Living in the Lord's House

I have asked the Lord for one thing; One thing only do I want: To live in the Lord’s house all my life, To marvel there at God’s goodness, To ask for God’s guidance. In times of trouble God will shelter me; God ‘s Temple will keep me safe, And make me secure. (Psalm 27:4-5) “There are many rooms in my Father’s house, and I am going to prepare a place for you. I would not tell you this if it were not so.” [John 14:2] Let me start out by saying that God can be found anywhere. In a garden – Adam and Eve. On a mountaintop – Moses. In the middle of a battle with a giant warrior - David. In a storm on a boat - Jonah. In the desert - Jesus. In jail – Paul and Silas. If you can name a place, you can find God there. On a beautiful day with the sun shining. On a stormy night wind when the wind is howling. God can be found. God can be found in places that you expect to find God, in a church, during prayer, at a Gospel music concert. God loves to be found when you are looking. Sometimes God is the one looking, looking for you. So God comes to the places where you are – in your car, at the school, on your job, in your own house. God can be found anywhere. But let’s use our imagination a bit this morning to think about visiting God in the place where God lives. If God has a house, what would it look like? A castle? A mansion with big white pillars? A vacation resort on the beach? Maybe a little log cabin in the woods? Some might say that God’s house looks a lot like a church, maybe a church like ours? When the Israelites escaped from Egypt they began a forty year journey through the desert to the Promised Land. Since they didn’t stay anywhere for very long they never build any permanent buildings for God or for themselves. But they carried a tent, and wherever they went they set up that tent for God to live in. I like that idea, that God isn’t in a fixed location like this church, but that God sets up a tent where you and I find ourselves in our life’s journeys. Going to college? God goes with you. Going on a long trip, God is with you. Getting a job in another city, God is with you there. The Israelites didn’t have a fancy name for that tent, like the way we choose names for churches, they just called it the “tent of meeting”. And that’s where they would meet with God. If you come to our house you will see that I don’t have a lot of religious art on the walls. But I do have posters and pictures of places where I have been, and in each of those places I have met God in unforgettable ways. In one of those pictures you can see a beautiful Adirondack lake. You can’t see it in the picture, but right behind me was my tent. The last time I was at that lake I definitely met God there, and I’ll never forget it. But let’s forget the tent for a moment and go back to the house God lives in. Whatever image you have in your mind, maybe something like the houses used to illustrate our bulletin, the important thing, of course, is that God invites you in. Up the steps, onto the porch, ring the bell, open the screen door, and you’re in. I think this is amazing, God has a house, and God invites us in, and we are made very, very welcome. We worship a God who knows a lot about hospitality. To live in the Lord’s house is not just seeing it from down the street, not just walking by on the sidewalk, not just standing on the front porch, not just a short visit inside, but to live there our whole life! God doesn’t simply notice us or tolerate us, God invites us inside, and offers us a place to live. So forget about the shape of the house, its architecture, or its construction. Think about what it feels like to be inside, not just as a temporary visitor but as someone invited to move in. What are the things that you do when you are no longer a visitor in a home, but now living there as a resident. You find a favorite chair. You find a particular view out the window that you enjoy. You have your own room (though sometimes you have to share it with your sister or brother or spouse). When you come in you take your shoes off, look in the fridge for a snack, and sit by the fireplace. The writer of the Psalm wants us to imagine living in the Lord’s house as something like that – welcoming, warmth, comfort and peace. Now, you have a house already. So instead of wandering up and down the street looking for God’s house, maybe it would be easier to invite God to live in your house? And you can think about the places in your house that God would really enjoy – the room with the new carpet, the room where the cats enjoy sleeping in the sun, a room filled with interesting books and magazines, the room with lots of toys for children, or the room with a fireplace. Knowing that God might come to live in your house – is there anything you would change to make it more welcoming? You could add a few new chairs, put some flowers on the dining room table, and of course you would give it a good cleaning. But forget about furnishings and decorations and cleaning. What would you change about yourself to make your home more welcoming and inviting? This is a spiritual question, of course. What new attitudes and behaviors would you want to develop if God was going to live in your house? Be more loving, be more generous, be more peaceful, be more friendly. Working on changing ourselves is never easy. It’s easier, in fact, to expect that other people should do the changing because I’m just fine the way I already am. But I believe that you come here on a Sunday morning to strengthen your resolve to change, and my job as a preacher is to help create a vision of what the world might look like if you changed, and the people around you changed. It’s also to suggest practical steps for getting to that vision. So here’s my first practical step. Just start with one place in your house, one room, or one corner, and think about making that spot more welcoming and hospitable to God. Maybe put up a new picture that you think God would enjoy. Maybe add a comfortable chair. Maybe throw down a new rug. Maybe put a small vase with flowers. Maybe add some music. A friend of mine put a rocking chair in that space, always ready for God to enjoy, but sometimes she enjoys it too. It is for her a special place as she rocks to be thinking about God, to be thinking about her life. If you can find a place in your home that can be made more hospitable to God, then maybe you can also find a small corner of your life to work on to make you more welcoming to God.