[Even professors of liturgy can be confused by the lectionary. I mistakenly prepared my sermon for the 24th of August using the readings for Proper 21 in Year B rather than Year A: 1 Kings 8.[1-6, 10-11], 22-30, 41-43; Psalm 84; Ephesians 6.10-20; John 6.56-69. Fortunately I was preaching at St Dunstan's Parish in Aldergrove BC where the people are able to adjust quickly to the failings of the presider!]
+ Lord, to you we turn, for you have the words of eternal life. Amen.
This past week Paula and I enjoyed the gift of a cruise from Vancouver to Alaska through the Inside Passage. Our ship, the Radiance of the Seas, has been recognized as one of the ‘greenest ‘ cruise ships afloat and it is a marvel of contemporary marine architecture. At the heart of the ship is the ‘Centrum’, a towering atrium some eight decks in height around which many of the core social and administrative functions of the ship are clustered. No day on-board goes by without the necessity of passing through the ‘Centrum’, whether to catch an elevator from one deck to another, to use the Internet, to have a conversation with another person in one of the two bars of the ‘Centrum’ or to walk through to reach the on-board shops and theatres.
But the ‘Centrum’ is not the only focal point in the life of the ship. There are at least five restaurants or cafés on-board the Radiance and one or other of them are operational at almost all hours of the day or night. One can enjoy the formality of the dining room or the informality of the buffet. In the informal atmosphere of the buffet it is possible to create a degree of private space, but in the dining room the older tradition of being seated at a table with people one may not know continues.
Around these two gathering places the elliptical life of the ship flows, bounded by the physical limitations of space and by the customs of centuries of passenger sailing but shaped by human activity. While the design of the spaces may contribute to the experience of being in the ‘Centrum’ or in a dining room, it cannot be denied that the fundamental activ-ity that defines the beauty of those spaces is the activity of human beings, in all their diver-sity, as they gather. A well-designed public space, such as the ‘Centrum’, cannot prevent one from witnessing some of the less pleasant aspects of human life and community. A well-designed dining room with a five-star chef cannot prevent one from choosing voluntary fasting if one’s table companions are disagreeable. What we do in public spaces determines in significant ways to whether those spaces are good or bad, useful or useless, life-giving or life-denying.
In today’s reading from 1 Kings, a reading that could pass us by as just one more ir-relevant story from the history of the people of Israel, we are reminded of this fundamental reality of the divine-human relationship: Holiness does not rest inherently in a place, but in the activity of those who are gathered in that place. Even as Solomon stands in the midst of the building that he has caused to be built for the honour of God’s name, he must declare:
“But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, much less this house that I have built. . . . Hear the plea of your servant and of your people Israel when they pray toward this place; O hear in heaven your dwelling place; heed and forgive.”
Although other religious traditions of the time would understand their temples to be the re-sidence of the god or gods, Solomon’s prayer is an affirmation of the ancient Israelite con-fession that God cannot be contained within the creation. Solomon’s Temple is a focal point for the faith of the people of Israel, a physical aid to their memory, a place where the saving acts of God are constantly remembered. By remembering those acts, their power to transform the present is unleashed so that God’s purposes for the whole of creation can be achieved. Perhaps the most significant petition of Solomon’s prayer comes when he claims that this Temple is not just for the people of Israel:
“Likewise when a foreigner, who is not of your people Israel, comes from a distant land because of your name --- for they shall hear of your great name, your mighty hand, and your outstretched arm --- when a foreigner comes and prays toward this house, then hear in heaven your dwelling place, and do according to all that the foreigner calls to you, so that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your people Israel, and so that they may know that your name has been invoked on this house that I have built.”
When Solomon speaks of God’s name, he does not mean ‘Yahweh’ or ‘Adonai’. Nor does he mean using God’s name as some sort of magic talisman that will compel God to act in a particular fashion. He means telling the story of the God of Israel who created the uni-verse, who made promises to Noah and to Abraham, who redeemed the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt and who established the covenant with Moses and the people at Sinai. It is the remembering of what God has done that God’s name is ‘invoked’. The Temple with its altar and ‘Holy of Holies’ has but one purpose: It is to proclaim that God has acted, is act-ing and will act to bring about God’s purposes in the kosmos. This is the proclamation en-trusted to the people of Israel and this is the mission into which God has called them.
We are living in a time when many people are seeking holy places and holy objects rather than seeking to participate in the on-going mission of God to redeem and renew the whole of creation. We are living in a time when many people seek ‘holy’ places that are dis-tinct from what they perceive to be ‘profane’ or ‘secular’ places. There is reason to do this: If we can contain God to some holy place or to some holy object, then we can contain God, then we can avoid the dangerous ‘thin places’ where one might actually come into contact with this unpredictable God.
For some people the Bible has ceased to be an authoritative witness to the encoun-ter of men and women to the Holy One of Israel and has become a repository for God. What the Bible says has been confused with what the Bible means. On the other hand, there are people who consider the Bible to be a collection of ancient texts that are more or less irrele-vant to the life of contemporary believers. In doing so, such people have lost sight of the power of the Scriptures to call people to overthrow oppressive regimes, to remove the shackles that bind slaves and to remind us that God cannot be contained in any philosophical or scientific discipline. What both groups have forgotten is that our God is not a tame God.
There are others who hold fast to one or other tradition of the Christian community as the immutable witness to the truth. When we do so, we forget the truth of that old say-ing, ‘Tradition is the living faith of the dead not the dead faith of the living.’ Tradition is and has always been the response of a given human community to the demands of its time and culture. On the other hand, there are those who are quite happy to shed any tradition in or-der to be ‘relevant’ to the present time. When we do this, we can demonstrate a certain ar-rogance towards our ancestors in the faith. Even birds that traverse the wide expanses of land and sea eventually must find a place to land and bear their young.
My friends in Christ, this is a holy place not because of the excellence of its design but because of the faithfulness in Christian life and witness of those who gather here to hear the living Word proclaimed, to hold up before God the needs and concerns of the whole world, to share in the life-giving bread and wine of the holy communion and to be sent forth as agents of that Word, of those prayers and of that Body which we have received.
• When we proclaim the Word, we invoke God’s name by telling the story of God’s holy activity in the world, so that our lives might become symbols of that activity in the here and now of our own lives.
• When we hold up before God the needs and concerns of the whole world, we are not relieved of responsibility but are empowered for act.
• When we share in the life-giving bread and wine of the holy communion, we do so not only for solace but for strength, not only for pardon but for renewal.
• When we are sent forth as agents of the living Word, we become symbols of God wherever we live and work.
May our gathering in this place remind us that every place is holy. May our proclamation of the Word remind us that the Word is very near to us wherever we are. May our prayers re-mind us that God has acted and is acting and will act in our lives and the lives of others. May our holy communion remind us that those who have received holy gifts become the gift that they have received. May our going forth be understood not as an ending of our work but as its renewal in the world. Amen.
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