The Sixteenth Sunday in
Ordinary Time, Sunday 19th July, 2009 – ‘The Dwelling-Place of God’
“In whom you also
are built together spiritually into a dwelling-place for
God.”
I have had an incredibly busy week. For a whole variety of reasons it’s
been a week of long days and lots of demands and to be honest when I finally
found the time to start to think about what I was going to stand up and say
this morning what I really wanted to hear were those wonderful words in verse
31 of today’s gospel reading, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves
and rest a while.” What I got though, what jumped out and dug itself into my
consciousness, were those other words, from our second reading, “In whom you
also are built together spiritually into a dwelling-place for
God.”
This is one of those tenuous connecting readings the lectionary throws
up from time to time in an often dodgy attempt to draw some parallels between
the first reading, usually from the Old Testament, and the second, usually from
one of the epistles. In this case the connection lies in where God lives.
Second Samuel finds David settling down, having now firmly established
his monarchy and a relatively settled kingdom. He’s even built a house, a home
for himself and his family, but that’s now become a bother to him. David’s
concerned because God, theoretically holed up in the holy box that was the ark
of the covenant, is stuck in a tent while he, David, is living in luxury in a
fancy house, so he has a plan. David decides its time to build a temple, but
God, speaking through the prophet Nathan, says no.
There are several reasons given for why David wasn’t the right king to
build the
This, right here, is the founding of the fourth and final Covenant in
the First Testament. First Noah, then Abraham, then Moses, and now David, with
all of them God establishes a Covenant that guarantees them an ongoing lineage,
a myriad of descendants, a lasting house. In David’s case that house is
accompanied by a promise of kingship, “Your house and your kingdom shall be
made sure forever before me; your throne shall be established forever.” It
didn’t work out in quite the expected way of course – David’s line didn’t rule
Israel for too many generations – but that house does stretch all the way to
Jesus, and I’ll leave it up to you to decide whether God’s promises take on new
meaning there.
The connection between second Samuel and today’s second reading, in
Ephesians, is of course the common concern with God’s dwelling place. Ephesians
on the face of it, however, isn’t so much about building as it is about tearing
down. “In his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the
dividing wall … He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances.”
At the heart of it though this really is a continuation of what we find in
second Samuel, albeit one David would never ever have imagined.
“So then, remember that at one time you Gentiles by birth, called “the
uncircumcision” by those who are called “the circumcision” —a physical
circumcision made in the flesh by human hands— remember that you were at that
time without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel.”
This is a letter to the church at Ephesus, written late in the first
century, at a time when Judaism and Christianity have all but parted company
and contrary to the beginnings of the Church, Jews are now becoming the
minority members, and into the context the author writes to remind those
Gentile Christians, “this is where you came from.” In Jesus, we’re told, the
old tensions, the old differences, the old divisions between Jew and non-Jew
have been broken down. This isn’t about the demolition of the Old Testament
it’s about the fulfilment of it, with the Gentile Christians, in Christ,
becoming part of that ongoing house promised to David and his descendants
forever.
There is quite possibly an even stronger meaning to this passage. While
traditionally Ephesians has been seen as one of Paul’s letters, written while
he was in prison in Rome in around the year 60, there are an increasing number
of scholars who believe that it wasn’t written by Paul at all, but instead by
an unknown author writing considerably later, sometime between 80 and 100. If
that’s true then the words we’ve heard were written in the shadow of the
destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in the year 70, giving a whole new layer
of meaning to those words, “you also are built together spiritually into a
dwelling place for God.” With the
We are the
It sounds nice on the surface of course, being God’s dwelling-place, but
there’s a harder edge here, and we see it clearly in today’s gospel reading. Remember
that reading? It’s the one I really wanted to connect with when I started
working on this sermon, where Jesus takes his wary disciples and gives them a
nice break and a healthy rest.
This is the epilogue to the gospel reading from a fortnight ago when the
disciples were sent out two by two, and now they’re back, transformed into
apostles. The reading opens with them telling Jesus all about their experiences
and then, recognising that they’ve hard a busy time, understanding that they’re
rightly knackered, Jesus says, ‘let’s go somewhere quiet so you can rest.’
In Mark this is a momentary break in an otherwise frenetic account of
Christ’s life and ministry. This is the gospel of ‘immediately’ and ‘straight
away’, but we need to recognise these moments of rest and recuperation. It
doesn’t happen often, but at those points when we hear of Jesus withdrawing,
going away to a quiet place, spending time alone, in those times we need to
hear a reminder that caring for others begins with caring for ourselves. But
there are other times, maybe quite a few times, when we also need to be
reminded that it’s the caring for others that is the primary business for every
Christ-follower.
In this case Jesus himself never gets the time off he’s promised the
disciples. They still get a break, we’re told that they join him later, but for
Jesus the crowds return, compassion compels and the work of Christ continues.
The work of God continues.
We are the
People often tell me that they find this a peaceful place, a restful
place, a good place for reflection and contemplation, and that’s great. The
We are the
The whole point of God’s response to David in second Samuel was that at
the end of the day it wasn’t about what David did, or wanted to do, for God,
what mattered was what God did for and through David.
To be the dwelling-place of God is to be the place, the vehicle, in and
through which God’s work is done. It is to be the
We are the
Sometimes that sounds ok, sometimes that sounds great. Sometimes that
sounds tiring and daunting and just hard work – and it is. This is the life of
Christ and of Christ’s body. This is the life we have been called to. [This is
the life we have baptised Oliver into this morning – a life he will be challenged
to accept for himself in years to come.] A life of busy times and restful
times. A life of service and refreshment. A life of doing and being the work of
God. In the hard times and the easy, this is our life – thanks be to God.