My father, a Mennonite Minister, had a collection of jokes and pithy sayings that he used frequently on any new audience he could find. Among my favorites were the three “B”s of good preaching: Be succinct, be brief and be seated. When Susan and I attended a congregation where he was minister it was my privilege to remind him if these rules on many occasions and it was his privilege to break them just as frequently.

As you know Susan and I grew up as a Mennonites and we continue to think of ourselves as Mennonites in many ways. But through the years we have been exposed to many other versions of Christian faith and in the many years of attendance at different Mennonite Churches we have been exposed to a great variety of practices. The practices that we have found to be most conducive to our worship is a structured, liturgical service, open communion, the celebration of diverse views regarding theology, the acceptance that differences in our expression of our devotion to God is not to be feared and that we are all equal Children of God, regardless of our race, nation of origin, gender, sexual orientation or our place on the social or Ecclesiastical hierarchy. Our discovery of St. Paul’s, less than five minutes from our house, has been a blessing in more ways than we can count.

However St. Paul’s has exposed us to a few traditions and practices that have been foreign to us and are certainly quite different from the practices of our youth. It has been a surprise to me that I find it so easy to meet God here, among the descendents of those in the high church tradition my ancestors sacrificed so much to reject.

In musing over this, I remembered a simple observation made by a patient of mine more than ten years ago. We were talking about her social support network – her personal community, the people with whom she surrounded herself in the course of her life’s activity. In asking about many different social settings, I asked her whether she was involved in a Church community. She said that she went to Church sometimes, not any one in particular, – and here is the thing she said that has stuck with me for many years and is one of the most profound things I think I’ve ever heard – she said: “I heard God visits lots of Churches on Sunday Morning.”

The lectionary readings this morning speak to God’s loyalty to us and to God’s gifts to us. They reinforce that we have a special relationship to God in the context of God’s long presence among the twelve tribes of Israel and particularly through the teachings and witness of Jesus. In the history of the use of these scriptures and others like them, there have been many times when they have functioned to separate groups of people from each other. How many groups have said: Only we have been the wandering Aremean’s. Only we have been blessed by God. Only we have truly rejected the temptations of the devil. Only we have the true faith, the true doctrine, the real relationship, the right practice! God only visits us on Sunday morning.

It was in part this kind of hubris, this pride, that sent my parents from the farm lands of the Mennonite world into the bustle of New York City in the early fifties where they came to bring the Mennonite version of the Gospel to the lost worldly people of the big city. However, they, like many other Mennonites who moved from farms to cities during this pivotal time of cultural change made a discovery that shocked them. People in other denominations also loved and followed Jesus. They learned that God visits lot’s of churches on Sunday morning.

In my case, this lesson was learned very early, in part through my parents participation in a group called Faith at Work. This group was an interdenominational effort the history and origins of which I know very little. What I do remember is when my father hosted the group and the quiet murmurings of the gathering of half a dozen to a dozen people in our living room in the South Bronx as I went to sleep at night. And I remember the pleasure with which my father discussed the people he met in this group. “There was a Catholic nun.” “There was Pastor from a Black Baptist Church.” “There was a Bishop from Africa.”

During this time I remember being at the baptismal service of a young woman who had gone to our Mennonite Summer Bible school, but who ultimately chose to be baptized in a Pentecostal congregation. What a strange sight to see, having her dunked backwards three times in a pool of water set high in the wall of the sanctuary behind what I hope was a very strong piece of glass. I also remember many meals with the African American pastors family, meals with the families of pastors in other denominations, visits to giant cathedrals on vacations and many other events that marked my parents evolution into truly ecumenical Christians.

And, as can’t be helped in New York, I observed the practices of many other faiths, including that of the Jews. Indeed, one of them had a big red beard that, as a seven year old, I thought was even cooler than the congas played by our Puerto Rican neighbors in our very mixed neighborhood.

My father and his fellow Mennonite Pastors had long discussions regarding the tenets of their faith. I overheard much of this. They had doubts about the Mennonite traditions, but there was also a loyalty to the denomination and to the unique practices of the Mennonite Church. They were born on the Mennonite farm, the Mennonite world was always their true home. Yet they discovered, by going into the wider world, that God visits many Churches on Sunday morning and for some people God visits during Saturday services as well.

The Apostle Paul and other early church founders faced this circumstance quite dramatically in the first and second century after Jesus physical departure. Elaine Pagels points out in several of her books that the variety of Christian practices during this time was greater than the variety of Christian practices today. There were more differences between the way people followed Jesus in the first centuries after his death than there are now. While it is true that the various counsels sponsored by the Emperor Constantine forced Christians to unify their practices, the differences in the way people followed Jesus continued, sometimes secretly, many times under conditions of persecution. Nevertheless, the sparkling witness of individual devotion to God by saints throughout history, some remembered, many forgotten, demonstrates again that God visits lots of Churches on Sunday Morning.

How is this? How can God be so indiscriminate? Among the tenets of Mennonite Faith is the belief that the church is not the building, but rather the gathering of the people of God. Things Marissa has said in her homilies have reinforced my understanding that this Anabaptist tenet, this radical thought of the 1400’s, like many other radical discoveries of the faith during that time, has become the standard belief in most Christian denominations. God does not live in this building. These walls do not keep the world out and God in. The windows that Brewster wants to sell, the organ so many of you want to renovate or replace, the benches, the high ceilings, the special implements for the Lord’s Supper, even the marvelous music that David organizes and performs – these things do not define or contain God. God is not here because of these things.

We often refer to a church as a “house of God.” But when we are not here, I believe the Church is just another building. God does not live here. God is everywhere. Marisa got in a bit of trouble a few weeks back when she allowed her un-premeditated thoughts to take her all the way to the point of saying that God can be found on a golf course. Of course, God can be found there, as God can be found anywhere.

But we don’t typically go to golf courses to meet God. Rather, we come here to meet God because it is in this setting – through the reading of scripture, the structure of our declaration of faith, the discipline of guided prayer and in the remembrance of Jesus through the sharing of the elements of bread and wine -- it is in this way that we as individuals find it most easy for us to be in touch with God.

God is here because we bring God with us. One of the sayings I’ve heard in more frequently in Episcopal settings than I have in others is “Go with God.” And, of course, we do. We come with God and we go with God. The Quaker tradition probably articulates this best: there is that of God in all people. Quaker’s prefer to meet God in silence and in spontaneous testimonies in their gatherings as they say “In the manner of Friends.” Here we prefer to meet God in the manner of Episcopalians. It is a manner that has touched me deeply in the last year as I’ve worshipped with you and one that has made it particularly easy for me to meet God.

But it doesn’t matter how we prefer to meet God, because God is with us to be met. Regardless of what words or images you use to describe God, God is with us always. God surrounds us. God nurtures us. God heals our wounds. God strengthens us in our work. God opens our hearts to the poor, the oppressed, and those imprisoned. God challenges injustice and motivates acts of kindness and generosity. God does this all the time. God visits lot’s of people on Sunday, on Saturday, and on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. God is an invited guest in our hearts, speaking to us as we have ears to hear, through traditions and practices that are most comfortable to us. God is here now, God will go with you when you leave and God will be there for you whenever you reach out to that of God in others and open yourself to that of God within yourself.

God does not need the structure of any particular tradition to be present with us and to love us. We need these structures for us to understand that God loves us. We need our rituals and our traditions so that we can become aware of God’s presence and of God’s love. We need this awareness so we can, in response, live lives of justice, honesty, charity and peace. It is in this way that these rituals and traditions are blessed and why we come together in this place at this time – we come to meet God -- who has come to visit with us at our invitation.

As my father became aware of the limitations of his traditions and the articulation of his theology, he started using a phrase that he used for the rest of his life. Formed by the Pennsylvania Dutch influenced English he learned in eight years in a one room school house, unchanged by his GED and his college and graduate study, this phrase doesn’t ring with high liturgical elegance, but he used it often in his sermons and I think it speaks truth: God meets us where we’re at.

My friends, God meets you wherever you are. So in this season of Lent, when we contemplate the sacrifice that Jesus made in order to show us the way to God, be with God. Be with God here this morning and be with God throughout all of the moments of your lives, always remembering that, while God visits lots of Churches on a Sunday morning, God’s preferred residence is in our hearts. Amen.