FROM BEAR CREEK UNITED METHODIST CHURCH AND CONGREGATION KOL AMI

YOU DO WHAT? Sharing Sanctuary with another Religion

David Orendorff · Jeremiah 16:19, 17:14 · May 13, 2007

First, I thank the table of Kol Ami folks at our Sound and Furnishings Auction for their support which has led to an improved sound system and this opportunity to speak to you. Over the years of our sharing this building we have grown into two congregations that respect, support and cherish each other. And from this wonderful relationship has grown a healing of Jewish Christian misunderstandings, distrust and wounds. I am sure that our sharing sanctuary is pleasing to our God, blessed be his name.

Secondly, I want to apologize if anything I say causes offense. Unlike Ruth, my ways are not always your ways and my words may unintentionally carry meaning or history that might accidentally wound. I know you are a patient and kind people and I am counting upon that.

It was at lunch one day that Rabbi Mark and I discussed what the theme of my talk would be to you and that we decided that he would do the same with the Bear Creek folks. I pray you will join us Sunday and see if he gets it right.

It is a very unusual thing we do, Jews and Christians sharing worship space and preaching at each others worship. I have had conservative and liberal Christians both wonder at such an arrangement. Liberals tend to be surprised, conservatives tend to be incredulous. And I have had a few Jewish folks politely wonder how such a thing could be.

As I thought about what it meant for us to share this building and particularly this room I began to look more closely at what it meant to share sanctuary and why that might be questionable.

Sanctuary has three meanings in a dictionary I used:

It is the name of a room in a church building.
It is a safe place of refuge.
It is a holy or consecrated space for the worship of God.

Only the most rigid Jews or Christians would have a problem with us sharing a room. A room is just space with a floor, walls and ceiling. There is really nothing special about it. We share rooms in the public world all the time; rooms in restaurants, schools, libraries, banks, commercial buildings, and so on. I don’t think it is that we share a room that now causes pause though there are times and places when it did. I am glad we are not in such times and places.

And I don’t think the concern comes because we make this sanctuary a safe place for all of us and the community. All but the most intolerant of folks recognize that there are special sites and areas in our world that are declared safe for all people. One of my constant prayers is that Jerusalem, the city founded upon shalom, could own its name and be a sanctuary for all of us. Synagogues and churches have a long history of desiring to be such safe places for the refugees of violence and suffering.

It is that we share holy or consecrated space, to worship God that surprises or bothers some folks. Even folks who know that our faith in the one God comes from Judaism and that we Christians worship the God taught in the Hebrew Scriptures (albeit with some adjusted interpretations from Jesus) can be taken aback.

Doesn’t sharing sacred space imply approval of the others understanding and way, which is not our understanding and way? Doesn’t sharing consecrated space imply that their understanding of God is as good as our understanding of God? And if it is true that it is all the same then why don’t we just become Jewish (or Christian) and be one congregation?

Well for one thing, there isn’t room for Rabbi Mark and me in the same congregation. There would have to be a high noon show down and one of us would have to leave town and I don’t want to go.

Seriously, how do two religions that though they share many things in common, have some quite major differences both call this space holy and share it? I think that is the real question and the real challenge not only from critics but also from ourselves.

Neither Mark nor I were here when this arrangement was made so I don’t know the original theological resolutions to sharing sacred space. I am hoping some folks who were here will enlighten me. I imagine the discussion began as a purely pragmatic arrangement (we need your money, you need our room). But even before you came to us (I assume Kol Ami is the one that started the conversation) you must have wrestled with the deeper issues of shared holy space.

When people ask me how we can do this I tell them that what we do it to heal the world. A portion of today’s Haphtarah holds a key for me.

It is not easy for Jeremiah to be a prophet. He doesn’t like forecasting doom even if sometimes it is tempered with mercy and redemption. He doesn’t like it when God tells him to prophecy and then nothing happens. He doesn’t like it when at God’s direction he condemns the unmerciful, the idolatrous, and the wicked and yet they thrive. He doesn’t like it when he is ridiculed, tormented, run from town and imprisoned.

But still he is faithful to God in worship, torah and life. There are many great lines from Jeremiah we could quote but from today’s Haphtarah comes this, “Heal me, O HaShem, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved; for Thou art my praise.” (Jeremiah 17:14)

Both congregations want the world to know what Jeremiah knew, that though life and faith can be difficult and disappointing, our healing and the healing of the nations, is in this one God we praise. Our sharing sacred space is for both of us about the worship of God and the saving/healing of the world. In my opinion, it is not only okay that we share sanctuary but it is the desire of God that we worship if not at the same time or same manner, at least in the sacred space; and that this shared worship promises healing for us and for our world.

You see, neither Jeremiah nor I have tolerance for those that in the name of God wound the world with intolerance, violence, hatred, selfishness, or all the other transgressions of the heart of Torah and the heart of Jesus. I will not share sacred space with those who raise racism and bigotry to be God’s desire. I cannot worship with those who see themselves as the vengeance of God made flesh upon another.

But with a people who seek to worship the one God of mercy and justice, who seek to serve the world with grace and compassion, who offer their wills, obedience and lives to be a healing presence I will gladly share sacred space and sacred time, I will joyously share sanctuary. And this is what we do.

It was interesting to hear Mark at your auction the other night say that the marks of a faithful Jew are worship, study and acts of lovingkindness. The folks at our Bear Creek table turned to each other and smiled. For you see our definition of being a faithful disciple of Jesus is worship, study and service (acts of lovingkindness).

I do not minimize some significant differences between us, but I believe that at the heart of our faiths we are one. We are one in the worship of the one God. We are one in our thirst for the truth of our shared holy scriptures. We are one in our desire to be acts of lovingkindness that a brutal and suffering world might pray what Jeremiah prayed to God in the hardest of his days, “O Lord, my strength and my stronghold, my refuge in the day of trouble…” Our sharing room, safety and holy space, our sharing sanctuary makes this day and place God’s pleasure and the world’s healing. I thank you for your faithful efforts in making this so among us.

Shalom and Amen