Wandering

I did this weird thing last Sunday and sent the congregation to explore the main church (our chapel is to the left of the entry hall of the Cathedral and not connected to the main nave at all). From the sermon you can read my logic with this. I think it was a good thing :).

The House of the Lord

Traditionally the reading for this Sunday is the story about Jesus in the Temple when He was 12 years old. What the lectionary says is this: As the child of Christmas grows He searches for the secret of His calling. The Christian congregation encounters Jesus when it gathers to church, to God’s house.

There (or rather here) we thank and praise God for His mighty acts together with the saints and angels in Heaven. In church the congregation also finds its own calling and tasks. Service and serving each other belong together.

Our OT reading on Samuel and Eli places them in the Temple and the Gospel reading does the same when it tells that Jesus was walking in Solomon’s Porch, a part of the temple. The Temple Festival was most likely Hannukkah, the festival of dedication of the second temple by the Maccabees. I’m tempted to tell more about Hannukkah but that would be digressing so let us get back to the main point.

The Temple was something Jesus very much loved. He returns there often in the Gospels and He refers to it as His Father’s house. It was very different from our churches since the area was vast and there were courts of different kinds surrounding it. It was more like, for lack of a better word, a fortress.

For us, however, the place of worship is called a church. And the one we are in is the national shrine of Finland. It was dedicated in the year 1300 and was until reformation came around a Roman catholic church.

One of the things I find heart warming about today’s readings is the love of the temple there is. I have been taught that loving the place itself is not the point but loving God. That is of course exactly right but that has meant that I have felt a little guilty about the way I feel about this Cathedral here.

You see, I love this Cathedral from the bottom of my heart. This church here is where I was baptised and ordained a minister. This is where I came to services after I had been confirmed and faith had become a part of my everyday life. This Cathedral is home to me; to the extent that if something drastic happens this is where I want to be if at all possible.

I absolutely love that Jesus seems to have had a similar feeling towards the temple, His Father’s House. For me, there is something about a place that has been dedicated to God and prayer for over 700 years.

And now good people I am about to send you out to the main church to experience it first hand. A typical sermon usually relies on your capacity to concentrate and then basically to listen. Today I will send you out there to listen but also to see, touch and inhale the soft dusty air of the Cathedral.

As you walk around there you can use your time to pray if you want to, or you can look for that something that speaks to your heart most powerfully about how God is - be it the high ceiling reaching up to the heavens, or the adorable paw prints in the Mayor’s Chapel – or you can find a comfortable spot and let this holy place serve you with it’s ancient walls and love of God.

In case you’re wondering why this is the reason: we are called to serve. In order to know how to serve we are called to be served, by God, by the Holy Spirit. A church is a place of service a place where God serves us. That’s why.

When it is time – in about five minutes or so - to head back to our own little chapel here I will ring this little bell. It is a sound familiar to all Roman Catholic Cathedrals because the sound of a bell has been and is used to indicate the transformation of the wafer in the body of Christ.

When everyone is back we’ll quite simply stand up together to confess our faith with the very old words of the Apostolic creed.

But now, go, explore God’s house.