Sunday, August 25, 2024
The Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost

CHOSEN

The Rev. Mark Wilkinson, Rector
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church
Katy TX 77450

Click here to watch the sermon

I really wasn’t sure when I walked into bible study this week what the focal point of this sermon was going to be. There were two strong candidates. One is from our gospel. What we have been hearing about bread for the last 4 weeks. You will all probably be happy to hear this is the last week we hear about bread from John. This teaching though is the essence of the eucharistic theology in John’s gospel. John’s last supper doesn’t have an institution of the Eucharist. What it does have is the last commandment, to love one another as Jesus has loved us. So John is teaching about the bread and wine being God’s spirit filled food for us.

Now that is certainly a worthy topic, but the energy that I felt on Tuesday morning was about the 1 Kings passage and Solomon’s prayer at the dedication of the new temple, the first temple that he built in Jerusalem.

Again, an important “character” in this passage is the Ark of the Covenant that contained the tablets of Moses with the 10 commandments. All through the history we have seen the ark used as a symbol of the presence of God with the people of Israel. In today’s reading the ark is brought into the temple and placed in a special room the holy of holies, hidden behind a curtain. IN the early days God traveled with the people of Israel and came to meet Moses at the ark that was inside a tent. Only Moses would enter. In Solomon’s temple and in the second temple of Harrod, only the high priest would enter that room.

This week as we hear about the ark being placed in the temple for the first time we again hear Solomon at prayer. This prayer is the real focus of the story and a theology about God is presented that is a little different from what it had been. Remember I have said that the Hebrew scriptures are more about the development of the theology and relationship with God of the people of Israel than a literal history and this is important for today.

What we hear today was written not at the time of Solomon but by the Deuteronomist writers during the Babylonian exile. God confined to a temple is a problem for them since the temple that we hear about today had been demolished when the Babylonians conquered Jerusalem and took many of the Israelites back to Babylon. This was written during that time of exodus.

Listen to how the presence of God is described. “1Kings 8:10 And when the priests came out of the holy place, a cloud filled the house of the LORD, 11 so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud; for the glory of the LORD filled the house of the LORD.” It is not God who fills the temple but the glory of the Lord that overpowers the priests. God is too big for the temple, God cannot be contained in a tent, a box or a room. This is a new idea that presented a new image of God.

The prayer is rich in the language of Solomon as the son of the great King David. There is a lot of focus on the covenant that God made with David and that continued with Solomon as his son. But then we have one of the two crucial ideas of his prayer. Starting in verse 27 we hear:

1Kings 8:27   “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, much less this house that I have built! 28 Regard your servant’s prayer and his plea, O LORD my God, heeding the cry and the prayer that your servant prays to you today; 29 that your eyes may be open night and day toward this house, the place of which you said, ‘My name shall be there,’ that you may heed the prayer that your servant prays toward this place. 30 Hear the plea of your servant and of your people Israel when they pray toward this place; O hear in heaven your dwelling place; heed and forgive.

The D writer through Solomon’s words is creating an image of God much larger, more expansive than was the previous image. Heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain God. No house built by humans can contain God. God is no longer a small tribal God that travels around with the Israelites and comes to sit and talk in a tent with the ark. Only a glimpse of God in God’s immensity and transcendence is present in the temple. This is a major shift in the nation’s understanding of God. This is a God who cannot be contained in any one place by any one people. This is God of the universe as they knew it. This God uses the temple as a way to make God’s self known to the people and God’s presence is there, but God is also everywhere.

Then we come to the part that generated a good bit of discussion on Tuesday and is the point I want to really make. Listen to verses 41-43

1Kings 8:41   “Likewise when a foreigner, who is not of your people Israel, comes from a distant land because of your name 42 —for they shall hear of your great name, your mighty hand, and your outstretched arm—when a foreigner comes and prays toward this house, 43 then hear in heaven your dwelling place, and do according to all that the foreigner calls to you, so that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your people Israel, and so that they may know that your name has been invoked on this house that I have built.

This temple is established so that foreigners may come and learn of God. Something that many people misunderstand as did some of the Israelites is the concept of chosen. They were chosen not because they are special or better than others.

The nation of Israel is chosen by God to make God known to the world. That is what being the chosen people means. Now you don’t have to take my word for this, I learned this from a conservative rabbi in Virginia Beach during an interfaith dialogue we were having.

They are called to welcome the foreigner into their temple their world so that all who come seeking God may find God and know God. All through the Hebrew Scriptures there is a strong message of welcoming the foreigner, helping them because in those days anyone may have found themselves in the wilderness needing the help of those around them. This was the code of the desert and an important principle for the nation. Jesus as a Jew knew this and taught it, often quoting the Hebrew Scriptures to his disciples and those who he was teaching.

I am currently reading a book about the Jesus as a Jew and how his Jewish heritage influenced his teaching and life. It is written by Amy Jill Levine a Jewish new testament theologian. She is consistently making the point that Jesus was calling the Jewish world back into their heritage. He was not issuing new commandments but calling them to follow the law as it was written.

What got the Tuesday morning group talking was the idea of our call to be the chosen people. Chosen to make God known to the world. One of the shortest mission statements of Christian churches is “To know Christ and to make Christ known.” That truly is what we are called to do and to make Christ known to all who want to enter into that relationship. Some will choose to listen and many will not. The opposition we face today isn’t that much different than what Jesus and the early church faced. Teaching a religion of love, sacrifice, fellowship, and yes radical welcome is often a tough sell.

I use the word radical welcome. I was ordained with the Rev. Stephanie Spellers who is now on Bishop Curry’s staff. While a curate in Massachusetts she wrote a book entitled Radical Welcome. A church that lives radical welcome is one that is more than inclusive. There are churches that invite everyone to come on in but then demand they become like them. They operate like the Borg collective where everyone is assimilated and must change to fit in. Inclusive churches welcome all in and respect their differences. But a radically welcoming church welcomes all and invites them to contribute their unique gifts to the church and the church changes and is enriched by of those gifts. There are very few churches of this later character and the vast majority of churches demand that everyone who comes in the door becomes like them or they are no longer welcome.

Our LGBT friends understand this. Many have been “welcomed” into a church only to find out that the church wants to fix them, to change them, to demand that they deny an important part of their humanity. It is not unusual for me to be asked by someone hurt by a church in the past if they are truly welcome just as they are. My answer is a resounding yes you are welcome. Welcoming all into our church is exactly what Solomon is talking about in his prayer some 3000 years ago. It is as relevant and important today as it was then.

I have an invitation to communion that I occasionally use and will use today.

He was always the guest. In the homes of Peter and Jairus, Martha and Mary, Joanna and Susanna, he was always the guest. At the meal tables of the wealthy where he pled the case of the poor, he was always the guest. Upsetting polite company, befriending isolated people, welcoming the stranger, he was always the guest.

But here, at this table, he is the host. Those who wish to serve him must first be served by him, those who want to follow him must first be fed by him. For this is the table where God intends us to be nourished; this is the time when Christ can make us new.

So come, you who hunger and thirst for a deeper faith, for a better life, for a fairer world. Jesus Christ, who has sat at our tables, now invites us to be guests at his.

This is an invitation to all to come to the table. To taste and see that the Lord is good.