Today’s psalm, Psalm 84, is a celebration of sacred space.
The temple in Jerusalem was the sacred precinct, the space in which God was present. No wonder the psalmist wrote,
“How lovely is Your dwelling place, O Lord of Hosts.”
“I long, I yearn for the courts of the Lord; my body and soul shout for joy to the living God.”
The Jews longed for the courts of the Lord, for they felt that in the temple they would truly experience God’s presence.
Even today, the Jewish people make pilgrimages to Jerusalem to pray at the Western Wall, which is sometimes referred to as the Wailing Wall—all that is left of the magnificent Jewish temple of New Testament times.
This morning, we are within the walls of our own temple precincts, our own sacred space, this church, St Peter’s,
a space in which generations of people have experienced God, a space full of hopes, fears, dreams, dreads, this place of prayer—this place in which generations have worshipped, have been baptized, confirmed, married, buried.
Churches are containers for the sacred. St Peter’s holds our hopes and prayers, our worship. This space holds us, the Body of Christ, together. Its walls retain all of prayers that have been prayed aloud or whispered, all of the hymns that have been sung, the music that has been played. The footsteps of generations, coming to this altar for solace, strength, pardon and renewal, echo in our ears as we too come to this altar each Sunday for God’s blessing and to share in the body and blood of Jesus.
Sacred spaces offer God’s safe haven. In this psalm, even the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself in which to set her young. We come here for safety, reassurance, comfort.
And this sacred space will also transform us, if we come here not to seek God’s approval, but instead to seek God’s mercy.
Jesus is intentional about setting his parable about the two men at prayer in the temple. Both of them have gone up to the temple to pray, one a tax collector, and one a Pharisee.
Now these two men have two differing understandings of the purpose of sacred space.
The first man, the Pharisee, stands alone in his self-righteousness. He has come to the sacred space because of his worthiness.
Everyone can see that he is an observant Jew, and just in case God is missing the point, the Pharisee points out in his prayer that he is not like other people.
He points out that he is set apart, unique. He fasts, and tithes, and he is certainly not a sinner. Of course he is in the temple praying, expecting God’s approval.
The second man stands far off. This second man is a sinful tax collector. He has come to the sacred space in spite of his worthlessness. He has come seeking God’s mercy.
And when this man prays, he asks God for mercy, because he is a sinner, just like the rest of the people who have gathered in that space.
All of us are part Pharisee, and part tax collector, and we bring these pieces of ourselves into this sacred space each week when we gather to worship.
So Jesus tells this parable to us, so that we can fine tune our prayer lives.
Here are the take home points.
Prayer offers us the opportunity to examine our lives.
In our most fruitful prayers, we look deep within our own hearts, and instead of expecting God’s approval, we seek God’s mercy.
Prayer helps us to see our lives as God sees them.
And if we’re honest with ourselves, we know that underneath all of the trapping of goodness that we rightfully wear, we are still sinners, just like everyone else.
If we look within and examine our lives, we see that we are not able to change on our own, and that we NEED mercy.
I don’t know about you, but I get stuck in the same sinful destructive patterns, year after year, especially when I don’t look within.
These destructive patterns differ for each one of us, but we all have them.
Ultimately, only God can transform us.
And so, if we are honest with ourselves, sooner or later we end up praying, along with the tax collector,
“God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”
The prayerful examination of our lives keeps us from getting stuck.
When we leave our lives unexamined, immune to God’s intervention, we become stuck in our self-righteousness, like the Pharisee who stands alone, judging everyone else.
In fact, this Pharisee reminds me of Lot’s wife, who turned into a pillar of salt when she looked back to see what had happened to all those sinners in Sodom.
The Pharisee is very much like that pillar of salt, looking around at everyone else, believing that God is there to dish out judgment and correction to those other poor sinners and approval for himself.
The tax collector, in contrast, having examined his life, and having asked for mercy, is ready for a journey,
a journey of transformation that is possible because this tax collector, so aware of his own sinfulness, senses God’s strength,
wisdom, truth, and love, the attributes that God wants to use on this sinner’s behalf.
The apostle Paul was just such a man.
Remember how I said earlier that all of us have some of the Pharisee and the tax collector in us?
That was Paul. We first hear of Paul in Acts, stuck in his own certainty and self-righteousness, breathing threat and murder against the disciples of the Lord.
All he can think about is those wrong-headed Jews who belonged to the Way. And he is going to use his own strength to bring them to justice.
But that was before God took Paul in hand, blinded him so that Paul could no longer look out at others. He was forced to look within because he could no longer see to criticize those around him.
Paul, now blind, had to be led by the hand into Damascus.
And it was there, after having spent three days fasting and examining himself, looking within, that Paul received healing from God through the hands of Ananias.
When Ananias laid his hands on Paul, something like scales fell from Paul’s eyes, he regained his sight, he was baptized, and he regained his strength, not his own strength, but God’s strength.
God had mercy on Paul, and God had plans for Paul. God said
“I myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.”
And so, no longer stuck, and having received God’s mercy, Paul, having looked within and having examined himself, is free to go where God sends him, free to travel countless miles, spreading the good news of the Way,
the story of Jesus, the story of a man who was truly passionate, who suffered and died and rose so that we can all be free to live and move and have our being in God,
so that along with Paul, and with the psalmist, we are happy to travel along the pilgrim’s way with the countless ones who have gone before us, the ones who travel with us now, and the ones who will follow in our footsteps.
God calls us out from this sacred space, week by week, calls us out, like Paul, to be poured out like libations for one another.
Calls us out, with God’s strength, not our own, to fight the good fight,
Calls us out to run our races,
Calls us out, to keep the faith.
Calls us out of this sacred space of transformation
Into the sacred space of the pilgrim’s way.
Amen