s not just a glimpse or a feeling or an idea of God, it is a fully present, completely real, totally attentive God. 

Psalm 46 describes a chaotic and frightening world. It doesn’t shy away from describing those forces that realistically should cause anxiety. The natural world is changing, shaking, breaking apart at the seams. The geopolitical world is on the brink of collapse, with the nations growling at each other and brawling like drunks in a parking lot. 

But right in between the descriptions of these two kinds of chaos – natural and political – the Psalmist describes where God is at in this mess. 

God is right in the middle of it all. 

The imagery the Psalmist uses is both natural and political: a river flowing from God’s house to the city where people live. God is in the midst of the city, not looking down on human suffering from some heavenly dwelling. God’s presence flows in and through all the chaos and fear creation and humanity can dish up. 

The chaos and fear of our world might lead us to question where God is in all our mess. Massive storms wreak havoc and destruction. The changes to the earth’s environment are predicted to be catastrophic. Massive wildfires and deadly heat are threatening communities across the globe. Warfare is destroying lives and straining international relations, and nations are on the brink of collapse. 

But these may not be the kinds of chaos we feel most acutely day-to-day. We don’t have to read the news or go on social media to feel like the world is coming undone. Our individual worlds are changed by the natural phenomena of illness and death. Family squabbles and broken friendships unbalance our lives. Our reality is fractured by heartbreak and betrayal, leaving us feeling helpless and hopeless. 

And we gather here, in this church building, hoping to feel God’s presence, hoping to experience God’s comfort and peace, hoping for answers and action plans that will set things right, move things in a better direction. Where else should God be found if not in the house of God?

In September of 2020, the annual fundraiser for Alternatives to Violence, Pastels on 5^th, had to be dispersed around downtown Loveland because of the pandemic. Several folks from our church came out to create a pastel mural on the front steps and sidewalk in front of our church. And the image we created was a river, flowing out from those red doors and onto the streets of our city. 

Through the pandemic, and still today, this church has worked to help our neighbors experience God as very present, to know God is in the midst of this city. We’ve offered more than comfort – we’ve offered a refuge, a place for people to feel safe, whether it was through emergency shelter or emergency assistance. We’ve offered strength, enabling our community to be resilient and endure our struggles through advocacy and community engagement. We have helped our community in tangible ways – with food, clothing, shelter, love, and connection. 

Because we know that God is present in our troubles – very present. We know that when we are desperately seeking God, we will find God to be not just a feeling or idea, but fully present, completely real, and totally attentive. We know that God is not sitting up in some heavenly dwelling place, objectively observing our struggles. God’s presence is flowing through the midst of our city, just like the pastel river that flowed down our church’s front steps. 

Over the next several weeks, and maybe through the whole summer (if we can get enough folks to share with us), we’re going to be hearing from members of our church community about places that feel sacred to them. These places may not have any religious association. But they are places where these folks have felt God to be very present in some way. Some of them are places where they have sought refuge in times of trouble. Some are places where they gained new insights. Some are places that represented a turning-point in their lives. Some have connected people to their past while others have pointed them toward a hopeful future.  

We are going to get to journey together through those places where God has been very present so that we can remember that God is not confined to this building, to some holy habitation. We will get to experience where God is flowing out into the world around us, in all kinds of places. We will get to see how God has been a refuge and strength and help to folks in our church family. 

We live in a world that is desperately seeking God’s presence. And fewer and fewer people are finding it in church buildings. But that doesn’t mean they are finding it anywhere. They just don’t know what to call it. 

In the last 200 years, the use of the word “sacred” has decreased almost 75%. At the same time, spiritual experiences like pilgrimages and meditation have exploded in popularity. Up until fairly recently, humans lived in a cosmos where sacredness was assumed. There was not a distinct line between the sacred and the secular, between places infused with God’s presence and places devoid of divine presence. In fact, the word secular originally referred in the late Middle Ages to clergy who lived in the world and were not part of a cloistered religious order. Secular meant something sacred was moving out in the world. It wasn’t until the mid-19^th century that secular came to reference something like humanism or the exclusion of belief in God from matters of ethics and morality.

So even as we are eagerly seeking out sacred places and experiences, hoping to find the presence of God in our lives and in the world, we have stopped talking about places as sacred, unless they are deemed explicitly religious.

That is what we’re hoping to correct this summer. As we hear about places others have experienced as sacred, we can begin to trust our own experiences of God’s presence in the world. We can share our stories of these sacred places and invite others to share with us their experiences. And, hopefully, we can all see more clearly, know more deeply, that God is very present – in all places, in the midst of all chaos and fear and trouble. And we can find stillness in the presence of the God who is with us everywhere we are and everywhere we go.