Sermon preached by Lee Barstow on July 23, 2006

South Congregational Church, Amherst, Massachusetts

2 Sam. 7:1-13

Now when the king was settled in his house, and the Lord had given him rest from all his enemies around him, ²the king said to the prophet Nathan, “See now, I am living in a house of cedar, but the ark of God stays in a tent.” ³Nathan said to the king, “Go, do all that you have in mind; for the Lord is with you.”

⁴But that same night the word of the Lord came to Nathan: ⁵Go and tell my servant David: Thus says the Lord: Are you the one to build me a house to live in? ⁶I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I have been moving about in a tent and a tabernacle. ⁷Wherever I have moved about among all the people of Israel, did I ever speak a word with any of the tribal leaders of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, saying, “Why have you not built me a house of cedar?” ⁸Now therefore thus you shall say to my servant David: Thus says the Lord of hosts: I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep to be prince over my people Israel; ⁹and I have been with you wherever you went, and have cut off all your enemies from before you; and I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth. ¹⁰And 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, ¹¹from 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. ¹²When 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. ¹³He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.

Eph. 2:11-22

So then, remember that at one time you Gentiles by birth, called “the uncircumcision” by those who are called “the circumcision” —a physical circumcision made in the flesh by human hands— ¹²remember that you were at that time without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. ¹³But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

¹⁴For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. ¹⁵He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, ¹⁶and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it. ¹⁷So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; ¹⁸for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father. ¹⁹So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, ²⁰built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. ²¹In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; ²²in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.

Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. ³¹He said to them, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. ³²And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves. ³³Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them. ³⁴As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.

When they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret and moored the boat. ⁵⁴When they got out of the boat, people at once recognized him, ⁵⁵and rushed about that whole region and began to bring the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. ⁵⁶And wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the marketplaces, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak;and all who touched it were healed.

Throughout human history, we have built temples to our gods. They are places where our gods live, and where we go to meet them. Every religion in every society has done this.

In the ancient Near East, victorious rulers often built temples to glorify the gods who bestowed upon them their power. The temple, then, served more than one purpose. Not only was it a place to find one's god, it was also a symbol of the ruler's legitimacy.

And so we encounter David in today's reading from Samuel, thinking that he should build a temple to God. He is the newly victorious king of Judah. In fact, he is the first king in Jewish history. His reign marks the end of the tribal history of the Jews and the beginning of the Jewish state. In the books to come, prophets will emerge to decry this state, with its haves and have-nots, as a polar opposite of the just society mandated in the Torah law.

But in our reading today, none of this has yet come to pass. We are present at the earliest moments of the dynasty, as David has settled into his new palace and thinks to himself that he should make for God a better home than a mere tent.

The early writers of Samuel thought like the prophets, and they give God words to say that he has no need for a temple; he wants to continue to be close to his people, as he has been since leading them out of Egypt with Moses.

But of course, the temple is built. Not by David, but by his son Solomon, and in this passage the later writers describe God as foretelling this for David. And so the dwelling place of God becomes the symbol of the legitimacy and the power of the monarchy. In this temple, God no longer resides amongst his people, but is hidden behind a curtain, where most people are forbidden to pass on pain of death. God is no longer mobile, but is confined to a single location, where he serves to support the state's claim to power.

The point I'm working toward here is that our temples describe the nature of the gods we go to meet there, and this in turn says what's most important to us, that which we consider essential to our existence.

Today, I think we need temples that are more like Moses' than Solomon's. We need to recover the God who is too free to live in a temple; he prefers tents and other mobile places. If we want to find the true source of all life, we have to look not in places that are stationary, but where there is change, where there is movement toward what is good.

As we experience daily the brokenness and suffering in today's world, what temples do we find? Here are two: First, one of our grandest: the World Financial Center in New York City. It is right across the street from Ground Zero, and it is breathtaking inside—all marble and vaulted ceilings. I think it would stand up well next to Solomon's temple. But what does it say about what we consider most important, and who we are?

Let's now consider a very different kind of temple: a church basement, where people come from all walks of life to find a God who will help them move away from their self-destructiveness and become whole. In those temples lives a God of transformation, acting through people who help other people.

Alcoholics Anonymous and the other 12-Step programs are a powerful example that God really makes possible the kind of transformation and hope that humanity so desperately needs today. In person after person, whether they come from Park Avenue or the park bench, desperation and loss is turned into joy and abundance, thanks to the knowledge that all things are possible with God's help.

* * *

Let's leave Samuel behind now and fast forward to the Letter to the Ephesians, where transformation is indeed happening. Gentiles are being welcomed into the Christian community, just as Jesus welcomed to his table women and sinners and others considered unclean by those closest to the official temple. For many of the Jews who were devout Christians, the welcoming of gentiles was a revolutionary attack on their understanding that only Jews could be Christians. But Jesus has established a new temple, says the author of Ephesians, where the two groups – circumcised and uncircumcised – are one.

For this writer, Jesus "proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father."

What a wonderful concept for us to consider in a world where there is so much division, where so many take sides and say they are different from each other, often different enough that for their way of life to survive, they have to deny the right of the other to even exist.

"Both of us as have access in one Spirit to the Father." The temple that houses this prayer is a temple of inclusion and unity. Imagine bringing into this temple those who focus on what they think makes them different, and helping them discover how much they are the same. Reds and Blues. Jews and Arabs. Fundamentalist and liberal Christians. All of have within us the same sacred temple.

* * *

So now our readings have provided two features in this temple we are imagining. First, it is a temple where transformation occurs. Second, it is a place where all are welcome, where we all belong, where we are all loved by God.

Now let's look at our Gospel reading to see what it might contribute to our temple.

I really puzzled over these two passages from Mark when I read them. At first they seemed not to say very much… in the initial passage, the story is that Jesus and the disciples try to get away from the crowds, but the crowds find them anyway. The second passage is similar… more about the crowds. We hear about him healing people, but only a little.

And why does the lectionary skip right over verses 35-52, which contain two of the most powerful miracle stories: the one in which Jesus feds the five thousand with fives loaves of bread and two fish, and the one in which he walks on water and calms the sea.

And then, as I tried to imagine what these passages might have to say about these ideas of temples, a light bulb went on. These passages are all about Jesus' compassion. When he feels the need for rest, but the people find him, says Mark, "he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd and he began to teach them many things." And then he feeds them, and always he heals them.

And this is the third aspect of the temple our readings help us imagine this morning: compassion for one another. Helping. Healing. Even when we'd rather rest.

And so, as it turns out, our temple isn't a place at all… it is us ourselves.

It is within us that heaven and earth meet. It is within us that God waits for us to find him. It is within us that we find the unquenchable power of the Holy Spirit to transform, to make peace, to have compassion for others and ourselves.

To enter this temple, we need only be willing to admit it when our other temples don't lead to God. We need only be willing to enter. God waits for us there, wanting us to be with him, loving us even when we can't love ourselves, ready to give us unimaginable blessings.

May it be so for each and every one of us.

Amen.