1 Kings 5:1-5; 8:27-30, 41-43

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There were three parts of this scripture that resonated in me as I prepared this week, and they are these:

Now the Lord my God has given me peace on every side, without enemies or misfortune. So I’m planning to build a temple for the name of the Lord my God. (5:4-5)

But how could God possibly live on earth? If heaven, even the highest heaven, can’t contain you, how can this temple that I’ve built contain you? (8:27)

When the immigrant comes and prays toward this temple, then listen from heaven, where you live, and do everything the immigrant asks. Do this so that all the people of the earth may know your reputation and revere you (8:42b-43)

Solomon is famous for his wisdom and I think he did show wisdom in his approach to the temple that David did not and could not. I talked last week about how David truly did not understand God’s nature, God’s inability and disinterest in being contained in one place. David had a beautiful house of cedar and because he revered God he thought God should have something as beautiful and palatial as he had.

Solomon understands that God cannot be contained. “How could God possibly live on earth? The highest heaven cannot contain you!” Instead he wants the temple to be a place where not only the people of Israel, but people for all places to be welcomed into an encounter with the God of Israel. 

But before he can create a space for all people to feel welcome, he needs to have established a peaceful and solid relationship with all people. In a way that his father had not, Solomon has built relationships with the neighboring nations and rulers: Sidon and Phoenicia and Tyre. When he begins to plan the temple, he turns to his friend in the north, King Hiram of Tyre. Hiram sends the materials for building the temple and a workforce to assist in its construction.

It is kind of remarkable that the temple to Yahweh, the God of Israel, a building that is so culturally and religiously specific to Israel,  is made by foreign hands, with foreign materials and with the intention of being open not just to Israel but to people of all nations. And it is built on a foundation of Solomon’s peacemaking. 

I wonder if Solomon is remembering the covenant that God made with Abram and Sarai so many generations ago and is trying to follow through: that through this family, all the world may experience blessing and peace.

Solomon, in his great wisdom understands the importance of building on peace and on creating a space for people to come together to experience God’s presence. Last week in Sunday school we were discussing the ambivalence we might feel in visiting the ostentatious cathedrals of Rome or the Vatican, knowing how much labor and wealth was poured into those spaces that could well have been used for the poor. 

I remember being a little disgusted when people – including governments – overwhelmed France with donations when Notre Dame had a fire a few years ago when so many people could have been fed or housed.

At the same time – while not necessarily defending those specific temples – I understand the value in beauty and in creating a sacred space where people gather in God’s name. People from Kirkland go to Rome to wonder at the art that was created in the name of our God. To France to light a candle and pray for the people of the world. Those cathedrals – the temples of medieval Christianity – have become places for people to gather from all over – prayer, worship, contemplation, connection – both to the Divine and to other people.

In my many years of working with youth, I consistently heard that the places where they experienced God most powerfully (and this is by no means unique to youth that just happens to be the folks I spent the most time with) was when they were gathered with other Mennonites of all ages at our national conventions. Singing together with 1000 other voices, being challenged and encouraged by preachers and teachers, encountering youth from all over the country (and sometimes Canada) who shared beliefs and also shared a diversity of beliefs. 

If Mennonites have a temple, it might be the Kansas City Convention Center, since I think we’ve pilgrimage to there more than anywhere else so far.  We don’t have a particular building – in fact in our European history, our ancestors met in caves and on boats and in open fields to avoid detection – but we do know that there are places where when we gather within them, we experience the power of God’s presence through the people gathered. Our temple is the earth.

And to that point, probably the other place named most often by young people as being significant in their experience of the holy is at Camp Camrec. I think in particular to a time two summers ago – the last time I was pastor at a youth camp – offering anointing to the teens gathered, and the sense of awe and power and emotion. 

It seems like what Solomon wanted to create in building the temple, using Lebanese cedar and Pheonecian workers, was a place to contain that awe and power and emotion. A place of peace to gather, to create ritual, to pray and make offerings. There was no question that God was as big as the universe and as intimate as one’s breath. But the temple would offer a space – one of many – to meet that God. And not just for his people/his kind.

It seems like Solomon was remembering the best parts of his tradition from back to Abraham, but also all the instructions in Torah to welcome the foreigner and the sojourner, to care for the stranger. Thinking about this wise and compassionate leadership I can’t help but think of the options we have in the upcoming election. While I do not put much stock in our government in general, as far as we can lean toward welcome and compassion and a creating a space when people feel welcomed and cared for, the better.

In our history, Mennonites have been a little insular. We haven’t necessarily been very welcoming of people who didn’t have the right ‘Mennonite’ name but I think we’re getting better at this; better at not just making but at following the leadership of immigrant communities, people of color, non-European, Germanic elders. A little.

We don’t build temples but we do make space. With a foundation of peace we make the whole earth our temple, trusting that the God who is as big as the universe will be found where we gather to learn and pray and preach and praise. 

Because she’s sick today Kate wasn’t here to accompany the hymn we’d planned, but I want to end with reading a verse from “Let us Build a House” – number 36 in Voices Together:

Let us build a house where hands will reach beyond the wood and stone

To heal and strengthen, serve and teach, and live the Word they’ve known.

Here the outcast and the stranger bear the image of God’s face;

let us bring an end to fear and danger: all are welcome…in this place.

 

Let us build a house where prophets speak, and words are strong and true,

where all God’s children dare to seek to dream God’s reign anew.

Here the cross shall stand as witness and as symbol of God’s grace;

as we claim as one the faith of Jesus: all are welcome…in this place.

May it be so here and in our wider church and may we build on this vision in the lives we lead each day. Amen.