St. Thomas Evangelical Lutheran Church
3800 East Third Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47401
(812) 332-5252
Sermon for the Seventh Sunday After Pentecost — Sts. Peter and Paul (June 29, 2008)
Liturgical Color: Red
Reverend Doctor Lyle E. McKee
Dwelling Places for God
Grace to you and peace from our loving God, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
"Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?"
I wonder, if Paul were here today, whether he would be any less concerned about our awareness of who we are than he was about the troubled people to whom he wrote long ago. Would he think that we, here in Bloomington, are any more aware of our being God's temples than were those contentious Christians who made up the congregation in Corinth?
"Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?"
I think we don't really hear what these words are saying. "You are God's temple." You are the dwelling place of the Spirit of God. God lives within the confines of your flesh. God is in you—not only with you (Emmanuel) or beside us (a Friend), but enfleshed within the substance of our identity.
There is something shocking in these powerful words. They are strikingly counter-intuitive. God living in me! But I'm so fraught with problems and ups and downs and malevolence and an unforgiving spirit. How could God be living in me?
Yes, we know from our yearly observance of the Day of Pentecost that God's Holy Spirit has come to the Church and that this Spirit dwells within each and every one of us. But I don't think we really grasp what that means. We don't get it. We don't embrace the truth and reality of this great gift to us.
The evidence of our denial is clear. It too comes from God's Word:
"If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy that person."
Aren't we often going about the business of destroying God's temple? I probably don't even need to enumerate the ways—they're so familiar to us. We overeat. We drink too much. We put all kinds of poisons into our bodies—addictive drugs and tobacco. We drive too fast. We fail to exercise. You might add your own to this beginning list.
And these self-destructive acts in which we engage provide ample witness to our failure to take God's Word to heart.
"Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy that person."
Our self-destruction is evidence of our faithlessness.
But the Word remains for us.
"For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple."
You are holy, as holy as this blessedly beautiful sanctuary. For you too are a place where God dwells. You are a temple—a dwelling place of God.
We are holy temples, where "the Spirit enlivens this living house where the treasure of God's wisdom is the crucified Christ." The Bread of Life is alive in us.
As I considered this sermon, I thought for a long time about how it is that we know that we are God's temples—that God dwells in us. There is, as you might guess, no easy answer to that question. I considered the idea of conscience. You know—the argument that since we have a conscience, an internal mechanism that seems to remind us of the right thing to do, God must be inside of us. Conscience, some would say, is the name we give to that internal presence that gives us good advice and leads us in the right direction.
But I don't buy that totally. God's presence has far more complexity than that of some guardian of correct behavior. God's presence also motivates, inspires, comforts, leads, challenges, exhorts, calls, gathers, enlightens, sanctifies, and keeps. God's Spirit within takes as many shapes as the needs of our days.
Certainly, there is evidence of God's presence as we experience those matters which seem to arise from a power that is not our own. Still, these experiences are so subjective—so much a matter of individual living and interpretation—that they are just as easily passed off as an instinctual will to live or to survive as they are a sign of God.
In the end, I believe that this is one of those truths of holy scripture that we are simply asked to take on faith. Of course, we aren't left solely to our selves in coming to this understanding. Scripture, in fact, takes great pains to help us to see.
Even this one writer of scripture, Paul, doesn't leave us with only this one image for the way God and we are intimately linked together. It is not only true that we are God's temples; it is also true that there is a relationship of mutual belonging. It is the kind of belonging that happens in families, clans, and communities.
Here is how Paul puts it:
Do not deceive yourselves. If you think that you are wise in this age, you should become fools so that you may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, "He catches the wise in their craftiness," and again, "The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile." So let no one boast about human leaders. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all belong to you, and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.
Again, Paul challenges our wisdom. He lets us know, as I'm sure he would just as he did for the Corinthians, that we only imagine that we have our heads on straight. With the same kind of head-shaking disbelief that he expresses earlier, "Do you not know that you are God's temple," Paul now tells us that we only imagine that we are wise, when in fact we are fools.
These are only two of Paul's images for the relationship that abides between us and God. Paul is the one who also brings us the symbol of the Church as the Body of Christ, with each of us being members of the body—perhaps an eye or an ear. This idea too is designed to let us in on the deep spiritual truth of connectedness.
He speaks further of our being grafted onto Christ (a horticulture metaphor), of abiding in Christ (another metaphor of "home"), of being "in" Christ (what I like to call "prepositional" theology), of being ambassadors for Christ, of being reconciled to God through Christ. These are just the ones that spring quickly to mind; there are many others.
So, is this enough to get through our thick skulls and thicker hearts? What might it take for Paul and God to get our attention? What will convince us once and for all that we are indeed homes for God's Spirit? What cataclysm would impress upon us that we belong to God and God to us?
I'm not sure. There are so many destructive tendencies and habits being sold to us with far more effort in our mad world than we bring to the study of scripture. I read a quote yesterday in "The Christian Century" that is relevant here, although more legalistic than I'd like. It's by a Coptic monk (Ruwais el-Anthony): "There's nothing wrong with microwaves or mobile phones—they save time. But God will ask you what you have done with the time that was saved." (7/1/2008, p. 9)
Wouldn't it be great if we used some of that saved time to study what we call our holy scriptures? Our attention is so easily diverted. We are so easily swayed towards the secular images of who and what we are. We find it so much simpler to think that we might buy our way or just fall into some more satisfactory state of being. We look so much more readily outward than inward for the answers to the agonies of our souls.
But the truth stands before us, simply and boldly declared by this saint of the church that we celebrate along with St. Peter this morning—the Cephas of this text. St. Paul tells us who we truly are:
Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?...For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple.
God lives in you and through you. You are a dwelling place for God's Spirit. You yourself are holy, sacred, set apart for the divine purposes of God.
Take this good word to heart today. Believe it. Walk daily knowing that God is not only with you. God is not just beside you. God is right there inside you, deep down in the essence of who you are, abiding with you in all that you say, all that you think, all that you will, all that you are, and all that you do.
May this jarring truth from St. Paul help us to live thankfully, letting the holy in us come through, doing good and being well. Amen.
May the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep our hearts and minds through faith in Christ Jesus our Lord, unto eternal life. Amen.
