A Divine Housing Problem!

Can it be that God will actually move into our neighborhood? Why, the cosmos itself isn't large enough to give you breathing room, let alone this Temple I've built. - King Solomon

Temples are special - you must believe that. They are the houses of God. When Solomon built his temple in Jerusalem, he revolutionized the religion of the Hebrews. Up to that time, God lived in a sacred RV, if you will, carried from place to place in an elaborate chest referred to in the King James Bible as “The Ark of the Covenant.” Wherever the Hebrews camped for the night, or for an extended period of time, that ark was placed inside a large tent. There God resided in magnificent loneliness, unapproachable by mere mortals. Only the high priest dared enter the holy of holies, inside the tabernacle, and he could only do this once a year. The implication was clear, if not usually commented on: God was a traveling God, a God who went where the people went.

 But he also was isolated. Their God was a lonely God. David would have liked to build a temple for the ark, but God turned down the offer. Ostensibly, David was unworthy, especially after that business with Uriah’s wife Bathsheba. Whether God was all that upset over David’s indiscretions or more concerned that David would build a temple that glorified himself - “Look what I’ve done: I’ve built a grand house for God!”, may be a good question. Such boasts were common enough in those days - (dare we mention that many a house of God today has similar signs of human boasting?) David would scarcely have been out of line had he done the same thing.

Unfortunately, such boasts have another hidden insinuation in them. The house I build for God is the place where God must now reside. I am God’s landlord. Not a good conclusion. So the Temple was built - not by David, but by Solomon. Probably even grander than David could have envisioned, Solomon’s temple was a wonder of cedars of Lebanon, ivory and gold. But to Solomon’s credit, he did at least realize that no human building was going to be able to contain God. His first act in the temple, then, was to address God with a prayer of thanksgiving and supplication. This temple is designed to show the might and power of God - not Solomon.

I learn some things from this prayer. For one thing, Solomon had the good sense to realize no temple would ever be able to house God. The plethora of mansions popping up all over our country are good examples of BIG houses. More rooms, more indoor tennis courts and swimming pools, more private theaters, you name it. Solomon could have matched them all, apparently, but he could not build a house big enough to hold God. We need to remember this. Not only is it unwise to worship a particular building because it is built for God, it is futile, for buildings are too restrictive. The God who once made do with an Old Testament equivalent of an RV, is a God who refuses to be tied down. God will not be confined in any Temple, no matter how immense it is.

 Nor can we confine God in a temple of ideas, doctrines, dogmas, theories, beliefs. Science recently found the Higgs boson, and people hailed the discovery as the equivalent of finding the “God particle”. At last, we have scientific proof of the existence of God. If you listen carefully, you may hear a divine roar of laughter. A particle so infinitesimally small it cannot be seen or measured is the proof for God for which we’ve been looking for so long? No. God is far too large to fit into our physics, our philosopher’s essays, our eloquent preachers’ sermons, our creeds.

 When you are sure you have found God, remember Solomon’s temple. God’s too big for our human brains to house. People worship a God they comprehend, and the truth of the matter is, any God we can comprehend is too small. Worship as a Christian, worship as a Jew, worship as a Muslim or Buddhist or Hindu. Worship as a Baptist or Catholic or Presbyterian or Pentecostal Evangelical, but remember, God, the God to whom Solomon prayed, will never fit in any of our creeds. God needs more space than we can provide.

That said, just how comfortable are you in housing God in your neighborhood in the first place? Suppose you were Zaccheus and heard Jesus address you with the words “What are you doing up in that tree. Come down right now. I need you at your house preparing a feast for me.”

Oh dear. There goes my afternoon to watch the Super Bowl. There goes my plans to play golf. There goes my Bridge Club. There goes the quilting lesson. Or even more ironic, “There goes my Bible Study Group”. An omnipresent God could prove to be inconvenient. I remember Marilyn once remarking to me, “I married you for better or for worse, but not for lunch every day at noon!”

And that’s only assuming God could be an inconvenience. What about God observing the seamier details of our lives? The things we think, say or do we would rather God not witness. Oh yes, we are all like Isaiah who remarked almost automatically - upon seeing God in the Temple - “woe is me for I am undone, for I am a man of unclean lips living in a generation of people with unclear lips.” Paul puts it emphatically - “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.”

  Even though our sins be simple ones - we have no murder or theft or adultery on our conscience, still our least imperfection is magnified a thousandfold when placed along side the perfection of God. We learn we can live with our shortcomings. We can even rationalize them. Take comfort that we are, after all, only human. What more could anyone want - even God.

But when we are put next to God, the simple defect of character takes on gigantic implications. Can we really bear to live in the presence of perfection when we are so acutely aware of our imperfection? Would not the contrast itself  be so obnoxious we could not bear it? Eugene O’Neill, in his masterpiece “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” depicts a family of human failings, and imperfections, who lacerate themselves with memories of mistakes and the unbearable agony of being in the presence of someone they think is better than themselves. They long for healing to take place in an addicts struggle for victory over drugs, thinking “if she can do it, there may be hope for me”, only to harbor a deeper satisfaction when the addict succumbs. “Look at her, she’s as bad as me.”

What if that neighbor was God? God, the perfect one? God the constant winner? God the infallible measuring stick for all our behavior? In another of O’Neill’s plays a man is so tortured by the goodness of his wife and his shame over his repeated failures to live up to her goodness, he finally kills her. He could no longer bear such goodness in his own back yard. Isn’t that a thinly veiled description of mankind and the way we murdered Jesus? Destroy the Son of God and let us have our neighborhood back on our own terms?

Well, that may be your answer, but you would do well to notice: God has already moved in. We live in God’s neighborhood, whether we like it or not. God is willing to die to show us just how sick we are and how much he loves us anyway.

Is it possible we have not only misjudged the breadth and depth of God and his unswerving love; we have also over-estimated both our human self-sufficiency and the real significance of our sin.

Solomon built a grand temple, one the world would eventually pull down. God built a different home, one more suited to his needs. We call it the human heart. It’s now up to us to learn how to live in God’s neighborhood. Apparently God’s quite happy to have us move in! Amen.