"Where two or more are gathered in my name..."
Continuing (from a couple of days ago) the image of the act of service as the key to learning to love, here's a summation of a thought my friend Nikki and I tossed around over lunch yesterday. It's working on me, and I thought I'd put it out there.
The act of service is a kind of space created between the giver and receiver, and it is in that space that God dwells. It is a sanctuary, perhaps the sanctuary of the holy grail, the point of contact with the blood of Christ. In this way the act of mercy, compassion, or charity mirrors the cherubim arching their wings toward one another on the Israelites' ark of the covenant. It was between these cherubim that God dwelt on the "mercy seat," meeting the High Priest there as he offered sacrifice for the sins of the people. Much of modern life is lived as if one of the cherubim have abandoned their posts, so there is no longer anywhere for God to dwell. So where is the mercy seat today?
When someone hands a needed meal, a needed bit of clothing, or offers a ride, or a place to stay--or perhaps more needed, forgiveness and grace--in the reaching of those hands toward the hands of those who would receive these gifts, a kind of space is created. It is a space that echoes the mercy seat of the ark of the convenant. It reminds me of Jesus saying "Where two or more of you are gathered in my name, there will I be also." (Matt 18:20) We've always taken "where two or more of you are gathered in my name" to mean worshippers, and I suppose that's what he meant. But when a thing is done for his glory, it really only takes the intentional reaching out of one toward a second to make two gathered in his name. The belief of unbelief of the receiver makes no difference. And in that meeting of two in his name, just as he said, there he resides.
If we would learn his heart, we must meet him in that sanctuary. Isn't it there that he has always done his teaching?
Dare we say community?
1:50:19 PM 
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