Ordinary Lives in a Sacred Place

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      One of the things that surprised me on my first trip to Jerusalem was that real people live ordinary lives in this most sacred place. I spent much of my visit gawking with my mouth gaped open and eyes wide as I took in every olive tree, tomb, ruin, wall, and stone outcropping. I was in “The Jerusalem,” and I could not do much other than be in awe and reverence. However, all around me were people living their day-to-day lives. They were walking to school, taking a bus to work, buying groceries for the evening meal, talking about idle things, and doing things like I might do in Hendersonville.
      All along the roads were wet laundered clothes hanging from clotheslines. In back yards, little non-distinct dogs barked at lazy cats. The sounds of children crying, laughing or playing was echoed up and down the valleys. Daily house sounds from homes, where ordinary people lived, could be heard from great distances. The short-sighted views were not unlike the views from where I live.
      I said I was surprised, but that is an understatement. In reality, I was aghast that these citizens of “The City” perched on Mt. Zion could drive by this sacred ground every day and never look up at the walls built by Solomon of the Old Testament and more recently added onto by the Crusaders. How could anyone drive by the Mount of Olives, the site of Gethsemane, and not stop and pray for a while?
      As opposed to these people in Jerusalem, here I live in a rather ordinary city where ordinary things are the best a citizen can expect. But as I live in this ordinary city, I take every opportunity and make every effort to live a “sacred life.” The residents of the sacred city of Jerusalem live ordinary lives, while I, on the other hand, attempt to live a sacred life in an ordinary city.
      There is something in me that would like to live in a sacred place and do ordinary things. There is something cathartic about my feeling so much at home in a sacred place that the commonplace activities would seem natural. How would it feel to be a comfortable resident of a sacred place, so that the coming and the going would be just a part of life as much as the breaths we take or the food we eat? How is it that a person can live in the presence of the sacred in an ordinary way?
      The answer is that there has to be a transformation that takes place in the life of a person who lives a normal life in the presence of the sacred. That transformation has to include a sense of worthiness. And that sense of worthiness has to be born outside of our on sense of self-worth. Can we ever feel so self-worthy that we can live in the presence of God, feeling as though we belong?
      Feeling truly worthy to live in the presence of the sacred is a way of living that has to be grounded in an acceptance of a gift that God alone presents to us. We can never feel self-entitled, self-worthy, or self-assured on our own. We can never be good enough, successful enough, handsome enough or wealthy enough to feel at home with God on our own. Feeling comfortable in God’s presence is a blessing only God can offer to us.
      I would like to believe that God could offer to us the assurance that we could not only try to live a sacred life in an ordinary place, but that we could also live an ordinary life in a sacred place.
      I have occasionally wondered if the people in heaven feel special? Will heaven be a place where we will always feel like we are guests? Or, will heaven be a sacred place where we can take off our shoes, lounge in comfortable clothes, laugh without reserve, praise without ending and find joy without embarrassment? It is my hope that heaven will be the latter.
      Quite possibly, the only time most of us will ever live in a sacred place will be when we are in heaven. It would be a shame to have to wear Sunday clothes every day, sit on pews, and only have Sunday School teachers and evangelists on TV. Heaven will be a place where blessed people live God-assured, ordinary lives in the presence of the most sacred. Heaven will be home.

Rev. Dan Martin is pastor of First UMC, Hendersonville. He can be reached at moose1953@hotmail.com