Rev. Tom Sorenson, Pastor
August 23, 2009

Scripture:

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight O God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

Well, we did it. We replaced the roofs on the sanctuary and on the fellowship hall building, all in one summer. We still have some money to raise, but the roofs are done; and it is traditional in the Christian church to dedicate new buildings, or parts of buildings, upon their completion. So today we dedicate our new roofs. But you know what they say about me: Tom can make anything complicated! So I, of course, am not content with doing a dedication of the roofs just because it is traditional to do it. I have to ask: What does it mean to do it? I want to explore why we do it at a level deeper than “Tradition!” That may be good enough for Tevye in “Fiddler on the Roof,” but it’s not good enough for me. So bear with me as I dig a bit deeper into the question of what it means to say that we dedicate our new roofs.

The first thing to note is that it makes not the slightest difference to the roofs whether we dedicate them or not. They are inanimate objects. They don’t know that they’ve been dedicated. They certainly don’t know to what or to Whom they have been dedicated. They’ll sit there and do their roof thing whether we dedicate them or not. Dedicating the roofs isn’t actually about the roofs.

So if dedicating the roofs isn’t about the roofs, what is it about? It seems to me that there is only one other answer to that question besides it’s about the roofs. Since it’s not about the roofs, it must be about us. We’re the ones doing the dedicating. We know whether or not the roofs have been dedicated. We know to what and to Whom they have been dedicated. We dedicate the roofs not for the roofs. They don’t know, and they don’t care. We dedicate the roofs for ourselves. We do know, and we do care. So our question about why we dedicate roofs becomes a question about us, about what it means to us that we dedicate the roofs.

I think we can find an answer to that question in our reading this morning from Joshua. Joshua, of course, is the man who actually led the Hebrew people into the promised land after their escape from Egypt and after Moses’ death. In our passage this morning, Joshua recognizes that the people have a choice of which gods they will worship. He asks the people to choose which gods they will serve, and he names the possible choices: the gods of Egypt, or of “the region beyond the River,” that is, Mesopotamia, or the local gods of the people in whose land they are living, that is the gods of people who were in Canaan before the Hebrews arrived, here called the Amorites. And there’s one other choice, the LORD, that is, the god Yahweh, Who in the Old Testament is the only true God of the Hebrews. The people indeed have a choice of gods.

So do we. Our list of possible gods is different from the list Joshua gave the Hebrew people so long ago. We aren’t going to start worshipping the gods of ancient Egypt, or ancient Mesopotamia, or ancient Canaan. At least, I assume we aren’t. But there certainly are other gods that we can, and that to some extent we do, worship. We don’t usually call them gods, but they certainly function as gods. They are the gods of nation, of material success, of security through strength and security through money. They are the gods of prestige and reputation. They are the gods of culture and the god of “the American way.” They are the gods of friends and even of family. All of these things, and no doubt more besides, function as gods for us because we make them our ultimate concern, We make them that about which we care more than we care about anything else. And we, like the ancient Israelites, have one other possible god, the true God, the truly ultimate, the truly infinite, the truly spiritual, the true Creator, Savior, and Sustainer of all that is. We have at least as much choice of gods as Joshua’s ancient Hebrews did. Maybe more.

After Joshua challenges the people to choose which gods they will serve he tells them which god he will serve. He says: “But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.” He says that he and those who depend on him will serve only the one true God of Israel, Yahweh, called in most English translations the LORD. The Bible wants us to understand that that is the correct answer. Scripture wants us to understand that the other possible answers are false answers. Joshua gives the right answer, and as he does he rededicates himself to the service of the one true God.

Today, as we dedicate our new roofs, we have a kind of Joshua moment, a moment like the one Joshua created for his people. We dedicate our roofs, and as we do we have ask to what and to Whom do we dedicate them? The answer, I hope, is fairly obvious. We dedicate them to God and to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We dedicate them to the ministry of Jesus Christ in this place. And because dedicating the roofs to God and to Christ isn’t about the roofs but is about us, as we dedicate the roofs we rededicate ourselves to God and to the ministry of Jesus Christ in this place. We rededicate ourselves to Christ’s Gospel of grace, love, justice, and peace.

A roof is part of a building. A roof makes the building of which it is a part stronger and more secure. Our new roofs make our church buildings stronger and more secure. They strengthen and secure these buildings as places of worship, learning, fellowship, and service. They will, we pray, do that for a long time. Putting a fifty year roof on a one hundred year old building, as we have just done, is an expression of faith. It is an expression of hope. It is an expression of our faith and our hope in the future of this church, this town, this nation, and God’s world. It is an act of commitment. It is itself an act of dedication.

And so today we dedicate our roofs, but more importantly we rededicate ourselves. We rededicate ourselves to the ministry of Jesus Christ in this place, in this town, in God’s world. May these old buildings, with their new roofs, inspire us anew each time we enter them. May they inspire us to greater faithfulness to our Lord Jesus Christ and to his ministry. May they remind us of our hope, of our faith, and of our faithfulness to God and Jesus Christ. May they remind us that the one true God is our God and the gods of this world are not. If they will do that, they will be worth every penny we put into them and then some. If they will do that they will be priceless treasures for our souls and for this place. May it be so. Amen.