SERMON: A GATED COMMUNITY.
I vividly remember the first time I entered a gated community here I California.
We had to pull into the lane for Visitors and we had to wait until the gatekeeper had time to focus on us and not on the residents driving in and out of the gate. When the nice gatekeeper in his uniform finally addressed us, he asked for our name and whom we were visiting. And we were accepted as suitable visitors because he found our names on the list of granted visitors. The gates opened – and we drove in. Into our first gated community, into the promised land of security and serenity.
We were actually quite impressed, and even if I over the years have visited and been granted access to hundreds of gated communities in southern California, in Palm Springs, in Hidden Hills, in Carefree Arizona and many other places, it still is a special feeling to be granted access to a gated community. To be accepted and welcomed – to be trusted to be someone who do not want to harm or disrupt.
When you think of a gated community, what comes into your minds?
Probably things like safety, security, exclusivity, celebrities, expensive homes, golf courses and more. But what else lies beyond those gates?
There are many kinds of gated communities. Granted there are many very wealthy and exclusive places behind those locked and secured gates, but you also find more modest senior communities, nursing homes, and middle-class family communities.
The biggest perk for gated communities is privacy and safety, since only residents and invited guests may enter the gates. Often there may also be a social benefit to living in a gated community, such as a community center, swimming pools, tennis course, golf courses that prompt activities for people to get to know each other. Within the gates.
Even if you do not live in a gated community, you can always build a gate or a fence around your own property to ensure some privacy and security. We all want to feel safe and secure in our homes even if there are different ways to obtain it.
As many of you know, we have a dog. A wonderful loving golden retriever named Saxo, after the Danish Historian Saxo Grammaticus. Saxo is certainly not a guard dog.
He is a greeter! He rarely barks and if he does, he almost looks apologetic and he quickly lets his wagging happy tale and his happy eyes and licking tongue, greet you. Welcome! Open the gated and please come in and pet me!
I prefer being met like that at any gate! With trust, with happiness, with openness and curiosity.
Our church is also a gated community. We belong to the flock of Christ and we trust that He is indeed our Good shepherd. That he leads us to pastures green and that no darkness will harm us – as we just heard from the beloved Psalm 23: “ The Lord is my Shepherd…… Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long.”
Jesus is called the “gate” of the sheep in todays gospel and we do believe in the afterglow of Easter that the Risen Christ opens the way to an abundant life, he anoints our heads with oil and guides us beside the still waters of our baptism.
Today we have decorated the baptismal font with an abundance of flowers and greens, all from the church campus, - to remind us of the life that our baptism promised us. Christ blesses and anoints our heads with living water and guides us daily beside still waters of trust, faith, hope and love.
The church is also a gated community. But not with a uniformed gatekeeper with a list to check or an access code to remember, - as the gate and the gatekeeper is Christ himself. He welcomes us with care and compassion, with open arms like Thorvaldsen’s Christ on the altar….
These days we all seem to be living in gated communities. We do not lock our homes and stay behind our gates, because of fear for thieves, but because of fear of a virus and illness. These days we choose to find safety and health behind our gates of our homes as we follow the guidelines of our leadership. These days the church is on lockdown and the only ones who get access are the few chosen ones for these Sunday services or for checking mail, paying bills and doing accounting. And you are only granted access if you keep you 6 feet distance, wear a mask and wash your hands!
So, I do almost feel as if the church is indeed a strictly gated community, these days – but all out of an abundance of caution for all the wonderful members of this community. We are not keeping the doors locked because we want to have the place for ourselves or the few chosen one, we lock the doors because we care.
And then we open the gates on Sundays through Virtual Services like this. Since March 15, these services, this kind of ministry, has become the new normal, and I am so amazed by all our faithful attending members of the congregations, all the newcomers, all the old timers, all the curious and all the long distance worshippers from out of state or from Denmark.
These Virtual Services has been a gate to something else. A gate to these blessed services that despite being different – truly has given our church and our congregation a source of worship, community, fellowship and home through this Pandemic.
In many of the old churches in Denmark, you will find some very peculiar holes in the solid walls of the church. Usually in the choir closed to the altar. These are called Spedalskhedshuller – Leprosy Holes.
When leprosy was hoarding the old Kingdom and Europe in the Middle ages, the sick and dying were considered dangerous-contagious and were not allowed to access the church. So, they were outside the church, sitting on the ground, listening to the music and the words through the holes and most importantly receiving communion through these holes. The church buildings were literally gated communities, not allowing sick or contagious people in.
These days we are avoiding most human contact in order to break the curve of COVID 19 and to keep our community and citizens safe and healthy and alive. But we are blessed to live in a time with the wonders of digital communication – that makes it possible to meet despite of distance and restrictions. Our digital services are like a hole in the wall of the church.
We are not left outside to listen to the words through holes – we are invited and welcome inside the church even if it is only through the screen. But we are here. We are together. We are worshipping together. And you are even all in the front pews, close to the piano and the pastor.
The holes in the stone walls of the old Churches in Denmark, reminds us that it is not the first time that a Pandemic, a Virus, a Tsunami, A war or Economic crashes has swept over our beloved earth and our fragile lives.
If we remember, and if we even more remember to be taught life lessons of our common human history, we do know that through time unexpected disasters, horrific diseases or disastrous wars have changed and shaped the life on earth.
And as one of the former pastor Carsten Bogh Pedersen wrote in a column: “ It is not God, who created the Covid19 virus, but it is God, who has created the universe and the laws of nature that we through time and through science have gained more and more understanding of and access to. The matter is how we use our knowledge of the laws of nature, and thus it is certainly significant which voice we listen to or follow.”
In order to navigate through time and history, we need to listen to the gentle voice of the good shepherd.
To the loving, caring and gracious voice of the shepherd and not the haughty voice that keeps saying that we must love ourselves and only do what we want to!
This community, this church, is indeed gated and yet open.
It is built on trust, on compassion, on forgiveness, on grace and on faith.
It is not built on selfishness, bitterness, hate, despair or mistrust.
Look again at Christ on the altar. That image of God as a good shepherd, as a greeter with open arms.
Its mattes what we believe in.
It matters how we live our lives.
It matters if we meet the world with trust or with distrust, with hope or with despair.
It matters what we believe in and which voice we follow.
“So again, Jesus said to them: Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and bandits. But the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate Whoever enters by me will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”
We will come in and we will go out to find pasture. We are not supposed to stay behind locked doors of fear og mistrust, or live our lives in gated communities, - we are to live in the world among others. In relations.
But this most unusual time in our history, we are to be patient, before we open our gates again, as the health and wellbeing of our neighbors are at risk. We are patient and cautious because we care.
This time, we must be patient and not foolish. Be patient and wise and compassionate.
This time, when we listen to the voice of the Good Shepherd we have to take our time, be wise, be considerate, be good neighbors and trust that through all of this, though lockdown and limited options, and restricted freedom, through financial hardship, through fear and despair, we will still listen to the voice leading us, comforting us, as we do believe that:
“The Lord is my Shepherd……
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long.”
AMEN