This past week, I was at the seminary and had the privilege of hearing Robert Stern speak. His architectural firm is designing the new chapel that will be built at the seminary to replace the 1881 chapel that burned down just five months after I graduated in 2010.
In his lecture, Mr. Stern talked about sacred spaces. He said that sacred spaces are a way of structuring the ineffable, that is making something visible that is otherwise impossible to describe.
Certainly, worship spaces, St Peter’s included, are sacred spaces, but St Peter’s used to look a little less like a sacred space than it does now.
Helmut tells the story of riding through Port Royal in the 1980’s, and seeing this white stuccoed building for the first time. Except for the sign outside of the building, he would not have known what this building was. We had no steeple, no cross, and, as Helmut says, there was a strange leaning tower in the graveyard. The building could have been a town courthouse hall, or a synagogue or some other meeting place. So this building, even though it was a sacred space, wasn’t strongly conveying that message to the casual passerby.
And so this congregation decided to make sure that people knew that this building was a sacred space, and in 2010, you had a new belfry and cross designed and placed back in its original spot on the church roof. Now anyone who drives by knows that this building is indeed, a sacred space.
Mr. Stern pointed out in his lecture that sacred spaces don’t have to be buildings. In fact, when our bell rings every Sunday, the air itself becomes sacred space as it carries the sound of the bell all the way across town, and people hear the bell, and they know that we are gathering to worship.
Like the angelus bells that used to sound across the countryside of Europe during medieval times, calling people to prayer three times a day, at 6AM, noon, and 6PM, our bell calls people—and even if they don’t physically come here, perhaps they pause to pray, and in that moment feel God’s peace and goodwill.
The angelus bells in medieval times called people to remember the angel of the Lord coming to Mary, and saying, “Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee.”
I can’t even begin to imagine how Mary must have felt when the angel Gabriel appeared to her, and announced to her that she would conceive and bear a son, and that she would name her son Jesus, and of his kingdom there would be no end—because her son Jesus was also the Son of God.
Mary has just heard from God’s messenger that her body is sacred space, for within her the Son of God will grow into a human being, will be born into this broken world, and in living and dying as one of us, Jesus will restore this broken world into the sacred space that God meant for it to be at the beginning of creation.
In the letter to the Hebrews, we also hear God’s voice, the same voice that called the universe into being, the voice that has spoken through the prophets, and this voice is now the voice of Jesus himself.
“Jesus is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and Jesus sustains all things with his powerful word.”
Jesus, through whom God spoke at the beginning of creation—Jesus, whose forsaken voice cried out to God from the cross as he repaired the brokenness of creation through his suffering, death, and resurrection, and whose voice is now heard from heaven itself—this Jesus, the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, his powerful voice, echoing throughout eternity, is the same voice that whispers comfort and reassurance to us in our most broken moments.
Jesus is the one who, when he becomes one of us, speaks our language, and he calls us back from brokenness into the sacred space of relationship with him, back to the beginning, back toward the perfection of Paradise.
In the gospel today, Jesus reminded the Pharisees about the perfection of Paradise when they challenged him about his beliefs regarding divorce.
Jesus took them all the way back to the beginning by quoting Genesis. He reminded the Pharisees that from the beginning of creation, God made us male and female, and for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
The Celebration and Blessing of a Marriage in our prayer book refers back to this same scripture that Jesus quotes in today’s gospel.
We hear these words at the beginning of Episcopalian wedding ceremonies.
“The bond and covenant of marriage was established by God in creation.” And then the Prayer Book goes on to say that marriage “signifies to us the mystery of the union between Christ and his Church…”
This bond and covenant of marriage is a sacred space—and this sacred space is “the union of husband and wife in heart, body and mind—intended by God for their mutual joy and for the help and comfort given one another in prosperity and adversity; and when it is God’s will, for the procreation of children and their nurture in the knowledge and love of the Lord.”
Because this relationship is a sacred space, Jesus is very clear with his disciples that divorce is sinful.
So where does that leave those who have suffered through the brokenness and hurt of divorce?
Now when I was growing up, divorce was considered downright scandalous. In my own family, when my cousin divorced, the extended family was shocked. It took awhile for my cousin’s second wife to be accepted by some of my family members. I’m sure my family, based on this scripture, believed that my cousin had committed a sin, and so they judged him for it with their whispers and the discussions among themselves about his decision to divorce. I’d say that my family’s reaction was pretty typical for the time.
And when I think about it, they were acting just as the disciples in Mark acted right after Jesus had talked to them about the serious issues around divorce.
In the very next verses of this gospel, the disciples spoke sternly to the people who were bringing little children to Jesus in order that he might touch them.
The disciples felt that children were a waste of Jesus’ time. Children were the least important people in that society, vulnerable and worthless, and so the disciples judged and dismissed them as unworthy of entering into the sacred space of a relationship with Jesus.
But Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly, I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.”
And then Jesus took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and he blessed them.
It is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs—the worthless and the vulnerable, those who have no ability to care for themselves—
And certainly, people who have suffered through divorce find themselves feeling like worthless failures, feeling vulnerable, wondering how they will now manage. They become like little children all over again—their world shattered, having to start over.
And these are the people that we have been guilty of speaking to as the disciples spoke to the people who brought little children to Jesus, judging them and speaking sternly to them—“Don’t waste the master’s time.”
And yet, these are the very people that Jesus welcomes into his embrace—children, people who have suffered because of broken relationships or who are broken from physical illnesses, people who suffer in unhappy marriages, people who have no one to love them, sinners, outcasts, people who live in fear, people who long for God’s love—in other words, all of us— we are the people that Jesus will not only judge at the end of time, but we are also the people that Jesus will welcome into his sacred space, and he will touch each one of us with his merciful hands of healing and hold us close in his arms of love. But that is in the future. What about now?
We gather here each Sunday at St Peter’s.
But ultimately, people will realize that this building is sacred not because of how it looks and sounds, but it’s sacred only to the extent that we, the children of God, seek to have the expansive mercy for one another that our Lord of love has for each one of us. It’s up to us, with God’s help, to make the love of Jesus visible in this broken world. And the height and depth and width and breadth of the mercy we show to others will be the sign to them that our merciful Lord Jesus has held us close here, and that St Peter’s is, indeed, a sacred space.
Amen