{Lent 2021 brings this series of inages of sanctuaries and my written (admittedly off-the-cuff) reflections. With so many sanctuaries being off-limits to us, I turn to these reminders of places where people of faith have found their spiritual homes.}

St John’s College Chapel, Cambridge. We were on a guided tour of the Cambridge University campus, one we thought would be more comprehensive than it turned out. We walked quickly from site to site with barely time to lift the camera and frame our pictures. But the beauty of the space is such that one can hardly not take a good photo.

What speaks to me in this view is that Bible. Of all the art, the stained glass, the altar, the candles…even with the aural art of organ and voices providing a soundtrack for worship…at the heart of what we do in those spaces is that book. 

As I’ve written of sanctuaries over the past 30 days in Lent, I’ve focused on the interiors of church buildings. Of course, there are different kinds of sancatuaries. There are grottos and glens, quiet corners of one’s own home, and any place of peace and serenity that welcomes worshippers, pilgrims, seekers, and refugees. (The refugee may be someone so overwhelmed by fear or frenzy that huddling under a heavy quilt creates sanctuary. Or, the immigrant refugee could be fleeing violence or oppression, finding safe harbor in a church building for an extended time, and the church kitchen and Sunday School rooms become sanctuary!)

Yet, I’ve been remembering those places set apart for worship in buildings designed to provide a home for a church family. “God’s house” used to be the term we used to describe such places. In that Bible so central to the photo, we find in Hebrews 3 that “God’s house” refers not to a building, but to the whole community of faith. And that community historically and presently finds its home within welcoming walls of wood, stone, and grace.

To be sure, the church is the people, not the bulding. (How often we hear that message when the buildings fall to fire or storm.) Yet, the people do find their strength being together in one place, most usually on the Sabbath and in the gathering place of the sanctuary. Their primary reason for being there is worship. The Quakers or Friends may meet in relative silence, the Pentecostals in a pandemonium of praise, and those once called the “mainline” Protestants closely follow the choreography of their printed texts: the bulletins, hymnals, and Bibles. Oh, there are the study groups and classes and circles and committees. But it is at Sabbath worship when the whole community is gathered in one holy place, its sanctuary, to celebrate the Good News by focusing on the “Word made flesh” and the word made fresh (on the best days!).

For those of us in the Reformed Tradition, we have begun at the Font, we break bread at the Table, we sing our songs and say our prayers, but the point of it all, the source of it all, is that book and the One of whom so much is written there. I know. We do experience God outside or beyond the Book, but the Scriptures help us interpret those faith experiences so we better understand the authenticity of our encounters with the Holy. “A Declaration of Faith,” a favorite creedal statement of mine that was as much as lost when the two major Presbyterian denominations merged in the early 1980s, says:

We must test any word that comes to us

from church, world, or inner experience

by the Word of God in Scripture.

I am old-fashioned enough to still believe that.

Returning again to my main premise (yes, I did have one), what we do together in worship as Reformed Christians centers on the Book. Many hymns quote scripture or ideas drawn from it, our liturgy, our sacramental language, and, one would hope, our sermons, homilies, meditations — all spring from what we pray is the voice of the Spirit speaking through the pages of the Old and New Testaments. And then, and this is critical, the individual interprets the Word thoughtfully, heartily, and gratefully. And then tries one’s best to live it out.

What was the word of God through the Prophets? What did Jesus teach? What is the Church for?

I’ve written too much as usual. So, I’ll conclude with this paragraph from the aforementioned “A Decalaration of Faith.”

The Bible is the written Word of God.

Led by the Spirit of God

the people of Israel and of the early church

preserved and handed on the story

of what God had said and done in their midst and how they had responded to him.

These traditions were often shaped and reshaped

     by the uses to which the community put them.

They were cherished, written down, and collected

     as the holy literature of the people of God.

…

Relying on the Holy Spirit,

who opens our eyes and hearts,

we affirm our freedom to interpret Scripture responsibly.