Comments for Jim

Sunday, July 26, 1998

Jim Todhunter

"Sacred Space: Temple or Meetinghouse?"

It is an interesting paradox that nothing gets one thinking theologically like considering a church building program. The request has come to me from the October 4th Planning Committee for a sermon on "Sacred Space." So I found myself last week thinking, praying, reading and mulling over what we really mean by this phrase, and how one's understanding of sacred space impacts on our dreams for this sanctuary and this building.

I've decided I would like to do this in two parts. First I would like to reflect on the meaning of the word sacred, or perhaps a better word "Holy"; and second, talk about "Space" - that is, specifically, the meaning and history of worship space.

The Holy. The Holy is the one inescapable quality at the heart of who God is. To be divine is to be Holy. God's love and God's justice are attributes that are revealed to us, but God's holiness is all-in-all. Our tradition teaches us two things: God is the Holy One and only God is holy. All that is holy begins in God and emanates from God. Not only are there no other gods that are holy, no other created object or person or institution is, in its essence, holy.

But our tradition also teaches that created things bear the holy. Objects or persons can carry the Holy by becoming transparent, as it were. In fact as long as we are in this world, we can only experience the Holy through the things of this world. We can attach the label "holy" to anything that carries the divine power and presence. A person can become so in tune with the Holy, that that person bears the Holy, but not because he or she is holy. Think for a moment of an example from a tradition very different from ours. I am referring to the devotional use of icons in the orthodox churches. An icon is usually a picture of a saint. By gazing into the eyes of the saint pictured there, worshippers believe they are gazing into the eyes of the Holy One.

But our tradition also teaches that when an object comes to be seen as holy in and of itself and is worshipped in its own right, it has become a false god, an idol. Therefore the relationship with the idol must be broken. Historically, an iconoclast was a person who believed that objects too highly venerated had to be destroyed, including sadly, much great art. The tension between worshipping God by addressing the Holy which comes to us through an object in our world, and worshipping the object that bears the Holy, is a central tension in faith, from the time of Israel's prophets to the present.

Some traditions draw a clear boundary between the sacred and the secular, sometimes called the profane. The sacred really refers to anything - person, place or object - that conveys the Holy. The secular is anything that does not. The secular object is not bad, for everything created is good. But if it is not sacred, it is still potentially sacred.

A few more words about the Holy; and to do so I will refer to this amazing scripture from the Prophet Isaiah. In few other biblical passages do we experience the raw power of God's holiness. This is an awesome scene in every sense of the word, this vision of God in the Temple seated upon a throne and the seraph crying out: "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!" And the foundation shook and the room was filled with smoke. Primitive peoples saw the power of their gods as neither good nor bad, but just awesome. Luther's doctrine of God has demonic elements. Artists will tell you that creative energy is released when our demons as well as angels are engaged.

Isaiah's response to this vision is to cry out, "Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips." God's holiness is awesome, yes. But it is also righteous. The holy is overwhelming in its energy, but it is also searing in its goodness. For Isaiah to speak God's Word, he must be cleansed. He is like a dirty pane of glass which must be washed clean if it is to permit the light, the Holy to pass through it. And it is God who does the cleaning, not Isaiah. True worship, therefore, to conclude this part of the sermon, must do justice to our relationship to a Holy One who is both majestic and righteous.

Sacred Space. Last week I talked about the sanctuary as a place of worship where in our Christian tradition, under the shadow of the cross, our central symbol, we encounter three other primary symbols - the pulpit, the baptismal font, and the table. And I referred to the history of the relationship between an altar theology and a table theology. In a sense, this morning is a continuation of those reflections.

What is worship? The Westminster Catechism declares that "man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever." If worship is the chief function of the Christian Church, then the purpose of worship itself is to glorify and enjoy God. Johann Sebastian Bach said the purpose of sacred music was the glorification of God and the recreation of the mind.

When we talk about worshipping the Holy One and creating a space designed for such worship, it is crucial to recognize how deeply rooted Christianity is in Jewish tradition and practice. For the Jews, sacred space was first and foremost, wherever God was. The voice from the burning bush on the mountainside said "Moses, put your shoes from off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground." God was in the thunder atop Sinai, in the swirling cloud that led the Israelites by day, and the pillar of fire by night. Holy places were also where the Hebrews chose to set up worship. In primitive times, that was where an altar was built. In the wilderness wanderings following the Exodus, we read that Moses led worship in a tent, sometimes called the Tent of the Presence, sometimes the Tabernacle. This was a portable operation, which contained an altar, the ark of the covenant (which contained the tablets of the law), and other religious items. After the entry into the Promised Land, the Hebrews worshipped at a variety of rural shrines, like Shiloh and Bethel. Eventually under Solomon, the Temple was built at Jersualem.

We have some idea of what Solomon's Temple was like from the Bible. The temple was situated in a large courtyard. It had a porch, an inner gathering place for worship, and the inner-most sacred place - the Holy of Holies. The closer one got to the Holy of Holies, the fewer were the people allowed, with only the High Priest permitted in the Holy of Holies. The Hebrew word for temple means simply a big house for an important person - like a king or a god. The Temple was a big house for God to come down and dwell. What took place in the Temple was essentially sacrifices and the reading of the Torah.

In many respects the architecture of most traditional Christian churches, is modeled on this temple design; that is, a long rectangular building, in which the movement is from the secular to the sacred as you go forward. Take this building, for example: Colesville Road, the front porch, the narthex (or vestibule), the nave (or sanctuary proper), the chancel, the altar and cross. The focus is essentially one way; toward our Holy of Holies.

The Temple of Solomon was destroyed in 587 B.C. by the Babylonians, rebuilt over a period of time, renovated by Herod and his successors, and finally destroyed totally by the Romans in 70 A.D. Though the Temple was revered during the time it existed, and remembered mournfully after its destruction, by the first century the synagogue had become the sacred space of the Jews. Starting during the time of the dispersion, synagogues were built to serve Jews all over the ancient world. It is in a synagogue in Galilee that Jesus first preached and got into trouble.

Synagogue worship was in many ways different from temple worship. Altar sacrifice was abandoned, and the focus shifted to the reading of the scriptures, teaching, fellowship, and the care of the community. The synagogue was governed not by an elite group of priests, but by a larger group of laity. As Christianity spread throughout the Roman Empire, Europe and the East, the great cathedrals were built, influenced strongly by temple architecture and altar theology. These worship spaces were more and more centers of great art - stained glass, frescos, painting, and sculpture.

The Protestant Reformation was on a collision course with the art of antiquity and of the Renaissance period. While church music flourished, protestants were often quick to condemn religious art as idolatrous. Through the congregational tradition, especially later Puritanism, we have inherited the idea that a worship space should be devoid of art or ornamentation, and preferably be stark and white. What a contrast with medieval worship spaces with their elegant rose windows or the great domed Byzantine churches! Yet grand in an entirely opposite sort of way.

For congregationalists the sanctuary was coming to be seen as gathering place as well as worship space, with the focus more on table than altar. This communal sense, of course, harked back to the earliest Christian communities which met in homes.

Both these tendencies come together in the New England meetinghouse: bare, white, simple, inside and out. But also there was a theological difference. In the Temple, remember, you moved from the secular and unsanctified, gradually toward areas more and more sacred, until you got to the Holy of Holies.

Remember that our Puritan forebears came to this continent in order to create a total theocratic community. They looked ahead to the end of the Book of Revelation where it is foretold that heaven and earth will join together, the wall between the sacred and the secular will be erased, and the creation itself will be the Holy City, the New Jerusalem. And in the New Jerusalem, there will be, in fact, no temple at all. "God with us" is the temple. For the pilgrims, New England was to be the New Jerusalem. For New Englanders, it wasn't a temple or even a church; it was a meetinghouse. A meetinghouse was for worship, town meetings (which were congregational meetings), fellowship, a whole variety of events and activities. Since a New England Puritan's life was infused with religion, there really was no difference at all between secular and the sacred, or between what was proper inside or outside the meetinghouse. The New England church I served for nine years had a communion table and no altar, and only recently had acquired a cross.

Perhaps this sermon has raised more questions than answers about the meaning of the Holy and the meaning of worship space. History and theology can illuminate our situation, bringing to the surface, concerns we don't often discuss. Should this worship space be changed? A little, a lot, or not at all? And if changed, how and why? The answers to those questions lie not in history or books or creeds, but really in the heart and soul of our congregation, "God with us" here. We need to keep consulting our angel, that unique spiritual essence of who we are. And, of course, trust the process. Amen.

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