There are no un-sacred places--only places where we fail to pay attention

 A sermon for Atonement Lutheran Church, Jamestown

John 2:13-22

I got into camping ministry as a 20-year-old college student, who loved the outdoors and Jesus and finally discovered there is this little slice of heaven where those two worlds intersect. I worked as a camp counselor in northern Idaho at Camp Lutherhaven where I found my temple under the ponderosa pines on the shores of Lake Coeur d’Alene, and it was a temple, because it was a holy place and a holy space—like a church but different; like a pilgrimage site but different. Beautiful, set apart—a place where the holy intersected the lives of countless individuals who called it camp.

      

      In some ways, that camp would become my pilgrimage site—the place where I would be sure to find God—and it still is that way. However, I have also discovered that camp is all of those places—not just the camp that I am most familiar with but also Red Willow and all places outdoors and in where we are attentive to God’s presence. I now firmly believe there are no un-sacred spaces; there are just places where we are not paying attention.

            Jesus gets at this in a roundabout way in our Gospel reading today. This is the story of Jesus whipping folks out of the temple for making it a marketplace. The holy place that was supposed to be set apart had become the local Walmart; it became impossible to see the holy because of all the boring, normal bustle of daily life. So, Jesus literally forms a whip and starts whipping the shopkeepers out of the temple grounds, which is pretty startling if we stop and think about it, because it’s not like Jesus was the chief priest. To the temple authorities, he was nobody. This is why they ask what sign he has for acting in this way. Hey buddy, show us some ID, they are saying. And what ID does Jesus give? A strange response: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” Suddenly, since we know who Jesus actually is, this scene reveals an amazing truth. It is not the temple-church that has been profaned. No, that is what the temple elites think; that is the arena for the debate they want to have, but this is not the temple Jesus is concerned with. That temple is Jesus’ body, which is to say that the temple has been profaned because the people are too busy buying stuff to see Jesus Christ, God-incarnate, standing right there.

            This is so important for us today because it is tempting to believe our job is to protect the holiness of church buildings and our camp properties lest they lose their sense of holiness when they no longer feel set apart. Of course there is something truth in this; these are places made holy by the intention of our worship. However, our physical temples only matter if they provide a lens to see Jesus. The point of the temple is that it is set apart, but since we are all part of the body of Christ, all of us can follow Jesus toward the cross wherever we go. Again, there are no un-sacred spaces, just spaces where we fail to pay attention.

            Here’s why I think this matters profoundly for us in the year of our Lord, 2021. Many of us go to church seeking refuge in a place set apart from what is normal back home. While we are here, we do not want to be sold something; while we are here, we do not want to be reminded of all the things that divide us; while we are here, we want to experience life differently than we do at the grocery store or on the phone with customer service. Here, we want to experience something holy, but we make a mistake if we think this holiness will be comfortable. Jesus’ ministry is not about creating comfortable spaces; it is about revealing holy spaces. The difference between a comfortable space and a holy space is that a comfortable place provides balm for our wounds, while a holy place puts us to death and raises us. We think we need healing, but healing is temporary—what we really need is resurrection.

            At our best, both camp and church seek to be holy places, not merely comfortable place. Yes, sure, camp is all sorts of fun, but you can have fun at a resort, or a family cabin, or Disney World. And, yes, camp offers retreats for you to “get away from it all,” but the backdrop for these experiences is not simply to pamper you and tell you that you deserve it. Instead, we cultivate a space where life slows down, reflection is possible, and the awareness of grace can sweep over you like a wave. We seek after Jesus, who walked the road to the cross so that those of us who are broken may ultimately find comfort through death and not apart from it.

            A year ago, I was pastoring a couple congregations like yours in NW Minnesota when the repercussions of the pandemic were beginning to come into focus. Suddenly, our holy places were set apart in a whole different way. There was tension in coming together and being apart. What was the right thing to do for the sake of one another? There was no playbook—continues to be no playbook, really. This is when it is especially important to remember that Jesus comes to us apart from our expectations. Everybody expected Jesus to show up at the temple and exhort the importance of the temple. Instead, he said, “Nah, I am the temple.” Everybody expected Jesus to face off against the political authorities of the day and attempt to claim his throne as king. Instead, Jesus gave himself up to death and claimed his throne on a cross. As we reflect on a year of pandemic, we need to remember this tendency of Jesus to zig when we zag. We absolutely do not know what Jesus would advocate for in the face of a pandemic—something brave, perhaps, like keeping the congregations open all along, or something also brave like keeping the congregations closed until every last sheep is gathered. We do not know. What we do know is that Jesus Christ does not come to make us comfortable but to lead us through death into new life.

We have had a lot of deaths in the last year. Actual deaths of loved ones; deaths of expectations; deaths of imagined futures; even seemingly little things like deaths of vacations. A year ago, my family was preparing to take our six-year-old to Disney World when the pandemic ruined it. All of these things are deaths. Yet, death remains the only thing necessary for resurrection. So, we will rise again. The church will rise again, because the church is the people—the body of Christ—who zigs while the world zags and preaches hope especially when things look hopeless. And at Red Willow we are looking forward to rising again—yes, to summer camp as you might remember it, but also with the expectation that God is not going to make this comfortable; instead, God is going to do a new and better thing. Where there was death, we expect resurrection. Where we made our temples into idols, Jesus is waiting to say, “It is not about you.” It was never about stone walls and holy altars and paraments and organs. It was always about the people, who are living members of Christ’s body.

            You see, when I was at camp out in Idaho, I was in one of the most beautiful places on planet earth. Mountains emerged from lake depths, exposing rock faces that held views for miles of coniferous forests where moose and elk roamed. Crystalline creeks fed by glaciers somewhere thousands of feet above splashed over rocks of a thousand different colors and shapes. You know? Just like North Dakota. It might have been heaven on earth. Yet, as I think back to my time at camp, I realize that every poignant memory is tied to people, to personal challenges, and to adversity—to uncomfortable moments, like tending to children, that I had never experienced before—of challenging conversations and pushing boundaries, like leaping off a climbing tower on a zipline. Camp is pregnant with those experiences, but camp is less about the place than we realize.

            At its best, camp is an attitude that is much the same attitude we bring to worship. It is not about comfort but about holiness; it is not about healing but about resurrection. It is not about the temple of stones but about the body of Christ. Places are meaningful, but there is an awfully good reason why we remember the people and the experiences the most. It is about the resurrection, and I am going to preach that even in Lent.