Highland Presbyterian Church Tenth Sunday after Pentecost - July 29, 2018 “Accompanying the Holy” A Sermon by Doodle Harris

Before I read the second scripture for today, I want to give a little back ground about the scriptures we are reading. The scripture that Helen read was the making of the Ark of the Covenant. Yes, that very same Ark that scared me to death when I was younger watching the Indiana Jones’ movies. But this is well before that. We are in Exodus. The Israelites have already been wandering for a number of years. Water has come out of the rock, Manna has come down from heaven, the golden calf has come and gone and we’ve just gotten the Ten Commandments. We get the idea that God recognizes that the Israelites need a little more tangible way of interacting with God because we don’t want the whole golden calf thing again and so this is what God does. Here we have the story of Bezalel making the ark, but a few chapters previous we have the story of God giving Bezalel and Oholiab, his building partner, all sorts of gifts of artistry and wisdom. The Ark is made by the finest artisans priests of the Israelites and alongside it, the tabernacle which is essentially the moveable temple of the Israelites for worship. The Ark will be placed in the tabernacle behind the veil… in the holy of holies. It is from there it will lead the Israelites for generations to come. The Ark has three names in the Old Testament. The first and most common from Deuteronomy and Joshua – Aron Ha-Brit (or barith) – the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark of Promises… the Ark that holds the Ten Commandments… the Ark of Agreement between the people and God, all covenants. In Exodus, we also find the term Aron Ha-Edut – the Ark of Testimony. The ark from which we receive the testimony of God. The place that we interact with God directly. And finally, we have Aron Ha-Elohim – the Ark of God. This term doesn’t mean the ark that belongs to God. It means the Ark that is – in some way – a tangible place of God. In Second Samuel, the Hebrew says the Aron Ha-Elohim is called by the name of the Lord who sits enthroned on the cherubim. It is the place that thrones God and holds God – not in a way that limits God’s power, but in a way that allows us to interact with God in almost a tangible way. It is called by the name of the Lord of Hosts… so it is somehow a holding spot for the sacred name of God and a bridge that connects us to God. In First Kings 8, Solomon places the ark in the temple and he declares, “that God is too great to be contained by the Earth or even in the Heavens…how could God dwell in this temple?... and God says “my name shall be there.” It doesn’t contain God but contains the holy name of God… Not a dwelling place for God, but a place where that most sacred name of God remains. It is a sacred thing for the Israelites, a most holy thing… and yet it is also a thing of comfort… that our God… the Elohim, is almost tangibly with us. After being built, the ark then travels with the Israelites throughout the Wilderness. Only the priests are allowed in the Holy of Holies to be with the Ark. It is that precious. There are stories of a priest going in there and they would tie a rope around his waist just in case the power of God in the ark was so much that it killed him. The other priests certainly weren’t going in after that… they preferred to use the rope and just pull the body out. There are the infamous two friends caught “in the tent of meeting” (shall we say Canoodling) in front of the ark and when Phineas, grandson of Aaron, kills them for doing so, God stops the plague that the Israelites have been suffering. The Israelites cross into the Promised Land across the Jordan River, the ark holding the waters back just like Moses’ staff held the waters of the Red sea back as the Israelites crossed into the Wilderness. The Israelites carried the ark into battle with them trusting that it brought them divine power in their battles as they captured the Promised Land. At one point, the Philistines capture the ark and the ark proceeds to bring them misfortunes wherever they go. In the presence of the ark, statues of the Philistine Gods crumbled and the Philistines got boils. Finally, the philistines got so frustrated with the ark that they wanted to send it back. So, they built a cart and tied it to two cows and sent the ark unmanned back into the Israelites territory, happy to see it gone and plagues in their own land stop. It gets to the Israelites… Elazar keeps it for a few years and the people in the surrounding lands are blessed with rich yields in their farms. The ark is a big deal. The ark is the holiest thing the Israelites have. The ark has power. The ark represents God in a way that nothing else in their midst does. The ark even in some metaphysical way contains the name of God. Finally King David catches on and decides it is time to bring the ark home to Jerusalem, to the capital of the Israelites, arguably to the place it deserves to be. Our second scripture today comes from the parade that brings the ark home. Listen to a reading from First Chronicles 15:16-28.

David also commanded the chiefs of the Levites to appoint their kindred as the singers to play on musical instruments, on harps and lyres and cymbals, to raise loud sounds of joy. So the Levites appointed He-man son of Jo-el; and of his kindred As-aph son of Bere-chiah; and of the sons of Merari, their kindred, Ethan son of Kushaiah; and with them their kindred of the second order, Zechariah, Jaaziel, Shemir-a-moth, Jehiel, Unni, Eliab, Ben-aiah, Ma-aseiah, Mat-tith-iah, Eli- phel-ehu, and Mik-ne-iah, and the gatekeepers Obed-edom and Jei-el. The singers He-man, As- aph, and Ethan were to sound bronze cymbals; Zechariah, Aziel, Shemiramoth, Jehiel, Unni, Eliab, Ma-aseiah, and Benaiah were to play harps according to Alamoth; but Mat-tith-iah, Eliph-el-ehu, Mik-neiah, Obed-edom, Jei-el, and Azaziah were to lead with lyres according to the Sheminith. Chenaniah, leader of the Levites in music, was to direct the music, for he understood it. Bere-chiah and Elkanah were to be gatekeepers for the ark. Shebaniah, Joshaphat, Nethanel, Amasai, Zechariah, Benaiah, and Elieazer, the priests, were to blow the trumpets before the ark of God. Obed-edom and Jehiah also were to be gatekeepers for the ark.

So David and the elders of Israel, and the commanders of the thousands, went to bring up the ark of the covenant of the Lord from the house of Obed-edom with rejoicing. And because God helped the Levites who were carrying the ark of the covenant of the Lord, they sacrificed seven bulls and seven rams. David was clothed with a robe of fine linen, as also were all the Levites who were carrying the ark, and the singers, and Chenaniah the leader of the music of the singers; and David wore a linen ephod. So all Israel brought up the ark of the covenant of the Lord with shouting, to the sound of the horn, trumpets, and cymbals, and made loud music on harps and lyres.

The next chapter in First Corinthians goes on to share a song of praise that also accompanied the ark to Jerusalem… and the song we are singing after the sermon is a paraphrase of that song and I’m grateful to David Gambrell for adapting it for us for worship today. Now, people of Highland Presbyterian Church, you know that today is Jan’s last Sunday in this church and let me assure you that I am not – in this sermon – about to compare Jan to the ark of the covenant finally going home to Jerusalem. There is no finality about Jan as she will always be one of us. And as wonderful as Jan is, I’m not sure even she is as written about as the ark. The point I’m going to make is this: that God calls us to accompany the holy. God doesn’t call us to be the holy, the sacred, the divine… but God calls us to accompany that which is holy. In its beginning, Bezalel and Oholiab created the ark in divine instructions. In its journeys the priest carried the Holy Ark including Phineas who kept the ark from “being contaminated” shall we say? The Israelites and the ark together walk into the Promised Land. Elazar protects the ark when it is returned from the Philistines… and as it comes to Jerusalem, we have a parade of musicians to accompany this ark… the harpists… the trumpeters… the singers… the cymbal players (Frank, we forgot to get cymbals in today’s service)… And all of these people are named in this passage because they are important… this isn’t just a casual parade, but this is a parade of those who have been chosen to accompany the God… this is a parade with musicians whose names will be remembered for years and generations and centuries even until today thousands of years later, we are trying to figure out how to say their names. We are called not to be God… not to go before God… not to go behind God, but to go with God… to accompany that which is the most sacred… and that act of accompanying is a crucial call upon God in our lives. Several years ago, I was in a pastoral care class and the topic of the day was how to make a hospital visit. The professor was Craig Barnes – the now president of Princeton theological seminary. He began his lecture by saying this: when you go into a hospital room, you do not bring the presence of God with you. The presence of God is already there when you walk through the door…. And I in my uncertainty about whether or not I was going to make a reasonable pastor just had this overwhelming feeling of relief. I was able to let go of anxieties I didn’t even know I had after hearing that statement. He went on to explain how in the scariest places like prisons or hospitals, God is already there… Because God, especially in Jesus, knows suffering… and God chooses to be present in the midst of that which is hard, that which is uncertain, and that which is unknown. One classmate finally raises her hand with a question she’s been holding on to since the beginning of class… “then why do we need to go at all.” And Dr. Barnes said, “your job isn’t to bring the presence of God. Your job is to point to the presence of God. Your job is to be the eyes and the ears to all that God is already doing in that room long before you get there and to lift back the veil to those who have been in that room with God for a long time. Your job is to point to the holy.” As I have lived this summer thinking about the scripture, the number of ways that I have witnessed God’s people accompanying the Holy is remarkable. In Vacation Bible School, when all those volunteers give hours and hours of days and days to teach our smallest members about their faith, I tear up because I know this is Highland accompanying the Holy. When our adults stay up til 1:00 in the morning to listen to youth’s fears about death and suicide, they are being invited into such a sacred place to accompany the holy work that is going on in that teenager’s life. When the youth went to Ferguson on a mission trip, we saw Beverly who was accompanying the Holy. Beverly was a grandmother who’d spend her several years living in a two-bedroom apartment with her daughter and granddaughter. Beverly was uneducated, but she worked to help pay the rent and put food on the table. Then Beverly’s own mother was diagnosed first with dementia and then Alzheimer and eventually Beverly had to move in with her own mother, who could no longer leave the house. In fact, the only break Beverly had from caring from her mother was when home healthcare came in a few times a week and that was barely long enough to go to the grocery store. Beverly’s mother lived in a house… an 800 square foot house, but it was the only permanent structure anyone in Beverly’s family owned. And because it was the only house, then it also became the dumping ground for any items that Beverly’s family owned after they passed away. The basement was full of old things that had belonged to Beverly’s brother and uncle after their deaths. The house was overrun with stuff. Beverly called the agency our youth were working with on their mission trip and asked for help removing items because she no longer had the strength. Evan Holmes and Caleb in our group carried out one of those old zenith TVs with an extra-thick picture tube. I carried out at least two Apple 2e’s and at one point I tried to show the kids what the disk drive looked like and tried to explain floppy disks to them. They didn’t understand. But what they did understand was Beverly’s story. She told all of us, “I never really went to church. My mother did. She was catholic, but she never made us kids go too much. I really didn’t even understand why. Until this year. My mother used to read out loud from the Bible at least 2 hours a day, but now she’s almost blind as well. So, I sit with her. And I read aloud from the bible to her. My mother doesn’t always remember my name. My mother doesn’t know the street she lives on. But my mother knows that Bible, word for word, and she finishes verses for me when I am reading too slowly. As I have read the Bible to my mother, I have begun to understand what she believes. I have come to know God through reading to my mother. I have begun to see the power of God. When my mother knows nothing else, she Knows God.” Beverly had spent these last few months living with her mother witnessing the holy, accompanying the Holy… and had allowed us for a few hours to accompany the holy in that house with her. The important thing wasn’t the electronics we moved, but the power of God that we witnessed - that we accompanied - in a small way in the lives of Beverley and her mother. It was a powerful day in the life of our youth.

I believe that the closest thing we have to the Holy is this place, this sanctuary and this congregation. This place that has been set aside for the worship of God. I believe that God calls us to accompany the Holy. I believe that God calls us to do what Jan has done almost every week of her life for 65 years, 37 of those in this sanctuary: to accompany the Holy. Not to go in front of God or go behind God, but to stand with God. Not to be God, but to sing with God. Not to do miracles, but to witness the miracles that God does. Jan has done so, in that organ and in this sacred space. She has shown us how holy and special this place and these people are with her music. With her time, her commitment, her confidence, and with her silent, yet powerful, pointing to the presence of God week after week in this amazing place. Jan is not the Ark of the Covenant, but we are. This sanctuary is, Highland is, and Jan has accompanied us in this sacred space Sunday after Sunday, pointing to the power of God in ways that we cannot do ourselves; and for that we are grateful. Mr. Rogers – Fred Rogers – has a wonderful documentary about him out now, “Won’t you be my neighbor.” At the end of the film, those who are being interviewed remind us of something Mr. Rogers used to ask people. He would remind them of their own intrinsic goodness and their call to be neighbors to one another. He would ask them, “Who in your life has been a servant to you? Who has helped you love the good that grows within you? Let’s just take ten seconds to think of some of those people who have loved us and wanted what was best for us in life – those who have encouraged us to become who we are - just ten seconds of silence.” And then after those ten seconds he would ask “Who were you thinking of?” People respond… my mother… my teachers… my best friend… usually through tears. What I believe is this, if we were to ask Highland Presbyterian Church – this amazing sacred sanctuary and this amazing holy congregation the same question “Who has been a servant to you? Who has helped you love the good that grows with in you?” Close your eyes, take ten seconds to think, this place and this congregation would whisper back “Jan”. Jan Ward has. And thanks be to God for the call on her life to accompany the divine in this place. We are all better for it. Thanks be to God. Amen.