King David has now fully established himself and his kingdom at Jerusalem. Sitting in his palace constructed from the cedars of Lebanon, he turns his attention to building a temple for God. This God who has traveled through the wilderness with the ark, dwelling in tents along the way, will now at last have a grand place to inhabit. This makes a good deal of sense. Having established his political capitol city, David wants Jerusalem to be the religious capitol as well. He directs his spiritual advisor, the prophet Nathan, to ask God about this. But God’s reply is surprising. “When did I ever ask for a house of cedar?” God then says “Instead of you building me a house, I am building you a house, only this house will be your descendants. Don’t worry about a house for me. I am creating a house for you, over which I will preside.” As in English, the Hebrew word for house (“beyit”) can also be used to mean household or dynasty. In the New Testament, of course, we talk about the “house and lineage” of David.

           In modern parlance, we could say that God is re-framing the issue. In this God is both warning about the dangers involved in building a house for God, and also reminding David that God’s promise has always been that God will create a people, a household, who will be a living family of God. First, what are the dangers of building a house for God? And then, second, what does it mean in a positive sense to live in God’s household?

            One of the most important religious books in the last century was John A. T. Robinson’s classic Your God is Too Small. Robinson says that so much of our approach to religion is motivated by the desire to put God into a box. God’s words to David carry that warning. And I think the warning applies to us as well as David. First, there is the danger of putting God into the box of a building. Our church is a place; an address; a set of facilities where you worship and have meetings, a place that generates bills to be paid. For the past decade CCC has been pretty occupied with its building. On the one hand there is no doubt that we needed badly to renovate and expand. The last four years have been occupied with re-entry into our building and figuring out how to make best use of it. But, we can’t let the building become a box for God or us. When we moved out of this space, we existed without a building for eighteen months. We remembered the Hebrews in the wilderness. We remembered the early days of this congregation when it met at the old Blair High School. And we affirmed that a building is not an end in itself, but rather a means to the accomplishment of God’s mission. Our purpose is to be a people of God, obedient to God’s will. On the one hand we must manage this space wisely and prudently, but at the same time not lose sight of our mission.

            Second, we must not put God in the box of worship. Our tradition says that Sabbath day is holy. It is the one day in seven to focus on God and God’s work. But just as God cannot be contained in the box of a building, God cannot be contained in the box of a forty-five, or sixty, or seventy-five minute worship service. God cannot be contained in a particular style of worship. Yes, of course, we need to take care of ourselves and honor the rhythms of our lives and families. But God is with us twenty-four hours a day. The purpose of worship is to help us carry the practice of the presence of God into our lives every moment. We don’t attend church to please God or fulfill an obligation. We attend church because we need to intentionally seek God’s presence together and better understand what we are called to do. We, not God, need that.

            Third, we must be careful not to put God in the box of an ethnic, racial, sexual, cultural, class, or economic identity. This is the belief that we can most easily and happily serve and worship God when we are among our own kind, whatever that is. With this attitude the issue is really our own comfort, not God’s presence. That is why it is so important that we read on a weekly basis those inclusive words of welcome at the beginning of worship.

            Fourth, we must not put God in the box of political affiliation or national identity. God is not a democrat or a republican. God’s will is not necessarily the domestic and foreign policies of the United States government. And God is not bound in any sense to honor those policies, or the actions of our friends and allies.

            Fifth, we must not put God in the box of sectarian religious dogma -whether it be protestant, catholic, or orthodox Christianity; or, for that matter, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, or Buddhist among others. Speaking for myself, I am follower of Jesus, and the United Church of Christ is my fold. But I am also aware that Jesus said, “Other sheep have I, not of this fold.” I interpret that to mean that the God of Jesus can be manifested in the faith experience of other Christians, or other non-Christians as well. Huston Smith has said that Christianity lacks nothing as a religion. But other faiths lack nothing as well, and, in fact, can help us gain a better understanding of our own faith. I see no alternative to this approach in our inter-faith world.

            I expect there are many more ways we try to put God in a box. But the message in all this is quite simple. God is absolutely free. God is free to think and act outside our boxes. God is in charge, not you and me. God is bigger than we can even begin to conceive. And God’s sovereignty over our lives is total. What we call the original sin of Adam and Eve included the sense that when they disobeyed God, they actually thought they could hide out in some far corner of the Garden, where God couldn’t find them, or wouldn’t think to look. They thought that if God could be put into a box, then God would not be paying attention to what they were up to. Wrong.

            If these are some of the dangers trying to build a house for God involves, what are the positive dimensions of belonging to the household of God?

            First, this household of faith, this church, is above all, not a building, place, or institution; it is a set of relationships. It is a relationship with God that is revealed to be relationships with one another. Church is relationship.

            Second, these relationships cut dramatically across all the arbitrary boundaries and barriers that so readily occur to us as natural. The great epistle of the pastoral life of the church is the Letter to the Ephesians. It says that most of us join the household of faith by adoption. We are all outsiders who have been welcomed in.  In the Second Chapter we find these remarkable words:

But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us….So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.

It is not about building a house for God. Instead it is about ourselves being built into a household in God. We are built together spiritually into God’s dwelling place. God dwells there to be with us and for us. To be followers of Christ; to be in Christ; to dwell in sacred and spiritual relationship, is to be in the household of God.

            In closing, it seems to me that one of the great challenges of the spiritual life is balance. How do we honor the religious truth that God is sovereign, that above all we are called to live in simple trust and obedience on the one hand – and, at the same time, live coping with the daily responsibilities and decisions that come with life. For Christ Congregational Church it is the tension between living faithfully according to God’s word; and, for example, figuring out how much income we ask groups using our church to donate in order to cover coasts. How do we balance the mission and purpose of those groups with what they can afford to give? And, as we come together to be God’s people, aflame in the Holy Spirit, we still need to figure out where to set the thermostats. How do we feel our lives infused with love, and determine who will shovel the snow off the sidewalks in winter? Stating the matter negatively, Woody Allen once said, “Not only is God dead; but try getting a plumber on the weekend.” Stated positively, “Not only is God alive; but we’d better know how to get a plumber on the weekend.” How do we fully engage ourselves in the life of this congregation, and how do we keep ourselves from burning out? Not easy – it is a matter of recognizing and working with the built-in tensions, dealing with the polarities of life in God. Faith is dynamic, not static. In this let us remember that God’s view is cosmic. But God’s eye is on the sparrow as well. Let our view be as cosmic as God’s. And let our eyes be always on the very least in God’s creation.

AMEN.

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