Receiving, Not Being, a Sanctuary

When I was in high school, I had a friend who played the electric guitar. The idea of playing guitar was interesting and cool — neither of those words applied to me. Hoping for some coolness by osmosis, I bought a guitar. Unfortunately, I never got beyond the idea of playing because, as it turns out, owning a guitar doesn’t naturally lead to knowing how to play one.

Ever the optimist (or just hoping to retain “cool points” for at least owning a guitar), I brought the guitar to seminary, and a classmate agreed to teach me some basics. He taught me a few chords, which enabled me to struggle through a popular contemporary Christian song called “Lord, Prepare Me to Be a Sanctuary” written by Randy Scruggs and John Thompson in 1982. The refrain is “Lord, prepare me to be a sanctuary, pure and holy, tried and true. With thanksgiving, I’ll be a living sanctuary for you.” It’s based on Exodus 25:8 (“And they shall make me a sanctuary so that I may dwell among them”) and 1 Corinthians 3:16 (“Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?”).

While I don’t recall ever learning more than the refrain of that song, nor could I play a single chord of it today, in repeatedly singing those words they became embedded within me. I absorbed that version of Christian culture and, coupled with my Enneagram 1 way of viewing myself and the world, it seemed obvious to me that my job was to make myself into a fitting sanctuary for God. It was a lot of capital-L Law: follow the rules, meet expectations, disappoint no one.

As my favorite band, the Barenaked Ladies, puts it in “What a Good Boy”: “When I was born, they looked at me and said ‘What a good boy, what a smart boy, what a strong boy’ … We’ve got these chains hanging around our necks. People want to strangle us with them before we take our first breath.” Growing up being praised for being a “good boy” was addictive. I derived both pleasure and meaning from fitting into these expectations — and I became (and remain) quite skilled at it. I wore that chain around my neck in terms of grades, praises, and accolades quite proudly.

This sense of being a “good boy” became a part of my priestly ministry vocation as well. I cringe to think of the pressure I put on myself and others to be a “good Christian.” The word “enough” simply didn’t exist in my pursuit of making myself into a sanctuary.

I grew up in the Episcopal Church and, at least in the congregations that formed me and in seminary classes, I hadn’t heard much about the Orthodox, Wesleyan, or Lutheran ideas of theosis, holiness, or sanctification. I don’t recall where these doctrines, which are so often misunderstood and misapplied, first crossed my radar, but they became an idolatrous pearl of great price. You mean there’s a religious word for being even better!?! Sanctification? Sign me up for that! I had found a word to lead me toward becoming an even better sanctuary.

On this “sanctification kick,” I had started reading about the pursuit of holiness and had illusions for how I could become more sanctuary-like. In searching for books and articles about sanctification, I stumbled across articles from an organization that I had never heard of: Mockingbird Ministries. It sounded interesting enough, and so I started reading some articles and then found they had a podcast called The Mockingcast. I queued up an episode to listen to on my next run.

And then, as it so often does, the trap of grace was sprung. It’s one of those moments that I’ll never forget. I was out on a run and the conversation on the episode was contrasting the never-ending demands of self-sanctification with the beautiful relief of grace. It was when the word “grace” ceased to be something to be looked up in a theological dictionary or included in the formula for a blessing (grace, mercy, and peace). I experienced grace as the “for you-ness” and the “for me-ness” of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

There I was, in the midst of a sanctification-powered, self-improvement, and sanctuary-building plan when grace found me. No longer was I trying to become a good enough sanctuary for God as I realized I had been given sanctuary simply to be in the living presence of God. It wasn’t about making myself into a sanctuary, it was entering into the sanctuary of Grace prepared for us all by Jesus. Talk about the big relief!

While I have always remembered and cherished the role Mockingbird had in my conversion to Grace-centric Christianity, I hadn’t thought about learning to play (and make myself) “Sanctuary” until I read A Pilgrimage into Letting Go by Andrew and Kara Root. It’s a great book about pastoring and parenting, drawing on reflections from their family pilgrimage along St. Cuthbert’s Way in England.

They offer a lovely reflection on the idea of “sanctuary” based on the Sanctuary Ring of Durham Cathedral — a Hellmouth that is intended to frighten away evil. If you made it to the north door of the Cathedral and grabbed the ring, a monk in a tower above would ring a bell to signal that sanctuary had been granted. The person given sanctuary would have 37 days to decide whether to face trial, go into exile, or hope for a royal pardon.

The Roots compare this idea of finding sanctuary in God to our roles as pastors and parents:

We are called to invite our children and our congregations into the sanctuary of the story of the uncontrollable God who overcomes all that is monstrous by inviting us to grab hold of his own monstrous body, crucified and now resurrected and ascended … Parenting and church leadership are about letting go of the need for control in order to find ourselves in relationship with God and each other, to allow God to make us a sanctuary for one another. (p. 218)

In 2023, while on sabbatical in England, I visited Durham Cathedral. I remember seeing that Sanctuary Ring and feeling a sense of refuge and relief while I prayed in that sacred space.

Just as the Roots reflected on letting go in their own journey, I’m coming to realize that this is what sanctuary is all about: not making myself perfect and ready for God to inhabit my life but rather clinging on to that handle of Grace and finding relief in knowing that I’ve been given a divine pardon from the need to “get my act together.”

This is the message I thank God for that I finally heard through Mockingbird. Grace was always there: in the Book of Common Prayer, scripture, and hymnody. Grace was hiding in plain sight. My own sense of needing to be “good,” though, obscured it, and our culture’s emphasis on perfectionism, winning, and deserving had me confused. There I was, trying to make myself into a sanctuary that was good enough for God, when God was the one creating a sanctuary in the love of Jesus, where I could find relief from the need to be “good.”

There’s a sanctuary ring for us all to cling to — it’s called the gospel. No matter what visions of hell might surround us or be within us, we can grab on to the sanctuary of the gospel for dear life, and receive just that.