God in the Sanctuary City--November 26, 2019

God in the Sanctuary City--November 26, 2019

"There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
     the holy habitation of the Most High.
  God is in the midst of the city; it shall not be moved;
     God will help it when the morning dawns.
 The nations are in an uproar, the kingdoms totter;
     he utters his voice, the earth melts.
 The Lord of hosts is with us;
     the God of Jacob is our refuge." [Psalm 46:4-7]

Lately, the words of this ancient poet have been mingling in my mind with two unlikely collaborators: Billy Joel and a relatively obscure medieval Icelandic hymn-writer named Kolbeinn Tumason.  Yeah--the running playlist in my head is a real grab-bag.

But there's a common thread.  There's a tune of Billy Joel's I have loved for decades, called "And So It Goes."  It's less piano-pounding or storytelling than a lot of Joel's classics, and more like a hymn.  He starts with this simple metaphor:  

"In every heart there is a room, 

 A sanctuary safe and strong,

 To heal the wounds from lovers past,

 Until a new one comes along."

I suppose you can either read that lyric hopefully--as though the next new love in the singer's life will finally be "The One"--or more cynically, as if to say that there is not such thing as "The One," but that we humans just keep living through relationships until they blow up and then wait for someone else to fill that empty space in our lives and do the same thing all over again.  Honestly, I'm not sure which side of that Billy Joel would come down on with that question--maybe it would depend on the day... or the album.

But the image that has been sticking in my head is his image of the heart as a sanctuary, or a stronghold.  It reminds me of a 13th century hymn text called (in the Icelandic) "Heyr Himna Smidur," and which is often translated "Hear, Smith of the Heavens."  It's a prayer to God who is both the "smith of constellations" and yet who cares about the cry of the suffering soul.  And in the second stanza of the hymn (again, in translation), the author calls on God to "drive out every human sorrow from the city of the heart," or "from the heart's keep."  It's again that image of the heart as a fortified place--like an ancient city or a stronghold.

Sometimes I forget that ancient cities were primarily defined, not by their sports franchises or skyscrapers, but for the defense they offered inside fortifications, bulwarks, walls, and ramparts.  People today like to complain about cities for being crowded and congested, or even crime-infested, or for being overflowing with ornery people pushing and shoving their way through traffic, but in the ancient (or even medieval) mind, the city was an image of refuge.  Cities were safe places because when an invading army came, you could safely live inside its defenses and outlast the besieging enemy.  Cities were places you went, not just for the cosmopolitan commerce, but because you could be relatively safe from outside attack once you were inside.  

On top of that, there were a number of cities set aside in the Torah as "cities of refuge" or sanctuary, where people could go if they had accidentally committed a serious crime like manslaughter and start a new life.  There were apparently no other requirements or conditions for finding refuge in one of those cities, other than that you were in need of a place to start over.  It is interesting to me that, for as much as we may associate the Old Testament with a bloody "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth" kind of retaliatory justice, how much the Torah itself actually makes surprisingly merciful provisions for bad situations like this--that you could simply present yourself at one of these "cities of refuge" and they would take you in, no questions asked, so you would not have to fear someone seeking vengeance coming after you.  It is one more image of the city as a place of safety rather than of fear, and of sanctuary rather than anxiety--all of it right from the Bible.

And so it strikes me that the ancient psalmist describes God dwelling among the people in a city, and seeing that as an image of refuge, of safety, and of relief.  God is in the city--with the people--and therefore, they don't have to be afraid, even when there are scary things going on outside the fortifications.  The nations may rage outside, but within the gates of the city, there is sanctuary for those who are afraid.  The angry enemy seeking revenge may be off in the distance, but you can find a home and a new beginning in the city of refuge.

No wonder the ancient people of Israel and Judah thought of the city as an image of comfort and safety.  God was there, welcoming the weary and defending the fearful.

Well all of that brings me back to Billy Joel and the old Icelandic hymn, too.  We don't live in walled fortresses anymore, because we don't live in an era of medieval threats like horse-mounted armies or battering rams anymore.  Those kinds of defenses are not practically useful anymore, but the idea of finding refuge in God, of taking comfort in God's presence, still has staying power.  And I rather think that the psalmist would be OK with us making that move--of saying that God isn't limited to literal cities or physical fortresses, but that as God dwells in our hearts, there is a refuge within us there, too.  God still creates cities of refuge and sanctuary within each heart--yours and mine--and gives us strength from the inside out when it feels like everything around us is swirling around in chaos and anger.

So Billy Joel is on to something when he sings that "in every heart there is a room, a sanctuary safe and strong."  But the most he seems to be able to hope for is that some new lover will "come along" to fill the empty space of that sanctuary.  But maybe that's not enough to hope for--with all due respect to the Piano Man.  Maybe the right prayer is more like the voice of "Heyr Himna Smidur," that calls out to God to cast out sorrow from the "city of the heart," and to be our refuge by being right there in the midst of the darkness with us.

The psalmist seems to point us in that direction, too.  God isn't just the one we rely on "on the rebound" in between lovers, like Billy Joel suggests, but God is the one who hallows the sanctuary space within us and strengthens our hearts like a fortified city, so that we can face whatever else is going on outside.

That's ultimately the promise that keeps me going--that for whatever things are going around outside, that the living God is with us, making even our own hearts into cities of refuge and sanctuary.  God doesn't fill in the empty space in your heart or mine--no, that room needs to be held sacred and sturdy for the times we'll need to find refuge there when it feels like the rest of the world is falling apart or beating down the door.  But there inside that space, the living God speaks the words, "Be still, and know that I am God," and makes us able to endure.

Thanks be to the God who is here among us now, creating a refuge in our ribcages, and setting up a home within the city of the human heart.

Lord God, be our refuge today--for whatever we have been running from.  Lord God, be our stronghold today--for whatever we have been afraid of.