1 How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts!
My soul has a desire and longing to enter the courts of the Lord;
my heart and my flesh rejoice in the living God.
2 The sparrow has found her a house
and the swallow a nest where she may lay her young:
at your altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God.
3 Blessed are they who dwell in your house:
they will always be praising you.
4 Blessed are those whose strength is in you,
in whose heart are the highways to Zion,
5 Who going through the barren valley find there a spring,
and the early rains will clothe it with blessing.
6 They will go from strength to strength and appear before God in Zion.
7 O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer; listen, O God of Jacob.
8 Behold our defender, O God, and look upon the face of your anointed.
9 For one day in your courts is better than a thousand.
10 I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God
than dwell in the tents of ungodliness.
11 For the Lord God is both sun and shield; he will give grace and glory;
no good thing shall the Lord withhold
from those who walk with integrity.
12 O Lord God of hosts, blessed are those who put their trust in you.
Today we jump out of sequence and the order of the psalter to Psalm 84. I have chosen to do this because this is a landmark day, May 3rd 2020, for the people of Salisbury, who would have been gathering with the Queen today to celebrate the 800th anniversary of the laying of the foundation stone of the city’s great gothic cathedral. Instead, as with all places of worship, the doors are locked and this astonishingly beautiful place of prayer is empty – maybe, except for a sparrow (vs2) finding a home or for the peregrine falcon[2] nesting in the turrets.
It is memories of these and so many, many more, spent with brothers and sisters in worship in the sacred places of our lives which are sweet and keep us going. We are missing them so much – the people and the places of our worship - in these days of lockdown. Although these are brief days of barring in the great span of time, they are nonetheless painful.
Psalm 84 is a song of praise which scholars believe was sung by pilgrims approaching Zion at a time of gathering for a festival of worship in the Temple, where the Lord of Hosts is enthroned in the Holy of Holies and the home of the ark of the covenant. A home for the smallest bird and the most tired of pilgrim souls. But it is also a place of blessing, blessings which are brought by the pilgrims as they swell in number and song. We are blessed when we join others in blessing God in worship. We gain strength from singing songs of the faith together. One of the things many friends say to me that they are looking forward to so much is being able to sing together again with one another the great hymns and songs of faith and praise. It is difficult to sing joyfully over Zoom!
But we can still find places of worship and praise. Under the openness of God’s skies; in the shelter of mighty beech and oak trees; in the quiet of a garden; in the privacy of our own ‘hiding places’; by a river of running water; round a kitchen table’; and even over the airwaves and via broadband. Although we need the special places of gathering and the people who are drawn to our churches and cathedrals, we also know, in these times, that we can worship the living God in all places anywhere. The psalmist voices the preference of being in the courts of God rather than the ‘tents of the ungodliness’ (vs10). But, as the psalmist also reflects in the wonderful Psalm 139 vs6-9: ‘Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I climb up to heaven you are there; if I make the grave my bed you are there also. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, your right hand shall hold me fast.’
I end with the stirring,
inspiring and powerful painting of William Constable: Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows. Constable began painting it in 1830. A storm sweeps
over it. The spire pierces a sky full of billowing clouds; a dark rain cloud
hangs directly above and a streak of lightning flashes over the roof. Constable
worked on the painting till his death in 1837. Interestingly, the magnificent rainbow
that is such a dominant feature in the final painting is not only absent from
the preliminary studies but is also meteorologically impossible given the
conditions which the artist presents in the painting. What is known is that he
was in mourning for the loss of his wife when he began the work. But he was
also troubled by the future of the Church of England when he painted it too. He
was a firm and faithful Anglican and one of his greatest friends was the Archdeacon
of Salisbury. An interesting reflection Tate gallery curators Anne Lyles and
David Blayney Brown has suggested[4]
that this friendship has sustained him through his most difficult days. And
they point to the fact that the arc of the rainbow is seen in the painting to
end at the exact spot marked by the Archdeacon’s house, Leadenhall, in the
Cathedral Close – perhaps a sign of gratitude for his friend’s emotional
support.
If there is a rainbow of love arcing over your life,
at whose home would you like it to touch the ground today?
[1] Common Worship: Services and Prayers for the Church of England, material
from which is included here, is copyright © The
Archbishops' Council 2000 and published by Church
House Publishing.
[2] https://www.salisburycathedral.org.uk/news/peregrine-cam-live
[2] https://www.salisburycathedral.org.uk/news/peregrine-cam-live
[3] https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=youtube+vaughan+williams+fantasia+salisbury+cathedral&docid=608000724084723497&mid=31E0BA5BD9C8464BF33231E0BA5BD9C8464BF332&view=detail&FORM=VIRE
(as of May 3rd 2020)
(as of May 3rd 2020)
[4] https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/constable-salisbury-cathedral-from-the-meadows-t13896
My soul has a longing to enter the courts of the Lord” - or does it? Today I read that churches in Germany are now beginning to open after their lockdown so I contacted my sister who lives there to ask if she had been. In Bavaria, where she lives, churches don’t open till next Sunday but with strict restrictions. There is to be no communal singing. Everyone must wear a face mask. You have to sign up in advance to ensure not too many people come and the service should not last longer than an hour. That’s not the sort of church worship my soul longs for. I wonder how churches will reopen in the UK and what difficult decisions will need to be made. Will we return and be able to say “how lovely is your dwelling place”?
ReplyDeleteIn the meantime the sacred places we find around us on our pilgrimage of life are so important. Our homes, the prayer spaces we may have made, the Church of creation, our Zoom rooms, all can be places where our heart and flesh “rejoice in the living God”. And nowhere is more sacred than our innermost being where God dwells. Pilgrimage is an inner journey too. It is in the silence of our hearts we can discover God our “sun and shield..his grace and glory”.
As for the rainbow of love, I would like it to touch the ground of the home of a young couple whose wedding this weekend had to be cancelled due to Covid-19. May God hold their tears and loss until days of joy and hope return.