6/18/23 Sermon
1Kings 8:22-23, 41-43
Solomon stood before the Lord’s altar in front of the entire Israelite assembly and, spreading out his hands toward the sky, he said:
Lord God of Israel, there’s no god like you in heaven above or on earth below. You keep the covenant and show loyalty to your servants who walk before you with all their heart.
Listen also to the immigrant who isn’t from your people Israel but who comes from a distant country because of your reputation— because they will hear of your great reputation, your great power, and your outstretched arm. When the immigrant comes and prays toward this temple, then listen from heaven, where you live, and do everything the immigrant asks. Do this so that all the people of the earth may know your reputation and revere you, as your people Israel do, and recognize that this temple I have built bears your name.
Word of Lord
There’s something fascinating about the building of this temple that’s always seemed to bother me. Maybe I watched too much Indiana Jones as a kid. Maybe I’ve just spent way more time in Exodus and with Moses than I have with King David and King Solomon that I missed a really important shift in the life of Israel. But here’s what weirds me out:
Ever since Moses came down with the tablets and they built the ark of the covenant, the Jewish faith had always centered around this ark. They took it into battle with them. It traveled everywhere with them. It was the most holy and important thing they had and they believed that God lived in the ark and as long as it was with them, God was with them. Then Solomon builds this temple right around 957 BCE, they put the ark in it, and then you never hear about the ark again. It just disappears. We have no idea what happened to it.
Now, there are rumors about what happened to the ark and my favorite story and for some reason its the one I believe the most, is also the strangest and most like an episode of Ancient Aliens. Solomon and the Queen of Sheba have a son. And the son comes up from Ethiopia to visit his father the King who then gives him the ark to take back to Ethiopia to keep it safe. But that’s another sermon for another day. But it’s strange that once this ark gets deposited into the temple, once the most important item in Jewish history takes it’s place, it’s never mentioned again and the whole religion makes a shift from the ark to the temple being the central point of the faith. God moves out of a tent and into the temple.
Now, think about what that means… God no longer travels with them. God isn’t nomadic with them anymore and it’s a symbol, maybe, that the nation isn’t nomadic anymore either. They are set - established -fixed to a particular location. God and the Jewish people are no longer wanderers or outsiders. They now have their own place, their own location, their own identity. Their own nation.
But then in the 580s BCE, Babylon comes in, uproots the nation, and around 586 they destroy the temple and neither God nor the Jewish people really have a home anymore. But interestingly, we fast forward to about 20 years before the birth of Jesus and Herod the Great - who really wasn’t all that great - but Herod the Great rebuilds the temple. And this temple is much different than Solomon’s. Solomon’s temple would be about the size of a basketball court. And like I said, the palace that Solomon built for his harem was much bigger and more lavish by all accounts. BUT Herod’s new temple was HUGE! It’s actually Herod’s temple we see in the temple mount and the wailing wall is a part of the Second temple, not the first. The wailing wall is a part of Herod’s temple and not Solomon’s. And so again, the temple becomes the central figure and ground zero of the Jewish faith. But this doesn’t last long either.
The zealots begin a revolt against Roman occupation in the year 66 CE and in the year 70 the Romans burn the temple to the ground. Some accounts say that the fire was so hot that the stones liquified. Rome knew what it was doing. But oddly enough, there was this small movement in Judaism who followed this carpenter from Nazareth who made strange comments that essentially he and therefore WE are a replacement for the temple and the temple activity.
Now, this movement wasn’t really big enough to shift the views of the entire nation of Israel, but the movement ended up catching on and growing. Partly I think because this movement wasn’t fixed to a specific spot or a static location and because of the work of Paul and some of the other Apostles, it was no longer tied into a specific national identity. This new religion with this new “Temple” was open for anyone regardless of where they were or where they were from. It was no longer a national religion.
God, in essence, became nomadic again but this time instead of God residing inside the ark located in a tent, instead of God residing inside a temple located in the capital city, we believe that God resides inside the heart located in each of us…
My point in giving you a very brief history of the Temple is this: The relationship between God and nations, just like the relationship between God and people, changes. The relationship between God and nations changes. But even though it changes, it appears that God is still with us.
But because that relationship changes, there is - and perhaps there SHOULD be - this tension between religion and nation. And because there’s that tension, because nations don’t always live up to the higher calling of our faith, because God’s relationship with nations changes, we have to be very, very careful. We have to be very, very careful that we don’t confuse our faith with our nation - or allow our patriotism and love of this country to overshadow our Christian calling and love of God. And we have to be very careful not to conflate the two - to somehow believe that being faithful and being patriotic are the same thing. There’s no requirement that you have to be a US citizen or even to be a patriot in order to be Christian just like there’s no requirement to be a Christian to be a US citizen.
Here’s what I believe and you are entirely free to disagree with me on this. But I do believe that God has blessed this country. Historically speaking, In just a short amount of time this country has had a meteoric rise and has provided opportunity to people unseen and unparalleled anywhere else in the history of the world. But sometimes we’ve done it on the backs of people in ways that are antithetical to the Gospel and Jesus Christ. And we have to at least recognize that. Just like with Solomon, sometimes the palace for the Harem has been bigger than the house of God. That doesn’t take away from the hard work and good faith Solomon had and used to build the temple. That doesn’t cheapen the importance of the faith that goes into the temple or those who worshipped there.
But maybe it does serve as a reminder that nations and rulers aren’t always the most holy, aren’t always the most aware of what’s sacred, and aren’t always the best anchor to tie our faith to. Nations rise and fall. Nations can do amazingly good things for people but can often do so in stunningly corrupt ways. Nations can be built on the greatest principles and our highest ideals and can be rooted in the deepest faith, and yet sometimes - many times - the palace of the harem can still cast a long shadow over the house of God. And I think we make a mistake if we don’t address that or at the very least recognize that.
And what I’m really struggling with these days is that I’m feeling like more and more of an outsider and more and more marginalized being a Christian in America. Not because of any culture war, not because fewer and fewer of us come to church and not because fewer people identify as Christian, but I sometimes feel marginalized because I often feel like I’m supposed to blindly love and support a history and a political agenda that I find to be in direct conflict with the God that now resides inside my heart. And I struggle with a definition of patriotism that means blind allegiance and leaves no room for critique or growth.
And because I’m really trying to study the word of God and I see that the relationship between God and nations and the relationship between God and people change, and I’ve become more and more convinced that my full allegiance, my full loyalties must remain with Christ. As Paul says in Philippians: As I have told you many times and now say with deep sadness, many people live as enemies of the cross. Their lives end with destruction. Their god is their stomach, and they take pride in their disgrace because their thoughts focus on earthly things. Our citizenship is in heaven. We look forward to a savior that comes from there—the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, please don’t misunderstand me or what I’m trying to say. I’m NOT saying you have to pick between being Christian or being American. It’s not a binary choice. I’m not saying you can’t love God AND country. But what I am saying is if the temple of God has moved into my heart, I’m not willing to let anything else overshadow it. And if the temple of God is supposed to be the anchor, the central point, the keystone of individuals, of nations, and of the world, then it’s up to us as Christians to make sure that we keep God at the center of who we are and what we do even when it conflicts with national agendas or political party platforms. And we need to make sure that our primary allegiance rests with and in Christ. We have an obligation to speak out and offer correction and guidance if it appears that the palace of the harem may be overshadowing the House of God.
Right now and for the past several years, we’ve been told we must pick a side, pick a team, or pick a party. And while the side or party may not be perfect, we have to support them perfectly and never point out how they may be imperfect. And part of perfectly supporting whichever team it is we pick is by hating and denigrating anyone who would question or challenge anything our side, our team does or says or believes - even if we may not agree with it either… It doesn’t matter. You pick your team. You stick with your team. And it shouldn’t matter to you if the team leaders do things you don’t necessarily agree with, we’re suppose to justify and excuse it away and not waiver in our loyalty.
But then we come to this table and the Gospel reminds us that we’re not enemies. The Gospel reminds us that these distinctions and teams we create for ourselves mean very little in the eyes of God. The Gospel reminds us that there are supposed to be bigger principles that unite us and hold us together than those that try to divide us. The Gospel reminds us that there are greater loyalties that lay claim to our hearts. And I can’t help but think that if we want to say that America is founded on Christian principles, if we want to still claim that God anchors and blesses this nation, then we should see and unite around the same principles that bring us to this table where it doesn’t matter where we come from, who we support, or what team we think we may be on. That there are some things bigger, some things more important, some things that lay deeper claim to our hearts. And one of those things is Christ’s ability to tear down the barriers of separation between us and God and between us and each other.