Psalm 84: 1-12 (links validated 12/20/23)

If it is true—as noted in this sermon commentary—that even ardent Christian believers do not forever live in a pulse-racing moment of rapturous love for God—then it must surely count as true that those who do not believe in God at all find the prospect of fairly swooning over God to be preposterous. Yet, as Augustine famously said, whether unbelievers know it or not, they were created by God and for God and in God’s image. Without the living presence of God in their lives, there is a God-shaped hole somewhere inside them that may lead to a spiritual restlessness that will never be sated until they let God fill the gap. Of course, people still try to find spiritual thrills. It’s just that often the things we tap seem to have little chance to achieve what we’re looking for (to riff on Bono and U2). A great example from the 1980's came in the work of Robert Bellah and associates in their insightful book Habits of the Heart. At one point they highlighted a woman named Sheila who, absent any living faith tradition in her life, decided to worship the sense of the divine she found within her own self. She called her religion “Sheilaism.” I am not sure if it ever quickened her own pulse or created deep yearning within herself to go and fellowship with . . . well, with herself. I am fairly sure, however, that few others would long and yearn to go be with Sheila.

A great example from the 1980s came in the work of Robert Bellah and associates in their insightful book Habits of the Heart. At one point they highlighted a woman named Sheila who, absent any living faith tradition in her life, decided to worship the sense of the divine she found within her own self. She called her religion “Sheilaism.” I am not sure if it ever quickened her own pulse or created deep yearning within herself to go and fellowship with . . . well, with herself. I am fairly sure, however, that few others would long and yearn to go be with Sheila.

A few years ago during a one-week intensive preaching course in late May, we noticed on the first day of class that a large Great-Horned Owl had made a nest in the huge window high up and behind the pulpit area in the Seminary Chapel. It was in the uppermost pane just in the upper left quadrant of the big white cross that is the center of this clear-glass window. The owl was clearly raising some chicks up there. In any event, it was not at all unusual for us when listening to a student sermon to see this owl swivel that big head and those big eyes around to peer down at the student as he or she proclaimed God’s Word. In addition to jokes that this was like the Seminary gone to Hogwarts (given the ubiquity of owls in the Harry Potter world), not a few of us reflected on Psalm 84 and its noting all of those birds who apparently built nests in the eaves of the Temple. I don’t know that any of us envied that owl’s ability to peer into a house of the Lord all the time but it surely provided a living reminder of some of the sentiments of that particular Hebrew poem!

I first heard this song years ago in the end credits of The Long Walk Home (1990), a historical drama film about the impact of the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott on a black maid and her white employer. I was so moved by the spirited communal singing of this song about the people of God heading confidently through the fray of this world toward heaven, which alludes to the literal ascent of ancient Jewish pilgrims up the hill to Jerusalem. I looked up the song afterward to find that it is a gospelized adaptation of the Isaac Watts hymn “Come, we that love the Lord” and the nineteenth-century refrain added by Robert Lowry, which goes, in 6/8 time, We’re marching to Zion, Beautiful, beautiful Zion; We’re marching upward to Zion, The beautiful city of God...

there was an article in the Atlantic Monthly a while back about a new religion that has risen out of this loss of longing for God. It’s called apatheism. Jonathon Rauch writes, “Someone asked me about my religion. I was about to say, “Atheist,” but I stopped myself. ‘I used to be an atheist,’ I said, ‘and I still don’t believe in God, but the larger truth is that it has been years since I really cared one way or another. I’m an apatheist.’ Apatheism is not caring about one’s religion, and even less about other peoples...

We had been talking about Sabbath for a few weeks in the youth group before I challenged the kids to take a Sabbath day for themselves. One day with no work. One whole day with no performing or producing for other people. No labor, just rest. A few more weeks after that challenge, only one of the kids had taken me up on it. When I asked if anyone had observed the Sabbath, one girl raised her hand. "I did," she said. "What was it like?" I asked her; I was genuinely surprised at this point that anyone had tried such a counter-intuitive thing as Sabbath, even though I had asked them to. She spoke in glowing terms about her Sabbath day. She had connected with other people. She had felt joy and peace. She even volunteered that she had felt the impact of the Sabbath the rest of the week! "I felt better every day," she said. The experience had been so different from her regular life. But when I asked her if she'd like to have that experience every week, she struggled to answer. I...it...it would be hard," she said. "I would have to give up so much."...

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