Creekside Church Sermon of January 14, 2001 "God's Portable People " Numbers 9:15-17, 22-23 Philippians 3:12-16	Rev. David Bibbee
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Utterly alone, he had to find food, shelter, and fresh water. Periodically Fed Ex packages washed ashore. He opened them and found items like a dress, a volleyball, and ice skates. His major task each day was survival. His diet consisted of coconuts, crabs, and fish. Every day was a battle against loneliness, desperation, and hopelessness. To satisfy his need for companionship, he named the volleyball "Wilson", and spoke with him often during the day. It was not like "Gilligan's Island." Each day was a test of endurance. And the days turned into weeks and months and years... four years alone, eeking out an existence.

Then came the decision. Would he remain on the island, subsisting as best he could, taking the risk he would likely die without seeing another human face, or would he build a raft capable of sustaining him on the sea in hopes that he would survive until spotted by a ship? What would you do, take your chances and stay put and hope someone, someday would arrive? Or would you lash logs together, store provisions, and accept the risk of being taken by the wind toward your rescue or your death? Which would it be?

This is no imaginary exercise for us. Through a deliberate and oft times difficult process, we have decided that our best chance for growth and revitalization is yet before us. We do not believe this will come about by holding tight to the familiar, but by following Christ in faith to a place that is yet unknown. God has a design for our future, and that design will be discovered when we embark on this journey we can only take with God's help.

What we are talking about is nothing short of a new way of being the church. But this new way has ancient roots. When we talk about worship, it is usually in the context of a "place" of worship. It may be a cathedral or chapel; it may be ornate or simple, it will have stained glass or plain glass. It may contain many symbols, or none at all, not even a cross. But still, worship is associated with a place which has a foundation, a floor, walls, and a roof. It is fixed. When people think of a church, they think of a building with an address and a phone number.

But we should remember that between the time when Moses received the ten commandments on Mount Sinai and Solomon's temple was built, God's people had no fixed place of worship. They worshipped wherever they happened to be at the time. Before the temple, Israel worshipped in the tabernacle. The tabernacle was essentially a glorified tent made of material, animal hide, stakes and posts and inside, a pre-fab structure which housed the Ark of the Covenant, the invisible throne of God. It was said to have been created by Moses, and was where God revealed himself to Moses and the people of Israel.

The tabernacle was also called "The Tent of Meeting", "The Tent of Revelation", "The Tent of Oracle", or "The Tent of Testimony", the pillar of cloud and fire which led Israel in the wilderness hovered over the Tabernacle... the cloud by day and fire by night. And when the cloud moved on, the tent stakes were pulled and Israel followed. Wherever the cloud came to rest, there, Israel pitched its tent. With the tabernacle, Israel had a portable sanctuary. Where God led, the people followed and worshipped.

The people of that day, however, were no different from our own. They got tired of packing and unpacking. They didn't like moving. They wished God would just settle down. They thought that maybe if they would build God a really nice place, he wouldn't want to move. Never mind that God said, "The most high does not live in houses made with human hands." It didn't matter to Solomon. He built God a temple, anyway. And you know what happened next, don't you? They didn't listen like they used to. Instead of setting their hearts upon God's leading, they were concerned with keeping up God's house. They had to set policies and procedures for sacrifices. They had to keep the floor swept and the restrooms clean. After all, if the Lord is in his holy temple, then it needs to be fit for a king.

Rosanna's father, Vernard Eller, wrote a book called The Outward Bound. He makes an argument for a specific model of how the church should be. Instead of contrasting the temple and the tabernacle, he talks about the difference between the commissary church and the caravan church. A commissary is an institution that dispenses goods and services for its constituency. A commissary is concerned with policies and procedure and its goal is to grow and enhance its own influence. Members of commissaries are card carriers who can enjoy the privileges, but do not have to partake of them.

Vernard says this is not the New Testament model of the church. The church is best understood as a caravan; people bound together in a common cause working toward a common destination. Their goal is not to arrive and dig in. It is to make progress. The caravan church isn't an institution, it's a community. Before the church was called the church and its members, Christians, it was known as "The Way", and those who belonged were, "Followers of the Way." Members were not card carriers, but functioned as members of a living, loving body.

In a matter of months, we will experience what it means to be a caravan church. We will be without this building which has been so familiar to so many for so many years. Hopefully our gathering place will be in a church. But if not, we are still the church. It will help us to memorize the first verses of the first hymn in our blue hymnal... "What is this place where we are meeting? Only a house, the earth its floor, walls and a roof, sheltering people, windows for light, an open door. Yet it becomes a body that lives when we are gathered here, and know our God is near."

Even though apprehension is always part of an endeavor like this, it provides an opportunity to rediscover what it means to be the church of Jesus Christ. We will learn what is essential and what is not. Of all the work to be done in the next month, the most important concern is... storage. What should be used, what should be stored, and what should we let go?

In 1992 I clipped a newspaper story about a lady in England. It read:

A recluse was found dead yesterday in a nest she built in her garden and lived in for 35 years after being jilted shortly before her wedding day, radio reports said. Neighbors near the town of Reading found 70 year old Joan Abery lying among the trees and shrubs that had been her home since 1957.

The woman was a respected chemist until her fianc‚ left her, after which she started living in her garden. Although the nest had only a couple of umbrellas to fend off the rain, she refused to go back inside her house, the radio reports said. The house reportedly has remained untouched for 35 years. The cause of death has not been disclosed.

Joan Abery refused to work through the fact that she had been set free. She could not bring herself to part with the past, and there can be no claiming of the future for us if we cling to our past. There comes a time, for the sake of being faithful to God's call, that we must make a break with problems, projects, and sometimes people in order to move on to something better. Paul said, "This one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and striving forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus." As a church that soon will literally be on the move and learning what life in a church caravan is like, we must be willing to let go. But we also must hold on to what's most important. The refrigerator door is a prime example. Listen to what Robert Fulghum says about it:

On a very local scale, a refrigerator is the center of the universe. On the inside is food essential to life, and on the outside of the door is a summary of the life events of the household. Grocery lists, report cards, gems of wisdom, cartoons, family schedules, urgent bills, reminders, instructions, complaints, photographs, postcards, lost and found items, and commands. When the word GARBAGE appears there, somebody better move it and soon.

An important art gallery is often found here as well. Postcards of paintings from museums. Scribbles from a child's long, rainy afternoon with a box of crayons. A collection of drawings and paintings that come home from school in a steady stream. All stuck to the front of the family fridge.

When you no longer have any art on the refrigerator door, something is over-your children have grown up. And when it appears again years later, it means your children have children. Grandparents are suckers for refrigerator art and will put just about anything offered them by a child of their child.

What we care about most, we hang on to. Although we will experience new ways of doing it, we will continue to hang on to the quality music and worship to which we have grown accustomed. We will hang on to a Sunday school program and Bible study and support groups which shall stress the essentials of Christian discipleship. We will hang on to being a warm and welcoming church, and a hospitable and healing church, but we'll also add a much needed emphasis and become an "inviting" church.

A tourist walked into a curio shop run by an elderly gentlemen. The tourist asked, "What would you say is the strangest, most mysterious thing you have here?" The old man surveyed the curios, antiques, stuffed animals, mounted fish and birds, archeological finds, deer heads-then turned to the tourist and said, "The strangest thing in this shop is unquestionably myself."

We will hang on to the best with which we have been blessed. Do you know the most important thing we can take with us? Us! What we have to hold fast to and what we can count on is Christ and each other.

I recently spoke with a pastor whose church has gone through the journey we are in now. He talked about the meeting which decided their move. A life-long member had vehemently spoken against it. Then a young man came to the microphone and voiced a plea that turned the tide... he said, "Please don't deny the younger members of this church the privilege of learning what it means to depend on God."

We have been given an opportunity to learn how to be a tabernacle choir, a caravanning church, God's portable people who hold fast to what is best, let go of what is not, and discover the truth of the ancient monk who said of God, "I see that wherever I go, I find support."

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