delivered 23 August 2009
by Rev. Dr John Evans
1 Kings 8:22-30, 41-43
Psalm 84
John 6:56-69
A place, a place which we might call a holy place, a sacred place is important, but is it everything?
This is the question that arises when we look at the Old Testament reading of the opening of the Jerusalem temple built by King Solomon. It is also the question which we will consider later this morning as this congregation looks at our own sacred space, this our own worship space and whether it needs to change.
Holy ground, sacred space, a sacred site – how do we understand them? We each have special places where we particularly encounter the numinous, the divine. It might be the home of our childhood – with its special smells and memories; it may be a mountain top, or an arid treeless desert; or perhaps a sweeping coastline or a building like this. Is that place itself then sacred, never to be touched?
Our Aboriginal brothers and sisters would assume that a place may be sacred and needs to be preserved. And in our reading about the opening of the first Jerusalem temple there is also a clear stream of understanding that this too is the case for that special place.
We read that Solomon organised that the ark of the covenant be brought from the City of David, Jerusalem, up into the holiest of holies in the temple. Now the ark of covenant carried the ten commandments and was felt to be where God resided – it was the place of the mercy seat.
In addition, this space within the temple was filled with a cloud – something like a smoke machine might make. Such a cloud was seen to be a sign of the presence of God. As the Bible itself says, “for the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord.” When Moses received the ten commandments there was a cloud. Here too there is a cloud. Even at the baptism of Jesus, there is a cloud; at the transfiguration there is a cloud. Such a cloud is asserting this place is holy.
However, within the story of the opening of this stupendous new building — the preceding chapter outlines all the details of the cedar, the brass, gold and precious items that went into the building — there is another stream of thought. Solomon offers a prayer at the time of this opening –- and we have the beginning of that prayer today. He begins by acknowledging that what was happening that day was a fulfillment of the promise made to his father, King David. This was that wonderfully ambiguous promise that Solomon would build “a house for God’s name” – which could be both a lineage of people, like we might say the house of Windsor when talking about the royal family, or this temple. He then prays:
But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, much less this house that I have built!
God may be encountered here in this temple, but it is not just here where that may happen. God cannot be contained and confined to just a holy space or holy ground.
And throughout Jewish history, even today, the tension between these two themes exist. On the one hand, for the sake of national identity, for the sake of one’s very Jewishness, the Temple, or today what is left of it, is the focus. It is a tangible sign and symbol of God’s very presence and the place is to be worshiped. The Temple becomes a place of pilgrimage, such as is evident in the psalm we sang today:
How lovely is you dwelling place, O lord of Hosts
My soul longs, indeed faints for the courts of the Lord.
The Temple is where one encounters God. Defending, preserving, even rebuilding the Temple becomes a rallying cry and a measure of who you are.
But then, when the Temple is gone, destroyed and the nation is destroyed, and its people are carried off into exile, or the Temple is abused, desecrated (literally, made unholy), is all hope lost; does God also perish? And so the reminder of Solomon that “even the heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, much less this house that I have built” becomes a reminder that God, the God of Abraham and Sarah, Jacob and Moses, is not to be found in just one building. Indeed Jewish worship in synagogues, which our local churches are like, only began when the Jewish people were taken into exile in Babylon and there was no Temple in which to worship God. Place, sacred place, holy ground, the holiest of holies became superseded by the need for a place where the community itself could gather, recall the law and worship God.
In Christian tradition, place and sacred space is not the object of our worship. Jesus and his very body (and not a place) becomes where God is found and resides here on earth. Do you recall the discourse in the opening chapters of John’s gospel when Jesus first visits the Temple in Jerusalem? We perhaps recall this best as the time he drives out the money-changers and the traders within the courts of the Temple. But he did say then “destroy this Temple and I will raise it up on the third day.” The Temple authorities where in disbelief and utter puzzlement: the Temple had taken 46 years to build; what was he talking about? The Evangelist simply notes, “he was speaking of the temple of his body” (John 2:21). And so for Christians, Jesus is the presence of God on this earth; Jesus is the hope for our lives and the sign of God’s grace.
And from that very long 6th chapter of John’s gospel we have been hearing over this and the previous four weeks, the focus is on Jesus. He is the bread of life. At the beginning of the chapter, thousands and thousands of people had flocked to hear him. He fed 5,000 with five loaves and two fish. But as he spoke there and in the synagogues round about, the people drifted away; the Jews grumbled, the leaders complained. Indeed the disciples summed it up well: his teaching that he was “the bread of life”, that his flesh and blood were “food for eternal life” was difficult — who could really accept it? (Jn 6:60). And so from thousands to 12 followers in a day. And even then Jesus asked them, “Do you also wish to go away?” But Peter gives the telling answer:
“Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”
And for the Christian, where indeed would we go? Does a place, a thing, even a preserved old church provide what Jesus offers?
We do need to recall this Jesus; to hear again and again about him; to have the living word preached and re-presented to us. We need to taste that bread of life and drink his cup, in other words, share in holy communion. And for all that to happen, we need to be living out a life of service together; being the body of Christ. We need a place. It could be a grand place, or a borrowed place, a humble place for that to happen. We need a place like the synagogues of Jesus’ own time where he used to gather with other worshipers and hear the word. Such a place will serve us as we seek to follow and serve Jesus. The place is not an end in itself.
In the Basis of Union, our founding document of who we are as the Uniting Church, is a paragraph about who and what the church is, these words:
The church is a pilgrim people, always on the way towards a promised goal; here the Church does not have a continuing city but seeks one to come. On the way Christ feeds the Church with Word and Sacraments, and it has the gift of the Spirit in order that it may not lose the way.
Today we are going to think about our own worship space, and although these words from the Basis of Union are not directly about church design they do provide some useful principles for us to have in mind as we think about our own space.
The place or space in which we gather is not a continuing city, immutable and unchanging. It is a place for faithful journeying. Change and adaptability are implied. But if that is the case, what sort of space do we need today? Were our needs different when this place was built? I think we can think of it in three ways:
1. In this place we are to be fed with Word and sacraments. We are to offer our worship.
So how do we hear the Word today – only from a magnificent pulpit set above us, or does it arise out of our midst, and is the Word delivered today digitally and electronically?
Where are our sacraments celebrated? Out the front, in the midst of us or, in the case of baptism, as we enter?
2. The place is for people — indeed, for pilgrim people; or, as elsewhere described in that paragraph of the Basis of Union, for a fellowship of the Holy Spirit.
Is our place like a synagogue – which literally means a place of coming together? Is this a welcoming place for fellowship? A place for disparate and possibly tired pilgrims to gather? Are pews the 21st century way?
And then are all our gifts being used within this fellowship – the body of Christ. What about the gifts of the young, the old and the disabled? How can they be a part of this place?
3. And these pilgrim people are to serve; to love others, to bear witness; to reach out, to be engaged in mission.
How does this space achieve this mark of being the church? How can it be used in ways which can serve the city?
Space is important, but it’s not everything in our salvation and Christian life. Highest heaven cannot contain God, let alone this house – to quote Solomon. But it is important and we need to feel it serves us and God in this community of Carlton.
