St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Owings Mills MD
March 3, 2024
Year B: The Third Sunday in Lent
Exodus 20:1-17
Psalm 19
1 Corinthians 1:18-25
John 2:13-22
Sacred People, Sacred Places
Well, we are now just about halfway through the season of Lent.
So, if you haven’t yet chosen a Lenten discipline – something to take on or something to give up – there’s still time to get started.
And if your Lenten discipline has already fallen by the wayside, do not despair! There is still time to get back on track!
Lent, of course, began on Ash Wednesday.
And each Ash Wednesday is pretty much the same as the last – we follow the same ritual, say the same words.
“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
But this year, Ash Wednesday has been sticking with me more than usual.
I’m not sure why.
I think part of it is that I’ve been here a while now – we’ve been through a lot together, through life and death, through lots of baptisms and lots of funerals, too.
We’ve gotten to know each other – I feel close to you and, frankly, I don’t want to think of any of you dying.
I think I’m also more aware of how fragile we are, how fragile I am - how one wrong move, how one phone call or text, how one piece of bad news can seem to change everything.
We are dust, and to dust we shall return.
But we are not just any old dust.
We are dust loved by God – loved by God so much that God chose to become dust, too – to join us here in this dusty life, in and through Jesus Christ.
By coming among us in and through Jesus, God makes us dusty people sacred.
By coming among us in and through Jesus, God makes the earth, all of its dusty places, sacred.
Sacred people, sacred places.
About a week and a half ago, I made a very quick trip back home to Jersey City.
I saw my parents – who are doing fine and who say hi to all of you – and we had dinner with my sister. It was a very rare and special occurrence for just the four of us to be together – a reunion of my family’s “original cast.”
I also spent some time with my friend and mentor Lauren, who was the rector of the church where I served when I was first ordained.
Lauren taught me so much about what it means to be a priest and a pastor, about deep devotion to the church’s people and its ministries.
She was the one who revealed the importance of weekday prayer and worship, bathing the church walls in prayer, somehow making all the difference, even for people who never attend a weekday service.
The best parts of my priesthood I learned from Lauren.
And, before I returned to Maryland, I had breakfast with my friend Catherine.
Catherine was not a parishioner of my former church but she lived in the neighborhood and was deeply committed to the community.
She is also a super-talented chef.
One day, a little more than ten years ago now, she came to see me about possibly hosting a monthly community supper in our Parish Hall.
She wanted to call it “Stone Soup.”
And so that’s what we did.
Catherine wasn’t only particular about the food she prepared and served – she only used fresh and healthy ingredients – she also took great care with the finer points of hospitality, setting our parish hall tables with beautiful table cloths and little floral arrangements.
The thought had been that we would be feeding people who might not otherwise be eating that night, people without homes or food.
Some of those people did come but mostly it was neighborhood people, some parishioners – some families but a lot of people who had a place to live and enough food to eat but no one with whom to share it.
Our suppers offered not just good food for the belly, but community for the soul – the gift of breaking bread together, talking, laughing, communion.
While I was back home, I took the “long way,” driving around the city, trying to catch glimpses of places meaningful for me – the school and church where I learned about Jesus - the seemingly forsaken streets where violence is common, the corners we would bless and reclaim as sacred each Good Friday – the church where Sue and I entered the Episcopal Church and where I later served as Rector – and the waterfront with its views of the New York City skyline, both beautiful and painful.
Sacred people, sacred places.
For Jews of two thousand years ago, the Temple in Jerusalem was the most sacred place in the universe.
It was where, in a sense, God was believed to dwell.
It was where Jews came from near and far to make sacrifices, trying to keep their end of the Covenant with God.
And just like the church or any other institution, the Temple had a system, a way to keep things organized and functioning as designed.
The moneychangers played an important part in that system, exchanging coins bearing the image of the Roman emperor for coins free of graven images that could be used to purchase animals to be sacrificed by the priests.
And just like the church or any other institution, it was possible that the people who worked at the Temple lost sight of the big picture, got caught up in the daily business, forgetting its core mission.
Well, it certainly seems like that’s what Jesus thought had happened.
And he sure made quite a dramatic display that day in the Temple, fired up, disrupting that day’s business and worship, calling people back to prayer and worship that was more pure and holy.
The Gospel of John, which is what we heard today, was completed around the year 100 – seventy or so years after Jesus’ earthly lifetime – and thirty years after the Romans destroyed Jerusalem, burning down the Temple, destroying the holiest place on earth.
This was a cataclysm for the Jewish people, raising questions of survival, of how to adapt to life without Temple sacrifices, how to keep the Covenant without the priests slaughtering all those animals.
Eventually, Judaism evolved beyond the priests, keeping the Covenant through loving devotion and careful obedience to God’s Law.
And the early followers of Jesus, both Jews and Gentiles, came to understand that, for us, Jesus is the Temple – Jesus is the Person and Place of sacrifice and reconciliation – Jesus is the Temple that was destroyed and did indeed rise on the third day.
By coming among us in and through Jesus, God makes us dusty people sacred – all of us here today, my parents and sister, my friends Lauren and Catherine, all the people out there going about their business maybe totally unaware of God’s love, all of us
By coming among us in and through Jesus, God makes the earth, all of its dusty places, sacred – all of it, the church where I learned to be a priest, the parish hall where we broke bread, the street corners stained by blood and suffering, all of it.
Lent is just about halfway over.
Whether we haven’t even started or we’ve already slipped up, all of us can have a holy Lent if we remember this:
By coming among us in and through Jesus, God makes us dusty people sacred.
By coming among us in and through Jesus, God makes the earth, all of its dusty places, sacred.
Sacred people, sacred places.
Amen.
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