Bloomsbury
Central Baptist Church
30th
October 2016 11.00am
Biblical Buildings Series: The first temple
1 Kings 6.1-10; 7.51; 8.1, 12-13
Revelation 21.1-4, 9-11, 22-27
The
parable of the playhouse.
There
once was a man who wrote plays,
and not just any old plays,
but the most exciting,
daring, and innovative plays
that had ever been written in
his native language.
He
re-told the stories of his national history in new ways,
bringing the foundational myths of his
people
to life in new and vibrant
ways.
He
took risks, and despite the fact
that his audiences included Kings and
Queens,
he
raised questions about royal power,
and the rights of the common man.
He
made people laugh,
he made people think,
he made people cry.
He
even shaped the language and society of his people
for centuries to come,
such was the power of the stories he
told.
Originally,
he and his troop of actors performed in halls,
and in the open air, and in rented
theatres.
But
so successful was he,
that in time he acquired his own
theatre,
as a permanent home
from which his stories could
shine across the city.
And
it worked – the theatre was a success.
People
flocked to it,
the poor standing in crowds near the
stage,
and the rich and noble sitting high
up,
away from the stench of the
commoners.
He
told his stories, and performed his plays,
and became rich and famous,
and then he retired and died.
For
a while, the theatre carried on much as before,
performing his plays in rotation,
packing the house with people
eager to be inspired and
entertained
by the daring vibrancy of the
stories and the language.
But
in time, the building started to show its age,
as did the plays.
Those
who wanted to see them, had seen them,
some of them twice or more.
And
so the crowds dropped away,
apart from a few die-hard fans,
who would still come to
anything
just so long as it reminded
them of the glory days
when the playwright was still
alive.
But
eventually the theatre closed,
and passed into the mists of memory
and history.
But
here’s the thing.
The plays lived on.
The
playwright’s words continued to inspire,
to provoke, to entertain, and to
challenge.
New
generations discovered them,
and they brought fresh light
to contexts far removed from the city
where they had been written.
The
words just wouldn’t,
perhaps they couldn’t, die.
In
time, after many centuries,
some of those who loved the words of
the playwright
said that whilst innovation and
contextualisation
had got everyone this far,
and a jolly good thing that
was too,
we were now a very long way from where
we had started.
And
perhaps it might be interesting
to try and strip away the centuries,
to
hear the words as they had originally been heard.
So
they built another theatre, a replica of the original playhouse.
And
it was brilliant, it was exciting,
the plays came to life again
as they hadn’t done for many years.
People
flocked to it,
the poor standing in crowds near the
stage,
and the rich and noble sitting high
up,
away from the stench of the
commoners.
It
was like nothing had changed, and everyone loved it.
People became rich, and famous, and
retired on their reputations.
But
then, slowly, it started to feel a bit stale.
All the plays had been performed, some
of them twice or more.
And
people started to worry that the crowds might drop away,
leaving only a few die-hard fans
who would come to anything
just so long as it reminded
them of the glory days.
So,
because this is capitalist London,
and the market was now king,
they decided to innovate.
They
brought change to the new playhouse.
A new artistic director, a woman in a
man’s world;
and she changed the staging,
the lighting, and the sound,
and she asked for gender
balance amongst the actors.
Some
loved it, and many new people came.
But some, who had been there for a
while,
and loved it the way it used
to be,
hated the change and the innovation.
They
wanted the playwright’s words
to be heard as they had always been
heard,
at least since the new playhouse was
built.
And
so Emma Rice was asked to leave the Globe.
And
the blogger on the theatre website said:
“Make
no mistake:
this isn't an argument about electric
lighting and amplification,
whatever the Globe board
says.
It's much deeper than that.
It's
about who gets to make Shakespeare,
for whom and how.
If
we insist on doing things as they've always been done
– and what's original practice if not
that –
nothing will change.
We'll
get the same people
making the same theatre
for the same audiences forever.”[1]
To
which I would only add,
that is why Solomon’s temple didn’t
last.
The
greatest building in ancient history,
constructed as a house for God
himself,
to
shine for all time as a beacon to the city of David,
of the eternal words of the Lord of
heaven,
was
sacked and destroyed by the Babylonians
a mere four centuries after it was
constructed.
Except,
paradoxically,
in a strange kind of way it did last.
The
building that Solomon built
may have only endured 400 years,
but
the idea of the temple
far outlived its original embodiment.
---
Just
as the idea of the playhouse endured
as a permanent home for the playwright
in the parable,
so
the idea of the temple
as a permanent home for God
has
echoed down the millennia to the present day.
But
it had all started with such good intentions,
this plan by the wisest man who ever
lived,
to build a permanent house for the
Lord,
the God of the whole earth.
It
was a credible attempt,
one might even say a wise attempt,
to
answer that most difficult of theological conundrums:
of where, on earth, is God to be
found?
Different
cultures, and different religions,
have supplied an almost infinite
variety of answers
to this question of where one might go
to find God.
The
early animist religions
held that God was everywhere and in
all things.
More
a divinity arising from the natural
world
than a transcendent deity
in some way separate from creation.
So,
in those early days, the divine could be found
at the top of the mountain,
or
in the spring arising from the ground,
or in the sea, or in the crops,
or in the sun, or the thunder,
or,
in fact, anywhere that people chose to see the divine.
By
this understanding,
all one had to do to find God was to
go outside.
And
it was only one small step
from there to the question
of how one might recognise God when one
finds him,
and
so people started to manufacture physical representations
of the various expressions of the
divine
that they had sensed in the world
around them.
They
made clay figures, or carved wooden statues,
to represent the gods of this place or
that,
and
they came to the practice
of worshipping these representations
of the divine spirit of creation.
So
if you lived in the ancient near east,
you might have a collection of
household gods,
which you would take with you
if you went travelling,
and which you could leave to
your children when you died.
And every day you would make a small
offering to them,
praying for the safety of
your children,
or for the success of your
crops.
And
here, I think,
we can trace the first attempts to
build a home for God.
The
wild divine spirit of creation,
the God of the whole earth,
the God of the mountain and
the valley,
and the spring and the sea,
and the thunder and the
earthquake,
became housed within idols to be
worshipped.
It’s
not that those worshipping the idols
were necessarily even worshipping the
wrong God,
it’s just that it’s a view of God that
is too small.
It’s
the process of containing the infinite
other
and reducing God down to the size of
something controllable
that ends up being condemned as
idolatrous.
And
so we come to the great insight of Abraham,
the father of the Jewish people,
and the spiritual ancestor of
Judaism, Islam, and Christianity.
His
revelation was that there were not many gods,
but just one God.
He
saw through the idols,
and beyond the fragmentation of the
divine,
to a greater vision of one God of the
whole earth.
Not
just the god of a particular place, of a specific household,
or even of a chosen nation,
but one God of the whole earth.
And
he heard a promise
that if his descendants gave faithful
witness
to this one God of all
creation,
then all nations and all the earth
would be blessed.
But
then, in time, the God of all peoples
became the God of the Jews.
And
the God of the whole earth
became the God of the promised land.
And
the process of shrinking God down
to a size that could be understood,
managed, and controlled,
began all over again.
And
so we come to Solomon’s temple,
the first great Jewish attempt to
contain God in a building.
I
don’t know whether Solomon thought to put a plaque
on the wall of his new temple when
he’d finished it,
but I like to think he did.
In
my head, it might have read,
‘The Temple: Built to the glory of God,
and in memory of Solomon’,
like the many plaques that so
often adorn
the churches and cathedrals
of our own age.
Because
here’s the thing: a building of this magnitude,
a building of such status and beauty,
is never just built to the glory of
God.
After
all, the story of the Tabernacle tell us that
God used to live in a tent, and seemed
quite happy with that.
No,
these grand buildings that we put up
are always, either implicitly or
explicitly,
dedicated not only to the
glory of God,
but to the memory of the
builder.
If
I were really cynical, which I am, let’s face it,
I’d turn the wording of the plaque
round the other way,
and have it read:
‘The Temple, Built to the glory of
Solomon, and in memory of God’.
Because
the attempt to contain God in a grand building,
to force God to live at an address of
our choosing,
is always the work of those
who are, at some level,
seeking to control God.
In
the case of Solomon,
the construction of the temple
was the culmination of the
project begun by his father
to unify the disparate tribes
of Israel
into a single
nation with secure defined borders.
What
Solomon discovered
was that trying to draw people
together in this way
was somewhat harder than it
might at first appear,
and so he built the temple, in the
city of his father David,
as the grandest of all
possible statements
that the sons of David rule
at the behest of God,
who is now pleased to dwell,
exclusively, in their city.
It
was the perfect fusion of religion and state,
and it’s a winning formula that has
been replicated
down the centuries from Jerusalem, to Rome,
to London.
It’s
a view of God where God belongs to the king,
lives in a house that is owned by the
king,
and becomes, in effect, the King’s
slave.
And
as the state takes control of God,
and as God is domesticated to the
service of the powerful elite,
the
move away from the wild, free,
uncontrollable God of the animist
religions, is complete.
The
God of organised religion is both controlled and controlling
And the big vision of God that Abraham
glimpsed
becomes, by degrees,
a desire for a far more
parochial deity.
It’s
almost an inverse correlation:
the grander the building built to
house God,
the smaller the view of God that lies
behind it.
And
this is because, theologically speaking,
the building of a temple, or a
cathedral, or a church,
is
very revealing, both of the view of God held by the builder,
and of the view of the people of God
that will worship there.
I’ll
put that another way:
you can tell a lot about what people
believe
by looking at the buildings they put
up.
And
this is because buildings don’t come cheap,
and they represent a substantial
investment
of time, effort, and money.
So
people will only build
what they believe to be important.
Think,
for a moment, of the churches known to you,
and how they speak of the theology of
those who worship there.
Take,
for example, London’s own great house for God,
Westminster Abbey.
Here’s
a photo from my family album,
of the coronation of Elizabeth in
1963.
The
arrow points to my great-grandfather,
William Gwynne Woodman,
who
was Messenger Sgt Major of the Yeoman of the Guard
and so took the lead place in the personal
bodyguard of the monarch.
You
can clearly see in the architecture of this building,
how it was constructed to keep people
apart from each other:
with
the priests at the far end beyond the screen
having exclusive access to the holy
altar,
whilst
the laity are confined to the area near the door.
This
is a view of God where God is the preserve of the privileged and holy few,
it is the God of the king, the God of
the Archbishop,
the God of the priests and the
professional worshippers.
The
God of the architecture of Westminster Abbey
is the God of the state,
and the building reflects that fusion,
something
seen most clearly, of course,
in the photograph of my great-grandfather,
where
we have just had the new monarch
crowned by none other than the archbishop
of Canterbury.
Whereas a different sanctuary, this one for example,
here at Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church,
takes a very different approach.
Here,
the most important thing in 1848 when it was built,
was that a very large number of people
could sit and listen to one man
speaking.
And
so we ended up with the shape and design
that we find ourselves siting in
today.
At
Bloomsbury, as in other Baptist churches,
God is encountered through the
preaching of the word,
as the scriptures are opened and God
is revealed.
The
God of Bloomsbury is the God of the people
not the God of the state,
and
is accessible to all,
not just to the elite few.
You
see how the building reflects the theology
of the people who build it?
And
so, as we consider Solomon’s temple,
built to the glory of God and in
memory of Solomon,
we
have to realise that what he was constructing
wasn’t just a house of prayer, or a
house for God.
He
was constructing an idea,
and the idea was that God can be
contained,
constrained, and even
confined,
by the efforts and activities of the
people who bear God’s name.
And
this is an idea that has life far beyond
the temporal historical buildings
that the idea caused people to build.
Temples
may be destroyed, cathedrals crumble to dust,
but we still build houses for God,
ostensibly
to worship him,
and to proclaim his glory among the
nations;
but
all too easily the desire for worship and glorification
becomes a desire for control and
constraint
as we make the God of all
nations into our God,
and as the God who made us in his own
image
becomes an image fashioned
after our own likeness.
So
here we are, in our wonderful building,
and the builders still haven’t
finished our latest renovation,
although we’re getting there.
And
the question before us as a church
is what do we have this building for?
Is
it so that God can dwell with us,
and so that we can be his people in
this place?
Does
God live at 235 Shaftesbury Avenue?
I
really hope not.
The
book of Revelation offers us an alternative picture
of God dwelling not in an earthly
temple or building at all.
The
new Jerusalem, which is the people of God, the bride of Christ,
is described as a city with no temple.
God
dwells not in any building or in any place,
but rather is known and encountered
through the Spirit of Christ who is sent out into all the earth.
The heart of the new Jerusalem is not a temple,
but
a river and a tree bearing fruit.
God is known not through a building or an idol,
but
through nature and direct revelation.
In many ways, this is a return to the animist
religions
where
it all started.
There is no such thing, it emerges, as a holy
place,
there
is no such thing as a sanctuary,
because all of life is holy,
and
all of creation reveals the nature of God.
As with the words of the playwright in our
parable,
the
words of the story of God revealed in Christ
cannot
be contained forever within one structure.
This story is bigger than any building,
bigger
than any theology,
bigger
than any attempt to own or control it.
It can flourish in a temple, or a cathedral,
or
a church, or a chapel.
But the story of God will not remain there.
We
have no monopoly on the presence of God.
As C.S. Lewis said of Aslan,
‘he’s
not a tame lion, you know.’
My friend Noel Moules puts it rather well:
He says that Jesus did not come to start a new
religion.
But
that rather, he came to offer a universal spirituality
so
integrated into daily life, and so connected with creation,
that
the very idea of religion becomes virtually meaningless.
The
vision of the city with no temple
is a rediscovery of the vision of the
story of the garden of Eden,
where
God is walking with people
and the walls that keep people from
God have ceased to exist.
As
Paul puts it in his letter to the Romans (1.20):
‘Ever since
the creation of the world
God’s eternal power and divine nature,
Invisible
though they are,
have been understood and seen
through everything God has made’
Or
to quote again from the Book of Revelation (5.13):
‘And
everything created in the skies, and on the earth,
and under the earth and on the oceans,
and all things
that are within them,
I heard singing …’
The
words of life are far bigger than our buildings,
far wider than any structures,
physical or symbolic,
that we seek to put around them.
Because
the God of Abraham is the God of the whole earth.
Our
task is, perhaps, simply to learn to recognise God for who he is,
to seek him wherever he may be found,
and to resist the temptation to seek
to own him and make him ours.
[1]
http://www.whatsonstage.com/london-theatre/news/matt-trueman-emma-rice-shakespeares-globe-lighting_42100.html
