Christ Episcopal Church
August 26, 2012
16 Proper B
When I was a child, one of my holy places was a creek not far from my grandparents house in the mountains in North Carolina. Around the lake and through some woods, across a street and past the "no trespassing signs," down a path and a fairly steep slope, there was a creek that ran over rock and down the mountain. Other than the sound of water running over rock, and maybe the sound of the birds, there was only silence. The sunlight reflected through the trees onto the water in a way that was almost magical. I do not think many people knew about this place as there was never any evidence (other than the no trespassing sign) that anyone else had been there. For me, this was what some people call a thin place-a place where the divine and the human come close. I could sit there for a long time and know the presence of God. But, as is true of most holy places, I could not sit there forever. Eventually I had to get up and be on my way, renewed and ready for whatever the rest of the day held.
This church is also a holy place. Holy things happen here: sins are confessed and forgiven, the Risen Christ becomes present in bread and wine, people are welcomed into the Body of Christ through baptism, joined in marriage, and eternally united with Christ in death. In this place, we experience the wonder and mystery of something beyond ourselves, beyond our wildest imagination, and beyond our comprehension. This is a holy place, set apart for the worship of God, and a place where the human and divine come close.
In the reading from I Kings this morning, we hear about another holy place where the human and the divine come near, a place set also apart for the worship of God, as we hear Solomon dedicate the temple in Jerusalem. Solomon has built this temple as a house for God. The year is around 960 BCE. The temple is large and ornate, appropriate housing for the God of Israel who led the people out of bondage in Israel, through the wilderness, and into the Promised Land. In the verses just prior to our reading this morning, the priests bring the Ark of the Covenant into the temple and place it in the inner sanctuary, the most holy place in the temple. The Ark of the Covenant contains the tablets with the 10 commandments and they signify the very presence of God. The moment is so sacred that once the priests come out of the inner sanctuary, a cloud fills the house of the Lord as the glory of the Lord fills the temple. Then Solomon begins his prayer dedicating the house he has built to the God of Israel, which is our reading from I Kings. Solomon’s prayer recalls God’s abundant faithfulness to the people, and he prays that God will hear the prayers of all people that pray in this place so that all the peoples of the earth may know God’s name and fear God.
Yet even in the midst of Solomon’s eloquent prayer of dedication, Solomon wonders if God will indeed dwell on earth. Can the God who is not contained by heaven and the highest heaven be contained in a house, even the house that God requested that Solomon build? Can the God who wandered in the wilderness with the Hebrew people, and led them with a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, actually be expected to live in a house, no matter how large or ornate? What does it mean for God to dwell in the temple? At the very least, for the Hebrew people, it meant that God could be encountered in the temple in a way that God could be encountered in no other place on the earth.
But will God indeed really dwell on the earth? In John’s gospel, we are told that in Jesus, God has chosen to dwell among us in a new way. John’s gospel, from which our gospel lesson comes this morning, begins with these words "In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God, and the Word was God." And a few verses later, the gospel says "And the Word became flesh and dwelled among us, full of grace and truth." In Solomon’s time and for generations thereafter, the people believed that God dwelled among them in a unique way by God’s presence in the temple Solomon built. When the temple was destroyed in the 6th century BC, the people feared that God had abandoned them. In John’s gospel, we are told that God dwelt among us in the person of Jesus, the Word made flesh. While the Hebrew people were concerned that when the Temple was destroyed, God ceased to be present among them, John’s gospel makes clear that in Jesus’ death and resurrection, God becomes even more present among us. In today’s gospel lesson, we hear Jesus say "Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood dwell in me and I in them." Through the bread and wine of the Eucharist, the Word that became flesh dwells within us and we encounter God in a unique way that transcends time and place and cannot be destroyed.
Holy places are places where we encounter the presence of God, where the divine and the human draw near. As powerful as those places might be, and as much meaning as those places might have, they are not places where we are meant to stay. Solomon asks "But will God indeed dwell on earth? Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, much less this house I have built." We do not claim that God can be contained here; quite the opposite. In holy places, whether the temple in Jerusalem in the 10th century BC, or in this holy place, or in the other places in our lives that we find holy, we practice encountering God so that when we leave our holy place, we can encounter God in the world. When we have experienced the presence of God here, we can recognize God in our parking lot on a hot Saturday afternoon as we offer hospitality to our neighbors, or at the Rainbow Table or IHN, or in our places of work, or in a random visit to the grocery. When we practice the experience of God in our holy places, we can more easily experience the presence of God in the midst of our grief and our challenges. The Word made flesh tells us that there is no where we can go that is beyond the presence of God. The holy places of our lives help us recognize that presence beyond these walls.
Amen.
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