7th Sunday After the Epiphany
Listen here.
A Holy Temple
Listen here.
I’d like for you to think for a moment about what your
mental image is of a temple. For me that word brings to mind images of beauty,
ornate decorations, a sense of glory and mystery. There is antiquity there, but
that antiquity speaks powerfully to life today. There are interesting smells
there: the scents of an old building that is well cared for, incense hanging in
the air, and perhaps the smell of bread and wine – those are smells I often
associate with God’s work in our lives. In my mind a temple might look
something like this.
This is Hagia Sophia, in Istanbul, Turkey. You might recall
that Istanbul was Constantinople, now
it’s Istanbul not Constantinople, anyhow, the city was once the center of
Eastern Christianity. From 537-1453 this beautiful building was a church. Sadly
in 1453 Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Empire, and this beautiful church
was converted into a mosque. But can you imagine worshipping in a space like
this? The magnificence? The beauty? This might be a good image of a temple.
But what if a temple looks more like … well what if it looks
more like you? And by you, I don’t just mean individually. That’s what usually
gets emphasized when we talk about being God’s temple. And it is true that the
Holy Spirit fills us individually, creating faith in us and delivering Jesus’
gifts of forgiveness, life and salvation to each one of us. But when Paul says,
“Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in
you?” That “you” is plural.
You – all y’all – together – are God’s temple. And not just
the “all y’all” gathered here, but everyone who believes in Jesus Christ as
their crucified savior and lord.
And this is why what we believe, teach, and confess matters.
This is why our conduct matters. Because when our beliefs, teaching,
confession, and conduct stray from God’s Word and God’s ways we break our unity
with God and with one another. And that’s what sin does. It breaks our unity
with God, and it breaks our unity with one another.
This is why God called the people of Israel in our Old
Testament lesson to be holy. You noticed that he repeats the phrase, “I am the
LORD.”? He is reminding them that they are HIS people, saved by him from
slavery, redeemed from oppression in Egypt by his mighty hand and outstretched
arm. He chose them and made them his own and says, “be like me,” because in
being like him, walking in his ways, showing mercy, acting justly, they would
live in ways that resist breaking fellowship with God and one another.
This is also part of what Jesus drives at in our Gospel reading
today. He is saying, “You are part of the kingdom of heaven, so live like
people of the kingdom of heaven. Not like people of this age and this world.”
And he shows the kingdom of heaven has different priorities, foreign behaviors,
that don’t match up to this world’s behaviors and priorities. I mean, really,
who wants to turn the other cheek when someone wrongs us? Who wants to love her
enemies? And he urges us to be perfect. Why? Because our heavenly Father is
perfect. We are united in him as our Father. He created us, sustains us, and
continues to provide for us through this world he made for us to live in, and
we are united in that. He designed us to live in patterns and ways that match
his goodness, holiness, and righteousness, so when we step outside of the
pattern he designed us for … there are consequences, there is division from our
heavenly Father, there is separation between us as Christians – and even just
as people, and harm is done to others and to ourselves – and that harm can be
physical, mental, and spiritual.
So what God is saying to you … to us! … today is that
despite our sin, he has made us his temple by redeeming us through Jesus’
cross. We are his not only by creation, but also by the salvation we cling to,
and he chooses to dwell among us, within us, together, as his Spirit works
through the Word and Sacraments in our midst. He is here as we pray, and he
hears our prayers for Jesus’ sake. He answers our prayers out of his love for
us.
We are confronted with this amazing reality that God is
here. We’re not just a group of people who are free to agree and disagree as we
like, but we, all together, gather in the living presence of the one who made
us, saved us, and is at work in us to make us holy by forgiving our sins and by
empowering us to live according to the foolishness of the cross and the wisdom
of the kingdom of heaven.
How should we respond to that? How should we respond to what
God is doing here in our midst?
Well, first, I’ll tell you something we should not do. We
should not try to conform ourselves to the wisdom of this world or to inject
the wisdom of the world into who we are as God’s people. God’s Word stands over
us. It reveals God to us as the one who is both just and merciful. What he
calls sin, we should avoid as sin. We are not to oppress others, to deal
falsely, to lie, to swear falsely, to neglect the poor or the alien. We are not
to slander others. We are not to hate people. Why? Because God is God, and we
are his people. And even as we recognize sin we hold high the cross of Christ
because it is there that sinners find forgiveness and new life. When people ask
what our church is about, it should be abundantly clear that we are all about
Jesus.
Jesus is the foundation of our faith – the message of Christ
crucified for you (singular and plural!) is at the heart of everything we do.
ChristCare? Is there for us to gather around Jesus in fellowship and prayer.
GriefShare? Is here for the grieving to gather around the Lord who rose from
the dead. Youth Ministry? Exists to help our young people learn to follow
Jesus. And when the time comes to add on to our building, the design and
purpose of it will be to help us gather around Jesus, be built up in Jesus, and
to serve Jesus by serving others.
In Jesus we have everything, because, when we are in him, he
gives us all that we need to live the life of faith. We have forgiveness, life,
salvation, hope, joy, love, the kingdom of heaven, peace, God’s wisdom, God’s
Spirit, and more – it’s all yours! We have everything in Jesus so that we are
free to live as Jesus’ followers without fear and in perfect unity.
All the things of God are yours in Jesus … and you are
Jesus’ people. You belong to him. He has bought you with his own blood. And Jesus
is God’s savior – the savior God sent for us – so we are God’s … God’s temple,
and he is with us. So how shall we live? In Christ’s forgiveness, we live so
that our lives show that God is our God, and we are his people. Amen.
Comments