Sermon: Where Is God? (2021)

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

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.
Comments are always welcomed.
If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

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.

Perspective: The Call of a Prophet

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

The Call of a Prophet

Create in me a clean heart, O God,

and put a new and right spirit within me.

Psalm 51:10 (NRSV)

Woe to me!  I am unclean

A sinner found in Your presence

I see You seated on Your throne

Exalted, Your glory surrounds you

From "Ruin Me" by Jeff Johnson

Some of the Bible stories I like the most are those in which people experience God in a profound way.  Maybe it could be said that the people in such stories find themselves in what the Celts called thin places.  Thin places are the spaces where the earthly and the divine are unusually close to each other.  Perhaps what has become "thin" at such places is whatever veil separates heaven and earth.

One day, while working in the temple, a priest named Isaiah finds himself in the presence of God.¹  He sees God seated on a throne, wearing a regal robe, the edges of which fill the room.  Also in the room are a number of seraphim, flying serpentine creatures with six wings, who shout praises to God.  The temple fills with smoke, and parts of the structure shake because of the shouts of the seraphim.

Isaiah, knowing that he is in the presence of pure goodness and holiness, is overwhelmed by a sense of his own unworthiness.  He fears that there is no way that a sinner like him can survive in the presence of a holy God.  He cries out in fear, "Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!"  I do not know if, in Isaiah's day, there was any cultural significance to the phrase unclean lips, but I wonder if unclean lips might be symptomatic of an unclean heart.  Jesus once said that "it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks."²  In other words, what fills the heart overflows through the mouth.

Hearing Isaiah's lament, a seraph, using a pair of tongs, takes a live coal from the altar and touches it to Isaiah's mouth.  The creature says to Isaiah, "Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out."  Interestingly, the word seraph is derived from a Hebrew word that means "fiery serpent."³

Sometimes, the things that seem like a big deal to us are not nearly as big of a deal to God.  St. John writes, "If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness."⁴  Isaiah confesses his sin in the presence of God, so God deals with it.  Isaiah feels that he has unclean lips, so God's seraph singes the sin right off of them.  Nothing that makes us feel unworthy is a problem that God cannot handle, as long as we are willing to offer it to God.

Isaiah will need purified lips and a purified heart for what God has in mind for him.  God says, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?"  God is looking for a prophet, a messenger to speak on God's behalf.

Isaiah says, "Here am I; send me!"

God warns Isaiah that the people's minds will be dull to the messages he will relay to them as a prophet.  They will listen, but they will not comprehend.  They will look, but they will not understand.  The people will ignore the words of the prophets until they find themselves in exile while their cities lie in ruins.  For example, in the midst of an international crisis, Isaiah will encourage King Ahaz of Judah to turn to God.  Instead, Ahaz will turn to an evil empire for help, and he will end up promoting idolatry in Judah.⁵

The vocation of a prophet is to speak on behalf of God.  People often think that a prophet's job is to tell the future; but, though a prophet might warn people what will happen to them if they do not change their ways, a prophet's job is simply to tell the truth.  People want to hear inside information about the future, but they often do not want to hear the truth, especially when the truth makes demands of them.  People will insist on having their own way even when it is detrimental to them.  In my opinion, the prophets are tragic characters in Scripture.  They have the words that the people need to hear, yet the people will not listen to them.

The call story of the prophet Isaiah presents us with a number of questions, many of which involve words.  What do your words currently say about the state of your heart?  What words do you need to speak to God at this time?  Are you willing to speak difficult words to the people who need to hear them?  Are you willing to listen to the difficult words other people have for you?  May God give us the courage to speak and the humility to listen.


Notes:

1. This perspective is based primarily on Isaiah 6.
2. Luke 6:45 (NRSV)
3. Blue Letter Bible: "saraph"
4. 1 John 1:9 (NRSV)
5. See Isaiah 7:1-17 and 2 Kings 16.

The photograph of the fire was taken by Wikimedia Commons user snty-talk and is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.  The photographer is in no way affiliated with this blog.

Sermon: Where Is God? (2015)

Delivered at Monaghan United Methodist Church in Greenville, South Carolina on July 19, 2015

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

Where Is God?

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.  When he commits iniquity, I will punish him with a rod such as mortals use, with blows inflicted by human beings.  But I will not take My steadfast love from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you.  Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure for ever before Me; your throne shall be established for ever.  In accordance with all these words and with all this vision, Nathan spoke to David.

2 Samuel 7:1-17 (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

Jesus juke is a term coined by humorist Jon Acuff to describe something that occasionally happens during conversations between Christians.  As a football running back jukes a defensive player by suddenly changing direction to avoid being tackled, a person performs a Jesus juke by suddenly steering a conversation into a religious direction in a negative way.  For example, imagine that someone was talking about her favorite book, saying, "I read the whole book in one sitting!"  If someone wanted to perform a Jesus juke at that moment, he might say, "Too bad people don't read the Bible with that much enthusiasm."  Jon Acuff encourages people not say such things because Jesus jukes bring down conversations, make people feel guilty, and do nothing to actually bring anybody any closer to Jesus.¹

In the Second Book of Samuel, we read a conversation that begins with something not unlike a Jesus juke.  One day, King David was relaxing at his palace with his friend Nathan, when suddenly he said, "Nathan, look around you.  I live in this beautiful, luxurious palace.  It's too bad the almighty God, the Creator of the universe, has to live in a tent."²


The Ark of the Covenant and the Tabernacle

Not long before this conversation took place, David brought to Jerusalem the Ark of the Covenant, the object that symbolized both the Presence of God and God's covenant with the people of Israel.³  The Ark 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 made up of two golden cherubim.⁴

Replica of the Ark of the Covenant

Years before the reign of David, the Ark of the Covenant was housed in the Tabernacle, a place of worship constructed by the Israelites while they camped at the foot of Mt. Sinai, not long after God rescued them from slavery in Egypt.  The Tabernacle consisted of tent and a surrounding courtyard enclosed by curtains.  Within the courtyard was the Brazen Alter on which the priests offered burnt sacrifices to God and a basin where priests 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.⁵

Replica of the Tabernacle

A key feature of the Tabernacle was its portability.  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 Presence of the Lord 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.⁶


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 David had set up in Jerusalem.  David did not believe it was right that the sacred object that 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 Nathan told him to go ahead and do what he intended to do, knowing that God was with him.  Later that night, God gave Nathan a response for David, basically saying, "Why do you want to build temple for Me?  Did you ever hear Me complain about living in a tent?"⁷

Building a temple was not what God had in mind for David, but I believe that God must have been touched by his dedication and love, for God gave him a promise.  God promised an age of peace for the people of God.  Honoring David's wish to build a temple, God promised that one of David's descendants would build a house for God's name.  God promised to treat this descendant as a son by loving him faithfully and by chastening him for any iniquity "with blows inflicted by human beings."  God then promised to establish David's dynasty forever.

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 two parts: 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.⁸  The Temple had an outer courtyard as well as an inner courtyard where burnt sacrifices were offered.⁹

Replica of the Temple of the Lord

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.  On that day, the Presence of the Lord, manifest as a cloud, entered the Temple, and the Presence of the Lord was so think that the priests could not carry out their duties.¹⁰  The Temple was destroyed by Babylonian invaders around four hundred years later, rebuilt when the Jewish exiles returned to their homeland, renovated by King Herod at the time of Jesus, and destroyed again by the Roman Empire just decades after that.¹¹  One remaining courtyard wall, often called the Wailing Wall, still stands in Jerusalem to this day.


A Different Kind of Temple

Believe it or not, there is a third kind of temple mentioned in the Bible - a temple very different from the Tabernacle and the Temple of the Lord.  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 this was commonplace at the time, Jesus went ballistic for some reason - maybe He saw people being cheated by the merchants and moneychangers, or maybe He was just offended by the blatant commercialism going on in a house of worship.  Jesus 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 Jesus was confronted about His actions, He said, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up."¹²

"Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up."

Interestingly, Jesus was not referring to the Temple of the Lord, as people thought, but was rather calling His own body a temple.  The Presence of the Lord was not found in a temple of gold but in a temple of flesh and blood - the man Christ Jesus.  Jesus later said to His disciples, "Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father...  The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own; but the Father who dwells in Me does His works.  Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me..."¹³

An early Christian hymn states that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, "though He was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, He humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death - even death on a cross."¹⁴  The religious people of the day would not have considered Jesus a temple fitting for God.  He was born in a stable under very questionable circumstances; He hung out with people from the wrong side of the tracks; He was in constant conflict with the religious elite; 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 had said.


The Temple of the Holy Spirit

The promise God made to David, like other prophecies recorded in Scripture, can be understood in multiple ways.  God promised David that one of his descendents, a future king, would build a temple.  Normally we would see the fulfillment of this prophesy in King Solomon, since he built the Temple in Jerusalem.  Jesus was also a descendant of David who was lauded as a king by the Magi, by the people who followed Him, and even by the Roman governor Pontius Pilate.  God promised that this descendant will be like a son to God, and Jesus himself was the Son of God.  God promised that this descendant would be punished for his iniquities by blows delivered by humans, and, though Jesus committed no iniquity, it has been said that, on the cross, He bore the iniquity of others.

Like Solomon, Jesus also built a temple.  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, "But who do you say that I am?"  Simon, the most vocal of the twelve, 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."¹⁵

St. Paul offers a clue to what Jesus meant when he writes to the Corinthians, "Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?"¹⁶  The temple Jesus built is made up of people bound together by one Spirit.  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 on them like tongues of fire.¹⁷  From that day forward, followers of Jesus Christ all over the world have offered up their lives as living sacrifices to God on the altars of their hearts, burning bright with the fire of the Holy Spirit.

"Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?"

We are the Church, the worldwide communion of the followers of Jesus Christ.  We are the Temple of the Lord and the Body of Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit to carry on the ministry Jesus began nearly two thousand years ago.  We - a group of very human, very flawed, often cantankerous followers of Christ - are the ones in whom God has chosen to dwell and the ones with whom Christ has entrusted His ministry.  Not only do we, the Church, believe in God, God also believes in us.


So Where Is God?

These four very different temples - the Tabernacle, the Temple in Jerusalem, the God-man Jesus Christ, and the Church universal - offer us an important insight into the nature of God.  King David believed that living in a simple tent was beneath God and that God belonged in a large, ornate temple.  Perhaps, like David, we believe that there are some places - in the world and in our lives - that are not fitting for God.  The different temples of God demonstrate the truth 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 meeting us in the deepest, darkest corners of our hearts.

When St. Paul visited the city of Athens, he could not help but notice the many altars, shrines, and idols.  Being in this very pagan city was a bit of a culture shock for the once devoutly Jewish convert to the way of Jesus.  At a place called Mars Hill, Paul told the people of Athens about the God who created the world, the God of whom we are all children.  He told them that this God "does not live in shrines made by human hands" but is not far from anybody, for, in God, we all "live and move and have our being."¹⁸  As the Psalmist writes,

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.¹⁹

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.

A famous poem describes a dream in which the poet is walking on the beach with God.  As she walks, she sees scenes from her life flashing across the sky in front of her, and, in each of these scenes, she sees footprints in the sand.  She begins to realize that, during the happy scenes of her life, she sees two sets of footprints and that, during the darker times in her life, she sees only one set of footprints.  She reaches the disturbing conclusion that, during the dark times of her life, God was nowhere to be found, and she asks God why He wasn't there for her when she needed Him the most.  God replies that, when she saw only one set of footprints, He was carrying her.²⁰

Many people consider the "Footprints" poem cliché, if not a bit cheesy.  I would probably roll my eyes at it as well, had I not lived it for myself.  For nearly two years of my life, I worked as a software engineer in the gambling industry, writing software for video poker machines and video slot machines.  It was not a proud time in my life, for I worked in an industry that benefited from people's weaknesses.  I was so ashamed of my job that I tried to compartmentalize my life: my job was something I tried to keep in a locked box only to be opened from 8:30AM to 5:00PM, Monday through Friday.  Despite my best efforts, the shame and the stress of my job still managed to seep into the rest of my life.  Back then, my job was not a place in which I would expect to find God.

The company's flagship product was a video slot machine with a penny theme, and, for a period of time, one of these machines was set up near my desk.  One day, I looked at this machine and I began to notice the detail with which the pennies on the machine had been drawn.  I then realized that sprinkled all over the 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 manufactured by that godless company, was the word GOD.

At that time in my life, I was in a place where I did not want to be, a place I believed, deep down, was beneath God.  Seeing the motto "IN GOD WE TRUST" on that machine was a reminder to me that there was no place I could go where God was not to be found.  In that dreary office in that godless industry, God was right there with me, holding me close like a loving parent.  In that dark, dismal time in my life marked with shame and despair, God was carrying me, as in the "Footprints" poem.  I would never return to that job, but sometimes I find myself missing something about that time in my life.  Perhaps, ironically, I miss the closeness to God I did not even realize I was experiencing at the time.

Maybe the places where we think God cannot be found are, in reality, the places where we are actually closest to God, and maybe we actually need to step into these places to truly experience the Presence of 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.²¹

God knows everything about us - our personal problems, our failures, our regrets, and everything we sweep under the proverbial rug - and still God has chosen us to be the Temple of the Holy Spirit and the Body of Christ.  Consider the Disciples: Christ knew their baggage, their shortcomings, and even their future failures.  He knew that Peter would someday deny knowing Him; He knew that Judas would someday betray Him; and He knew that all of them would run away with their tails between their legs when He was arrested.  Christ knew all these things, and He still handpicked them to be the raw materials with which He would build His Church.

Again, God knows everything about us: what's right about us, what's wrong about us, and what we just don't like about ourselves.  God knows us even better than we know ourselves.  The Psalmist writes,

O Lord, You have searched me and known me.

You know when I sit down and when I rise up;

You discern my thoughts from far away.

You search out my path and my lying down,

and are acquainted with all my ways.

Even before a word is on my tongue,

O Lord, You know it completely.²²

In the Presence of God we are free to be fully ourselves.  Before God, there is no need to hide ourselves behind false modesty or behind some sort of spiritual facade: we don't have to pretend to be someone we're not.  So often we think we need to fix certain things about ourselves in order to be in a right relationship with God.  Such a mindset is actually symptomatic of a wrong relationship with God.

St. John writes, "If we confess our sins, He who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness."²³  When we confess our faults, our shortcomings, and our missteps to God, we do not reveal anything about ourselves that God does not already know, nor do our confessions change God.  Confession changes us.  Confessing to God means first confessing to ourselves, being brutally honest with ourselves, confronting and owning the things we would rather hide, deny, and ignore.  Confession means offering our whole selves to God to be redeemed and transformed.  We can be real with God, and there is nothing we cannot take to God.  St. 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."²⁴

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 that God is not willing to step inside if you will just open the door.  May you remember that you can be fully yourself before God, because God loves you.  May you remember that you too are called to be part of the Temple of the Holy Spirit and part of the Body of Christ, and may you embrace this calling with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Amen.


Notes:

1. Jon Acuff.  "The Jesus Juke."  Stuff Christians Like, 11/16/10.
2. My paraphrase of 2 Samuel 7:2
3. 2 Samuel 6:1-19
4. Exodus 25:10-22
5. Exodus 40:1-33a
6. Exodus 40:33b-38
7. My paraphrase of 2 Samuel 7:5-7
8. 1 Kings 6
9. 2 Chronicles 4:9
10. 1 Kings 8:1-11
11. Wikipedia: Temple of Jerusalem
12. John 2:12-22 (NRSV)
13. John 14:9-11 (NRSV)
14. Philippians 2:5-11 (NRSV)
15. Matthew 16:13-20 (NRSV) (emphasis added)
16. 1 Corinthians 3:16 (NRSV) (emphasis added)
17. Acts 2:1-4
18. Acts 17:16-31 (NRSV)
19. Psalm 139:7-8 (NKJV)
20. http://www.wowzone.com/fprints.htm
21. Shane Hipps.  "The God in Nineveh."  Mars Hill Bible Church Podcast, 02/21/10.
22. Psalm 139:1-4 (NRSV)
23. 1 John 1:9 (NRSV)
24. Romans 8:38-39 (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.

Perspective: Say What?

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

Say What?

Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone.  To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.

1 Corinthians 12:4-7 (NRSV)

If I sing but don't have love

I waste my breath with every song

I bring an empty voice, a hollow noise

If I speak with a silver tongue

Convince a crowd but don't have love

I leave a bitter taste with every word I say

From "The Proof of Your Love" by For King & Country

It was around nine o'clock in the morning, on the day of a Jewish festival called Pentecost.  Jesus' Disciples were gathered together in their meeting place.  It was ten days after they watched with amazement as their rabbi and messiah ascended into the sky and disappeared into the clouds.  Suddenly, they heard the sound of a mighty rushing wind which blew through the whole house.  The Spirit of God then appeared as a fire, and a tongue of fire descended on each of them.  Suddenly, full of the Holy Spirit, the Disciples ran out into the streets and began speaking in languages they did not previously know.¹

The phenomenon of one's spontaneously speaking in a language that one did not previously know is sometimes called glossolalia, which literally means "speaking in tongues."²  Nowadays, speaking in tongues is commonly associated with people from Pentecostal churches.  People like myself who do not hail from Pentecostal traditions generally think the practice is rather strange.

In the early 1900s, at the beginning of the modern Pentecostal movement, people debated whether those who spoke in tongues were speaking existing human languages or rather some unknown divine language.  Most Pentecostal theologians of the time agreed that people speaking in tongues were actually speaking human languages.  Furthermore, speaking in tongues was understood to be a call to be in ministry with a specific group of people.  For example, if a person spontaneously started speaking Hindi, even though she had never studied that particular language, then it was understood that God was calling her to become a missionary in India.³

This particular understanding of speaking in tongues is consistent with the story of the arrival of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost.  Jesus had previously told the Disciples that they would soon receive power to take His message of hope throughout the world.  On the day of Pentecost, when the Spirit came to the Disciples, Jewish people from many different nations were in Jerusalem, and each heard one of the Disciples speaking his or her native language.⁴

Nowadays, many who speak in tongues do so, not to be in ministry with people who speak other languages, but rather for their own edification during times of prayer and worship.  For many, to be able to speak in tongues is proof that the Holy Spirit is indeed at work within them.  Of course, some also come to the conclusion that people who cannot speak in tongues are not true Christians as they must not have the Holy Spirit at work within them.⁵

It seems that, in the days of the early church, the Christians in the city of Corinth had some similar misconceptions about speaking in tongues.  St. Paul writes to them to remind them that there are many different kinds of spiritual gifts and that they had been given these spiritual gifts not just for their own benefit, but for the common good.  Paul goes on to write that having one type of spiritual gift does not make a person better than someone else who has a different spiritual gift, for the community of faith is like a human body.  In the same way that different limbs and organs have different purposes, individual believers have different gifts and different functions in the community.  All gifts and functions are necessary for the body to be healthy.⁶

Though all spiritual gifts are important, Paul later argues that, in a community in which everybody speaks the same language, the gift of prophecy is preferable to speaking in tongues.  Though prophecy is typically associated with predicting the future, speaking prophetically is simply telling people what God would want them to hear.  After all, if a person is to speak to a community on behalf of God, then the community needs to be able to understand what the person is saying.  In a single-language community, speaking prophetically benefits everybody, while speaking in tongues only benefits the speaker unless the speech is translated into the language of the community.⁷

According to Paul, speaking in tongues is a sign for unbelievers while speaking prophetically is a sign for believers.  I highly doubt that anyone ever fell in love with Jesus by listening to someone speaking what appears to be nonsense.  In fact, such a sight would probably scare a person off.  The right word, on the other hand, can touch the heart of any person, believer or unbeliever.⁸

A few years ago, I attended a Christmas Eve service at a Spanish-speaking church.  A married couple, both of whom were pastors, delivered the sermon together that evening.  One pastor would speak for a while in English, and then her husband would translate what she had just said into Spanish.  I don't remember much about the content of the sermon that evening, but I remember how beautiful it was to see a congregation of different languages, cultures, and ethnicities gathered together to hear a message that everybody present could understand.

So is there a lesson here for those of us who don't speak in tongues and aren't really quite sure what to think about the subject?

Perhaps a joke would be helpful.

And Jesus said to the theologians, "Who do you say that I am?"

And they replied, "You are the eschatological manifestation of the ground of our being, the actualization of the God-man relationship which is divine, intended truth about every man, the kerygma manifest in conflict at the cutting edge of the humanizing process, the paradigm of human perfection."

And Jesus said, "What?"⁹

I've listened to enough Homebrewed Christianity podcasts to know that those long words actually mean something, but, compared to St. Peter's answer to the same question - "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God."¹⁰ - the theologians' answer sounds like so much incomprehensible babble.

Think about a time you listened to a sermon, a lecture, or a message that totally went over your head.  Now think about a time you listened to a message you thought the speaker must have written just for you.  I would suggest that the difference between these two experiences is the difference between listening to someone speak in tongues and listening to someone speak prophetically.  In the first case, you have no idea what the speaker is saying, but, in the second case, you understand all too well what the speaker is saying.  In the same way that hearing someone speak in tongues is unlikely to made a believer out of anyone, hearing complicated theological jargon or other forms of "Christianese" is unlikely to profoundly influence anybody.

Simply put, it is important that we communicate with people in ways they can understand.

A few years ago, the congregation of my church took a spiritual gift survey.  That day, I learned that my spiritual gift is knowledge (with teaching a close second).  I love to read the Bible and other religious books, and I love to listen to sermons and theology podcasts.  I soak up such knowledge like a sponge, and I find great joy in sharing this knowledge with other people through writing, preaching, and leading Sunday school or Bible study.  Sometimes I use big theological words, but I try to make it a point to define and unpack these terms, in the same way I explained glossolalia above.  Christian education is important to me, and I want people to know what such words mean.  The few times I attempted to deliver a children's sermon, I was extremely careful not to talk over anyone's head.

Though people typically read 1 Corinthians 13 by itself, it is worth noting that St. Paul's famous discourse on love is nestled within a discussion on spiritual gifts.  With that in mind, the opening words of this chapter take on an entirely new meaning.

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.  And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.¹¹

Perhaps we've been gifted with the ability to speak in various languages, naturally or supernaturally, and perhaps we understand many different theological concepts.  If we don't love other people enough to try to communicate with them in ways they can understand, then we are just making noise.  Perhaps we have prophetic insights from God that the whole world needs to hear.  If we do not share these insights with others lovingly, in ways that demonstrate that we are for them and not against them, then our insights are meaningless.

Our spiritual gifts are not solely for our own benefit but for the common good.  These are gifts that have been given to us by God, but they are gifts we are meant to share with others.  It's not all about us, for we are blessed to be a blessing.  Ultimately, our spiritual gifts are provisional: they are given to us so that we can minister to the world in our own context.  Paul writes that, like many things in this world, prophecies, tongues, and knowledge will all come to an end.  Love, on the other hand, is eternal.¹²


Notes:

1. Acts 2:1-4
2. Wikipedia: Glossolalia
3. Professor Chris Green, who admits that he is a somewhat unreliable Pentecostal, explains speaking in tongues in this way on the 04/27/2015 episode of Newsworthy with Norsworthy.
4. Acts 2:5-11
5. Bo Sanders. "Speaking in Tongues Isn't What It Used to Be."  Homebrewed Christianity blog, 07/25/2013.
6. 1 Corinthians 12
7. 1 Corinthians 14:1-19
8. 1 Corinthians 14:20-25
9. Roy B. Zuck (editor).  The Speaker's Quote Book.  2009, Kregal Academic. p. 70  (Michial Farmer read this joke on a recent episode of the Christian Humanist podcast.)
10. Matthew 16:15-16 (NRSV)
11. 1 Corinthians 13:1-2 (NRSV)
12. 1 Corinthians 13:8

The photograph of the flame is public domain.

Sermon: A Brighter, Zestier World

Delivered at Bethel United Methodist Church in West Greenville, South Carolina on February 9, 2014.

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

A Brighter, Zestier World

Audio Version

You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored?  It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.

You are the light of the world.  A city built on a hill cannot be hid.  No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house.  In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

Matthew 5:13-16 (NRSV)

I will live

To carry Your compassion

To love a world that's broken

To be Your hands and feet

I will give

With the life that I've been given

And go beyond religion

To see the world be changed

By the power of Your name

From "The Power of Your Name" by Lincoln Brewster

After recruiting the first Disciples, Jesus traveled throughout the region of Galilee, proclaiming the good news of the Kingdom of God and bringing healing to the ailing and the troubled.  His reputation spread across the land, and He amassed a large following of people, both Jew and Gentile.  One day, a great crowd gathers around Jesus.  He hikes up a mountain followed by His disciples, and He begins to deliver that famous sermon we know as the Sermon on the Mount.¹

Jesus begins His sermon with some surprising announcements of blessing upon
"the poor in spirit,"
"those who mourn,"
"the meek,"
"those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,"
"the merciful,"
"the pure in heart,"
"the peacemakers,"
and "those who are persecuted."²

Conventional wisdom, then and now, teaches us that there is nothing blessed about mourning or facing persecution.  Jesus' audience lived under the occupation of the Roman Empire, and this fact alone proved that it is not "the meek" who "inherit the earth," but rather those who have power and know how to use it.  The real winners in this world are not those who work for peace, but those who utterly destroy anyone who gets in their way - not the merciful, but those who show no mercy.  Nobody gets ahead in this world by being pure in heart, but by achieving one's goals by any means necessary.  Jesus' audience had learned from the religious elite that those who are spiritually rich and full of righteousness are the ones who are truly blessed, not the spiritually poor and those whose lives are so devoid of righteousness that they actually hunger and thirst for it.

Jesus' surprising announcements of blessing, which we often call the Beatitudes, fly in the face of the conventional wisdom of this world.  According to one commentator, "First and literally the Beatitudes are Jesus' surprisingly countercultural God-bless-yous to people in god-awful situations."³  The Beatitudes are blessings upon people whom the world would not normally consider blessed.  With these announcements of blessing, Jesus begins to introduce to His followers a whole new way of living in the world, for we will see in His teachings that the Kingdom of God - the place where God reigns - is not like the kingdoms of this world.

Jesus makes two more surprising announcements to His audience.  To all of the people listening, He says, "You are the salt of the earth."  He follows up this announcement with a warning, saying, "If salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored?  It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot."

To those listening, He then announces, "You are the light of the world."  He then offers his audience an exhortation:
A city built on a hill cannot be hid.  No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house.  In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

If you are familiar with the teachings of Jesus, then this instruction to let others see your good works should immediately raise a red flag for you.  Later on, in this very same sermon, Jesus will say, "Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them."⁴

Regarding charitable giving, Jesus will say,
Whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others...  But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing...⁵

Regarding prayer, Jesus will say,
Whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others...  But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret...⁶

Regarding fasting, Jesus will say,
And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting...  But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret...⁷

So are we called to let other people see our good works, or should our good works be a secret shared only with an "Audience of One"?

Christians like to think of the Bible as a handbook for life.  In Jesus' day, the Pharisees had identified 613 rules in the Torah alone, and they dedicated their lives to following these rules to the letter.  Like the Pharisees, we want a clear-cut list of dos and don'ts; however, it becomes difficult to use the Bible as a rulebook for life when the teachings of Jesus seem to contradict each other as in the Sermon on the Mount.  If we dig deeply into the Scriptures and if we allow the Scriptures to dig deeply into us, we will find that the Bible is not merely a handbook for living our lives, but rather a mirror exposing the very depths of our soul.  In this case, we find truth in the tension, for we must ask ourselves if there is indeed a reason we should allow others to see our good works and if there might also be a reason we should not allow others to see our good works.

Notice that when Jesus tells us to keep our charitable giving, our praying, and our fasting a secret, He tells us not to be like "the hypocrites."  The English word hypocrite originates from the Greek word hupokritēs which literally means "actor."⁸  An actor's profession is to play a part - to pretend to be a person that he or she is not.  If we watch a movie that features very skilled actors we might momentarily forget that we are watching a movie and believe that we are watching actual events unfold right before our eyes.  Normally, when we hear the word hypocrite, we imagine a person who says one thing but does another; in the Sermon on the Mount, however, Jesus uses the word hypocrite to describe someone who goes through the motions so that other people will believe that he or she is spiritual but whose heart is, in reality, far from God.  Later on, Jesus will compare such people to "whitewashed tombs," for they look good on the outside but are full of decay on the inside.⁹

Sadly, for many of us Christians, the Church has become a place for us to practice and develop our acting skills.  Every time we gather, we have the opportunity to put on our Sunday best, both literally and figuratively, and to try to appear as holy, pious, and charitable as possible.  Sometimes we do the things we do not out of devotion to God or out of compassion for our neighbors, but in an effort to keep up with the Joneses, spiritually speaking.  I once heard a youth pastor from the Bible Belt say that in the South, nobody wants to be "out-Jesused."¹⁰

After the memorial service for Nelson Mandela, a story broke about a sign language interpreter present at the event.  People who understand South African sign language realized that the interpreter's hand motions were not actual signs.  People questioned whether or not the man was an actual sign language interpreter and whether or not mental illness had anything to do with his behavior.  The philosopher Slavoj Žižek made the rather offensive suggestion that it really didn't matter that the "signs" were meaningless because the interpreter wasn't really there for the deaf anyway.  Žižek suggested that perhaps the interpreter wasn't actually brought in so that the hearing impaired could appreciate the speeches, but rather so that everyone else could feel good that something was being done to help deaf people.¹¹

In the same way, sometimes our works of piety and works of justice are actually mere performance art, but our performances are not necessarily meant for other people.  Sometimes we put on performances for ourselves.  For example, people might volunteer at a homeless shelter, not because they actually have any compassion for people who don't have a roof over their heads, but because they want to feel good that they are doing something to help the homeless.  Jesus calls us to a life of good works, but it is important that we carefully examine our motives.

Jesus' exhortation to "let your light shine before others" is a call to authenticity.  In the Church we call ourselves Christians because we seek to follow Jesus Christ.  I recently heard a pastor friend say, "The world needs fewer people who act like Jesus and more people who are like Jesus."  A candle has no need to prove itself: it does not need to announce to the world how much light it gives off.  A candle simply does what it was created to do and burns brightly with the light it has been given, and people can see for themselves how brightly it shines.  People have a way of knowing when someone is being authentic and when someone is being phony.

Sometimes, when people ponder what it means to be "the salt of the earth," they are quick to point out that salt is a preservative; in the Sermon on the Mount, however, Jesus says nothing about the preserving power of salt.  Instead, He speaks about its taste - its saltiness.  He even goes so far as to say that salt which does not taste salty is worthless and ought to be thrown out with the trash.  For Jesus, the significance of salt is the simple fact that it changes the taste of food.

A couple of years ago, on a day when I wasn't feeling very well, I decided that it would be best to eat something that wouldn't upset my stomach, so I went to the grocery store and bought a box of instant rice.  In the months that followed, I started preparing a plate of instant rice whenever I needed to eat in a hurry.  Though I like to think that I live a relatively simple life, I have to admit that, when it comes to food and drink, my palate is somewhat spoiled.  I found my dinners of plain rice to be bland - disgustingly bland.  Sometimes I couldn't even finish my rice without gagging.  Eventually, I discovered that if I just added some soy sauce - some saltiness - the rice was enjoyable to the last bite.

When Jesus calls us to be the "salt of the earth," He is not saying that we are called to preserve the earth as it is.  Instead, He is saying that we are called to make a positive change in the world around us, in the same way that salt makes bland food taste better.

Like salt, light also makes significant changes.  Without light, we would all be blind.  Imagine I was holding an apple in front of you.  You would only be able to see the apple because there was light in the room and because the apple was reflecting red light into your eyes.  Without light, we cannot see, because the only thing we are able to see is light.  Light transforms a world of sheer blackness into a world of vibrant, glorious color.

The great author Robert Louis Stevenson spent much of his childhood indoors because of frequent illness.  One evening, his nurse walked into his bedroom to find him staring out his window.  She warned him to get away from the window lest he catch a cold, but he continued to stare out his window, intently watching a man lighting streetlamps.  The child said to his nurse, "See; look there; there's a man poking holes in the darkness."¹²  As the "light of the world," we are called by Christ to poke holes in the darkness of this world.  When we shine brightly with the light we have been given, people who have grown accustomed to darkness can begin to see the world in a whole new way.

Before Jesus ascends into Heaven, He calls His followers to "make disciples of all nations."¹³  I would argue that making disciples is not simply an end in itself, but rather a means to an end.  We don't make disciples simply to keep our churches open or to keep a religious movement going; we make disciples for a higher purpose.  To borrow a phrase from my denomination, we are called to "make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world."¹⁴  When Christ tells us that we are the "salt of the earth" and the "light of the world," He is calling us to be agents of positive change in a world that, for many people, has become dark and bland.  As the salt and light of the earth, we are called to participate in God's redemptive work of creating a brighter, zestier world for all people.

The ancient philosopher Plato once told a story about people who are, from birth, imprisoned in a dark cave, forced to watch shadows moving across a wall.  One of the prisoners is freed from his imprisonment, and he is shown the fire and the puppets that are used to create the shadows he had been watching.  Eventually he is taken out of the cave into the light, and he is shown the creatures that were represented by the puppets and the shadows.  Finally he looks upward and sees the sun.  The man is compelled to return to the cave to tell the other prisoners about the light, color, and beauty he as seen in the outside world.  Sadly, nothing he says makes any sense to the people in the cave, for all they are able to understand is their world of shadow puppets.¹⁵

I think that sometimes, in the Church, we do a pretty good job of describing the light but not very good job of shining.  It is not enough to tell people about the light: we have to show it to them.  We can talk until we're blue in the face about the Kingdom of God, the "Good News," God's love, church doctrine, and what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, but our words are really nothing but a bunch of "kooky talk" unless we demonstrate what it all means with our lives.  St. Paul poetically writes, "If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal."¹⁶  It has been said, "Preach the Gospel, and, if necessary, use words."¹⁷

So if we accept Jesus' call to be the salt and light of the earth and allow our lights to shine, then how might the people who see our good works glorify God?  Jesus lived nearly two thousand years before Thomas Edison invented the light bulb, so the source of light in His time was fire, be it the fire of a lamp or the fire of the sun.  Something noteworthy about fire is the fact that it spreads.  We are called to let our light shine, but it is important to remember that we are not source of that light.  Like candles, we can shine because of the flames given to us, and, if we shine brightly, others might get a little too close to us and catch fire themselves.

There are times in our lives when our lights grow dim.  At times like these, the individualistic notions of faith so prevalent in our society fail us, and we must admit that we need the faith, hope, and love of other followers of Christ.  A personal relationship with Jesus Christ is important, but we must not forget that we are all built for community.  When our lights grow dim, we need to let others shine their light into our lives; for, if we draw near to the flames of others, then maybe we will find ourselves ignited anew.

We shine because of the light we have been given, and we love because we have been loved.  This light and this love were never meant to stop with us, for we are called to let our lights shine before other people, so that they might follow our example and shine themselves.  As the salt and light of the world, we work together to poke holes in the darkness and to show the world what it means to be the Kingdom of God.

Amen.


Notes:

1. Matthew 4:23-5:2
2. Matthew 5:3-12 (NRSV)
3. Frederick Dale Bruner.  Matthew, a Commentary: The Christbook, Matthew 1-12.  2004, Eerdmans Publishing Company.  p. 165
4. Matthew 6:1-6 (NRSV)
5. Matthew 6:2-4 (NRSV)
6. Matthew 6:5-7 (NRSV)
7. Matthew 6:16-18 (NRSV)
8. Wiktionary: Hypocrite
9. Matthew 23:27-28
10. Tripp Fuller and Rob Bell.  "Rob Bell Hijacks the Podcast #zesty"  Homebrewed Christianity Podcast, 06/03/13.  (Warning: This podcast episode contains coarse language.)
11. Slavoj Žižek.  "The 'fake' Mandela memorial interpreter said it all."  The Guardian, 12/16/13.
12. http://www.preaching.com/sermons/11563683/
13. Matthew 28:19 (NRSV)
14. http://www.umc.org Emphasis added.
15. Adapted from Plato's Allegory of the Cave
16. 1 Cor 13:1 (NRSV)
17. This quote is commonly attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, though the attribution is disputed.  Emphasis added.

The photograph of the candle was taken by Jon Sullivan and is public domain.