The crowds move through St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City in a surprisingly orderly and respectful manner. Most conversation turns to whispers, as if the space somehow requires it. People circle the nave stopping to look at various stations, altars, chapels, statues. Up at the main altar a priest conducts a wedding rehearsal and he’s using a microphone. So that constant procession along the perimeter, sometimes it comes with a familiar, yet slightly disconnected commentary. “When you place the ring, you will repeat after me, ‘I give you this ring as a sign our love...’” All through the church some of the faithful are at prayer. Some are lighting candles. Others looking for a respite from the world. And that endless procession of visitors/tourists/strangers, the procession goes on and on with some version of a refrain that can be heard amid the whispers; “How lovely.”

At Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church there in the city the narthex is separated from the nave by glass walls and glass doors. As the worship leaders and preacher stand at the central pulpit during worship and look out, it’s a bit of an odd spectacle. The first thing to notice is the perfect line of sight to the huge sign for the Disney Store on the other side of 5th Ave. But then there is this steady stream of something other than worshippers who come in all through the hour. They come up to the glass and look in, gawk for a while, smush their faces, use a hand to block the glare, and then head back out. All the while corporate worship of the people of God is going on, complete with pastors in Geneva gowns down at the front in the elevated chancel. It must look like some kind of black bear exhibit at the zoo.

And then downtown, at Trinity Church Wall Street, visitors come in throughout the day to that Episcopal Church. You might hear someone practicing the organ for an upcoming recital. You may arrive just before noontime prayer is about to begin. Signs of an ongoing fellowship are everywhere, including last Sunday’s bulletins still out on the corner table at the beginning of the aisle. There are two staff people greeting visitors in the rear of the nave, pointing to the door of the museum over in the corner, and what is most impressive, getting people of all ages to remove their hats as they walk into the worship space. Security guards I guess, all dressed up down to the shine on their shoes, with a word of welcome to everyone, seeming to exude a certain assurance there by Ground Zero that everything is okay, and bringing a voice of authority that echos in the great hall. “Remove all hats please.” No one dares ignore the doorkeepers.

It’s an odd mix, tourism and a house of worship. Spectators in a space intended for the praise and adoration of God. “How lovely! How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts!...Look! Up there in the corner, up there in the eaves, even the sparrow can find a home. A swallow can make a nest for herself where she can lay her young. How lovely! How quaint those old pews! How stunning that work of art! How majestic those windows! How incredible that sound of the organ! How impressive that stonework! How high that steeple! How lovely! One doesn’t have to work very hard to imagine the tourist’s reading of Psalm 84. Twice in the last three months I have observed wedding parties taking pictures on the front steps here at Nassau Church. Interestingly, those particular weddings didn’t even take place here. How lovely!

“How lovely is thy dwelling place, O Lord of hosts! For my soul, it longeth, yea fainteth, for the courts of the Lord.” Sung to the beautiful melody of Brahm’s. It kind of floats in the air like it’s making its way down from heaven. It starts with the tenors (but then it always starts with the tenors, doesn’t it?) All that’s left for the listener is to sort of lift up the head and receive, like taking in the finest aroma of creation, like soaking up the warmth of the morning sun on a crisp fall day. “My soul and body crieth out for the living God.” Brahm’s reading of Psalm 84. And remember that anthem offered by the choir this morning, it comes embedded in Brahm’s German Requiem. The mass for the dead. They’re singing of the everlasting dwelling place. The heavenly kingdom. “Blest are they that dwell within Thy house, they praise Thy name evermore.” The eternal dwelling place of God. The courts of the Lord. The highways to Zion. The House of God. The text of Psalm 84 and the music of Brahms. Beauty to the nth degree. Of course its about heaven. A longing for heaven. Not a tourist’s song. It’s a pilgrim’s song! “Happy are those whose strength is in you, in whose heart are the highways to Zion.”

But then this voice echos again. “Remove all hats please!” Those doorkeepers. “I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than live in the tents of wickedness.” If Psalm 84 for us is just about heaven, what about the doorkeepers? I would rather be a doorkeeper? God knows there always seems to be an abundance of self-appointed doorkeepers (more like bouncers, or umpires) thinking they have the privilege of deciding who is in and who is out when it comes to the eternal throne of grace. People who don’t hesitate to insert themselves in the mythology of St. Peter there at the pearly gates. Doorkeepers, or preachers, or church members, or theologians, or councils, or assemblies. Yet in the Book of Revelation, John certainly seems to balk at that role. The first scripture lesson offered this morning, when John sees that great multitude which no one could count. “Who are these” one of the elders around the throne of God asks John. “Sir, you are the one that knows.” As if to say, there at the gates of heaven, you know better than I, I’m not a doorkeeper!

Doorkeeper. It’s a unique word in the Hebrew bible. If I did my research right this week, I can’t find any other use of the word, other than here in Psalm 84. And a better translation would connote standing on the threshhold. It’s more of a descriptive phrase that references location. A form of a verb rather than a noun, or even a title. There’s not much in the language that supports a position of power, or prestige, or decision making, or authority. Nor does the image convey some boundary territory between life and death, or between heaven and hell, one foot here and one foot there. No. Doorkeeper. “I would rather stand on the threshhold of God’s house, in the doorway to your kingdom, with my toes in your dwelling place. I would rather find myself singing from the sill of all that is your grace, I would rather stand just at the edge of your glory, I would rather stand on the front stoop of your presence, O God”

A day here, just on the edge of the mystery of your boundless mercy, a day here in your courts is better than a thousand days anywhere else. Or as the Jewish scholar Jon Levinson puts it in his discussion of Psalm 84, “I would rather stand right here where the “centripetal force of your love drawing me in is a thousand times stronger than the centrifugal forces pulling me away.” Psalm 84. One of the songs of Zion. It’s not only a song about eternity, it’s about a longing for God in the here and now. A thirst for the very holiness of the God of all creation. A desire to be drawn into God. The God who is our sun and shield. The God who bestows favor and honor. The God of our salvation. Doorkeeper. I would rather stand here, here where the daily struggles and the powerful urges of the world and the real responsibilities of my life are somehow dwarfed if just for a time, as the tug of your Spirit leads me toward such praise and adoration, here where I can discover once again who I am in God.

Patrick Miller often points out in his writing about the psalms, that there is this steady movement toward praise. To say some psalms are about lament and some are about celebration, or that some move back and forth between anger and thanksgiving within the same psalm, that would be to miss the bigger picture. Because, Miller argues, for the people of God, there is this procession toward praise, that we were created to offer praise and worship to the living God, that we are on this journey, not just making our way to the lovely dwelling place of God’s eternal home, but our journey here and now is one of thanksgiving and praise and adoration and worship to and for the Holy One who gives us life and works within us, tugging away, drawing us in, bestowing in us this longing to stand here on the threshhold.

When does worship begin? With the call to worship, that word spoken which ought to be grounded in scripture to give God the first word? Or with the prelude, a musician’s offering of thanks and praise? Or in the gathering, both the silent prayers here in the space or the heartfelt greetings and the check-ins that happen week in and week out (I hope your feeling better this week.) Or does worship begin even before that. I remember a young man who had five kids who once said to me on a Sunday morning, “you won’t believe how hard it is, to just make sure all the kids have socks on as we’re heading out the door to church.” What if worship begins in the hearts and the minds of the people of God in the getting here of a sabbath day. When the routines or the chaos of the house, when the shaking off of the aches and pains, when an early morning reading of scripture, when the phonecall to a friend to confirm a pick up, when the conscious decision to rule out other opportunities for the morning, when it all comes in service to and with the intention of participation in a community of faith’s praise and adoration of God. Maybe that’s when worship begins. God’s Spirit at work in you. You doorkeeper, you!

All the good preaching and the right liturgy and the best music and the most traditional, and contemporary, and alternative, and emergent worship in the world won’t matter at all, if God is not at work in you. God’s Spirit in you.

Last week I shared with you the death of Laura Hovsepian. Her funeral was just a week ago here in the sanctuary. Laura always like to be early for worship. She was one of that gaggle of about six or seven. You always the first ones here. After worship, at the church door, Laura would says to me like, “I am so glad I was here today!” or “I can’t think of any other place I would rather be” or “I just had to be here today!” At first I thought she was being polite, or offering me a word of encouragement. But I came to realize Laura was sharing with me her affirmation of faith. It wasn’t about me or the music or the prayers. It was about her and God! And I’m sorry I never had the right response to Laura back there at the church door.

“I can’t think of any other place I would rather be!”

Well, thanks be to God!

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