"In This House"

I Kings 8:22-23, 41-43

A Sermon preached by The Rev. Douglas M. Donley

June 6, 2004

University Baptist Church

Minneapolis, MN

On this Annual Meeting day, we have a lot to celebrate. Of course, we have celebrated Lynn’s ordination yesterday and the room here is still aglow with the good wishes, the powerful words and her audacious witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We may never be the same again.

It happened here in this house.

After we finish with our meeting, we will transform this place of worship to a home to the homeless as we provide hospitality to the homeless through Families Moving Forward. It’s what we do in this house. It’s how we know God. It’s how we live out our calling as God’s children, and as Jesus’ continuing disciples.

This is how it should be. That’s what this house is for. It’s for hospitality. It’s for brining light and life to people. It’s for bringing healing and sustenance to people.

Hear again what Solomon’s vision was for the first temple. In his dedicatory prayer, Solomon started out by praising God and telling people that they should praise God in the temple. But then he expanded it. In I Kings 8:41-43 he says, "When a foreigner who is not of my people Israel comes from a far country for thy names sake..and prays toward this house, God, hear their prayer and obey it."

Solomon is saying that the nature of God and God’s people requires hospitality. That was what happened when the Union was here a few months ago. We provided them hospitality during their strike. And when this house was crawling with Union organizers and students and faculty and staff in every nook and cranny, people knew us as a place of hospitality.

A few years ago, this building was not as hospitable as it is now. Thanks to the Capital Campaign, we now have a four-stop elevator, making 80% of the building accessible to those who cannot navigate the plethora of stairs. We have new windows which keep out the winter’s cold and the precious BTUs of heat. We have new electrical service into the building perhaps staving off hazards. For an 80-year-old building, she is in remarkably good shape.

Thanks to all who made the Capital Campaign happen: The Campaign Committee of Denise Roy, Tai Shigaki, Don Follett, Don Dresser, Hal Gold, Kim Donley, and Chea Castro.

We thank all of those who have made the projects happen:

Clyde Cicarelli, Tony Garmers, Dave Bienhoff, Randy Dement, Margie Garmers, Jim Ross, Dan Murphy, Cork Johnson, Harriet Johnson.

And of course we thank all those who gave money to make this happen. I don’t know who you are, nor should I, but you have made this place more hospitable.

The other thing that happened this year is that we secured title to this old building, granting us the freedom to chart our own future without worrying so much about the purse strings being held by anyone other than ourselves. Thanks to the Tais (Tai Shigaki and Ty Wottrich) for researching it all. For Lee Freeman and Nadean Bishop and Gary Grogan and Gary Reif and Marshall Peters and Soozi Whitten Ford and Diane Ehr who made well timed phone calls and wrote letters to the powers that be that finally resulted in official title being transferred once and for all to UBC.

We have tremendous things to be thankful for in this old house. And hopefully in this house we garner the strength to do the work God has entrusted to us. In this house we see each other for what we are and what we seek to be. In this house we study and sing and debate and respond to the call of God in our myriad ways.

May everything we do in this house glorify God.

May everything in this house celebrate the encounter we have received with God’s children.

May this house stand long for hospitality, for justice, for love, for freedom, for inclusiveness, for the Gospel of Jesus Christ where everyone is welcome and everyone is called to not only pay respects to Jesus but to truly follow him.

May God continue to show us ways to do this audacious and transforming work.