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12 Pentecost St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Canton OH I Kings 8: 1, 6, 10-11, 22-30, 41-43

August 23, 2009 The Rev. Barbara L Bond

Where is God anyway? Today we will have a genuine three-point sermon, with show-and-tell.    1. It is good to have a focus for our devotion.    2. It is not good to be too focused.    3. Where is God anyway? It is good to have a focus for our devotion.  Our spiritual ancestors, the Jews, felt strongly about this.  They had carried the Ten Commandments, written on stone tablets, around with them in the desert for years, in a box called the Ark of the Covenant, and when they finally settled down in the Promised Land, they felt the need for a permanent place for this holy box.  King David lived around 1000 B.C. and he considered building a grand temple, but did not.  His son, Solomon, however, accomplished the task.  In our first reading today, the Ark of the Covenant is moved into the Temple, and Solomon gives a great prayer of dedication.  The Temple became the focus of devotion. So – let’s have a look at the Temple.  My able assistants will help me build it.  Solomon started with some really nice wood – from cedar trees in Lebanon.  Then he built up the walls, and ended up with a building in roughly the shape of a shoe box.  The inside space was all holy.  The back third of the space was cordoned off by a veil or curtain, and it was especially holy – the Holy of Holies, and that is where the Ark of the Covenant was placed.  Outside was an altar for burnt sacrifices, and a big basin of water, for washing hands.  This is a model of Solomon’s Temple, called the First Temple. The Temple continued to be a focus of the Jews’ devotion.  But about 400 years later, in the 500s B.C., the Jewish people were conquered by militant neighbors, who carried them off to Babylon.  The enemies destroyed the Temple.  (Able assistants destroy the Temple).  About fifty years later, the Jews came back to their homeland, saw the shambles, and decided to build it again.  (Able assistants build up the Temple again.)  This was called the Second Temple.  It continued to be the focus of the Jews’ devotion, although by this time, the Ark of the Covenant had disappeared.  Never mind.  They still had the Temple. About 400 years later, when the Roman Empire was in charge of the Holy Land, the Roman’s placed a king in charge of the area.  His name was Herod the Great, and he loved to build things.  And he felt the Temple was a bit puny, so he enlarged it greatly, by building a huge mount all around it.  Now let’s imagine that this is Herod’s Temple – a new and improved version of the Second Temple – and let’s imagine the Temple Mount – a big flat area, about the size of this room, the nave.  The mount was really big. Herod the Great died shortly after Jesus was born.  Jesus grew up and taught in this Temple, the Second Temple, now called Herod’s Temple.  Jesus died in the year 30.  Forty years later, in 70 AD, after a Jewish uprising against the Romans, the Jews were definitively defeated, and the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple.  (Able assistants destroy the temple again, this time placing the pieces on the floor).  The Jews found this very sad, and so they cried and they wailed.  Today the focus for their devotion is the Western Wall of the Temple Mount, called the Wailing Wall.  If this room were the Temple Mount today, the Wailing Wall would be back there (point to rear). About 600 years later, the followers of Mohammed arrived in Jerusalem, asked where the most sacred spot was, and were shown the former site of the Temple on the Temple Mount.  So that is where they built their own holy building, the Dome of the Rock.  (Place tea cup upside down on table)  The ruins of the Temple are likely still underneath it.  Archeologists are not really allowed to look for them, however.  This is probably the most disputed piece of real estate on the earth. Point Two:  It is not good to be too focused.  A lot of people are focused on this plot of ground these days.  The Muslims want the Dome of the Rock to stay right where it is.  Some over-focused Jews would like to blow it up and rebuilt the Temple in its place.  Some over-focused Christians would like to help them.  The Christians feel quite certain that if the Third Temple is built, Jesus will return in the Second Coming, and they would like him to come back very soon.  These beliefs make for scary headlines today. Point Three:  Where is God anyway?  Back when Solomon was dedicating the First Temple, he said something very wise:  “But will God indeed dwell on earth?  Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, much less this house that I have built.”  We like to think that God is in holy places, like the Temple, and like our sacred space here, and other places of devotion.  And God is surely here amongst us, and in all those other places too.  But as Solomon pointed out, God is much bigger than any of our holy spaces, and we cannot contain God.  Nor should we try.  The irony is, as grand as the Temple was, it just made Solomon humble. Where is God anyway?  God is in the midst of us, wherever we are gathered.  God is present when we pray, when we weep and wail, when we celebrate, laugh and love.  God is here, there and everywhere.  God is in our hearts.  Thanks be to God.