Many of you already know the story
about how we came to be worshipping in this intricate, beautiful, gothic stone
space: how in the late 1920’s, tech millionaire Eldridge Johnson, founder of
The Victor Talking Machine Company, now RCA, sent his architect to surprise the
rector of Trinity with plans for a brand new church building.
How the Vestry debated a bit,
having just completed some repairs and renovations to our old building, but
quickly accepted, and over the next year or two, stone and slate and wood and
the work of many craftsmen grew into a temple; a space dedicated to the worship
of God, which we enjoy today (fortunately now with air conditioning).
But what would have happened if a prophet had come to Mr. Johnson, sent by a dream from God, to
say: Don’t build that church building!
I know you want to honor God and
give your community a space to be with God. But don’t build that building! I
have other plans for this town, that congregation, and for you.
What do you suppose would have
happened at Trinity then?
The building we had in the mid
1920s had some problems – all buildings age, just as the one we have now has
done. It also had some glorious beauty – you can glimpse it in our chapel. It’s
hard to keep buildings up, but probably we would have done it.
Or we
wouldn’t have. That 1840s building might,
in time have crumbled. We might have moved. A new
congregation might have sprung up in Mt Laurel. We might have a midcentury
steel and glass beauty, instead of gothic stone. We might not be here. We might have been inspired to be stronger
and more flexible. We don’t know – can’t know – what else could have happened.
But we can know this: God doesn’t
wait around for us to build things for God with our success. God is already
busy building something with us, for
us, in failure, success, and everything in between.
That’s what God told Nathan to
tell David, in the story we heard this morning. All along, from your days with
the sheep to your days at court, in battle and in victory and in exile and in
kingship, I’ve been building something with you. I’ve been building you into a blessing for all my people, building roots and peace for my
people, and I’m not done building with you, either. I’ll be building with you
far into the future beyond your life.
God doesn’t need a house of cedar,
a temple of stone, to ensure God’s presence among God’s people – or even to give us a place to seek God – because
God naturally, constantly, is present with God’s
people wherever we go, in triumph or exile, distress or stability.
And while God is with us, God is building with us: building us, God’s
people, into God’s own dwelling place.
It’s not just David that God says
this to. It’s the Gentile congregation in Ephesus, as we heard this morning,
reminding them – us – that now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off
have been brought near.… So then you are no longer strangers and immigrants, but you are citizens with the saints; members of the household of God, built
upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as
the cornerstone. In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a
holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together spiritually into a
dwelling place for God.
God doesn’t build with stone, with
bricks, with cedar or slate or beautifully carved wood.
God builds with people. With us. With living, growing material.
And not “the best people” either.
God builds with people who have failed
God’s covenant, and people who never knew God existed. God builds with spiritual
immigrants – newcomers who have no idea how things are done, who speak other
spiritual languages and have strange customs – and with the old-timers who are so familiar in their hopes and habits and flaws that we hardly
notice what God is doing with them.
We may resist this, sometimes,
because we doubt our own capacity for God’s work. Maybe you don’t see in
yourself the strength of stone and slate, the resilience and beauty of cedar or silver. Maybe you see your own flaws, or
the flaws of your fellow Christians too clearly to trust us as building
material that will endure.
But God reminds the Ephesian
community that Christ’s strength and unity are what makes us into suitable
building material, not our own merits.
And that Christ heals the greatest flaw in us – as building material or
as people – our divisions.
For Christ is our peace… he has
made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the
hostility between us.
That might feel almost laughable
when we look at the divisions in front of us daily in the news and social media
and our daily lives – differences in income and
wealth, apparent divisions by race, language, or
nation. Differences of political inclination, social opinion, or hopes for our nation and community.
But God doesn’t wait until we get
it right, until we fix things, and reconcile and win. God wants us right now, years ago, flawed and
divided and failed as we are, and already healed in Christ even when that
healing isn’t apparent and divisions appear fresh and strong in and to the
world around us.
And because God doesn’t wait, we
get to act in the revolutionary truth that we are one in Christ, in spite of those divisions, united, healed, even
when the world thinks we aren’t. We get to live, every day, in the confidence
that God is building us together with our apparent enemies, with strangers,
with everyone on “the other side”, into something greater than we imagine. We
must live that truth, instead of building our own walls, for our own purposes.
We like to build churches because
these buildings help us shape and define a
relationship with God – we build to create a sense of beauty, or a sense of security, permanence or comfort.
We build with stone and wood, but
also calendars and clocks and cash. We build habits to shape our relationship with God: specific times or
forms of prayer, particular political or social positions. We like to build
these things in the hope that they honor God, and give
us beauty or security to enjoy.
But that’s not all that God wants
from us, or wants to give us. God doesn’t wait around for us to build something for
God; God doesn’t wait for us to be successful, stable, and strong so that we
can “give back”. God is already building something
with us, for us, in our failure, our success, and everything in between.
God wants us – like David, like
the Gentile Christians of Ephesus – to remember that God picked us up from far
away, wherever we were. God has gone with us, with you, wherever you went:
exile or triumph, battle, struggle, long and winding roads or exciting
successes and adventures. God has been building with us, all this time, and
will continue to build with you, joining us together in Christ,
erasing all our divisions, to grow into God’s own dwelling place, God’s home.
No comments:
Post a Comment