The Power of Place
As we continue to FLY through Hebrew scripture in this season, let’s take time to understand the contours of where we’ve been.
Since September, we’ve moved from
· God’s relationship to the first humans,
· to God’s covenant relationship with Abram and Sarai,
· to God’s work through Jacob’s sons that involved a lot of broken relationships,
· to God’s relationship through Moses with the Hebrews as they fled Egypt and moved toward the promised land.
Then God delivered to Moses explicit instructions for how God would “dwell” among the people (specifically in a tent of meeting or tabernacle) – and before those instructions could be enacted, the impatient people forged a golden cow as a focus of their worship- it was a way for them to have power manifest in their midst in a time of chaos and uncertainty.
Then, after a season in which the life of the community was organized by judges – who served mostly as military leaders to establish location and security for the people of God – the people clamored for a King – a person among them who would rule and govern, and make them more like other neighboring nations already led by ruler kings who amassed power and wealth.
God anointed the first kings, who were accompanied by prophets, and those kings gathered political, military, social and economic power in God’s name.
Throughout the arc of this big story of God, the longing for God’s presence, the need for a mediator of that presence and that power, the desire for a tangible way to relate to God, is strong – a common recurring theme - maybe because humanity began in the presence of God at creation.
Last week, living in a peaceful moment after unifying Judah and Israel under his rule, King David considers building a Temple for God. David reasons that he rests in a fine house of cedar, and God should too. But through the prophet Nathan, God rejects the idea that God can be “housed.” God instead promises to build a dynasty for David’s line. The text also includes God’s assertion that David’s son will build “a house for God’s name.”
I wonder if God’s resistance to David is because God felt God was meeting the people’s need by dwelling in relationship to the King that God has anointed. (I mean, God had warned the people that kings weren’t “all that.”)
I wonder about God’s frustration with the human longing that God be housed, tamed, controlled. I wonder about God’s frustration with the ways that humans continued to have the need for something more, different, concrete.
King David grew old, and eventually there was (surprise, surprise) sibling drama between David’s sons. Stepping in to solve the conflict, David himself appointed Solomon, son of David and Bathsheba, to the throne. Solomon was anointed by Nathan the prophet and became King.
Before we arrive at today’s text, God visited Solomon in a dream, asking what gift he might bestow on him. With words of humility and loyalty, Solomon asked for great wisdom in order to govern God’s chosen people, Israel. This request pleased God, and God granted Solomon both the wisdom he requested and the riches and power that he did not. All of this came with a conditional promise that if Solomon would walk in God’s ways, his life would be lengthened.
To be clear, like every character we’ve met so far, Solomon is far from perfect, but his reign continues.
We enter the text today with Solomon declaring that he wants to build a temple “for the name of the Lord.” Pay attention to that – for the Name of the Lord.
He begins by entering into an economic exchange with Hiram, a Phoenician leader. There is a whole sermon here about economic and political liaisons and conscripting humans for labor in order to fulfill an ambition, but I’m going to steer clear of that this week.
Instead, I want us to look at what Solomon says while he is dedicating the Temple upon its completion.
Let’s set the stage - the Temple is an opulent sight to behold. It’s taken seven years to complete. Reflecting the holy spaces that God instructed for the tent of meeting, it is a place for sacrifices, for sung prayers that will portray God’s creative power, and for worship acts to mark time and create order for the community.
At the beginning of his address (and let’s be clear – he’s addressing God in the Temple, but he is being heard by all that have gathered…), Solomon acknowledges that God is not containable – not even by the highest heavens. Recall that Solomon referred to the Temple earlier as a place “for the name of the LORD.” Theologian Walter Brueggemann describes Solomon’s temple as “tangible evidence of a divine enthroning.” Seems like a place for the unplaceable, to me.
So it is evident that Solomon knows that God isn’t limited to a space, and specifically not this space. With that understanding, Solomon stands before all who are gathered, after the sacrifice of countless animals on a new altar and asks God to pay attention to the prayers that happen in this place that has been prepared.
Solomon’s prayer of dedication goes on for 31 verses. It’s not a work of literary genius, but it is a good list of reasons why the people would approach God – especially if we remember that the Israelites have been given the law in order to establish shalom and well-being for the whole community.
Solomon asks that the prayers of those who have sinned against their neighbor be heard. He asks that when the weather is bad, when the harvest is poor because the people of sinned, that the peoples’ confession would be heard and their sins forgiven. He asks that when the people come to pray for protection and deliverance from enemies – political enemies and natural disasters and sickness - God would hear and respond.
He prays that this place – this particular spot – would be a place where God meets God’s people.
In the final words heard today, which is not the end of the full prayer, Solomon asks that God hears the prayers of the foreigner who comes to pray in this particular place.
There are varied responses to foreigners or immigrants throughout the story of God. In some instances, prophets name concerns for ethnic purity. But the majority of conversations about the foreigner in the Hebrew bible texts are about inclusion, provision and openness. Because God promised to bless all the people through Abram’s descendants. And because it is good for communities to seek peace and relationship with one another.
It seems important to me, given the state of our world, given the state of our own debate about foreigners in our midst, that we hold onto Solomon’s inclusion of the foreigner as he dedicates this place of meeting between God and God’s people.
So with all of that before us – what matters to us today about this story? Why are we reading this text? What will we walk into the week carrying from this text?
Last week we noted that God was uncontainable. David heard that in God’s message through the prophet Nathan. Solomon remembered God’s un-containability and named it as he built and dedicated the Temple. I’d go back even further – Moses knew God’s uncontainable nature. Jacob experienced it as he wrestled with God.
And yet, it is human nature to long for a place or a person that channels God, that represents God, that gives us moments of transcendence, that connects us (or helps us to feel connected) to God that is sometime intangible, ephemeral, mysterious.
So how do we honor the tradition holy places and not limit God?
How do we show up here in our sanctuary to offer praise and thanksgiving and then recognize how God is with us every single day in every place we find ourselves?
How do we hold the tension between keeping traditions and rituals and remembering that God is with the marginalized who don’t even know this place exists? Or who don’t have the luxury of time or resources to pray in a specific place?
How do we recognize that even when we are alone God is with us.
How do we remember and live into being a channel of God’s presence when we are with others who need that presence?
In John’s gospel, John 14:16, Jesus says, “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever.”
Jesus is not suggesting that prior to that time, God wasn’t present – Jesus himself was from this ancient ancestry and tradition of longing for God’s presence. Jesus had been demonstrating through his own ministry that God is present and available, hearing on our prayers. And Jesus showed up at the Temple for worship and sacrifice and he taught in synagogues. He went to the places where people expected God to be.
Jesus knew that when he was no longer with his disciples, they would need something to hold on to. They would need a way of connecting with God. We do too.
Where do you expect to encounter God?
Where do you actually encounter God?
As each of us grows in discipleship, the “where” of our God-encounters matters less. We show up in the places where we expect God to meet us AND as we grow, we will find that we recognize God meeting us in more places. Scripture reminds us that this is a human struggle that has gone on since God created adam and adamah.
We grow as disciples by practicing different kinds of prayer, different kinds of worship, different acts of mercy and compassion (different acts of service and humility). We grow as disciples as we learn to still OUR voice and hear God’s voice. And it is hard and messy and imperfect and we are all at different places in our journey.
And that is SO. VERY. HUMAN. So very real.
God dwells with us. Not just in a specific building, but in proximity to us, in us as people created in God’s image to reflect God’s image.
We are not God. And God is with us.
For the next few weeks, we can expect the world to feel a frantic. We can expect people around us to focus on things that are not of God. And we can practice being people created in God’s image to reflect God’s image – into the chaos, into the tension, into the anxiety, into the fray.
I hope you know that today, as it is often the case, I am preaching the sermon I need to hear. Perhaps you do too. Walk away from the TV. Walk away from the radio. Walk away from the social media.
Have real conversations. Get curious when you encounter something new or different. Show love by listening and making time and space and being present.
Channel God. Remember God is with us.
May it be so.
Amen.
Comments
Post a Comment