A Temple for God
A Sermon for the Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost
November 13, 2022
The Rev. Robin Teasley
When some were speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God, Jesus said, "As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down." They asked him, "Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign that this is about to take place?" And he said, "Beware that you are not led astray; for many will come in my name and say, `I am he!' and, `The time is near!' Do not go after them. "When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified; for these things must take place first, but the end will not follow immediately."
Then he said to them, "Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues; and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven. "But before all this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name. This will give you an opportunity to testify. So make up your minds not to prepare your defense in advance; for I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict. You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death. You will be hated by all because of my name. But not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your souls."
Luke 21:5-19
Hurricane Nicole was not a monster storm, but the damage done to the Florida coast and the homes and hotels there is horrendous. Buildings hang on the edge of the crumbling sea wall, waiting to topple into the Atlantic. Though it’s nearly the end of the hurricane season, that didn’t matter to Nicole. We cannot predict what kind of destruction the weather will cause; we don’t know when a community will experience an end time form of disaster. There is so much that is unpredictable in our world, and this can cause no small amount of anxiety and fear.
In our reading from Isaiah, we hear of new heavens and a new earth as if to imply that the old ones were a mess. In the Thessalonian community the people are anxiously waiting for the return of Christ, and they are not doing such a good job with the waiting. In the Gospel, Jesus tells of the temple’s destruction, “the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.” Can you feel the tension between what was and what will be? Do you hear the certainty that things will pass away but that there will be newness of life to follow?
When I taught preschool, the careful, methodical, planning children would delight in building perfect structures out of those large, lightweight, cardboard blocks. They would build them up as high as they could reach, standing on their tiptoes. Without fail, there were always some thrill seekers who took the greatest delight in racing headlong into the structure, sending every block tumbling down. Often this produced weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth from the builders of the masterpiece. From a young age we do not agree on how to play well together.
Even so, as children we were so much better at shaking it off, starting over, and finding a new thing to create. As adults we are, how should I say this, not quite as flexible about having the old thrown down and creating something new!
The reality in the Church is that we generally do not like new things. It would be just fine if the Church replaced only those things that we want replaced. There's always something we want made new. It’s the things other people want made new that we have such a hard time with! Most of us have a certain idea or image of what church and religion mean to us. We definitely do not want that to change. That image is what we inwardly long for when we show up Sunday after Sunday. That image may be what we think we had some time long ago, but more often than not our memory is selective or inaccurate. And it's that remembered image, which can sometimes prevent us from experiencing God.
The Rev. Sam Candler, dean of the Cathedral of St. Philip in Atlanta, has said, "Do you know what prevents you from experiencing God the most? The biggest obstacle in the way of your experiencing God is whatever your last experience of God was. Your last experience, whatever it was, was so wonderful and refreshing and renewing, that you inevitably believe that every future experience will have to be exactly like that. And it won't be.”In our time of transition this is good for us to ponder. Everything changes, over and over. None of the previous rectors have been the same. Each time one arrives, things change. It’s our response to change that makes the difference.
When we feel safe and comfortable in whatever temple we have constructed, we don’t want to hear about how it could be different or better. Whether it’s behavior patterns in our personal lives or management policies at work, and Lord please help us remember the new passwords they continually make us create; we would prefer to just keep things like they are. You can’t teach old dogs new tricks, we say, but Jesus says, “I am going to show you how to do new things.”
All of us, no matter how old we are, have some sort of temple (or template) that we have built, that we admire and protect. Some temples are not good for us, and some are not all bad. But every one of those temples will, one day, be made new, and it can be painful for us to see it fall. Usually, we must learn the hard way, by losing something. Loss often serves the purpose of getting our attention, making us observe and notice the truth, sometimes for the first time.
Some of you may remember Bill’s Barbecue in Richmond. It was a treat to have lunch at Bill’s with my siblings, mother, and grandmother. We sat in the car at the drive in, and enjoyed sandwiches, fries, fountain Cokes, and the best thing of all, chocolate icebox pie. I have treasured memories of those times, all of us somehow crammed in our red Rambler, eating lunch from the tray attached to the window. But Bill’s has been gone for a long time now; in its place there’s a Wawa. Not one stone left upon another. Even so, all the stories, laughter, and love that taught me about life as we shared our lunch, those things remain. Those memories, taken together with the other events in my life are the building blocks that God is always using to create new life for me and for those I love.
Jesus knew the temple would fall. Jesus knows that all the material things with which we surround ourselves, fill ourselves, protect ourselves, are just that, material things that will not last. In the end our habits and traditions and rituals are not the source of our faith. Whatever is happening in your life, whatever is happening in the world that is keeping you awake at night, whatever makes you anxious and fearful, Jesus says “do not be terrified, it will not be the end.” God, through Isaiah, says “be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating.”
Like children playing with blocks, we may feel hopeless and fall apart when we are overwhelmed by the signs of endings all around us, we may fear that we are in the last days, and that there is no hope. But that is when we remember that since the beginning of time as we know it, the seasons cycle, the crops are planted and harvested, all earthly things have a beginning and an end, and out of death comes resurrection.
That is when we remember that God has promised to give us words and wisdom to endure whatever happens in this life. That is when we remember that whenever our world overwhelms us, God is waiting for us, waiting to scoop us up in arms of love, and show us yet again how to build a new tower, a new life, a holy and enduring temple for God within our hearts. Amen.
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