Scripture: 1Kings 8:1-4, 9-13, 27
Sojourners began worshiping at JABA on September 13, 1998 and we are concluding our time here on January 30, 2005. (Sounds like the beginning of a eulogy doesn’t it.) This being our last Sunday at JABA, I thought there ought to be some kind of ceremonial thanksgiving and leavetaking, and we’ll get to the communal part of that, the part that we have created on the spot this morning, in just a few minutes. Before that though, I want to exercise my ministerial prerogative of saying more words than anyone else gets to say, not too many words today, but more than will fit on a 3X5 card.
Let me begin with a question: Who here has not worshiped with Sojourners anywhere other than JABA? I am one of those people who has not worshiped as a Sojourner anywhere other than JABA. This is about to change for those of us who joined Sojourners since September of 1998, but up till now, for me and many of us, Sojourners and the great room at the Jefferson Area Board for the Aging, are connected at the hip. Insofar as we have a sacred space, this has been it. And for me it has served well in that regard.
Ava likes to tell the story about how, when I was involved in the search process and was considering, and being considered by, three churches—one had already called me, another was not at the point of calling anyone but seemed like a good possibility, and the third was Sojourners, which as it turns out was about to extend a call—Ava asked me which of the three churches I would prefer, if I were to have my choice: the one with a beautiful, historic downtown city church building (admittedly in need of some repair), the one with a charming and again historic building adjacent to a college campus, or the one with no building at all. I said Sojourners, the one with no building at all, not for just that reason of course, although I admit that the thought of having no building had some appeal to me. Ava, by her own account, rolled her eyes or some equivalent of that, probably imagining a storefront arrangement of some kind, or maybe a gymnasium with a worship space enhanced by basketball nets, or maybe a bar or party type area where the smell of beer lingered in the air on Sunday mornings. Whatever she imagined, she wasn’t thrilled. I can’t say that I was thrilled, but I wasn’t worried, having been shown the space when I interviewed here and having a kind of instinctive positive feeling about the place. “This is o.k. This’ll work. I can worship here.” As it turned out, it was much better than o.k. It quickly became for me, and continued to be and become, sacred space. And though I obviously can’t speak for how it has been experienced by others, I do sense that it has been sacred space for many of us at Sojourners and has served well as sacred space for this community while we have been here.
That is not such an obvious term maybe—sacred space. Various of us have said often, in our many discussions about moving or not moving or how soon to move, that the spirit of Sojourners resides in the people, not in a place. We are who we are because of who we are—sounds pretty obvious, doesn’t it?—not where we are. And God does not dwell in places made by human hands but rather in the faces and hands and hearts and songs of God’s people, and so it cannot be the space that is sacred. It is the people who are sacred. Holiness does not reside in walls and rugs and chairs, not even upholstered chairs with arms. Holiness resides in the souls of God’s children and in the community of God’s children wherever they may be. All this I think we all know to be true. Still…
Just as God is present in a different and deeper way when people are engaged with each other, more than can be true in our own individual efforts to commune with God, so God becomes present in a particular way when a people interact with a space. And that is what has happened here time and time again in so many different ways. Though we have, in the big scheme of things, been here only a short time, it has been long enough for this space to become sacred space for Sojourners. It has been made sacred by the countless prayers brought into this place, not only the quiet and private prayers we bring, and not only those we offer to God, but those we share with one another. We have heard beautiful, spirit-filled music here made mostly by our own members, and sometimes we have made music all together (and sometimes we have struggled along on a hymn few people knew or maybe cared to know). We have celebrated births, baptized babies and adults, remembered the dead. We have welcomed new people into this community and we have said good-bye, often painfully said good-bye, though of course trying to be mature about it and I think in every case resisting the temptation to grab someone’s arm and yell at them not to go. We have had some times when we bursted at the seams and some times when a few people worshiped quietly by candlelight. We have been here long enough for this space to become sacred space for Sojourners. Perhaps I feel this in a special way because not only is this space the only one I have experienced with Sojourners, but it is the place where Ava and I were welcomed to Charlottesville and embraced into a caring community just a few days after arriving in Charlottesville. It is true that a space by itself is not sacred, but a space that holds peoples songs and prayers, words and silences, our reaching out for God and God’s reaching out for us, space does over time, and not too long a time at that, become sacred.
I chose a scripture passage today that speaks of a time in the life of ancient Israel when the community was making a transition from a kind of nomadic existence to a more settled one. When the Jewish people were on the move, God moved with them wherever they went and that presence was represented by the ark of the covenant which contained the tablets of Moses. That moveable presence of God was about to be given up in favor of a temple which would represent a more stable, more permanent presence where not only God but the spirit of the Jewish people and the Jewish faith could find a home and not find itself always in a temporary and uncertain state.
Of course we are in something of a similar position, looking forward to having a home. But the Jewish people, as much as they looked forward to building a temple that would represent their highest spiritual aspirations, they also at the their best remembered with great thanksgiving, the nomadic times and the ark of the covenant that went with them and the spaces that had been sacred because they had been there and God had been in their midst. In something like that spirit, we give thanks today for JABA, part of the nomadic period of Sojourners, sacred space because for a time we stopped here and God dwelt among us.
I hope all that does not sound too serious because our ways of giving thanks do not have to be serious. One way to give thanks is just to recall some images of our time here, which I have invited us to do and which we’ll now read out loud as a kind of communal thanksgiving…(Whenever it gets a little long, we’ll stop and sing a few verses of a hymn.)
…
I want to close this service and our time here with some prayers, not head-bowed, eyes closed kind of prayer, but prayers of thanksgiving, and blessing, and hope.
We give thanks, O God, for this space that we have made our own as best we can for a few minutes each week and for the six years that this place has been available to us and for it being a cheerful and friendly and comfortable place to be and only occasionally having locked doors, balloons in the fans or cake on the floor.
We lift up the people of Sojourners
Those who have come here with Sojourners and are now leaving with Sojourners
Those who have found us while we were here and become part of the community
Those who have left us during these years and who now rejoice with us as we move to a home of our own
Those who have passed through the life of Sojourners while we have been here, people who have spent a few hours or a few months with us and then moved on,
Those who have been our guests
We lift up, give thanks for, and ask a blessing for the people of JABA:
The people who live in this room on weekdays whom we seldom see much of but whose spirit is part of the space. The residents of the adult care facility, the staff, all those who have left their spirit here and perhaps who have felt ours in some small way.
The people from JABA who have set up for us, who never could quite get it straight what we want the room to look like but who no doubt did their best, and those who cleaned up after us.
Those in the administration of JABA who have supported our presence and followed our progress and who now wish us well as we move on.
Dear God, bless all those who continue to be part of this place, who care for others and are cared for here. And go with us as we leave this place. May the time we have spent here strengthen us for the journey of faith that lies ahead. Amen.
Jim Bundy
January 30, 2005