I don't know how many of you have ever had the opportunity to "tour" a famous
cathedral. Occasionally the docent who leads you through the history of such a building's construction will be
so deeply entrenched in the economics and artistic accomplishments of the site, that it's easy to forget that one
is touring a place of "worship." If that is kept in mind, one may be tempted to ask the question "Worship
of what?" All too often these "shrines" have become little more than museums that are now dependent
on the tourist industry to sustain what remains of a once viable congregation. The splendor remains…but the Church
may very well be gone, and that can happen to a small church just as easily as a cathedral.
When you read the description in I Kings including the endless detailing of Solomon's Temple you may feel that
same sense of conspicuous consumption that one can often find in a great Cathedral. "Solomon overlaid the
inside of the house with pure gold, then he drew chains of gold across, in front of the inner sanctuary, and overlaid
it with gold. Next he overlaid the whole house with gold, in order that the whole house might be perfect; even
the whole altar that belonged to the inner sanctuary, he overlaid with gold" (6:21-22).
"All these were made of costly stones, cut according to measure, sawed with saws, back and front, from the
foundation to the coping, and from outside the great court. The foundation was of costly stones, huge stones, stones
of eight and ten cubits. There were costly stones above, cut to measure, and cedarwood."
The great court had three courses of dressed stone to one layer of cedar beams all around. The air was filled with
the smell of cedar and incense so that the inner court of the house of the Lord was visually and aromatically pungent
and overpowering to the senses, transporting the worshipper into another spiritual realm. And thus "the House
of God" was brought to completion…Or was it?
What makes a building into a house of God? It isn't the architecture, or the stained-glass windows, it's the spirit
of God that dwells there. It can be a magnificent cathedral, or a storefront church in the inner city, but if one
can sense the Holy Spirit there, then it is the house of God.
Today's readings began with a description of an individual who bears the fullness of God's presence in their own
being. One who has "adorned" themselves with the proper characteristics for service to the Kingdom to
which they have been called. It may sound very militaristic, and in that sense somewhat offensive to the more peaceful
minded disciples among us, but it was meant to confront the hearer with an awareness of the very real enemies which
stand ready to attack any spiritual pilgrim in any age.
It's also meant to raise the questions: Is your own house the house of God? Do you go to church each week, and
think "thank goodness that's over; now I don't have to deal with God for another week"? Would God feel
equally welcome in your own personal home? Do you act there the same way you act in church?
And what of your body? Is it also the house of God? Do you reverence God with your body, as well? Would God feel
as welcome with our personal habits as we assume God must feel with our piety when we kneel before the altar?
And when it comes to personal behavior, what of those who are not "like us"? The scripture talks about
the importance of the foreigner coming to pray. We don't often expect to find vast numbers of foreigners worshipping
with us here, though there are endless numbers of people of foreign origin living in our communities. When we pray
that God will hear the prayers of "the foreigner" in need…does that mean just the person in Liberia,
Israel, Iraq or Afghanistan? Or does it also include the person who is so different from who we may consider ourselves
to be…so much more or less, seated only a pew away.
Do we warmly welcome the newcomers,…the not so new comers (they've only been here for the last five weeks, or five
years) among us? Do we go out of our way to make people feel good about coming here?
Given the immense, unfettered power of the global economy in our day, and our increased knowledge of the inequities
of the quality of life around the globe, this wearisome report of the splendor of the temple in Jerusalem should
be seen as a warning of how religion itself can, and often does, become little more than a commodity.
The practices of religious communal life are "priced out" according to an alien standard: money value,
not theological value. What it "costs" us is seen in terms of dollars and cents…not spiritual discipline
and personal sacrifice. Once that standard is entrenched, the tendency to "weigh" everything religious
casts a shadow over courageous expressions of faith within the community.
For all practical purposes, extreme and innocent acts of obedience, compassion, and generosity…unappreciated and
consequently unacknowledged are eliminated completely.
Yet those are the very acts that the Torah encourages. In building a common history and fabric for the Israelite
community, the Ten Commandments, not constructed as a carved monument for public viewing but as a set of difficult
and meaning-filled challenges meant to be written on the heart, set the tone for interaction with Yahweh and right
relationships within the community.
Seven of those commandments specify measures that preserve and protect neighbor-to-neighbor relationships. As the
distance widens between the simple neighborly commands of the Mosaic tablets and the gilded temple built to contain
them, the test of true religion becomes not "to walk in all God's ways" (I Kings 8:57) but to weigh the
cost against the gain.
In scripture it is very clear that disobedience or indifference will result in loss of relationship with the Creator,
and in a historical sense loss of the land which God has entrusted to foreign domination. Those same losses threaten
us today, and they spring from the same root: commoditization of religious life.
In our greed we have commoditized the poor, with whom we are in relationship. Because they have no market value,
because they produce nothing, they are assigned no value and get nothing. What's more, they are the first to feel
the impact of our eagerness to "cost out" education and healthcare. Though this might be prudent in the
short run, in the long run it precludes the generosity of neighborliness upon which human decency depends.
When we begin to treat people like things it stands to reason that we will treat things with the kind of concern
and respect that should rightly have been shown to our fellow human beings.
The prophets warned against such foolishness, and Jeremiah in particular criticized those who entered the Temple
with a track record of callous indifference believing they were entering into a state of holiness engendered by
the building itself. Jesus too countered his own disciples fascination with the city of Jerusalem, and the ornate
structure recently completed by Herod the Great, known as the "new Temple," with the reminder that very
soon there would not be left one stone upon another.
By contrast he offered the challenge of internalizing His own glory, and believing that nothing was too great to
expect of what His Kingdom would demand of them. He couched those challenges in words that many of his listeners
found offensive.
In that group there were really two sets of people listening. In English translations they are both identified
as "disciples." The larger crowd is referred to in Greek as the "mathetes" (math-ay-tes') or
pupils. These are those that fancy themselves as students of Jesus. They show up when he is healing and teaching,
doing wonderful things. A more modern description of them might be "seekers." They have come to hear
and see but have made no formal commitment to follow. It costs them nothing.
Then there those referred to in Greek as the dodeka (do'-dek-ah) or "The Twelve". Dodeka literally means
twelve. But it actually means far more than the number. In Jewish numerology the number twelve stands for all the
redeemed. This is the group that have actually given up seeking and claimed for themselves a way of life that they
feel God has called them to. As such they have "found" their true purpose. For such individuals there
can be no turning back…as there is no where else meaningful to go.
So when Simon Peter asks that most important question: "Lord, to whom could we go? You have the words of eternal
life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God." He is more convicted than most of
us. For us the competition is stiff. It comes down to which god should we follow?
I think we need to worry about our church when we seem to be losing sight of our reason for being. We are always
tempted by the world we live in to tell people that if they would just work hard and think positively, then God
will surely reward them with grace. We are tempted to tell people that if they would just get off welfare or change
their sexual orientation and "trust God," then God would change them. But that is not now and never can
be the gospel! Every time we tell people, "If you would just change, then God will love you," we are
betraying the gospel which has been entrusted to us to proclaim.
That is not who God created us to be; that is not who the Spirit calls us to be! We have been graciously called
to be the Body of Christ--the crucified and resurrected Body of Christ. We have been put into this world to be
just as fanatical as Jesus was about communicating the unconditional grace of God, even if it means that people
take offense and go away. Even if it costs us dearly in terms of personal sacrifice and pride.
An old woodsman gives this advice about catching a porcupine: "Watch for the slapping tail as you dash in
and drop a large washtub over him. The washtub will do you no good, but it will give you something to sit on while
you ponder your next move."
We already know the issues that are going to hurt us, because we are presently sitting on that washtub trying to
contain them. In so doing we limit the effectiveness of our prayers. Instead of trying to manage our tubs, we need
to be following Jesus, and in following Jesus, our flesh is nothing -- apart from serving others as Christ's own
flesh in the world today. It has to be Christ's blood flowing in our veins if we are to have spirit and life, if
his kingdom is to come "on earth as it is in heaven." For those who have found this Way…we cannot point
to any other way to salvation than Jesus Christ; and at the same time we cannot set limits to the saving power
of God.
Not all of us may be able to agree on just who the Christ is. Not all of us can claim with the same certainty what
it is that He would say about various issues within his church and in the greater world, but hopefully what we
can agree on this one fact: that it is not the wisdom of human beings or even the knowledge of scripture that makes
us one, nor is it the power of human organizations - even if they be called churches or cathedrals, that gives
to us life,--not denominations or creeds or social principles--- rather it is Christ Jesus - crucified and risen
- the Holy One of God who gives us meaning and purpose and that is Life!
It is perhaps the only One Truth we can claim for certain…apart from which we will be lost.
An unknown author wrote these words:
You call me Master and obey me not,
You call me Light and see me not,
You call me the Way and follow not,
You call me Life and desire me not,
You call me Wise and trust me not,
You call me Fair and love me not,
You call me Rich and ask me not,
You call me Gracious and listen not,
You call me Noble and serve me not,
You call me Mighty and honor me not,
You call me Just and fear me not,
If I then condemn you,…Blame Me Not.
May that not be so for us. Amen
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