Sermon, 11/13/22. Creation II versus Creation I: Describing the Temple

23 Pentecost

Canticle 9 (BCP); Isaiah 65:17–25; II Thessalonians 3:6–13; Luke 21:5–19

I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.  Isaiah 65:17

Inasmuch as today’s reading from the Gospel according to Luke begins with a statement about the Temple in Jerusalem where Jesus found himself, you will please indulge me when I say, as neither an architect nor an Art Historian, that the Temple described in Luke’s gospel has captured my attention.  I invite you to journey with me, as I seek a description or definition of a temple.  If we were playing the once popular parlor game, charades, a game which in my family was a traditional activity after Christmas dinner, and if you were given the word “temple,” how would you, not using words, describe or enact a temple?  I would wager that for you a temple would be a building, perhaps one with a cross, a Crescent, or a Star of David. You would perhaps kneel on the floor and put the palms of your hands together as if in prayer.  However, I would wager that you would never describe or draw a picture of the heart!  But that is precisely what the lectionary for today, the 23^rd Sunday after Pentecost, is asking us to consider.

Like Stations of the Cross, my exploratory journey has three segments and has produced some interesting and convincing evidence.  To borrow a phrase from a once popular movie, starring Canadian-American Michael J. Fox who recently reentered eternity, journey with me ‘back to the future.’  We began today’s reading with the words of the prophet Isaiah. But, to understand more clearly today’s proclamation, one has to return to an earlier proclamation of God, as voice through Isaiah. 

Hear the word of the Lord… ‘What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? say the Lord; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of he-goats.  When you come to appear before me, who requires of you this trampling of my courts?…Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good, seek justice, correct oppression; defend the fatherless, plead for the widow.  (Isaiah 1:11 – 17)

God rejects the visible and tangible mechanics of atonement which take place in the tangible, visible temple, as they, neither the building nor the sacrifices, are sufficient and pleasing to God.  Because of a change of heart in biblical Israel, Isaiah is instructed by God to proclaim a new Good News.  And this you heard just read:
I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.  But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating; for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy.
(Isaiah 65: 17f.)

As we sit in the quietness of this sanctuary, a quietness punctuated by readings from Scripture and by the melodious sounds of the organ which supports our hymns of worship and adoration of our creator God, I suggest boldly to you, that we are tempted to project the solemnity of our worship onto to what in all likelihood a worship which was totally different, as Jesus sat in the Temple in Jerusalem and taught or disputed with those who may have gathered round him. 

On the second leg of my journey, I gathered second evidentiary material.   Again from the Gospel according to Luke, just read, we hear:
When some were speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God, Jesus said, ‘As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.’ (Luke 21:5f.)

We have no photographs of the ancient temple in Jerusalem; yet, we have no reason to doubt that no efforts were spared in enhancing its beauty, to compete with such houses of worship of other peoples, the ancient Greeks for example.  However, to hear that the temple would be demolished, had to have been for those around Jesus highly disconcerting. 

Consider, if you will, from our own relatively recent history, the following:

• Canterbury Cathedral, in Canterbury, Kent, UK, was founded 597 A.D.  It took 900 years to build, and hence is 1,425 years old. 
• The Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, NYC, closer to home, was begun 1892 and is only two-thirds completed and is only ca. 130 years old.

Every student of history knows that cathedrals, like ancient temples, took often centuries to complete and that the original architect never lived to see his life’s work completed.  We know also from history, that historic cathedrals and church have been destroyed because of man’s avarice, egotism, or inhumanity to man.  Such was the case involving the Cathedral in Coventry, England and the Church of Our Lady (or Frauenkirche) in Dresden, Germany, the former by the bombs of Hitler’s Blitzkrieg rained down on England and the latter by the indiscriminate Allied Bombing Raids on Germany.  Most recently, in your time and mine, the western world looked on, thanks to modern technology, in disbelief on 15 April 2019, as Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France was consumed by fire.  That Cathedral was begun 1163 A.D. and largely completed 1260 A.D., and is far from being completely restored.

Millenia before the devastating fire at Notre Dame, the temple in Jerusalem was visited by one who breathed a fire of a different nature.  Incensed by the non-religious traffic taking place in the temple, a holy place, a sacred place, a place dedicated to God should be desecrated by non-religious activities, Jesus responds with a fiery vengeance.  He overturns the tables of the moneychangers.  (Matt. 21:13) Something new and drastic was required:
‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up’ The Jews then said, ‘It has taken forty-six years to build this temple; and will you raise it up in three days.’  (John 2:18 – 20) 

Jesus was well grounded in the words of the prophets, including those of Isaiah, for as you will recall, after his presentation at the age of twelve in the temple, his parents proceeded to return home, only to discover that their precocious son was engrossed in debate with the learned men of the temple.  In his adult ministry, Jesus raised the question of recidivism, or in the religious vernacular of today of “backsliding”: Had the people of Israel, those to whom Jesus had been sent to redeem, resorted to their old ways, where neither the concrete edifice nor their hearts satisfied God any longer?

Although lacking degrees in engineering and the tools of modern-day architectural science, those who millennia ago heard Jesus, were well aware of the time and labor and finances required to build a temple or any other building that was to stand forever.  Luke’s gospel would have us initially understand that the response of his hearers was muted: “Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign that this is about to take place?” (Luke 21:7)   That image is far from complete, and thus it should not come as a surprise, then, that those hearing the words of Jesus remained anything but docile.  They were not only perturbed; they became hostile.  That the temple in Jerusalem, the center of the ancient Hebrews’ religious observance, should cease to exist, was of grave concern.  Action against this upstart and his incendiary threats had to be taken, promptly and decisively.  This claim by Jesus is entered in as evidence against him in his trial before Pontius Pilate, to whom is reported:  We heard him say, ‘I will destroy this temple that is made by hands, and in three days I will build another, not made by hands.’  (Mark14:58) 

I submit my third finding that for Jesus the temple is more than bricks and mortar, where people gather in assembly to recall the love and grace of God the Creator.  As the opponents of Jesus make their case before Pontius Pilate, John says simply: but he [Jesus] spoke of the temple of his body.  (John2:21)  So there you have it.  It is there, in the heart, that real and true meaning of “temple” is found.

We may wish to ignore the simplicity of Jesus’ message, but it is there, plain for all to see.  Before I rest my case, I offer you only a few of the many testimonies from the New Testament, that God’s temple is located not in bricks and mortar, but in the heart.

The Apostle Paul understood all too well that message, received from Jesus of Nazareth, and Paul strove to teach his fellow converts that wisdom:

• I Corinthians 3:16 Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?
• I Corinthians 3:17 If anyone destroys God’s Temple, God will destroy him.  For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.
• I Corinthians 6:19 Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God?  You are not your own; you were bought with a price.  So glorify God in your body.
• Romans 12:2  I appeal to you therefore brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

If I am not grossly mistaken, Christ asked his followers then and asks us now, to consider the wholeness of our being. Such a wholeness was established for all humankind at creation.  Such a wholeness is voiced in the Eucharist prayer of Rite I, where in the prayer of consecration I intone “And here we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, our selves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice unto thee.”  In that solemnity, in that solemn petition, we are reminded that we are created in the image of God and that what God created was good.  We are all reminded that at the core of our being we bear Godlike intentions and capabilities.  God is not lodged in a temple made by human hands, however ornate, bejeweled, or magnificent in size, for such a temple can be destroyed, leveled to the ground. 

Jesus Christ has taught and teaches us still, that the true temple of God is to be found in the hearts of living, breathing human beings.  And so it is, that without hubris, arrogance, or pride, but with praise and thanksgiving, we may all claim as our own words those of the psalmist:

Lord, you have searched me out and known me;
you know my sitting down and my rising up;
you discern my thoughts from afar.
You trace my journeys and my resting places
and are acquainted with all my ways.
…
I will thank you because I am marvelously made;
your works are wonderful, and I know it well.
…
Search me out, O God, and know my heart;
try me and know my restless thoughts.
Look well whether there be any wickedness in me
and lead me in the way that is everlasting.   (Psalm 139)  AMEN