Scripture: A False
Foundation
1 Now King Hiram of Tyre sent his servants to Solomon, when he heard that they had anointed him king in place of his father; for Hiram had always been a friend to David. 2 Solomon sent word to Hiram, saying, 3 “You know that my father David could not build a house for the name of the LORD his God because of the warfare with which his enemies surrounded him, until the LORD put them under the soles of his feet. 4 But now the LORD my God has given me rest on every side; there is neither adversary nor misfortune. 5 So I intend to build a house for the name of the LORD my God, as the LORD said to my father David, ‘Your son, whom I will set on your throne in your place, shall build the house for my name.’
I’m going to be a bit blunt, a bit provocative, just for the sake of making a point: Solomon’s legendary temple is built on a faulty foundation. It is built on a lie.
When Solomon informs his father’s friend, King Hiram of Tyre, that he will build a temple for God, he justifies his plan by explaining that his father, David, had his hands full with warfare and enemies. David did not have the time to build it. “But now the LORD my God has given me rest on every side,” Solomon says; “there is neither adversary nor misfortune” (1 Kgs 5:4). But if we revisit 2 Samuel 7, just after David has defeated the Philistines and the ark of the covenant has arrived in Jerusalem, we learn, “The king [David] was settled in his house, and the Lord had given him rest from all his enemies around him” (2 Sam 7:1). It is precisely at that moment—when David has rest from his enemies—that he decides to build a temple for God. (Like father, like son.) This moment has apparently slipped from Solomon’s mind; he has conveniently forgotten that, actually, David had had rest on every side just like him. But even more importantly, Solomon seems to have forgotten the response that David receives from God: “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?’” (2 Sam 7:5-7). In other words, God points out to David that God has never asked for a temple. God doesn’t need a house.
Scripture: A Fixed
Dwelling for a God Who Has None
1 Then Solomon assembled the elders of Israel and all the heads of the tribes, the leaders of the ancestral houses of the Israelites, before King Solomon in Jerusalem, to bring up the ark of the covenant of the LORD out of the city of David, which is Zion. 2 All the people of Israel assembled to King Solomon at the festival in the month Ethanim, which is the seventh month.
The “festival” in Ethanim, the seventh month, is none other than the “Feast of Tabernacles” or “Booths,” a festival that celebrated God’s faithfulness to Israel in the wilderness. It would become tradition to build makeshift dwellings of branches and leaves, as a remembrance of the way the Israelites lived in the wilderness and how God was with them wherever they went, always providing for them. It is an intriguing coincidence to me that King Solomon’s stationary temple would be inaugurated on the anniversary of the festival that remembers a God and a people on the move. It seems as if the irony has passed right over Solomon’s head. On the very day that he has fixed a dwelling for God, the people are remembering a God who had no fixed dwelling, who journeyed with them wherever they went in the wilderness.
A little bit earlier, in 1 Kings 6, the word of the Lord comes to Solomon, saying, “Concerning this house that you are building, if you will walk in my statutes, obey my ordinances, and keep all my commandments…I will dwell among the children of Israel” (1 Kings 6:11-13). I can’t help but wonder if there is a gentle rebuke here in God’s expression. God does not promise to dwell in the house Solomon is building. In fact, God’s promise has nothing to do with the temple. Rather, “I will dwell among the children of Israel” (1 Kgs 6:13). Just as God has reminded David, so God reminds Solomon. He doesn’t need a house. He needs a people who will walk in his way, who will be a blessing to the families of the earth and bear witness to a better way (cf. Gen 12:3; Ex 19:5-6).
Scripture: Divine
Disruption
3 And all the elders of Israel came, and the priests carried the ark. 4 So they brought up the ark of the LORD, the tent of meeting, and all the holy vessels that were in the tent; the priests and the Levites brought them up. 5 King Solomon and all the congregation of Israel, who had assembled before him, were with him before the ark, sacrificing so many sheep and oxen that they could not be counted or numbered. 6 Then the priests brought the ark of the covenant of the LORD to its place, in the inner sanctuary of the house, in the most holy place, underneath the wings of the cherubim. … 10 And when the priests came out of the holy place, a cloud filled the house of the LORD, 11 so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud; for the glory of the LORD filled the house of the LORD.
When I read these verses, I imagine the priests who have assembled with great pomp and circumstance, suddenly skittering about and scattering out of the temple, chased out by the expanding cloud of God’s glory. It is a telling turn of events. Yes, God is present, just as Solomon would surely have advertised. But here at the inauguration of the temple, amid all the careful religious choreography, God disrupts and disorders the proceedings. Just when the people want to start worship, God stops it. God puts a stop to the show.
12 Then Solomon said,
“The
LORD has said that he would dwell in thick darkness.
13 I
have built you an exalted house,
a
place for you to dwell in forever.”
As the dark cloud of God’s glory bursts forth from the temple, Solomon acknowledges that God had said God would “dwell in thick darkness” (1 Kgs 8:12). Curiously, however, Solomon continues, and with either great hubris or great ignorance he declares his contradictory intention. The key here, if you’re reading verses 12 and 13, is the word “dwell,” which appears first in where God says God will dwell, and then second in where Solomon says God will dwell. God had said God would “dwell” in thick darkness (and even Solomon acknowledges this), but Solomon insists God will “dwell…forever” in this exalted house he has built.
For Everything to Be
Holy, First Something Has to Be Holy
Growing up, I remember going to church on Christmas Eve. I remember singing in the children’s choir, then later the youth choir. I remember how the sermon was a lot shorter, which I liked. And I remember how the pastor’s words seemed a little bit more sacred, somehow. Maybe because they were less his own thoughts and more a simple recitation of our Christmas faith—that God is with us, no matter the terrors or misery that encroach on our world. I remember walking to the front of the sanctuary to take communion, bumping elbows, a part of everyone around me. I remember holding a candle and singing “Silent Night” and then walking out into the dark chill of night feeling strangely warmed.
I am so grateful for those memories and how they have shaped me. And I share them now before I say anything else just to acknowledge that buildings—such as the church building that I went to Christmas Eve service at as a child, such as Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem—are not bad or wrong or wicked. Not at all. When Israel began wandering in the wilderness, God gave Moses instructions for building a portable tabernacle to symbolize God’s presence amid the people. The basic idea seemed to have been this: Everything in God’s creation is holy, but—in order for everything to be holy, first something has to be holy. That is, as humans, we always have to start somewhere. We have to be able to distinguish holiness in one place, before our eyes can be opened to see it other places too.
We might remember the boy Jesus in the temple, how he called it “my father’s house” (Luke 2:49). Certainly he seems to have learned about God’s holiness there. We might remember how the early church in Jerusalem is described as “spen[ding] much time together in the temple” (Acts 2:46). For them, it was a place to gather and to acknowledge God’s holiness.
An Evolution—Or, a Return: From Building to Body
As the boy Jesus grew up, though, he began to talk about the temple differently. During the years of his ministry, he said (according to John), “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up,” referring first to the building and then to his body (John 2:19-21). Paul would later unpack what Jesus was saying here, writing to the Corinthians: “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?”—and here the “you” is plural, which means that the church as the body of Christ has become “God’s temple” (1 Cor 3:16).
What we see in Jesus and his early followers, then, is an evolution in the understanding of God’s temple. It moves from being a building to being a body. The holy presence of God that people may have first recognized in the building (whether it was at a temple feast with many sacrifices or at a Christmas eve service in a brick chapel), they later realize is meant to be with them twenty-four-seven.
But maybe this is less an evolution in understanding and more a return to the ancient, original understanding that we catch glimpses of in today’s scripture, where God makes abundantly clear that no building will contain him. Rather, as God tells Solomon, God’s dwelling place will be “among [the people]” (cf. 1 Kings 6:13). It won’t be in a predictable, containable structure, but in an untamable spirit, a cloud of glory, a holiness that the people may express in the flesh, a holiness that they may express not just in the temple but outside it and even in foreign lands (such as Babylon).
Just before Moses dies, he tells all the people of Israel to choose God’s way of life, and he puts it this way: “[T]he word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe” (Deut 30:14). From the beginning, God’s Word has been looking for a home, not in a building but in bodies. Not in a house but in our hearts. God’s mission has always been one and the same. The God who is Love wants to take flesh. To bear witness. To be an example. To spread. To be contagious. The God who is Love does not want to be contained but embodied.
I have a friend named Jay. He’s not particularly eloquent. He doesn’t always have the right words to say. Sometimes he misses social cues. But whenever I’m around him, I feel a certain loosening in my body, like I can relax, like I can be myself. I’ve come to realize that Jay is steadfast. When you are around him, he is with you. He is not trying to make a point or get something or have the last word. It doesn’t matter what you’ve said or done, or haven’t said or haven’t done—he’s with you all the same.
I’ve come to realize that, for me, in a small but real way, Jay embodies our God of Love. The space around him feels holy, sacred. And when I leave Jay, something always seems to have rubbed off on me. I carry the calm, steady peace of our encounter with me.
The God who is Love does not want to be contained in a building but embodied in people, in people like Jay, in people like you and me—so that all the families of the earth might know the God who is Love.
Prayer
Whose love outlasts and exceeds
Every altar we have built:
We are grateful
For all the places
We have encountered your holiness.
…
Inspire us today
To know ourselves
Not as a church who meets in a building,
Nor as Christians defined by holy places or times,
But as the body of Christ
Giving expression to your love,
Wherever we go:
In Christ, who abides in us, and we in him: Amen.
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