I find it a bit ironic that we are gathered in a building that was built to be a place to encounter God to hear a passage of scripture that makes I clear that God did not ask for a permanent house. Of course, in the first book of Kings Solomon is instructed to build a temple in Jerusalem, but if we were to go deep into the scholarship, we would find that the temple was really built for the people, not for God. God does not need a house, and we do not need a church to encounter God.

            What we do need is a sabbath or a period of rest. Human existence has never been easy, in ancient times your day was filled with some sort of labor, and when the sun set you ate the food that had taken someone most of the day to prepare. We no longer need to spend large amounts of time preparing food, but the extra time has not been filled with periods of rest, it has been filled with other things. When we have kids, we spend our time carting them from one activity to the next, dragging them to the grocery store, going to the park, then dance class, soccer, play dates, and so many more things. If we don’t have kids, we do the same, we find things to fill our time. Why? Because we subconsciously believe that being idle is a waste of time. The puritans thought that idle hands were the devil’s workshop, meaning that if you are not working then you will sin. Our deep-rooted desire to be busy all the time has led to the creation of things like playdates for children and the belief that we need to entertain our children all the time. I am certainly not saying that children shouldn’t have playdates or that we shouldn’t play games with them because socialization is key to their development, but so is alone time. As an only child who was raised in a time when playdate meant go outside and don’t come back until it’s time to eat, I was left to my own devices most of the time. I did all kinds of things on my own. I pretended I was lord of the manner, giving orders to my servants. I explored the woods behind my house, discovering the old bridge abutment, I built little campfires on the rocks, I played baseball with the older kids next door, was it awesome all the time? No, but I was happy, and I am still here. Was it necessary for a single mother in her twenties to get some needed quiet time? Absolutely.

            Sabbath does not necessarily require quiet time, but it is vitally important for all of us, including our little ones, because we all need time to recharge our batteries so that we can be effective members of the body of Christ. I am sure that we are all here for different reasons, I know that some of us seek community, some healing and a sense of wholeness, some connection with God and for whatever reason we all feel that we can find what we are seeking in this place, but more importantly among this community.

            One of the reasons churches are called sanctuaries is because they are seen as a place for rest, for quiet contemplation and as an escape from the craziness of the world. The word sanctuary was used, early on, to mean a space that a person was immune from arrest. I assume because the church building was considered God’s domain, the laws of humanity did not apply within its walls. So very quickly church buildings were separated from the rest of society, which I believe is problematic. Once we designate a specific space as holy, we stop seeing all of creation as holy. The same thing happened in ancient Israel. Once God let Solomon build a temple in Jerusalem the Hebrew people pointed to it as the only place you could truly encounter God, but it wasn’t and it is not this building that brings us to God, it is the people we encounter here and the things that we do together that connect us to God. It is the joy and wholeness we experience here that gives us the energy and the will to be the hands and feet of Christ over the course of the week, until we once again come together to renew our faith and sense of community. It is vitally important to remember that while this is a place to encounter God, it is not the only place. God is found throughout creation and most especially in the places we encounter people in need of love. This building is a source of solace for many who seek rest. Jesus and his disciples sought rest, but when confronted with people in need of healing they found the energy needed and rose to the occasion, trusting that the Holy Spirit was with them. My fear is that the church has clung to our buildings for far too long and neglected to recognize that these spaces are for us, not for God. We gather, week after week, expecting the people who need God’s love most to walk through the door, but that is not going to happen. Jesus and the disciples took the church to the people and ministered to them where they were, they did not move into the temple and then wait for everyone to come to them.

            Whether we are one month old or one hundred we need time to rest. We need time to be alone with our thoughts so that we can figure out who God wants us to be, but we also need to be prepared to answer God’s call to address the issues of our time when they are right in front of us. Now being alone with your thoughts does not necessarily mean that we are literally sitting in silence, it might mean that we just need to be away from the regular stimulation of our life, it might mean we simply need a change of scenery, it might mean we need to be around other people that hold a similar belief, it might mean, in the case of the little ones, that we need to be left to your own devices for a little while. What we do here, as the body of Christ, should be giving us a renewed sense of love for God, a renewed sense of purpose for ministry, but also remember that our faith is not only about us, it is about caring for all of humanity and in order to do that we need to keep God in the forefront of our minds so that when we are presented with the opportunity to serve we are fully prepared to act because faith is not passive, it is not about simply loving God and feeling warm and fuzzy about it, it is about loving our neighbors by taking action when called to do so, both within these walls and more especially outside of them, and when we fall short, that is the things we confess and then after our weekly reminder, we go outside those doors and try, and try, and try again. Amen.