It is so lovely to have this fabulous worship theme, “at the portal” and I thank our many artists for creating doors, windows, edges, thresholds, faces, so many ways inside and outside, and the liminal space between. The word itself is ancient, used from the 14th century and derived from the medieval Latin word portale which meant gate or porch, an entryway. It occurs to me that physically, a portal is the opposite of Trump’s wall. Portals are demarcations, but not about separation; they invite movement, quest, connection, journey.

In the realm of spirituality, a portal between realities, dimensions, time and eternity can be anywhere, and often is mysterious, given its meaning by human experiences there. Stonehenge in England, Bru na Boinne in Ireland, Iona in Scotland, Cassadaga here in Florida, are examples of such thin places where the worlds connect. For some people, many of us here, forests and the sea and art galleries and gardens are liminal spaces, too. And cathedrals and this church building, this room, a portal, because mysteries have been experienced here, healing, prayers, grieving, celebrations of new life. Scripture, music, poetry, children’s time, new member Sunday, and communion all can serve as connections between the parts of the life seen and the life unseen, and beyond.

In our first Scripture for today, Jacob dreams of a ladder that connects the realm of God to the realm of Earth. Led Zeppelin famously called it, the “stairway to heaven.” Running away from those he’d cheated and lied to, his family, Jacob falls into a hard sleep right where he’d stopped, lying on a rock, in the middle of his pretty messed up life, homeless, wandering. And then, in the middle of the trouble, which is the last place you might expect to find the mystery, he falls asleep and then wakes up to exclaim, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God and this is the portal of heaven.”
The portal of heaven then connects to life in the world, for it is not enough for Jacob to have a God-moment. There is still the hurt and distance between himself and his brother. Finally, he can run no more and, in his pain, and fear, knowing what he has done, Jacob meets his brother Esau on the road, after long years of estrangement Jacob himself has caused. The two had not recovered at all from what had happened between them. I imagine Tagore writing this poem that’s in your bulletin and putting it in Jacob’s heart. I imagine Jacob saying to his brother, “If I am not to meet you again in this life, then I want to feel that I have missed the meeting. Don’t let me forget. Let me feel the slivers of pain in my dreams and while awake. I want to feel the long trip is still ahead of me. And when I hear people laughing, I want to feel that I have not invited you to my house.” And he did, I feel like, he never forgot the slivers of pain for what he’d done. On this journey, we can feel deeply all the brokenness of this world—the ways we judge and separate ourselves from those different from us, the fear, the anger, the loneliness of the long separation.

You may not have noticed that there are so many portals in the Bible. Maybe not in your life either. But there are, in both places, lots of them. Moses sees a bush burning out by a roadway. A bush burning but not consumed. Jesus feeds people even when others think there are not enough resources to take care of everybody. Esther becomes queen of the Hebrews because she realizes she was born for such a time and steps through a portal of hope and onto the throne. Isaiah sees visions of angels high above him in the temple and when they say, “God needs somebody. Who will go for us?” Isaiah blurts out the scariest sentence you can ever utter at the mouth of a portal, “Here am I, send me.” Or, in old Star Trek terms uttered in the transporter room, “energize!”

New members, I want to let you know that UCG is a portal. It is an awesome place! It is none other than the house of God, a portal of heaven. Now, I don’t say that to scare you, and I don’t mean this in a weird culty way, I mean, it’s a portal, not a trap door, so you can go back and forth with safety and exploration, and here you are not exactly climbing on Jacob’s ladder; no, here at UCG, it is more like dancing in wobbly concentric circles. We’re not really laddery people. I didn’t know that at first, and so on one of my first Sundays as the new minister here, I’d asked Dr. Sanford Berg, illustrious Professor of Economics to lead the children’s sermon that day. And I’d put his name right like that in the bulletin: Dr. Sanford Berg, and as such, I introduced him to the children. I was impressed with the content of what he shared and also that he could deftly scramble up from the floor after kindly leading our children with loving humility. And after the service, he took me aside, and equally kindly to me, “We don’t really use titles at UCG. So, you won’t need to call me that, or to put Dr. Sanford Berg, in the bulletin. We are all one here, equal.” It was one of a million portal moments for me here, little gates between our souls and the values we teach and try to live. Connections, heaven to earth and all of us to each other.

In some churches when you join up, you get asked what you believe and there are criteria, the right answers. But here, you are asked portal questions—what are you seeking as you journey from where you’ve been and into this community? What do you bring with you as gift as you energize, materialize, and sojourn among us? But make no mistake, what you or I believe about God and one another at any given moment certainly is important; believing God is bigger than Christianity, believing that black lives matter, believing that Earth is our true home and best gift, that global climate change is a threat to all life, believing that no matter how you identify or who you love, you are loved and celebrated and welcomed—all of that belief is essential. And equally essential are the deep questions that lead us to seek and to change and form our beliefs into the life we live. Because we know that as the book of James puts it, “Faith without works is dead.” That, as Andy always says, when our worship ends, we step through the portal and into the world where the service begins. Or in my words, “UCG is not a Lazy-boy recliner, it’s a portal,” which doesn’t flow off the tongue quite as well, but you know what I mean.
New members, old members, here at the portal of heaven that is UCG, we are given the strength to reconnect with ourselves and others so that we do not have to miss the meeting. We can meet Christ in one another. We can be as grace. We can namaste each other in hope. The buddha nature can be discovered and rediscovered. We can touch and heal Earth, we can be reunited with ourselves and with one another, we can say like Jacob said in verse 10 when his brother meets him on the road, with forgiveness, “Accept this gift from me. For to see your face is like seeing the face of God.” Portal moment. That is why you are here—not because we all agree or because we do it right every time, but because we are on a journey, courageous, adventurous, moving through, anxious to know what is possible, when we walk with each other in welcome and peace, when we work side by side for justice, when we weep with one another and rejoice with one another and receive one another with grace and forgiveness. Those are some of the ways we find God, some of the ways we get to show up and represent—to be God in this world—like an icon, a window, a stairway to heaven, a circle dance of love.

On his last night at the table, Jesus broke apart the bread and poured out the wine. He’d done it a lot of times before. But this time, he spoke what is always the “open sesame” for nearly every metaphysical portal there is, and that word is “remember!” Every time you eat this bread and drink of this cup—remember me! Remember what you are doing here at UCG! Remember the mission is welcome and justice and care and health for body and soul and making meaning of our one wild and precious life—go through the portal, be born in this world, rejoice, and love your neighbor as yourself. Amen.

Genesis 28 & 33
June 16, 2019
Shelly Wilson