PEOPLE'S CHURCH OF DOVER

A Sanctuary for Meeting God

Sermon April 11, 2010:  People’s United Church of Christ, Dover, DE:  The Rev. Dan Griggs

          Many Christians are familiar with the name of Thomas Merton, the typical cosmopolitan Westerner of the mid-Twentieth Century who took holy vows and spent the rest of his life as a monk in the severe regimen of the Abbey of Gethsemane in Kentucky.  He was a scholar and a gifted writer; and his books have found their way into the hearts of Catholics, Protestants, and those of other faiths and of no faith.  His sentences are very thick, and I hesitate to quote him; but the inspiration for this sermon comes from the beginning of chapter six of his book New Seeds of Contemplation.[1]

I take my sermon text from this passage by Thomas Merton today.  “There exists some point at which I can meet God….”  Just hearing these words awakens our hearts again to the deep longing you and I have felt, and felt we failed—the longing to meet the One who truly Is. 

          Some people live their lives by the numbers and never suspect that there might be more.  They are construction workers, cashiers, electronics enthusiasts, bankers, homemakers, psychologists, podiatrists, movie stars and wannabees.  If you have one or two of them in your family, your heart aches for them to find “the more”—or be found by it.  My sister loved her husband, Ronnie, as deeply as any woman ever loved a man; and still, now, twenty-five years after his death, she grieves.  Ronnie loved shortwave radio, golf, buying and selling Indian jewelry, and jeeping up mountain trails—but he never lifted his eyes above these, never expected any “more” except maybe a better retirement income.  He was the typical “modern” man. 

          Some other people live afraid—cling to the literals of the Bible or the Quran as certainties they can trust, because it is certainty that they yearn for.  And they never loosen the fist, clinging for dear life lest they fall.  We hear a lot from these people, because built into their certainty is the anxiety that the rest of us will fall, and they are responsible.  They show up on television news programs to propound the “truth,” and in books warning of some dreadful future.  Sometimes their thinking leaks over into family life, or politics, or the job.  They don’t usually bomb federal buildings, or create religious cults, or murder doctors:  they’re good people—afraid not to be.  I grew up that way.  One spring break when I was in college, instead of going to Acapulco or Panama City to party, I joined a revival campaign in central Florida; and we knocked on every door in the little city, inviting people to the revival.  Most of the other college students on the trip took time to enjoy where we were.  I thought I was enjoying it, too; but then the girl they paired me with—everybody had a partner to be sure nobody got left behind—one morning as I was trying to hurry her out to the van to go to the next event she turned to me and said, “You’re such an old man!”  She wasn’t mean about it—she just wanted me to loosen up.  Her words stung at first, but she gave me another perspective on my perfectionism, and I slowly began to understand what she was trying to tell me. 

          Some people we envy:  they seem to catch the wind of the world in their sails and live lives that wish all people well.  We like to be around these people—they lift our spirits, re-energize our flagging souls.  But, again, you can’t go deep with them:  they skim along the surface of life like water skiers.  The words “meaning of life” aren’t in their vocabulary, and the only ultimate thing they know is the wind in their face.  It was about this kind of living that Peggy Lee sang that song, “Is That All There Is?”[2] 

But some people know a little footpath through the forest to a sanctuary for meeting God. This is what Thomas Merton was talking about when he wrote, “There exists some point at which I can meet God in a real and experimental contact with His infinite actuality.”

Robert Browning wrote in his epic poem Paracelcus:[3]

I can’t forget a line from one of the sermons of the thirteenth century German Dominican, Meister Eckhert:[4]

My friends, you can touch the face of God, but there’s some climbing involved. 

          It seems to us that there are some people who have been climbing this mountain all their lives, who make it look and sound easy.  They asked one man, who came to the church every morning, sat in a pew for an hour or so, and then went home—they asked, “What do you do when you commune with God?”  He smiled and said, “I just sit here and let God love me.”  He had learned to turn loose, relax his grip—he wouldn’t fall. 

          A woman, long married, said, “My time  with God is sort of like when my husband and I sit out on the deck.  I don’t say much.  He doesn’t say much.  We just sit there and love each other.” 

          People like these know the sanctuary of their meeting with God because they started young, they worked through a dozen failures and dry spells and temptations to pride or despair.  Can a person begin this climb when they are fifty, or sixty-five, or eighty?  Yes, because God is already there, waiting with a hand-up.  You can touch the face of God, but there’s some climbing involved. 

          How?  If you have never ventured on this journey before, I suggest that you begin by praying the Psalms—two or three each day.  When you get through all 150 psalms, start over again.  Pray the Psalms several times, and the Spirit of Christ will begin to teach you.  If you have been doing this already, I suggest that you pray the Psalms, too.  I don’t mean read them for information:  I mean pray them—even the rough ones that seem out of place in the Bible, even the ones that don’t match your mood this time through. 

          To do this well, you need to set aside dedicated time alone in a dedicated place:  this is a calendared schedule—somebody wants to talk, “I already have a meeting.”[5]  Of course, if somebody needs your help with an emergency, or with a special need, your acting to serve becomes your prayer for that hour.[6]  What you are doing is creating a sanctuary in time, a sort of “sabbath” with God; and in this “sabbath” you slowly learn what the old man meant when he said, “I just sit here and let God love me.” 

          At this point we’re tempted to get all tangled up talking about  technique—the how-to’s and the what-with’s and breathing and whether to use a candle or not.  The One who Is is not in any technique.  What God wants is you.  And what God gives is not voices, or visions, or great ideas, or waves of heat or cold—these are all from you:  what God gives you in the sanctuary is Himself.  There is no feeling.  There is no “experience” in the experience.  But when you rise you, too, will be able to say, “I just sit here and let God love me.” 

          SO:  you can touch the face of God, but there’s some climbing involved.

AMEN