First Evangelical
Lutheran Church, Parkers Prairie, MN
October 29, 2017—Reformation
Sunday
I Kings 5:1-5;
8:1-13 (Narrative Lectionary)
In
the name of Jesus. Amen.
If
I were to utter the word “church” what image would pop into your head first?
If
I said “church,” your Pavlov’s-dog-reaction would be to imagine a building….perhaps
the building that we’re in right now, or maybe the first church you belonged
to, wherever that might be.
It’s
entirely natural for us to hear the word “church” and immediately conjure up in
our minds the image of a building.
And,
frankly, that speaks volumes about us, our place in the world and our time in
human history. It is hard, if not
impossible, to think “church” without picturing a building, a house, God’s
house, to be specific.
In
my time as bishop I have read scores of congregational histories, and almost
without fail these records of local church history have emphasized two
things: the church buildings they erected
and the pastors they called….as if those particular “markers” were the main
things in the story of our churches.
But
isn’t that what we’re taught growing up?
Didn’t our parents or whoever nurtured our faith—didn’t they say to us: “Get up—get dressed--we’re going to God’s
house this Sunday morning?”
I
say “church,” you picture a building: it’s
the most natural, understandable reaction…
….even though we do know better!
For
in the same breath that we teach our little ones to call this building “God’s
house”—equating “church” with “building”--we also teach them songs that convey
a different message….
….a
message that goes like this:
“The church is not
a building;
the church is not
a steeple;
the church is not
a resting place;
the church is a
people.
I am the church!
You are the church!
We are the church
together!
All who follow
Jesus,
all around the
world!
Yes, we're the
church together!”[1]
Truth
be told, there are competing, even conflicting messages we give our kids about
the church….and this fact exposes a longer, deeper debate we find right in the Bible
itself.
There’s
an argument, a back-and-forth debate right within the scriptures, about whether
God wants, let along needs any sort of dwelling or building.
In
short: how can God be “located”?
There
are traces of that long debate right here in this morning’s lesson from the
book of I Kings. A transition has taken
place within Israel’s royal family, the throne having passed from King David to
his son, the newly crowned King Solomon, who immediately sets out to do
something his famous father was not allowed to do: “… my
father David could not build a house for the name of the Lord his God because
of the warfare with which his enemies surrounded him, until the Lord put them
under the soles of his feet. But now the
Lord my God has given me rest on every side; there is neither adversary nor
misfortune. So I intend to build a house for the name of the Lord my God….”
But
was good King David forbidden to build a temple solely because he had too much “blood
on his hands?”
In
the seventh chapter of II Samuel God himself offers a different answer to that
question: “Are you [David] the one to build me a house to live in? I have
not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt
to this day, but I have been moving about in a tent and a tabernacle. Wherever
I have moved about among all the people of Israel, did I ever speak a word with
any of the tribal leaders of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people
Israel, saying, ‘Why have you not built me a house of cedar?’” (II
Samuel 7:4-7)
Here
we encounter a God who is extremely reluctant to have any permanent structure, or
temple, or “church building,” if you will.
It’s
as if God realizes—and he wants his people to realize—that a temple like the
temples other ancient peoples built, would always be a mixed blessing. Certainly, a Temple could provide a focal
point, a point of contact between God and God’s people…..but it could also
convey other, less flattering, less faithful realities.
A
Temple, after all, could represent an attempt to “contain” God, to lock up God
in a box, to put God at the beck and call of God’s people.
By
erecting a temple where people could find God, Israel was simultaneously flirting
with the possibility of trying to restrict God’s fierce, wild freedom to travel
wherever his people might go, to constantly encounter them in all their
meanderings—in the sheer dailiness of their lives—and to arrive at their
destination always, always ahead of them.
In
other words: is our God a God who can be
pinned down, hemmed in, put in his place?
Or
is our God a “traveling God,” who always accompanies and guides his people on
their pilgrimage through life?
In
short, is the church a place or a people?
Centuries
after King Solomon built Israel’s first Temple, in the midst of the Reformation
of the church that Martin Luther started 500 years ago this week, the Great
Reformer himself had this to say about the church: “Thank God, [to-day] a child seven years old
knows what the Church is, namely, the holy believers and lambs who hear the
voice of their Shepherd.”[2]
In other words, while the church might be a
building, it is always a people!
So
what shall we make of this Old Testament story of Solomon’s building of the
Temple?
I
believe it reflects a heartfelt desire to honor God, to glorify God for all of God’s
goodness.
The
Temple would be a point of contact for people—both the people of Israel but
also foreigners who would hear about the God of Israel—a location on earth to
which people could turn and pray to God who fills all time and space.
One
thing Solomon’s Temple could never be, though, was a “container” for God. The people of Israel could never “contain”
God or keep God under wraps in the Temple.
God
is too wild, too fierce, too free for anything like that.
Notice
again what happened when Solomon’s temple was “open for business:” “When the priests came out of the holy
place, a cloud filled the house of the Lord, so that the priests could not
stand to minister because of the cloud; for the glory of the Lord filled the
house of the Lord.” (vv. 10-11)
God
may meet us in our holy places, to be sure, but God’s freedom can never be
circumscribed by whatever walls or “boundaries” we erect. God will always, always, always be bigger….wilder…and
freer than any structures that we construct.
And
there is powerfully good news in that fact, because even though we crave holy
places where God is accessible to us,
holy places like this lovely church building...the temples we put up are never
our final destination.
Rather,
I invite us to consider the buildings we call churches not so much as resting
places or destinations as they are mission outposts, way-stations on our
pilgrimage through life.
When
all is said and done, it’s what happens
in spaces like this that matters the most.
It’s
our gathering together, our baptizing, our remembering of our baptisms, our
eating and drinking at the Lord’s table, our praying and pleading and praising,
our hearing of the Word, our speaking with one another, our fellowshipping together,
our planning and dreaming for mission and ministry in the world, it’s in all
those things happening that God is made known and that God’s true church
becomes visible---not in brick or mortar, but in lives transformed by the
freedom, forgiveness and a new future through which God is always beckoning us forward
toward the day when God in Christ will be our all in all.
Today
we sing two great Reformation hymns.
We’ve
already sung A Mighty Fortress….which isn’t a hymn of praise for a building,
mind you, but a poetic confession that God is our refuge, our sanctuary, our
place of safety and nurture and sending….
And
then, in a few moments, we will sing these words, which truly put this morning’s
lesson in proper, faith-engendering, future-opening perspective:
“Christ builds a
house of living stones:
We are his own
habitation;
He fills our
hearts, his humble thrones,
Granting us life
and Salvation.
Where two or three
will seek his face,
He in their midst
will show his grace,
Blessings upon
them bestowing.”[3]
In
the name of Jesus. Amen.