Sermon: “Will God Dwell on Earth?" August 22, 2021

"Solomon Dedicates the Temple,” James Tissot ca. 1896

Preacher: The Rev. Ryan Slifka
Scripture: 1 Kings 8:1,6,10-11, 22-30, 41-43 (Revised Common Lectionary)

Way back in November of last year I was fixing the gate on the fence in my front yard. As I'm doing this, a gentleman walks up and engages me in conversation. I'd seen him before many times strolling by, but never said anything beyond “hi.” But this time he came right up, introduced himself, and got right into business.

Eventually, he asked me what I do for a living, and I told him. He responded that he believed in a higher power, and this higher power got him through some tough times, including cancer. But he wasn't a Christian, and didn't do church.

This was just after we'd gone into total lock down and had to cancel restarting our services. So he went on to express his dismay at the churches who were breaking the government guidelines on gatherings. I nodded my head in sympathetic agreement. The thing that sticks out from this conversation, though, is what he said next. “It's ridiculous!” He said. “You don't have to go to some building to pray. If God's everywhere,” he said. “If God's everywhere, you can pray from anywhere.” If God's everywhere you can pray from anywhere.

Now, I've heard this sentiment, more or less, expressed many times in different forms. Often someone will say something like “I'm spiritual, but not religious. Nature is my church.” Or “I believe in God, just not organized religion.” Or “I believe in God, I just don't think you have to go to church to be a Christian.” While the content of each of these sentences is different, the same idea underpins them all: a physical community and structure is unnecessary for a relationship with the divine or spiritual practice. Whatever the divine may be. In fact, these things—buildings, institutions, communities—are often seen as a hinderance to the authentic spiritual quest. After all, as my newfound friend put it: “If God's everywhere you can pray from anywhere.”

Now, as tickled pink as I am to gather in person again, I have to admit something. There's a real sense that the Bible agrees with all these people. You have no further to look than today's scripture passage.

This week's reading features King Solomon again. The King who took over for his father, the renowned King David. Here Solomon’s had the last brick laid on the Jerusalem temple. This is quite a project, lasting thirteen years in total. The previous chapters tell us how much thought and time, and treasure went into building it. The temple is the jewel in the crown of Solomon's reign. A public building project of epic proportions, a physical location for the presence of the holy, a house for God.

Yet, when it comes to Solomon's dedication speech notice what he says:

“But will God indeed dwell on the earth?” he asks, standing at the altar. “Will God indeed dwell on earth? Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you [Lord], much less this house that I have built!”  Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, much less this house that I have built...

Even Solomon, the guy who literally built a house for God knows that God can't be contained in a building. The whole of creation can't even keep God locked up. God is everywhere, can't be put in a box or fixed to a specific location. The further prayers he makes acknowledge this, too.

“Hear the plea of your servant and your people when they pray toward this place,” he says.

“Likewise,” he continues, “when a foreigner who is not of your people Israel comes from a distant land and prays towards this house, hear in heaven your dwelling place.”

Solomon doesn't imagine most people physically coming to the temple. He imagines them scattered all over Israel, all over the world. They're praying in the direction of the temple for sure, like Muslims praying towards Mecca. But they are praying from everywhere. And no matter where they are, God can hear their prayers.

In traditional language we would say that God is sovereign. God is a free agent above and beyond our control. God isn't limited by us in any way, let alone being relegated to this or that building. I mean, Solomon's prayer not only included his own religious insiders, it included foreigners, too. Like, God's favour isn't relegated to one country, one people, or one tradition, but the whole earth. So this isn't a newfangled idea. It's shot through the whole Bible. Even Solomon, who spent thirteen years and a nation's GDP building one knows that. You can pray, and you can have a relationship with the divine where ever you are. God is Creator of the universe, the sustainer of all things visible and invisible. God needs no special place or structure, no building, to be God. “If God is everywhere, you can pray from anywhere.”

This does of course raise one crucial question: Why locations, physical communities, institutions in the first place?  If God is everywhere, why buildings? If Solomon knew God couldn’t be contained in a building, why’d he bother with a temple in the first place?

I mean, it's a serious question with contemporary implications. On one hand, fewer and fewer people are engaged in an actual faith community. In North America and Europe, anyway. On the other hand, we spent a whole year without gathering in our church building at all. Some of us still haven't set foot in the space. Churches have had Zoom church, streamed church, pre-recorded church. Some faith leaders see this as a great thing, as part of a natural, spiritual evolution. The pandemic has shown us that whether it's riding the bus with our smartphone, or in the kitchen in a comfy bathrobe over a cup of coffee, we can do the “God thing” anywhere, anytime. We're freed from the expense, hassle, and inconvenience of geography, physical communities and buildings. “If God is everywhere, you can pray from anywhere.” It's a serious challenge.

Now, at this point this may sound like the worst stewardship campaign ever. Like I've talked you out of a church and myself out of a job! I mean, I can certainly be a fool like that on occasion. But that's not what I'm doing. At least not what I'm trying to do. Because I believe—truly believe—in the importance of the gathered community in a physical space.

And I believe its importance because the Bible insists on it. Even though Solomon knows that God can't be limited to a specific location, he still built the temple.

Well, while Solomon didn't believe that God was boxed in by this building, he believed that this was a place where God would reliably show up to reveal his presence and power. Remember that the sanctuary was thick with God's glory in the form of a cloud, a Spirit that blows where it will. That this was a place where God chose to reveal herself. Sacrifices made in the temple and rituals were tangible, concrete signs of God's goodness and mercy which knows no bounds. It's where you could depend on God to make an appearance that was unlike all of normal life. The ancient Celts would have called it a “thin space” between heaven and earth. God was everywhere, but the temple was where God would show up in a real human place in these palpable, intensified, concrete ways. A place in space and time you could point to and say “there’s God at work… right there.”

Of course, eventually the original temple was destroyed. But by the time we make it to the New Testament, we're told that Jesus himself is the temple. He's the walking, talking, eating, breathing, forgiving, healing location of God's presence. Jesus is where you could point and say “God at work… right there.” Of course Jesus isn’t physically with us anymore. But after his death and resurrection his body, the community of the church serves as his temple in the world by the power of the Holy Spirit. Not just the physical building but the community that gathers in his name. This is where God can be depended on to show up, mend hearts, and even change lives. “God at work, right there.”

Think about it. Of course, we're grateful for being able to gather this way when we simply couldn't. It was in many ways a godsend. But most of us tuned in, and continue to tune in not because we're blank-slate seekers, but because this community has been for us the temple of the Lord. Or we saw folks handing out free lunches on the lawn to the least, last and the lost. When we watch online, we're drawing on memories of actually being here. We may be praying from the comfort of our own homes, but it's like our text says, that our prayers are directed here. For us, it's been the divine dwelling place, where we've encountered the tangible, real-time presence of the living God. And if we're tuning in or visiting, it's because we've heard that this is a place where that stuff happens! Even if it hasn't happened to us. A community where somebody pointed and say “God at work, right there.”

It's where as a kid somebody who we barely knew chose to use their day off Sunday morning to tell us that God don't make no junk when everyone else in our lives, even our parents, made us feel otherwise.

It's where a long-time friend held our hand and prayed for our dying husband because we couldn't bring ourself to speak. Where some old guy bought us lunch without knowing anything about us other than we were seeking after the same thing.

It's where we handed a bowl of soup to somebody living in a tent, and when we looked at them, we saw the image of God, the face of Jesus. Jesus, who radicalized us, told us that this kind of suffering and neglect simply can not stand.

It's where the waters of baptism dripped down our foreheads and the bald baby heads of our children.

It's where gifts of bread and wine were placed in the palm of our hand, giving us a literal taste of grace.

It's where someone looked us in the eyes and proclaimed the profound truth that in spite of it all we are forgiven, that there is always hope beyond the present moment, even after the moment of our last breathe. For us and the earth.

And it's where we sang hallelujah with a hundred other people, for a brief moment every hurt and pain melted away, and we left saying “surely the Lord is in this place.”

This is the reason for real, flesh and blood gathered church, with all of its expense, hassle and inconvenience. It's here where God's reliably shown up. Where salvation has touched down in real time, and made all the difference in the world.  Not as a place that has a monopoly on God. But as a people, as a physical, embodied, tangible location and community where the transcendent God of the whole universe is known to reliably show up in the flesh. Not so God can be boxed in, controlled, or recruited to our side, but so God might be revealed to all who honestly seek.

God may be everywhere and anywhere, but it's here where we've met him face-to-face. And there ain't enough bandwidth in the world to take its place.

Let us pray.

You are the one who set the spark of creation,

you are the one who set the stars in the sky,
you are the one whose glory shines brighter than the sun.

As hard as we try, you can not be contained, hemmed in, or controlled.
And yet, Lord, you meet us where we are,
As in Jesus Christ you have made yourself small
you have revealed yourself to us in flesh and blood,
we pray you do so yet again in this flesh and this blood.
Move in and among this gathered community
bringing healing, strength, and hope
by the power of your Holy Spirit.

Make yourself known here,
so we may know you everywhere,
dedicate us afresh as the temple of your holy presence,
that we may make you known to the ends of the earth.

In the name of your Son, we pray. Amen.