The Power of Sanctuary

When our post-Christmas trip out west to see some friends got canceled last week, we spent the night in Atlanta anyway and tooled around some of our familiar places the next day. We ate breakfast at the Flying Biscuit where Tracy and I had our first date back in June 1997. We walked around Lullwater Park on the Emory University campus, where I would get some fresh air on the walking trail around the lake when I was in the thick of seminary studies. And even though we probably weren’t dressed up enough, we strolled through phancy Phipps Plaza where all the phancy shops are, like Gucci and Prada and Tiffany’s – oh, and let’s not forget Legoland!

While Tracy was browsing one of the stores, the boys and I hung out by the elevator. In front of the elevator was parked a sleek black Lincoln Navigator SUV. Around the Navigator were some large signs. One of the signs read, “LINCOLN: The Power of Sanctuary.” 

Well, being a preacher, that word “sanctuary” caught my eye. So I walked over to check it out.

There was an adjacent sign that had a quote on it from a fellow named David Woodhouse, identified as a design director for Lincoln, which read, “A sanctuary takes you away, however temporarily, from the realities of life. It puts you in another reality.”

Hmmm, now that’s really something!

I realize it was an advertisement for an automobile – a rather cavernous one at that. And I’m sure many of us find a sense of sanctuary in the safety and comfort of our own automobiles. I know I often do. But here I am standing there in the midst of the cathedral to capitalism that is Phipps Plaza, and I can’t help but think of the power of another sort of sanctuary to take us away, however temporarily, from the realities of this life, and to put in us the atmosphere of another reality, a truer and higher and deeper reality, the realiest real reality of all, the reality of the kingdom of God.

And I began to wonder: Do we experience this power of sanctuary when we are gathered together for worship, whether in the sanctuary or in the Gathering? Does our worship transport us to glimpse the glories of the heavenly realm, like it did John the seer in the Revelation?

While I was still pondering that question, we returned home to Athens, to the parsonage, this place of sanctuary for our family. But we were all still feeling a bit restless, so we made plans for a quick trip over to Nashville to spend a few days there. Tracy found a place for us to stay in East Nashville, which was, ironically enough, an old church that had been converted into a hotel. Our room was in the upper part of what used to be the sanctuary.

“The Russell,” as it is now called, was originally built in 1904 as a Cumberland Presbyterian Church. Nine years later, in 1913, the Church of Christ bought it. Eventually it became the Russell Street Church of Christ. 

During the 1918-19 pandemic, the building was used as a makeshift hospital. In the 1920s, it housed a daycare, sick ward, and medical and dental clinic for the community. Shifting demographics led the congregation to gradually dwindle until a tornado swept through Nashville in April 1998, and the damage to the church was so significant that the insurance settlement couldn’t cover the cost of repairs. In 2001, a developer purchased the property, and in June 2019, “The Russell” opened as a hotel.

Even though it’s now a hotel, elements of the sanctuary have been incorporated into the design. The beautiful stained-glass windows frame the open lobby. The brick walls and wooden rafters are still visible above and behind the new walls. The old pews have been repurposed as headboards for the beds. Even the room numbers look like Bible verses (our room was 2:3).

The hotel is still very much a sanctuary of sorts. While we were there, I found myself pleasantly transported from the realities of this life to an alternative reality. There was an old-fashioned phone both. There was an old-fashioned luggage lift. There was a phancy photo booth where Tracy and the boys had our pictures made. There was a tiled portrait of Dolly Parton on the wall at the foot of the stairs down from our room. I wanted to say (and maybe I did a time or two) “Well, hello Dolly!” every time I came downstairs.

There were coffee tables in the lobby with books just lying there upon them. There was a huge book about all the Beatles’ songs. I flipped through it and read about some of my favorite ones. There was a book of Japanese short stories. I read a few of them. One was about a warrior who was trying to preserve his honor. Another was about a child who was harshly disciplined over a misunderstanding about a peach. There was a copy of John Steinbeck’s Cannery Row. I read the first few chapters about Lee the Chinese shopkeeper and some of the down-on-their-luck people who frequented his store.

There wasn’t ever anybody at the front desk. There wasn’t even a front desk. And there were a couple of times when I really didn’t want to leave the hotel and go anywhere else. I just wanted to stay right there and enjoy its quirky hospitality, its refreshing sense of sanctuary.

But the hotel didn’t just provide sanctuary, a place of rest, for us. It also helps provide sanctuary, a safe place of rest and refuge for its neighbors in need in its community. The owners believe they are building on the building’s legacy of providing refuge, safety and belonging – sanctuary – to people in need for more than a century. And so a significant portion of each night’s stay goes to local nonprofits who serve individuals experiencing homelessness in Nashville. An average weekend stay is estimated to provide 16 nights, 100 clean showers or 30 prepared meals through charities like Room in the Inn, Nashville Rescue Mission and ShowerUp. They call it “Rooms for Rooms.”

The top step into the front door is painted with the message, “Welcome Friends,” the large welcome reads “Stay Divine,” and the back wall behind the hotel has “You Belong” painted across a flowery background. You know, maybe it’s no longer a church, but maybe it’s still a church after all.

Our first morning there we walked to a café around the corner for breakfast. The place we went to had a sign out front that read, “We welcome all races, all religions, all countries of origin, all sexual orientations, all genders. We stand with you. You are safe here.”

I didn’t realize it at the time, but we had just transferred one sanctuary for another.

I began to wonder, are there sanctuaries all around us, if we have but eyes to see them?

I know a lot of people every new year choose a new word that is their word of the year, a word that they’re going to work on, focus on, attend to throughout the coming year. A word like “peace” or “balance” or “intentional.” I’ve done that before myself, with varying degrees of success. I wasn’t planning on doing that this year. But maybe all of this has been God’s way of nudging me, suggesting a word for me to work on, focus on, attend to. 

Sanctuary.

I want to be a sanctuary, a safe place, a safe person for others, no matter who they are, where they came from, what they’ve been through, who they voted for or who they love. I want our church to be a sanctuary, a safe place, a signpost of and a waystation to an alternative reality. I want to discover, to rediscover, the power of sanctuary to transport us all together to another reality, the alternative reality of the kingdom of God breaking in, however subtly, within and among us.