Where God Dwells
1 Kings 8: 1, 6, 10-11, 22-30, 41-43
Today we begin a season of letting the revised common lectionary shape our worship and our preaching.
The “Lectionary” is a three-year schedule of scripture readings, one reading weekly from each of the Hebrew Scriptures, the Psalms, the Epistles and the Gospels. There are also set readings for feast days and special seasons throughout the year. We’re currently in year B, and the first Sunday in Advent (after Thanksgiving), year C begins, as advent marks the beginning of the church year. 52 weeks later, year A begins, followed 52 weeks later by the next Year B. Over the course of three years, if we follow the lectionary, we will have been introduced to much of the bible. And while that might seem repetitive over a lifetime, there’s a really cool thing about that three year cycle - we are never the same people (and this applies to ourselves as a party of ONE and to us…all together as a community, as the body of Christ) revisiting the same passage twice. We are shaped every day by a creative and loving God, by the experiences that wash over us, the moments of hardship and the moments of grace. I pray we can share this part of the journey with open ears and hearts.
Let’s begin today by situating both of the scriptures you have heard into their larger contexts.
In 1 Kings, Solomon is installing the Ark of the Covenant in the Temple he has constructed as the center of worship in Jerusalem.
This is part of a much bigger storyline.
Perhaps you remember that King David, Solomon’s father, and God’s anointed leader, set out to build a “house for God,” but God interrupted that plan – God asked, “who are you” to do that? Instead, God promised something of a metaphorical house to David, establishing an ongoing kingdom for his bloodline.
2 Samuel 7 includes this:
I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them, so that they may live in their own place, and be disturbed no more; and evildoers shall afflict them no more, as formerly, from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel; and I will give you rest from all your enemies. Moreover the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house. When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.
In the text you heard today from 1 Kings, we are watching this promise made to David unfold. Solomon, David’s son who is now the King and has reunited the tribes of Israel, presides over the worship celebration in which the Ark of the covenant is installed in the completed Temple. Solomon is praying powerful words of praise and thanksgiving as well as intercessions on behalf of those foreigners who might come to pray in this space as well – that God would hear their prayers and that they would come to know God through their experiences in this place.
The Ark of the Covenant, which had traveled with the Israelites through generations of nomadic movement, housed in a tent when they settled here and there, is now installed by Solomon in a grand and permanent building – the Temple.
There is a specific geographic place for God at this moment in the story. And if you read all of Solomon’s address and prayers, he is imagining real permanence, for his bloodline and for God.
But he also raises a key question – the question of whether God can actually be contained. And in light of that hesitation, Solomon prays that at a minimum, God keeps an eye on this place, receiving the prayers offered here.
Solomon goes on to ask that God also hear the prayers of foreigners who come to pray at this place. This idea that foreigners would be welcome in the newly formed Temple, and that God would hear and receive and respond to their prayers is really new in the context of the Israelites’ understanding of God. Solomon is calling on God to include and welcome the foreigner here.
So…for the purpose of our learning today, let’s hold onto some key things:
God’s presence – as symbolized in this text by the Ark and the cloud that settles in the Temple – has been moving with the Israelites over generations. And now, thanks to Solomon’s building project, it has a specific geographical address in Jerusalem. And per Solomon’s prayer, that address should be accessible to foreigners, so that all kinds of people might know God by being in this place.
Hold on to that.
In John’s gospel, we are entering the lectionary at the end of a series of teachings about Jesus as the bread of life. Specifically, in our opening line for today, Jesus says, “those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.” He even goes on to say, “whoever eats me will live because of me.”
Imagine hearing all of that out of the mouth of your beloved teacher.
(It is important to note here that John’s gospel uniquely does not include language about bread and wine at the Last Supper, but rather focuses on foot washing in that moment. John’s gospel instead focuses real sustained energy on this idea that Jesus is bread…vital nourishment for life.)
The text goes on to explain that many of his followers at that time are really struggling to understand what is being proclaimed – they even say aloud, “This teaching is difficult.”
The text here is vague – probably intentionally. It is not really clear whether this particular teaching about how Jesus abides with those who consume him is hard or whether the greater scope if Jesus’ teaching to this point is hard.
Both, I’d say.
In light of this teaching being difficult, the text says a lot of his followers have left Jesus. Except the 12. Jesus asks if they want to go away as well. And Simon Peter answers – where would we go? You have the words of eternal life.
It is as if Simon Peter is saying – Jesus, we’d starve. You have what sustains us.
I wonder…do we understand Jesus as vital nourishment?
Can we?
What does it take to stay connected to Jesus so that we are sustained in the way that Simon Peter understood?
Let’s go back to where Jesus starts in this scripture for today. Because it is the beginning of a new and different understanding of where God dwells.
“Those who eat my flesh and drink by blood abide in me, and I in them.” He goes on to say that “the words I have spoken to you are spirit and life.”
Would you try on a specific understanding of this for me?
Perhaps Jesus is saying that in his teaching, there is nourishment, there is the thing necessary for a full and meaningful life. And when we receive that teaching, when we live into that teaching, Jesus – Jesus who was God in flesh – is somehow with us…in us. And we are somehow with Jesus – who was God in flesh.
In Jesus, God dwells with the people. That is where John’s gospel begins – in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God…the Word become flesh and made his dwelling among us….
And in that dwelling, we are sustained.
So what Jesus is teaching, claiming, proclaiming is a departure from an historical and traditional understanding of the Jewish people that God had a specific physical address established by Solomon.
Instead, Jesus is suggesting that he, the Son of God, will abide with those who receive him.
Solomon prayed that even foreigners would be heard by God if they showed up at God’s Temple.
And now here is Jesus going out to all kinds of people, offering to abide with them…to abide with them. Or in other words, to “dwell” in them. Not just among them. In them. With them. They don’t have to show up at a specific place, they need to receive. And abide.
Even now, when we receive Jesus, by teaching or by prayer or by worship or by bread and wine at communion, God dwells in us.
And dwelling within us, we take God out into the world.
These past 18 months have interrupted all the norms and given me more of an opportunity to sit with this idea that I don’t need to be in a specific place or a specific circumstance to be with God. I don’t need to be in a place or a time…
Maybe like me, you have found yourself unplugged from a lot of the ways that you expect to worship, pray, study, serve, learn, grow.
It turns out that the promise of life is NOT in the things of the world. It is not in the security of a home or a job or a family or even a specific church community. It is not in the rhythm of normal that is shaped by a clock or a calendar.
Jesus offers a new kind of dwelling place. And promises to dwell. Even here. Even now.
This teaching is hard.
The disciples don’t give up because it is hard. Because they know life is forever changed by this relationship, this journey, this teaching.
Somehow they know that life is forever changed by being both a dwelling place and by dwelling in Jesus.
I think they know because they have journeyed with him so far. And now they know they cannot walk away and stay the same. They have to be willing to receive Jesus – again and again and again – like a regular meal that fuels their bodies.
This season has sent me searching…
Searching for the ways that I best abide in Jesus and Jesus in me.
Searching for the ways that we together abide in Jesus and Jesus in us.
Searching for ways that we receive Jesus like sustenance,
moment by moment,
breath by breath,
meal by meal,
conversation by conversation.
And offer that sustenance to others in each encounter.
Feeding the world.
Will you keep up the search with me? Can we continue to search for ways to abide together?
I pray it will be so.
Amen.
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