Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace.

It is quite a different man we meet today in the temple. An angry Jesus making a whip of cords and driving all the people selling cattle, sheep and doves and changing money in the temple out…. Out of his Father’s house.

This is the same man who the gospel of John introduced to us through the wonderful story about the Wedding in Cana, where Jesus sitting quietly incognito at the table and quietly miraculously saving the wedding by changing water into wine.

Today he rises with anger, with actions and with a whipping cord in his hand. As he defends his Fathers house.

 

What makes a church a church? What makes a church holy ground?

As a Dane when you drive through Yorba Linda, the land of gracious living, and you for the first time maybe suddenly see the Danish Lutheran church or might be looking for it, you are not in doubt that this is in fact a church. It has all the traditional features of a Danish Church.

This is because we a culturally attuned to the architecture and look. This is how a church looks like in Denmark – or more correctly this is how most of the churches in Denmark look built in the 11 and 12 Century.  

I still remember one time when Mads was being dropped of by his soccer coach after a game, and when they drove into the parking lot and passed the church, the coach said: “Oh what beautiful Spanish design! What kind of building is that?” And of course, Mads would correct and tell the story about this significantly Danish building in California.

Or the wonderful story about Nick, Kristian best friend, who traveled with us to Denmark, and when we drove from Kastrup through the beautiful summer landscape of Denmark, he spotted a white Danish Church and said: “Look! It looks exactly like your church.” We said nothing. And five minutes later he exclaimed: “Look another church like yours….” By the third time, he realized that he was on to something. “I guess this is how a Danish Church looks like,”

 

inside we have a typically Danish Lutheran look too: the pews, the ship, the organ, the baptismal font, the altar, the windows, the pulpit, the Danish Hymnal etc. And our Liturgy is quite Danish too in form and tradition. Our language is occasionally Danish and many of our hymns are either sung in Danish or translated from Danish.

But what makes it a church? Surely not the Danish Hymns, the white walls, & the black pastors gown even if it helps for a Dane.

What makes a church a church? What makes it holy? What makes it into our Father’s house?

 

Words. Presence. Spirit. Fellowship. Faith, Hope. Love.

It is the place of holy words like the 10 CC telling us how to live with each other and God.

It is the place of holy words like the Gospels story about Jesus from manger to cross.

It is the place of holy words like St. Paul pointing at the cross as the center of our lives and faith.

It is the place of holy words as we celebrate Baptism and Holy Communion and believe that the words are not just mere words, but words constituted and given by Christ himself to us to believe and honor.

It is the place of praise and prayer as we gather in heartfelt prayer with the old words of Our Lords prayer.

As the 10 cc, our lords’ prayer and the holy sacraments of baptism and communion, all has dignity, divinity and truth even if we do not keep the 10 cc, even if we do not pray often enough, even if we do not believe in the promise of the Holy Communion or Baptism, + the words and god’s presence stay the same: holy and whole.

These words constitute our churches. These words carry our fellowship and our worship.

These words confirm our faith, our hopes and our love. These words make the church the house of our Father in Heaven. The dwelling place of the holy Spirit and the worship place for us.

These words are our connection and relation to God that we constantly need to nourish and thus listen again and again.

 

Some weeks ago, I asked the confirmands to send me the rules in their family. The 3 rules or commandment that carried their family and carried their bond as a family:

The 3 house rules:

1.   No phones at the dinner table

2.   No shoes in the house

3.   Try to speak kindly

 

1.   Be respectful

2.   Use common sense

3.   Trust one another

 

1.   Respect each other

2.   We eat dinner together at the table

3.   We put things away when not using them

1.   Love

2.   Respect

3.   Honesty

 

All the rules were carried by the last 3 words: love, respect and honesty.

As these rules constituted the families and their connection – the same 3 words also do constitute our relation to God and what this house, this church should be founded on and built on.

 

Love. Respect. Honesty.

That God so loved the world that he sends his son, and that god commands us to love him and love our neighbor.

That we should respect creation, relations, differences, diversity, and should respect the words of God to us and our fellow man.

That we should live with honesty. With each other and with God. Confess our sins and believe in forgiveness.

 

Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace…. Jesus shouted.

Jesus was missing the love, the honesty and the respect in his Father’s house.

Make it a house of worship, a house of faith, a house of prayers, a house of praise, a house of hope and a house of love.

 

Grundtvig loved the church. He wrote the beautiful and beloved hymn “Kirken den er et gammelt hus.” Built on The Rock:

“We are Gods’ house of living stones,

Built of his own habitation….

Still, we our earthly temples rear, that we may herald his praises

They are the homes where he draws near

And little children embrace.

Beautiful things in them are said,

God there with us his covenant made

Making us heirs of his kingdom.

 

Here sounds the word that does proclaim

Christ yesterday, today the same,

He is for aye our redeemer.”

 

We are the living stones of Gods house.

At this is the place of Gods own dwelling where he draws us nearby. Beautiful things are said here, words that embrace us in joy and in sorrow. The baptismal font reminds us of how God received and welcomed us. The altar reminds us how God invites us and forgives us.

Church is community and relations. Church is belonging.

Church in this past COVID-19 year has proven that even if we cannot be physically together in-person in our beautiful churches, we can be spiritually and virtually together due to the wonders of our time and age.

Samuel Wells is an English priest of the Church of England. Since 2012, he has been the vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields in central London and Visiting Professor of Christian Ethics at King’s College London. I often read his columns and he once wrote about being a church:

“Christianity is fundamentally a story about where we’re going: into the company of god’s grace, IN the harmony of the restored creation, though the mercy of god’s incarnate love.

Church means giving up the fantasy that we ca find fulfillment and righteousness alone. It means doing things at inconvenient times with eccentric people in sometimes clumsy ways, - because life is a team gave, and on judgment day God will have nothing to say to us, if we think we can come without the others.”

 

It is exactly 1 year ago today that we last year celebrated the relocation of the Danish Church from downtown LA to Yorba Linda.

We had the most beautiful day here at the church, celebration the church, remembering the relocation, honoring the hard working members and looking with faith and hope to the future…. And then…. Only a few days later: the entire world shut down. We closed down for in-person services and we have been worshipping virtually ever since. A year! A challenging year emerged just as we had celebrated 25 years of being church here in YL.

And we have been church this past year, just in a different way. We have managed to navigate through this most unusual year and have fellowship and be church despite all of the challenges.

 

Because this is what we do best: to be church, to be a community of faith, to worship, to gather, to sing, to pray and to be together even if we have been apart.

 

We are God’s church of living stones now.

We go to church, but we also have to remember to be church when we leave the church or lock off Facebook.

WE make our church into a marketplace or a showcase, if all the words, all the prayers, all the faith and all the hopes never leave the building with us.

Life is a team game.

Faith is a team game.

Church is a team game.

Church is belonging, believing and being.

And we are God’s house of living stones……  and we so happen to be residing in one of the most beautiful churches in southern California. It could be worse!

Amen.