FARRAGUT CHAPEL
USS MOBILE BAY (CG 53)
09 JAN 2022
DIVINE SERVICE SERMON
CHAPLAIN (LT) JEREMY E. CARR
“WHAT IS A CHAPEL?”
What are some things you probably shouldn’t do in a church? Run… Fight… Some might say drink and dance. We all can probably agree it’s not a good idea to swear in church. Why is this? Well, because churches are sacred places right? There are certain actions and behaviors that we believe violate the sanctity of a church. For many, those boundaries fall right off as soon as their car leaves the parking lot and it is not surprising at all to find them swearing on the job, drinking with friends, even getting into the occasional fight. If we believe these behaviors are truly ungodly, why we do feel any more comfortable condoning them outside of church than we do inside?
I believe the answer to this lies in the human tendency to divide the world into two spheres of existence: the holy – like a church building, and the profane – a fancy church word that simply means “not holy.” This is where we get the word “profanity” from, and like profanity, we typically think of things that are profane in a negative light; as being sinful and “of the world.” As humans, we have an amazing tendency to bend our morality to fit our context. We hold ourselves to one code of conduct when we are in the profane parts of life and another when we are in the sacred parts of life. Right or wrong, we are pretty comfortable with this arrangement.
However, the witness of scripture is that God is constantly tearing down the boundaries between the holy and the profane. To be fair, he is also the one who implemented them. After Adam and Eve sinned by eating the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden God cast them out into the world and established a division between his holiness and their sinfulness. He had to do this because his pure holiness cannot abide the presence of sin. However, ever since that moment God has been making continuous movements to bridge that divide and bring us back to him. We see this throughout scripture.
He begins by choosing a man named Abraham to father a people that will be his people – the Israelites. God makes a covenant with Abraham and promises to bless him and make his offspring as numerous as the stars in the sky. This is the beginning of the Jewish religion. The Israelites become slaves in Egypt for a season but God rescues them through a man named Moses and leads them to a promised land. On the journey through the wilderness to this promised land we see God dwell with human beings for the first time. In the book of Exodus, through the prophet Moses, God instructs the Israelites to build him a dwelling place called a Tabernacle. The Tabernacle is basically a large, beautifully ornate tent that holds the Ark of the Covenant, a large, beautifully ornate box where God’s spirit would rest. Whenever God’s spirit, which manifested itself to them as a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, would move on from the Tabernacle, the Israelites would pack everything up and follow the presence of God to wherever the cloud or pillar settled next. Eventually God lead them to the land of Canaan where they settled. This is modern day Israel. The Tabernacle was eventually traded for a temple of stone and mortar and the Ark of the Covenant was placed in a special chamber deep at the center of the temple called the Holy of Holies. It was separated from the rest of the temple by a giant curtain so no one would trespass the sanctity of God’s presence.
But God always preferred living in a tent. In fact, in the book of 2 Samuel 7:1-7, when King Solomon declares he will build a temple for God, God basically says, “Why? I never asked for that? But whatever, ok…” God preferred to be nomadic, traveling wherever he wished, he wasn’t interested in being tied down to a temple. But he accommodated the wishes of his people.
Throughout the rest of the Hebrew Bible God’s faithfulness to his people the Israelites is continuously tested, but God never gives up completely on humanity. In the New Testament, we see the final culmination of God’s faithfulness to humanity and his desire to tear down the divide between his holiness and the profane existence of humanity in Jesus’s death on the cross for our sins – the essence of our profane existence. The Gospel of Matthew records at the moment of Jesus’ death, that giant curtain that separated the Holy of Holies in the temple from the rest of the world was torn in two by a giant earthquake. Jesus’ death and atonement for our sin is God’s final act that tears down the divide between the Holy and the Profane. In Jesus God has moved out from the sanctity of the Holy of Holies and dwells in the world in those who call upon him for salvation. As the Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, we are the temple of the Holy Spirit now.
What do these things tell us about the character of God? First, I believe the phenomenon of the Tabernacle shows us that God is ultimately a God not of temples and buildings, able to be pinned down, controlled, and easily located; he is a God of the wilderness, wild and free. He moves where he wills as he wills, when he wills, and he will not be contained by human means. Second, I believe these things show us that God is not content to sit on his thrown in heaven and judge us like the God’s of the Greek pantheon. He is a God that dwells in our midst and moves to bridge the distance between us tearing down barriers between the holy and the profane. He is a God who desires to save us and bring us back to him and he makes provision for this by taking on human flesh, suffering as one of us, dying for our sins, and rising again in victory over death. He is a God who doesn’t respect the natural divide between the holy and the profane and invades our world to bring us back to him.
Now, allow me to ask you another question. What is the difference between a church and a chapel? We’re all familiar with churches no doubt. These are established buildings devoted entirely to religious worship. We often experience a chapel, on the other hand, as a smaller chamber devoted to prayer and worship usually inside of a larger building or organization that is not necessarily religious in nature. Chapels can be found on college campuses, hospitals, airports, navy ships, and military bases amongst other places. I wonder if you have heard the story of where the term Chapel comes from.
It starts with a man named St. Martin of Tours who lived in the 4th c. A.D. Before he was a saint he was a roman cavalry officer. One day when he came upon a beggar with no clothes in the depths of winter he cut his cape in two and gave half to the man. It was later revealed to him in a vision that the man he gave his cloak to was none other than Jesus himself. He then devoted his life to serving Jesus and went on to become a bishop and eventually a saint. His cloak was venerated as a religious relic for centuries to come. Kings would carry it into battle trying to receive God’s blessing for victory. Wherever it went, a small sanctuary would be erected for it called a Capella, or “little cape,” where we get the word chapel. The priest who was in charge of the cape and who would minister to the soldiers with whom it went was called the Cappelani, where we get the word Chaplain. Since then, ministers who serve with the military have been called chaplains. Today this has been expanded to include hospitals, hospices, colleges, jails, and law enforcement departments amongst other institutions with an interest in pastoral support and counseling for their people.
So, a chapel, though it may not have the grandeur and splendor of a church and invoke as much reverence, in my opinion, is much closer to God’s preferred dwelling place – the tabernacle. It is a sanctuary in the midst of the world that breaks the boundaries between the sacred and the profane. It goes where humanity is as a way of God being with us. It is a symbol of God’s love that dwells where humanity is, not a symbol of judgment that dwells apart from, over, and against humanity. A chapel is a symbol of God’s love that ventures out into the world to make the profane holy again and bring the wayward home. A chaplain, by extension then, is a minister who embodies what is communicated through the symbol of the chapel – the unrelenting love of God that goes where humanity is and rests upon what otherwise might be considered profane and redeems it for God’s holy use.
What is the Implication of all this for us? As you’ve seen, I’ve taken to calling the space Farragut Chapel. It’s been my way of fulfilling my charter as a chaplain and staking a claim for God’s presence and holiness here on MOBILE BAY. There is no doubt a temptation to see a chapel as a “poor man’s church,” or as a facsimile that will suffice in the absence of a church. But I hope now you see just the opposite. What we have in Farragut Chapel is not a bastardized version of church but something that is in my opinion a much purer expression of what it means to worship God. We worship God in the midst of our lives. Our faith and worship is not something separate from our life but an integral part of it, just as Farragut Chapel is an integral part of MOBILE BAY.
The existence of Farragut chapel testifies that God is on our ship and destroys our notions of the separation between the holy and the profane. We cannot take shelter from the holiness of God and its demands by simply not darkening the doorstep of a church. God’s holiness invades every aspect of our lives, but so too does his love and compassion. In order to find mercy, we don’t have to find a church building. That’s a good start, but according to scripture our bodies are now the temple of God and the locus of our communion with him. Our hearts are the altar where we offer our repentance and call upon the mercy of God and our souls are the vessels that God fills with his love, his joy, and his peace. This is available to each and every one of us right now. It is my desire that Farragut Chapel might be the catalyst for the redemptive work that has been God’s mission from the Garden of Eden to this moment in the midst of our 2022 Deployment.
In my devotions earlier this week God laid two prayers on my heart, one devoting this space, Farragut Chapel, to God and setting it apart for communion with him and the other devoting my body to God, setting it as well apart for communion with him. I’d like to offer those prayers now as we close and I invite you to pray these prayers for yourself as well.
Please pray with me,
Lord, set apart this chapel that it might be a sanctuary in the Seas of life that carry us and the locus of communion with you for those souls who hunger and thirst after you. In this place may the blind see, may the deaf hear, may the lame walk, and may the hungry and thirsty be satisfied. May it be a light upon the water, guiding the wayward home.
Lord, set apart this body as well, that it might be a sanctuary for my soul in the seas of life that carry me and the locus of communion with you. Keep me from all sin and evil and in purity of heart that I might see you. Cleanse my body and mind of all filth and stains and make them new. Dwell in me and fill me with you spirit now and forever.
Amen.
Chaplain Jeremy 