God in Our Midst

Where is God? Far off... or right here? And what kind of a God do we worship, anyway? One who threatens us... or one who loves us unconditionally? This sermon might make you think about those two questions.

Some years ago, a number of very distinctive black billboards with large white letters appeared along the highways. Each one was a brief memo signed by God. One of them, for example, said, “That ‘Love your neighbor’ thing? I meant that! Signed, God.” Another said, “Life is short. Eternity isn’t. Signed, God.” But the one that really stuck with me warned, “Don’t make me come down there! Signed, God.” When I read it, I didn’t know whether to cry or to laugh.

I wanted to cry because the billboard makes God sound like an angry parent who has heard one too many squabbles from the kids downstairs. I could just see God standing at the top of the stairs, brow furrowed in anger, shaking a disapproving finger at the misbehaving children below. This kind of God is threatening, one who remains far away from us – unless, of course, we don’t behave ourselves! Then God shows up, all full of spit and fire. But that’s not the God that Jesus talks about. The God that I know is loving and joyful! The God that I know would be downstairs playing right along with the kids, laughing with them, and offering a comforting hug when one of them got an ouchie. Yes, I want to cry when people have an image of God as a stern disciplinarian who warns “Don’t make me come down there!”

But that billboard made me want to laugh, too; because whoever designed it didn’t know much about the Christian faith. We Christians believe that God has already come down to us at least three different times! One, of course, was on Christmas, when God was born as a human being in Jesus Christ. Another was on Pentecost, when God came to us as the Holy Spirit to live among us and to fill us with the grace of Jesus Christ. But long before Pentecost and long before Christmas, God came down to be with the Israelites as they journeyed in the wilderness on their way to the Promised Land.

After the Israelites left Egypt and crossed the Red Sea, they traveled to Sinai, the mountain where Moses had first heard God call to him out of the burning bush. There they saw the glory and power of God in a thick, black cloud and eruptions of fire on the mountain top. There they saw Moses go up on the mountain to receive the Law that would define the Israelites as God’s people. And there God gave Moses instructions for building a Tabernacle, the place where God would live in the midst of the people. Our scripture reading this morning summarized those instructions (Exodus 25:1-9; 40:16-17; 34-38). If you want to read all of them, you’ll have to read 13 whole chapters of the book of Exodus! (The original instructions are in chapters 25-31; and then, just in case you missed them, they are repeated in chapters 35-40.) That Tabernacle was made with the very finest materials, and filled with beautiful colors to remind the people of God’s glory. And when it was finished, God came down from the mountain to live there in the midst of the people that he had chosen for himself.

Now, God could have stayed on Mt. Sinai. God could have given Moses the Law and then said, “Now, you know what you’re supposed to do. Keep your noses clean! Don’t make me come down there!” But God didn’t do that. God came down off that mountain to live in middle of the noise and the confusion and the messiness of the camp. In fact, God gave Moses the instructions for building the Tabernacle even before God gave Moses the Law! God was even more interested in living with his people than he was with telling them how to behave. God couldn’t wait to come down and live in the middle of the people he loved!

And God is still with us today. Oh, we no longer meet God in a big, beautiful tent like the Israelites did. These days, we meet God in all sorts of places. Why, just here in our own country, we meet God in church sanctuaries like this one, in small rooms in rented storefront churches, and in huge auditoriums that hold thousands of people. Other places around the world, people meet God in ornate Russian Orthodox churches topped with gold-leafed onion domes; in medieval cathedrals in France adorned with stone gargoyles; and in thatched-roof huts with dirt floors in Africa. They meet God in Chinese pagodas, in South American fishing boats, and in Middle Eastern refugee camps. They meet God through joyful song and dance, through dignified chant and the fragrance of incense, through speaking in tongues with hands held high, and through sitting silently with hands folded in prayer.

But Christians around the world have one thing in common. All of us meet God here at the Communion Table -- the table of the Lord. All of us gather around this table to remember. We remember that we are God’s people, not because of what we do for God; but because of what God did for us. God loves us so much that God not only came down to live with us during our earthly lives; God gave himself for us so that we might live with him forever! Why, God doesn’t say, “Don’t make me come down there!” On the contrary, God says, “Here I am, right now; and then I’m bringing you back home with me!”

So when we share the bread and the cup in the sacrament of Holy Communion, stop and ponder the mystery in the silence of your hearts. The table is the evidence that God has come to live with his people. The table is the proof of God with us right now. And the table is the foretaste of the banquet that all Christians will one day share at God’s heavenly table.

God is in our midst, and will always be! Thanks be to God!