Dwell
Rev. Karla Miller July 22, 2012 Ephesians 2:14-22
As a child, my sisters and I played endless games of “House.” One of our favorite places was in a tree house that my uncle built on the farm, in this giant elm tree that grew out of the tin can and glass trash pile (My dad burned most of the trash, but there were certain things that, well, wouldn’t go up in smoke.) What was great about the Junk Tree is that it was a three platform kind of structure--there was the open kitchen and living room, and then on two other limbs there were the bedrooms. You had to be one of the big kids to go to those bedrooms because you had to shimmy your way over the high limbs to get to them, so I usually ended up playing the baby.
Then, there was the day my mom and dad came home from an auction sale, with this little house on a flatbed trailer. They had bought it for next to nothing, and it was a huge surprise! In spite of being one room, it held our play furniture, and we even had an old school desk and chalkboard in case we wanted to play school while we were playing house. My sister still has the little chairs and table we used.
When we got too old to play house ourselves, we simply transferred the play to barbie dolls. We would spend endless hours setting up homes for our barbies (we didn’t have a barbie house, but we were lucky enough to have a Ken doll). We would take blankets and chairs and create elaborate dwelling places that we imagined were mansions. Often, we spent so much time setting up our homes, that we didn’t actually have TIME to play Barbies.
Do you remember ever playing house?
The most favorite activity in our childcare room is the area where there is a kitchen, and the little ones love putting the plastic food on a plate and serving one another, just like their parents do for real at home.
It is one of our most basic needs--to have a dwelling place. Whether it is an apartment, a house, a nursing home, we all need a landing place, a nesting place, a place that is home.
So it is no wonder that the epistle writer uses the imagery of “household” to invite the Jewish and Gentile believers into unity. You see, they were having a hard time. The Jewish Christians thought the Gentile Christians ought to convert to Judaism in order to be Christian (because at the time, the Jesus movement was considered to be a sect of Judaism. However, the Gentile Christians didn’t feel they needed to convert, because they understood the movement as being outside of traditional Judaism, and something they could embrace. There was tension among these communities, and the leadership was working hard at reconciliation, working hard to create a new social order, where those in the community would understand that Christ was their peace, and Christ created in himself “one new humanity in place of two.”
No one was stranger.
No one was alien.
Everyone, EVERYONE was a member of the household of God. It was an incredibly radical vision.
Yesterday, we celebrated the life of Angela Bauer....and I have been thinking about her household. You see, she opened up her household, to children, to babies, her childcare, and foster children. Chris described her as seeing each one as a bundle of pure potential. Each child was gathered into the fold, with intention and care. I think, in many ways, her home was a model for what it means to be a household of God. Seeing each person in it as pure potential?
I wonder what it means for us, as a congregation, to think of ourselves as a household of God? A place where God dwells? I think we do a really good job of being welcoming, and accepting people exactly how they are, once they walk in the doors. I wonder, though, what it means for us to be a household of God in the larger community of Newton Corner? How can we be more intentional of going outside our walls, and inviting them into our household?
And those who leave our household--those who move, often write back saying, “I still haven’t found a church home that resonates with my experience at Eliot.” Even yesterday, I had a conversation like this with Mary Gomez, a former member, who now lives in Indiana, who happened to be at the Cape this week, and was able to be at the services yesterday.
What would your life be like, without a church family?
My heart shattered this week, again, when I heard the news that a 24-year-old gunman barged into a crowded Denver-area theater during a midnight premiere of the Batman movie, hurled a gas canister and then opened fire, killing 12 people and injuring at least 50 others in one of the deadliest mass shootings in recent U.S. history.
Images of Oklahoma City, Columbine, the Amish School House in Pennsylvania, and Virginia Tech came racing back. “Here we go again,” as so many people in Colorado and beyond are faced with indescribable loss and pain.
I don’t think we can talk about this tragic event without also talking about the really complicated and divisive issues of gun control, health care, and the other social issues that surround the behavior of a young man who has such utter disregard for the sacredness of human life. How and where do people process a something this unspeakable?
Where can they lay down their burdens, rage with anger and fear, shed their tears, wonder, question, and mobilize?
A spiritual home, rooted, and built up with the passion of Christ.
You see, as people of this faith, we are called throughout our lives to rise to the standards set for us by Jesus Christ, who calls us to turn our society right-side up by bringing forth justice, by welcoming strangers in our midst, by feeding the hungry and clothing the naked, by loving the unlovable, and by sharing all that we have and all that we are, so that life is safe, equitable, and just for all God’s children. (Rev. Laurie Hafner, Coral Gables UCC)
That’s what it means to be a dwelling place for God--the household of God not only nurtures and nests, but from it’s very core of being it dares to act towards a new social order. For all!
So today, I leave you with two questions...
Where does God dwell at Eliot? What would your life be like, without your spiritual family?
Let us continue to strive to be Dwelling places for God, so that more and more people might experience a new social order, and discover their way home.
Amen.
Text
In the New Testament letter of Ephesians, the writer delineates models for a new social order. In chapter 2, the writer is exhorting Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians to be unified by breaking down the walls of their differences.
Ephesians 2:14-22
14For Christ is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. 15He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, 16and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it. 17So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; 18for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father. 19So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, 20built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. 21In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; 22in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.
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