Sermon Transcript: October 27, 2024
Our lesson today comes from 1 Kings, with verses from chapter 5 and chapter 8. Just a reminder: Last week we heard about King David, his success as a king, and how he built himself a palace made of cedar and endeavored to do the same for God. But God said to David, “No thank you. Actually, your son Solomon will be the one that will have that duty fall to him.”
So today we read about Solomon, and our readings kind of bracket the building of the temple. It begins with Solomon and David’s connection to a king who is able to provide them with the necessary materials. It then ends with Solomon’s prayer of dedication for the temple. What we have passed over in the meantime is the rise of Solomon and his anointing as king over Israel. As Solomon is anointed, he is given the chance to pray to God for anything. Solomon makes the notable request not for power or wealth, but he asks God for a listening heart so that he can serve his people well. And so, Solomon becomes associated with wisdom—godly wisdom.
Let us listen to these words of ancient and holy scripture, as through the Spirit, they speak to us today:
1 Kings 5:1-5; 8:27-30, 41-43
Now King Hiram of Tyre sent his servants to Solomon when he heard that they had anointed him king in the place of his father, for Hiram had always been a friend to David. Solomon sent word to Hiram, saying: “You know that my father David could not build a house for the name of the Lord his God, because of the warfare with which his enemies surrounded him, until he put them under the soles of his feet. But now the Lord my God has given me rest on every side. There is neither adversary nor misfortune. So I intend to build a house for the name of the Lord my God, as the Lord said to my father David, ‘Your son, whom I will set on your throne in your place, shall build the house for my name.’
But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, much less this house that I have built. Regard your servant’s prayer, O Lord my God, heeding the cry and the prayer that your servant prays to you today, that your eyes may be open night and day toward this house—the place of which you said, ‘My name shall be there.’ May you heed the prayer that your servant prays toward this place. Hear the plea of your servant and your people Israel when they pray toward this place. O hear in heaven your dwelling place; hear and forgive.
Likewise, when foreigners, who are not of your people Israel, come from a distant land because of your name—for they shall hear of your great name, your mighty hand, and your outstretched arm—when foreigners come and pray toward this house, then hear in heaven your dwelling place, and do whatever the foreigners ask of you, so that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your people Israel, and so that they may know that your name has been invoked on this house that I have built.”
For the word of God in scripture, for the word of God among us, for the word of God within us. Thanks be to God.
Well, our theme for this fall has been “The God Who Loves Us Into Loving.” This phrase comes to us from Father Greg Boyle, best known as the founder and CEO of Homeboy Industries, a gang intervention, rehabilitation, and reentry program in Los Angeles. Father Greg—as many of you know, I got to hear him preach over this summer for a whole week—is an incredible storyteller and an incredibly grace-filled man. His language for God is so evocative, and one of the phrases he uses often is that God loves us into loving. God loves us into loving. So that’s how we participate in God’s love. God’s love is poured out over us, and it overflows. We get to share it with the world. By this experience of being loved by God, we have the faith and the ability to show love to others.
Now, as you can imagine, as a Catholic priest who interacts regularly with ex-convicts and ex-gang members, Father Boyle often finds himself in interesting positions and situations. One common example is helping an ex-gang member find an apartment when the time comes—when they’ve graduated from the program, when they’re ready to live on their own again. You can imagine they may have a difficult time finding someone willing to rent to them, especially when they have more tattoos and felonies than job listings on their résumé. So, Father Boyle often accompanies them, wearing his collar as they are interviewed, to lend that air of respectability. On one occasion, he went with a young man whose name was Rascal. All the normal signs of rejection were there. The landlord met them on the driveway before they could even enter the place. He asked them a few questions, signaled to his wife who was standing off a bit, scowling, and Rascal turned to Father Boyle and whispered, “There’s no way they are going to rent to me. It’s done. Just look at the look on her face.” Finally, the landlord turned back to them and said, “Okay, the place is yours if you want it.” Rascal was beyond surprised—he was shocked. He said, “Really?” The landlord responded, “Well, how will you ever know if you’re a good tenant if no one ever rents to you?” And suddenly, writes Father Boyle, quoting another ex-gang member’s malapropism, “God gets visual.”
In John’s Gospel, Jesus uses the wind as the analogy for the work of the Holy Spirit. Even though we don’t see the wind, we see evidence of the wind when it blows through the trees. And so it is with the divine, Jesus tells us. We see evidence of its work in the world around us. When we are surprised by grace, when someone used to rejection is accepted, when chances are given before they are deserved—God gets visual. When we refuse to define others by their worst acts, but insist that we are all made in the image of God, God gets visual.
The purpose of the temple in ancient Israel was to make God visible. God didn’t need a temple—the people did. They needed a place to worship, give thanks, and pray. All things that make God visible in our lives. But—and Solomon gets this—the temple makes God visible but does not exhaust the mystery of God. Solomon, in the prayer of dedication, acknowledges that this structure cannot contain God. Furthermore, in his prayer of dedication, he asks God not only to hear the prayers of the people of Israel, but of foreigners as well.
Jacqueline Lapsley, president of Union Seminary in Richmond and professor of Old Testament, points out that Solomon’s request is part of a lively conversation happening within the Bible itself about God’s people and outsiders. At some moments, it apparently felt necessary to draw the distinction more firmly between insiders and outsiders, whereas other periods reflect a greater openness to outsiders. Frankly, the landlord in Father Boyle’s story had every right to draw a firm line and declare that he would not rent to ex-convicts or ex-gang members. But he chose to be open to the person in front of him and to give him the chance. Now, this chance entailed risk. Faithful choices often do. They risk something because they matter. We cannot hope to make a difference by playing it safe all the time.
Lapsley writes that, “in our own context, where Christian nationalism has been spreading, Solomon’s explicit call for God to hear the prayers of foreigners is timely because the God of scripture is always bigger than any one nation.”
This points us to one of the great paradoxes of Christianity: the more faith we have, the less we can say with absolute certainty. It’s annoying, isn’t it? The more we have faith, the less we can say with absolute certainty, because we know that God is not contained in our houses of worship or our religious traditions. These are tools meant for us. They point us to a mystery greater than ourselves. They make God visible—or, if you prefer Father Boyle’s phrase—visual. They point us to the thing; they are not the thing itself. They by no means exhaust the mystery of God.
When we do what Jesus taught us to do—love our neighbors, pray for our enemies, clothe the naked, feed the hungry, visit the imprisoned, and yes, when we go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit—we make God visual.
Today, we have the honor and privilege of participating in the sacrament of baptism for Joy. Baptism is a sign and seal of God’s grace, an outward sign of an inward reality. She’s going to look exactly the same after the baptism as she does right now. The sacrament itself does not make something true that wasn’t already true before. But it recognizes a truth that has always existed and claims it for this one child—not to the exclusion of others, but to an ever-widening circle of inclusion. That’s why I always say we participate in the baptism—we don’t make it happen.
This is something God does. And our rites and rituals do not tell God when to do that thing, but rather recognize that this thing is already true, is already happening. But our recognizing it, saying yes to it, and participating in it is no small thing. It is the way that the promise becomes visual. We read in Acts—and it’s on the front of the baptism insert—“The promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls.” We get to see that generation-to-generation visual here in our congregation today, as the child of a child of a child in this congregation is baptized. The generations are before us. And that is not to the exclusion of others—it’s to show how God is faithful to all generations. And we get to participate.
This may be my favorite part of being the church—we get to participate by making God’s love real, visible, visual for Joy. To not only tell her, but to show her. This little child, who has her whole life before her—and we know there will be good times, and there will be bad. She’ll make good decisions, and some not-so-good decisions. But God’s love for her will never change. It will never waver—not one bit.
So today, we pray for Joy what we pray for all children: that she will grow up with not only the knowledge of God’s love for her, but the experience of it. That her life will be full of wonder, and that God will grant her a listening heart.
May God give all of us listening hearts, and may we have the courage to make God’s love visual for all God’s children, for all who are far away, for everyone whom the Lord our God calls.
Amen.
