“Who can come in?”  (1Kings 8:22-30, 41-43)

Intro:  In our reading this morning, we are present at the dedication and ribbon cutting of the Temple built by Solomon.  It is a grand and glorious occasion.  Filled with all the requisite pomp and circumstance of blessing a new building.  Then, as now, there have to be speeches and prayers on such occasions.  Almost all of this reading is an excerpt from a dedication prayer offered by Solomon.     (New Zealand, home of 25 million sheep? it is recorded that 120,000 sheep were offered up as part of this celebration)

I’d like to start with a story, about a kingdom in Europe, a long time ago.  When a king would die they would take his coffin and they would process through the streets and all the people would follow, and they would process to the church and going up the steps of the church they would come the very doors of the church and they would knock upon the doors, and the voice of the priest would say “who is there?”  And those who were there would call out, “it is the exulted king of all the land, the first born of the imperial house, the one who wore the royal crown”.  And the priest would answer “we know him not, go away.” 

And they would knock again, and again the priest would answer “who is there?”  And this answer would come, “it is the ruler of the people, the giver of justice, the defender of faith”.  The voice in the church would say “we know him not, go away.” 

A third time the knock came, and the question “who is there?”, and then would come the simple answer “a child of God who has come home” and the doors would be flung open wide and trumpets began to play and amidst all the fanfare and celebration and rejoicing the shout was heard “welcome, you are welcome in this place.”  

As we look about this sanctuary, how would we answer the question of who is welcome in this place?  Perhaps that is a startling question for people of faith, we have an instinctive answer, of course, everyone is welcome here!   Almost every church would say, we are a friendly, welcoming place. And yet, as Martin Luther King observed over 50 years ago, 10 am Sunday morning is the most segregated hour of the week. 

As St. Martins Presbyterian, we are striving, and we are finding ways of extending an authentic welcome to the community.   It has been a pleasure for me to learn about the many groups that call this place, their “home”.   I’m impressed with how St Martins has listened to expressed needs in our neighborhood and worked to make MenzSheed, and Eldercare, and Foot Clinic possible.  Going from a “good idea” to making it a reality,  takes a vision and then a lot of conversation.    

It is, perhaps, stating the obvious to offer the reminder that vibrant relationships are dependent on conversation and dialogue.  We know honest conversations involve speaking and listening.  Sometimes we want to only do the speaking part, or maybe just the listening part?  Isn’t it true that real-time two-way conversations can be scary? 

I mean, how many of us would rather have an answering machine pick up when we are calling someone, than actually speak to the person we’re calling? (Or, how many of us screen all our calls, thinking if it is important they’ll leave a message.)  I know I sometimes find myself dialing and hoping to just leave a message.  Especially, when it comes to talking with my sister, I want to get credit for calling, but I don’t have to spend the time in an actual conversation.  In this age of instant messaging, e-mail, and answering machines we have become accustomed to one-way conversations, often preferring to just say our peace, and be done. 

And, how often do we engage in conversations with God like that?  Taking only the time to say what we want, or to ask for what we think we need?  Without taking time to listen to what God may be saying in response?  In a way, Solomon is doing that.  He is in the middle of this long and great prayer to God, I don’t think God could get a word in edgewise on this day.  (The only way God could get in on this was to send that large cloud into the sanctuary, that got the priests to move, but didn’t stop Solomon.) 

In his prayer, Solomon is speaking of the promises God made to David and Israel.  He talks about the special relationship between God and God’s people.  Solomon is reminding God of what was promised David, that if the Israelites walked with God, they would always have a king on the throne of Israel. Solomon also asks that God watch over this special place, and to hear the prayers of all of those who call on God’s name. He is thrilled to be seeing the completion of the temple promised to David.  No longer would God dwell in tents, wandering about.  The Ark of the covenant, the symbol of God’s presence had a new and permanent home.  Something new have been created, the temple was finished, this was a time of celebration.

This was a fantastic day in the life of Israel, everyone had gathered to see this new house of the Lord.   While Solomon took a great deal of pride in the house “he” built, he also realized that no way would this house “contain” the Lord.  All the faithful were there, listening to this firehose full of words, then there is something most interesting prayed by Solomon as he says  “when a foreigner comes and prays toward this house, then hear in heaven your dwelling place, and do according to all that the foreigner calls to you, so that all the peoples of the earth may know your name” 

Solomon prays that God will listen to the prayers of everybody!  Welcome everyone’s prayers, listen to everyone’s prayers.  There are no favorites.  God’s word, God’s love, is no longer just for the Jews.  Dear God, listen to the prayer of the people who voted for so and so?  All are welcome in this place.  Listen to the prayers of people who … fill in the blank.  And All are welcome in this place.   This perhaps is the most amazing thing Solomon is asking for in his prayer. 

And if God is to listen to the prayers of all, so too, should we?   

That can be a difficult thing, for to truly listen, to truly hear someone else, is to be vulnerable. We put ourselves at risk, of learning something, or being challenged and stretched in some way. We run the risk of being changed, and never being the same again.

So many of us continue to put out a steady stream of one-way words in order to keep us from engaging in a dangerous kind of dialogue.  Let me tell you what I think….

What if sometimes God speaks to us, to our sisters and brothers in faith, maybe sometimes through complete strangers.  By entering into dialogue with surprising people and in unexpected places, might we be listening to God?   When we are inclined mostly to listen to ourselves, or people like ourselves talking, could we miss how God is doing a new thing.   We may need to listen to people of other persuasions and convictions.  We may need to listen to those who read their bible differently, we need to listen to those other faiths and seek to learn how God is active in their lives.  To see what wonderful thing God may be doing there, and not just focus on what is happening within ourselves or our particular tradition. 

Psalm 84 was sung as pilgrims approached the temple in Jerusalem.  The Psalmist sings of “how lovely is God’s dwelling place.”  It is more than, saying “you’ve got a lovely home.  Like we might do when we are invited to someone’s house for supper.  The psalm on one level, a tribute to the physical beauty of the building Solomon built.   For we know that “God’s house” is bigger than Solomon’s temple.  God’s house is a whole of the earth and all of creation.

God’s dwelling place is lovely because it is to a place for all people to find welcome and refuge.  And in this moment, here the grand vision is that no one, nothing is excluded, or can be excluded, from God’s presence. The smallest sparrow can find a home in God’s home. That’s the central truth not to be missed.  God’s house is open to all. Any place trying, to be a house of God must extend God’s inclusive love and grace.  And be a reflection of God’s love for the whole world.  Anytime a heart-felt prayer is lifted up, God will hear.  Anytime, any child of God comes by (KNOCKS) and wonders am I welcome?  Can I come in?  May we say, “welcome home, you are welcome here!”  Amen. 

“Fishing Together”  (Mark 1:14-20)
Intro:  In our New Testament lesson today we hear of Jesus by the lakeshore calling the first disciples.  Simon, Andrew, James and John will become Jesus’ closest friends and disciples.  Their ministry is about to begin.  Let us listen for God’s calling word to us.  //

(Hang pole over pulpit….wait) Someone once said about fishing:  “There’s a fine line between fishing and standing on the shore looking like a fool.”  I must admit I’ve never been much of a fisherman.  I feel some guilt about that. There are great movies like “A River Runs Through It” where fishing, faith and life all seem to go together in some incredible way and yet for all my efforts, fish don’t fear me.  I’ve sat on the ice staring down a hole; I’ve cast off a dock or two.  Never much to show – when I want fish -I’m told Huntsbury Seafood is the best? .  (Put pole away)

However, I love fish stories and I can’t resist sharing one.  (If you know how this story ends, I’ll ask you to share it.)  Once upon a time Young Eddie came several minutes late to Sunday school, and the teacher asked him why he was late.  Eddie said, “I wanted to go fishing, but my dad wouldn’t let me, so we argued, and that’s why I’m late.” The teacher said, “Good for your father!  Eddie, did he explain to you WHY you needed to come to church instead of going fishing on Sunday morning?”  “Yes ma’am,” replied the boy.  (Anyone know it?)  —“He said there weren’t enough worms for both of us.”

Eddie’s father would fish alone.  As some fishermen describe it, there is a real appeal in the solitary nature of fishing.  One pole, one person, one fish. 

Today’s Gospel text is about fishing and so much more.  Jesus begins his ministry along the shores of the Sea of Galilee, where he calls out to the fishermen: “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people!”  For most of my life whenever I heard this account of Jesus calling Simon and Andrew, James and John, I thought of worms and hooks and bamboo poles and waiting in quiet solitude.  If I thought about it too literally, “Fishing for people” had a certain strange sound to it, and I have shied away from the image.   Who knows what the first disciples thought Jesus was asking of them?

In the Hebrew Scriptures, the Old Testament, fishing with hooks is a negative image used by Israel’s prophets, to talk about trapping and destroying.  (Don’t get “hooked” by something.)  Yet Jesus calls the disciples to a ministry of preaching and healing.  Theirs is not a word of judgment for the world; rather it is of the fulfillment of ancient hope.  Jesus is speaking of another kind of fishing.  From the biblical perspective, hooks destroy, but nets save.  (Put up long net with help)  Fishing with a hook is a one-person job; nets take many hands.  Fishing together is a different kind of fishing.   Those who would follow Jesus are to fish together, using nets. 

The invitation by Jesus to the disciples on the shore of the Sea of Galilee is not to abandon fishing altogether, or to start fishing alone, but to use the Good News as they would a fishing net, to draw people together, into discipleship.   They will help to create a community of individuals whose lives are committed to Christ and to living the love of God in concrete fashion, but not in a private way.  What Jesus is proposing here is a different kind of fishing entirely.  When you fish with a net, you get what you get, whatever’s out there, and sometimes a whole lot of it.  Jesus says follow me and “I will make you fishers of people.”  As we see in Jesus’ ministry all kinds of people found a place along side him. 

The use and interpretation of this text points to a clash of ecclesiologies found among Christians today. Ecclesiology has to do with the doctrine of the church, how we think about this collection of people called the “body of Christ.”  Ecclesiology is a fancy word for what we are demonstrating every time we gather for worship, when we go out to serve in the community, when we sit down to work in committees or enjoy the fellowship of others in the church, or when we invite people to join us.  Whenever we live out what it means to us to “be” the body of Christ. 

Some today would say the primary role of the church is to ensure the salvation of individuals.  Go catch ‘em one at a time for Jesus.  Others of us would argue that the church is fundamentally about forming communities of believers wanting to worship and serve God.

The Presbyterian Church has historically chosen the latter: saying that the church, is primarily charged with building up the body of Christ, in order to worship and serve God together, and in so doing, find hope and salvation.  As John Calvin put it five hundred years ago church members “are gathered into the society of God on the principle that whatever benefits God confers upon them, they should in turn share with one another.”  Our faith may be personal, but it is not a private matter.  We seek the common good in our life together.  It is in community that we discover how to be the people of God. 

In another biblical fish story, Jonah is sent into the city.  Nineveh was a vast urban center of ancient times.  Jonah was sent by God to go to the city and call it to repentance.  The story of Jonah is not merely a big fish tale.  It is the account of God’s desire to redeem the city.   After riding around inside the big one he wished had gotten away, Jonah arrives in Nineveh, delivers the call to repentance, and to his surprise the people hear, they change their ways, and to his dismay, God spares them.  God’s primary interest in the story is not in the one man Jonah, but in the redemption of the city itself.  In fact, at the end of the story, it is Jonah’s fate that seems the most uncertain.  Nineveh is on a new path and Jonah has a long walk home.  He feels alone.

In many parts of America there is a growing sense that we are losing our sense of community.  And we are hearing about strange enclaves that are supposed to be desirable places called “gated communities”. Feelings of isolation are on the increase.  People can feel separated by race, economics, religious beliefs or anything else that people use to draw lines. 

If the church is committed to the kind of “new fishing” Jesus calls his disciples to undertake, then we must be about the business of creating community among strangers, extending care and concern for our community as mission statement says.  St Martins is an inclusive Christian Congregation, sharing in the love of Christ, building one another up in joyful faith, reaching out in love to people around and beyond us and encouraging care for God’s creation.

How to do it?  We express concern for homelessness by getting involved with Waltham cottage.  We are concerned with feeding the hungry, so we collect food week.  We care about conditions around the world and we support the efforts of the Christian World Service and Your Sisters Mission..  That is some of how it looks today.   And here is one more idea

Someone once defined community as “people who sing together regularly.”  I think of that definition often in worship.  Where else today do we get together each week with people of differing ages, races, educational backgrounds, and sing?  We sing in worship to express our shared desire to praise God.  When we sing, the bonds that hold us together are strengthened.   Singing in a congregation is like fishing with a net.  Everybody can join in—monotones, and trained voices, young and old alike.  As we sing together in the rest of worship, think about what a wonderfully diverse community we are, then think of how we can add more voices.  

God is stirring us up once again, not that we might repeat some golden past, but to reinvent our future, as each succeeding generation must do.  And it begins with an invitation to come and follow the One who lives and dies and lives again, that we might have life abundant, in community with one another and with the risen Christ.  Amen