Sermon: Where Is God? (2021)

Delivered at Zoar United Methodist Church in Greer, South Carolina on July 18, 2021

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Where Is God?

Audio Version

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Now when the king was settled in his house, and the Lord had given him rest from all his enemies around him, the 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.”  Nathan said to the king, “Go, do all that you have in mind; for the Lord is with you.”

But that same night the word of the Lord came to Nathan: Go and tell my servant David: Thus says the Lord: Are you the one to build me a house to live in?  I 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.  Wherever 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?”  Now 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; and 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.  And 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, from 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.  When 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.  He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.  I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me.

2 Samuel 7:1-14a (NRSV)

I will swim in the deep
'Cause You'll be next to me
You're in the eye of the storm
And the calm of the sea
You're never out of reach

God, You know where I've been
You were there with me then
You were faithful before
You'll be faithful again
I'm holding Your hand

From “Let the Waters Rise” by MIKESCHAIR

In September of 2007, just a few months after I graduated from college, I began working as a software engineer for a small company that makes video games.  At first, my job might sound like a young programmer's dream, but this company does not make the type of video games in which a player fights hostile aliens or sets out on a journey to save a princess.  No, this company makes the type of video game on which a player might literally waste his or her entire paycheck, hoping to hit the jackpot.  I never thought that gambling was a particularly good use of a person's money, but I figured that, as long as a person didn't wager any more than he or she could afford to lose, it wasn't really a problem.  That said, after I accepted that job, I began to experience a growing sense of shame for working in an industry that profited from people's weaknesses.

At that time, the gambling industry was not a place I would have expected to find God.


The Ark of the Covenant and the Tabernacle

In the Second Book of Samuel, we read that, one day, while King David was relaxing at his palace, He said to his friend Nathan, “See now, I am living in a house of cedar, but the ark of God stays in a tent.”  Not long before this conversation took place, David brought to the new capital city Jerusalem the Ark of the Covenant, the sacred object that symbolized both the Presence of God and God's covenant with the people of Israel.  In Jerusalem, David set up a tent to house the Ark, but apparently he did not believe this tent was suitable for the almighty Creator of the universe.¹

The Ark of the Covenant was a golden chest that contained the Ten Commandments and other symbols of the covenant.  Atop the Ark was the Mercy Seat, the throne of God, which was made up of two golden cherubim.²  The Ark was originally housed in the Tabernacle, a place of worship constructed by the Israelites while they journeyed through the wilderness between Egypt and the Promised Land.  The Tabernacle consisted of tent and a surrounding courtyard which was enclosed by curtains.  Within the courtyard was an alter on which the priests offered sacrifices to God and a basin where they underwent cleansing rituals.  The tent itself was divided by a veil into two partitions: the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies.  The Holy Place contained an altar for incense, a golden lampstand, and a golden table for sacred bread.  The Ark itself was housed within the Holy of Holies.³

Naturally, if a place of worship was built while the worshipers were journeying through the wilderness, it had to be portable.  The Tabernacle was covered by the Presence of the Lord, which, at that time, was manifest as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.  When the cloud rose from the Tabernacle and began to move, the Israelites would dismantle the Tabernacle and follow the cloud.  When the cloud stopped, the Israelites would reassemble the Tabernacle and set up camp, and the cloud would once again settle upon the Tabernacle.⁴


The Temple of the Lord

The Tabernacle was still in use at the time of King David, though the Ark itself was housed in a tent in Jerusalem.  David did not believe it was right that the Ark, which symbolized the very Presence of God, was kept in a meager tent while he lived in a luxurious palace.  Nathan, a prophet of God, could see that David desired to build a temple fitting for God, so he said to him, “Go, do all that you have in mind; for the Lord is with you.”  Later that night, God gave Nathan a response for David, saying,
Are you the one to build me a house to live in?  I 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.  Wherever 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?”
Basically, God said to David, “Why do you want to build a temple for Me?  Did you ever hear Me complain about living in a tent?”

Building a temple was not what God had in mind for David, but I do believe that God must have been touched by his dedication and love.  Honoring his wish to build a temple, God made him a promise, saying,  
When 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.  He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.  I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me.

The Temple of the Lord, which was built in Jerusalem under the leadership of David's son Solomon, was larger and more ornate than its more modest predecessor.  Like the Tabernacle's tent, the inner sanctuary was divided into the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies.  The inner sanctuary was completely overlaid with gold, and the walls of the temple were adorned with carvings of cherubim, palm trees and flowers. Within the inner sanctuary stood two fifteen-foot-tall statues of cherubim, also overlaid with gold.  Surrounding the sanctuary were treasure chambers.⁵  The Temple had an outer courtyard as well as an inner courtyard where sacrifices were offered.⁶

Construction of the Temple required seven years, and, on the day that the Temple was dedicated, the Ark of the Covenant was brought inside, along with the Tabernacle's tent and the objects once contained therein.  The Presence of the Lord, manifest as a cloud, entered the Temple, and the cloud was so think that the priests could not carry out their duties.⁷


A Different Kind of Temple

What if I told you that there are temples described in the Bible that are very different from the Temple in Jerusalem and the Tabernacle that preceded it?

In the Gospel of John, we read that, one day, around the time of Passover, Jesus visited the Temple in Jerusalem.  He looked around and saw people selling animals for sacrifices and exchanging Roman currency for Jewish currency.  Though these activities were commonplace at the time, Jesus was, for some reason, very displeased with what He saw.  He made a whip, started cracking it, and drove everyone out of the Temple, yelling, “Take these things out of here!  Stop making My Father’s house a marketplace!”  When the religious leaders confronted Jesus about His actions, He said to them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”⁸

John tells us that Jesus was not referring to the temple in which He had just made a scene, as people might have thought, but was instead calling His own body a temple.⁹  John begins his Gospel with a hymn about a Word – a Word that “was in the beginning with God,” a Word that “was God,” a Word through which “all things came into being.”¹⁰  The hymn tells us that “the Word became flesh and lived among us.”¹¹  The Greek term used to describe the incarnate Word's living among us was originally used to describe pitching a tent.  In fact, it could be said that the incarnate Word “tabernacled” among us.¹²  John teaches us in his Gospel that the Presence of God was found in a temple or tabernacle made of flesh and blood, who came to be known as Jesus of Nazareth.  Like a literal word, Jesus is the way God chose to express God's self to humanity.

The good, upstanding religious folk of the day would not have considered Jesus a temple suitable for God.  He was born in a stable under questionable circumstances; He associated with disreputable people; He was in constant conflict with the religious leaders; and He was executed on a Roman cross like a criminal.  Of course, Jesus was resurrected from the dead on the third day, just as He told the religious leaders.


The Temple of the Holy Spirit

Like many prophecies recorded in Scripture, the promise God made to David can be understood in multiple ways.  God promised David that one of his descendants would “build a house for [God's] name.”  Normally we might assume that this prophecy was fulfilled in King Solomon, David's son and successor who built the temple in Jerusalem.  God also promised David that the throne of his descendant's kingdom would be established forever, and that this future king would be like a son to God.  Like Solomon, Jesus was a descendant of David.  To this day, His followers believe that He is the Son of God and that, even now, He reigns at the right-hand side of the Father as the true Lord of this world.

And, like Solomon, Jesus built a temple.

In the Gospels, we read that, one day, Jesus asked His disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”  The Disciples replied with various rumors about who Jesus was, and then Jesus asked them, “But who do you say that I am?”  The disciple Simon answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”  Jesus turned to Simon and said, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah!  For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven.  And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.”¹³

The temple Jesus built is the Church, a community of disciples who are bound together by one Spirit.  As Paul writes in one of his letters to the early Church, “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?”¹⁴  The Presence of the Lord entered this temple on the day of Pentecost when the Disciples heard a sound of a mighty wind and saw the Holy Spirit descend upon them like tongues of fire.¹⁵  From that day forward, disciples of Jesus Christ all over the world have offered up their lives as living sacrifices to God on the altars of their hearts, which burn bright with the fire of the Holy Spirit.  The Disciples were not perfect, and neither are we, but still we have been chosen to be the raw materials from which Christ builds His Church.  We have been entrusted with the ministry Christ began two thousand years ago, and we have been empowered by the Holy Spirit to carry it out.

So Where Is God?

King David believed that there are some places that are beneath God, like the tent he set up for the Ark of the Covenant, but the different temples described in Scripture show us that God is equally comfortable dwelling in a mobile tent, residing in a temple of gold, sleeping in a manger in a dirty stable, or abiding in and among a community of imperfect disciples.

So where exactly is God?

One day, the apostle Paul found himself in the Greek city of Athens.  When he saw the many idols, altars, and other objects of worship scattered throughout the city, he experienced a bit of a culture shock, having come from a devoutly Jewish background.  There was one altar that stood out to him which was dedicated “to an unknown god.”  At a site called Mars Hill, Paul told the Athenians about the God they did not know.  He said, “The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands...”  He went on to tell them that God “is not far from each one of us,” and then, borrowing words from a Greek poet, he said, “In him we live and move and have our being.”¹⁶

The very concept of a temple suggests that God has a place in the world.  At Mars Hill, Paul flipped the proverbial script, suggesting that it is not God who has a place in the world but rather we who have a place in God.  I have heard it said – I have forgotten by whom – that God is like the ocean and that we are like sunken ships.  Though it is true, to a certain extent, that a sunken ship contains the ocean, it is much more true to say that the ocean contains the ship.  Consider these words of David in light of Paul's revelation that in God “we live and move and have our being”:

Where can I go from Your Spirit?
Or where can I flee from Your presence?
If I ascend into heaven, You are there;
If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there.
If I take the wings of the morning,
And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
Even there Your hand shall lead me,
And Your right hand shall hold me.
If I say, “Surely the darkness shall fall on me,”
Even the night shall be light about me;
Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You,
But the night shines as the day;
The darkness and the light are both alike to You.¹⁷

There is no place we can go where God is not to be found, and there is no time in our lives when God is not with us.  No matter how far from God we might feel, God is never far from us.

As I noted earlier, the gambling industry was not a place I would have expected to find God.  The flagship product of the company for which I worked was a video slot machine that had a penny theme.  For a long time, one of these machines happened to be set up near my desk.  One day, while I was looking at this machine, I began to notice the detail with which the pennies had been drawn.  I then realized that sprinkled all over that slot machine, from the video screen to the illuminated glass on the cabinet, was the motto IN GOD WE TRUST.  Written all over that instrument of iniquity, on which people wasted their hard earned money, was a reminder to trust in God.

I considered my taking a job in the gambling industry a big mistake, but my mistake was not big enough to take me outside of God's reach.  As David points out in his Psalm, there is no place a person can go where God is not to be found.  In that dreary office, in one of the most unholy of places, God was right there with me.  In that dark, dismal time of my life marked with shame and despair, God was holding me close like a loving parent.  I've called the gambling industry godless in the past, but God used my time working in that industry to call me into God's work.  It was at that time that I began seeking in my religion the sense of purpose I did not find in my job.  I am not certain that, had I not made the mistake of taking that job, I would still be here, delivering this sermon to you today.

Maybe, like David, who thought a meager tent was not suitable for God, we think that there are places – in the world and in our lives – that are not suitable for God.  What if such places are ironically the places where we might actually find ourselves closest to God?  Shane Hipps once said:
If you want to experience the presence of God, one place you will most certainly find that God is in the dark, shadowy back alleys of the soul and the world – the parts of ourselves that we repress, deny, and disown, that we are frightened of – in that dark back corner room with the locked door.  If you were to go and open that door, what you would find, nestled in among the sin and the shame and the sickness and the sorrow, is the Creator of the universe, reclined and relaxed, completely at home, not the least bit offended, not the least bit surprised, not the least bit fearful – completely at home.  None of it would surprise him.  It's this fascinating phenomenon that the divine dwells in the darkest places.¹⁸

God's love is as inescapable as God's presence.  Paul writes, “I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”¹⁹  There is nowhere we can stray where God is not to be found; there is no mistake we can make that would alienate us from God's love; and there is no part of our lives – no dark corner of our hearts – where God is not ready to meet us.


The Temple of the Future

Our Bible ends with a vision of the future, when heaven and earth are made new.  The Revelator watches as the holy city New Jerusalem comes down from heaven to earth, and he hears an announcement:

See, the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them;
they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them...²⁰

The Greek term used to describe God's dwelling with humanity in the renewed creation is the same term used in John's Gospel to describe the incarnate Word's living among humanity.²¹  In other words, God will once again pitch God's tent or “tabernacle” with humanity.  As the Revelator describes the holy city, he makes an interesting observation.  He notes, “I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb [Christ].”²²  Perhaps the Revelator is telling us that, someday, we will experience God's presence in such a way that we will finally realize the truth that all space is sacred space.


May you realize that there is no place on your journey where God is not with you.  May you remember that God is never far from you, no matter how far from God you might feel.  May you realize that there is no place in your heart or soul where God is not ready to meet you if you would just step inside.  May you realize that you cannot hide from God and that you do not need to hide from God, because nothing can separate you from God's love.  May you remember that you too are called to be part of the Church that Christ is building, and may you embrace this calling with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Amen.


Notes:

1. 2 Samuel 6:1-19
2. Exodus 25:10-22
3. Exodus 40:1-33a
4. Exodus 40:33b-38
5. 1 Kings 6
6. 2 Chronicles 4:9
7. 1 Kings 8:1-11
8. John 2:13-19 (NRSV)
9. John 2:21
10. John 1:1-3 (NRSV)
11. John 1:14 (NRSV)
12. Blue Letter Bible: “skēnoō”
13. Matthew 16:13-20 (NRSV)
14. 1 Corinthians 3:16 (NRSV)
15. Acts 2:1-4
16. Acts 17:16-31 (NRSV)
17. Psalm 139:7-12 (NKJV)
18. Shane Hipps.  “The God in Nineveh.”  Mars Hill Bible Church Podcast, 02/21/10.
19. Romans 8:38-39 (NRSV)
20. Revelation 21:1-3 (NRSV)
21. Blue Letter Bible: “skēnoō”
22. Revelation 21:22 (NRSV)

The replica Ark of the Covenant is from the film Raiders of the Lost Ark. The photograph of the model Tabernacle was taken by Wikimedia Commons user Ruk7 and is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license. The photograph of the model Temple was taken by Juan R. Caudra and is public domain.  Christ Driving the Money Changers from the Temple was painted by El Greco in 1600.  The illustration of the day of Pentecost is of unknown origin.  None of the artists or photographers are in any way affiliated with this blog.