Sunday, January 26, 2020. Rev. Jen Dunfee, preaching.Scripture Readings: I Kings 8:1, 4-13, 22-30; Psalm 27:1, 4-8

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SERMON TEXT

Today is the second in our sermon series

on the Intersection of Heaven and Earth, where we join the people of scripture

in asking questions like: What is the relationship between heaven and

earth?  How is the life of heaven related

to the life of earth?  Pastor Scott began

last week with a consideration of the Tabernacle – the carefully designed

mobile tent the Israelites set up to worship God during their wilderness

wanderings, and then in the years of establishing their own land.  The Tabernacle tells us that God’s presence

is deeply with us in any wilderness we encounter and also out in front of us,

to guide our way forward and through. 

Perhaps a repeat of the assurance of the Tabernacle, of God’s presence with and before us, is what we need to hear this morning after news of Pastor Annamarie’s new call.  When we find ourselves unsure of the path ahead, we rely on the promise that God is with us, and is with her.  That we do not walk this path alone, and God goes before us to guide our way.   I will miss Pastor Annamarie as a pastoral colleague, as a parent with children in youth group, and as a friend.  We will all have time together in the next months to share how she has grown our faith and to celebrate her ministry here.

Pastor Annamarie loves Psalm 27, so it is fitting that this is the scripture for today, as it speaks of what we seek when we come to a place of worship.  Maybe today that is simply the assurance and security of being in the presence of God together, of knowing God will be found by us in the house of the Lord.  The writer of this Psalm uses verbs of action to describe the search for God’s presence: I asked, I seek after, I behold, I inquire.  In the midst of all that swirls around this writer, fear, conflict, anxiety, uncertainty, there is belief and hope, that the actions used to find God will bear fruit.  The writer is accessing a variety of parts of the self in this pursuit: I ask with my words, I seek with my body, I behold with my eyes, and I inquire with all that is on my mind.  I bring my whole self to the worship of God in the Temple.

The

divide between heaven and earth gets closer as God comes closer to us, like the

presence of the glory of the Lord that filled the tabernacle in last week’s

scripture reading, and filled the inner sanctuary during the dedication of the

Temple described in 1 Kings.  That is the

heaven-down-to-earth manifestation of God’s power and glory.  The Psalm and the passage in 1 Kings describe

that it also happens when earth reaches for heaven when we go seeking,

inquiring, asking to behold God’s presence. 

The

building of the Temple of the Lord was just such a reach, a desire on the part

of King David, then his son Solomon, to create so magnificent a structure that

surely God would want to dwell there. 

And also (a phrase from L’Arche) they were also wise enough to know that

even the most magnificent of structures would be no match for God’s majesty.  To get a sense of the majesty in how it is

described earlier in 1 Kings 7:48-50: “the golden altar, the golden table for the bread of the

Presence, the lampstands of pure gold, the cups, snuffers, basins, dishes

for incense, and firepans, of pure gold; the sockets for the doors of the innermost

part of the house, and for the doors of the nave of the temple, of gold.”   Even

with all of that golden detail, if the heavens cannot contain God’s glory, the

grandest Temple won’t either.  

But

the point of the earthly Temple was that it would “overlap with the heavenly

home” as the Bible Project puts it.  So

at the very least, as we heard today from 1st Kings, here was the

hope: God’s eyes would be on the Temple day and night, God’s holy