Where does God live? Scots Kirk, Lausanne | Eighth Sunday after Pentecost 2 Sam 7.

1-14a, Ps 89, Eph 2.11-22, Mark 6.30-34, 53-56 Nowadays I get to preach just three or four times a year, so Im always glad to accept an invitation to stand in for Ian when I can. But before I moved from Scotland to Geneva in 1993, I conducted worship three times every Sunday in three village churches on the borders of East Lothian and Berwickshire. The oldest of these three is the late-medieval church of Oldhamstocks. The communion table in this church stands in a chancel with an old and attractive stained-glass window. It also stands or so the elders told me, over an ancient burial crypt so that each time I celebrated the Lords supper, I thought ironically of the angels question, Why seek ye the living among the dead? (Luke 24.5) But I never walked into that church, in which so many people had worshipped over so many centuries, without a profound sense that I was, indeed, in the presence of God. Where does God live? Lukes gospel tells us that Joseph and Mary take the infant Jesus to the temple to present him to the Lord and offer as a sacrifice two young doves. We probably dont pay much attention to the doves. Our attention is drawn rather to the dramatic scene that follows in which Simeon takes Jesus in his arms and says, Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you now dismiss your servant in peace. (Luke 2.21-35) Some of us, at least, might be slightly startled, however, were I to bring two doves into church and kill one by sticking my thumb into its neck and wringing its head off and then burn the other on the communion table. That, I suspect, might get our attention. For us Christians in the 21st century, temple sacrifice is a foreign language. But the temple in Jerusalem and its daily sacrifices were the symbolic centre of Jewish faith and life. Again, were I to ask whether we paid much attention to this mornings reading from 2 Samuel 7, Im not sure how many hands would go up. Tents and tabernacles, arks and temples: what have they to do with us? But in fact, the oracle of the prophet Nathan is central to how Jesus understood what he was up to and how the early Christians understood what we his followers should be up to.1 Building a temple for God was Davids idea; it fell to Solomon, his son and heir, actually to build it. After the Judeans returned from exile in Babylon, Zerubbabel and Joshua son of Jehozadak rebuilt it. As part of his effort to make himself acceptable to his unenthusiastic Jewish subjects, Herod the Great rebuilt it again.
For what follows: Otto Betz, What do we know about Jesus? (London: SCM, 1968); Ben F Meyer, The Aims of Jesus (London: SCM, 1979), NT Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God (London: SPCK, 1996). One reason for preaching on 2 Sam 7 is that Ive been a fan ever since I read Meyer. Another is expressed concisely by Wright: Like an art thief taking the canvas but leaving the woodwork, todays Gospel omits the story, replacing it next week with someone elses version, and leaves the framework. No comment. NT Wright, Twelve Months of Sundays. Reflections on Bible Readings Year B (London: SPCK, 2002), p.89.
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2 The two great kings of Judah before the exile, Hezekiah and Josiah, cleansed and restored the temple; so in his day did Judas Maccabaeus. Building, purifying and restoring the temple consecrated to God was, as Jews understood it, central to building, purifying and restoring a people consecrated to God. So much so that the temple could serve as a metaphor for the people. Sometimes our Gospels tell us in straightforward terms what Jesus was up to. The simplest example is the programmatic statement at the beginning of Marks gospel: The time is fulfilled! Jesus says. Gods kingdom is arriving. Turn back, and believe the good news! (Mark 1.15) Actually, even that isnt as straightforward as a preacher may be inclined to think. Gods kingdom is arriving? God reign is breaking in? It means that God is acting, here and now, to restore his people: to make his people the people God wants them to be. So turn back, and become that people! Other times our gospels tell us in temple terms. One of these times is when Jesus cleanses the temple. He drives out the traders and overturns the tables of the money-changers and the seats of the dove-sellers. To explain this dramatic action he quotes two of great prophetic books. He says Is it not written: My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations? Thats Isaiah 56 But you have made it a den of robbers. Thats Jeremiah 7. We misunderstand this dramatic acted parable if we think its about the traders and the money-changers as if they were somehow cheating the innocent worshippers. Its an easy enough mistake to make, especially after all we have learnt recently about how some of our bankers in high places have turned banking into one of the best-paid criminal professions in the world. But we only have to turn to Jeremiah to see that the robbers Jesus has in mind arent the traders and money-changers; theyre the not-so-innocent worshippers. Here is what Jeremiah 7 says: Hear the word of the Lord, all you people of Judah who come through these gates to worship the LORD... Reform your ways and your actions, and I will let you live in this place. Do not trust in deceptive words and say, This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord!... Has this house, which bears my name, become a den of robbers to you? (Jer 7.2-7,11) Out of all the peoples of the earth, God chooses a people to serve him to serve him by doing what is just and right so that through them all the peoples of the earth may be blessed. But the besetting temptation of any people so chosen is to think that they are chosen not for service, but for privilege. They are special. Theyre ok with God. They have it made. Not so, says Jeremiah, and all the prophets. Not so, says Jesus. Reform your ways and actions. Do not trust in deceptive words, trust only in the Lord. So the dramatic action parable of cleansing the temple has a twofold meaning. On the one hand, the temple deserves to be destroyed, the people deserve to be destroyed, because they are not serving God. On the other hand, God himself is acting to restore the people, to make

3 them again the people God calls them to be. Destroy this temple, says Jesus, and in a little while I will raise it again. (John 2.19) The Judeans laugh at him. It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, they say. Are you kidding us? And a mere generation later, in the reckless Jewish war, the temple was destroyed by the Romans, never to be rebuilt. All that remains of it today is the Western Wall, and the Temple Mount where once it stood, admired by all who saw it (Mark 13.1), is now the Haram AshSharif, the Muslims Noble Sanctuary, the site of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock. But Jesus isnt talking about the building. Hes talking about the people. Hes talking about the people God is raising up. John, from whom I quote this dialogue about destruction and resurrection, has his own interpretation of this conversation. He was talking, says John, about the temple of his body. And this is a perfectly fair interpretation, even though it may not be what Jesus himself had in mind. Where does God live? God lives, in the first place, in the person of Jesus. This is where I need to take us back to 2 Samuel, and the word of the Lord that Nathan transmits to David: When your days are fulfilled, ...I will raise up your offspring after you, ...and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name... . I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me. To begin with, this word was no doubt understood to refer to Solomon, Davids son, who did build a house for God. But as faithful Jews continued to read this text, they took it to refer to a greater son who was yet to come a son of David who would be greater than David, a builder of the temple who would be greater than the temple, one who would have God as his father and who would be Gods son. The Hebrew word for this is messiah, the Greek word is Christ. And this is what Jesus saw himself as called to be Gods anointed, through whom God would finally fulfil Gods purpose for the world. And this is what the early Christians saw him to be. But the key task of the messiah is to build the definitive temple, to build the people of God that will be the people God calls them to be. And so there is a second answer to the question, where does God live? The second answer is that God lives in us. We are the temple of the living God, Paul tells the church in Corinth. As God has said: I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people. (2 Cor 6.16, quoting Lev 26.12) Dont you know, Paul asks the Corinthians, that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you? (1 Cor 3.16)

4 And our reading today from Ephesians puts the two addresses together: You are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling-place for God. God lives in us because God lives in Jesus. We speak about the building in which we worship today as the church, but we know by now that the church isnt primarily a building. I am the church, you are the church, we are the church together a point that reform-minded Catholics keep trying to make to Pope Benedict. The same point holds for the temple. In our opening hymn, we sang, To this temple, where we call you, come, O Lord of Hosts, today; and we know that in French a Catholic church is an glise but a Reformed church is a temple. But a church building, however hallowed by years of use, is only in the third place the temple of the living God. Pride of place goes to Jesus Christ, God with us, Emmanuel. And in the second place there is us. This is, of course, no ground for boasting. The gospel of grace is always also a gospel of challenge. John Calvin, John Knox and the other reformers of the 16th century called a Western church that was sorely in need of reform to turn again to God and live; but the reformers never thought that a church that did that could then rest on its laurels. Ecclesia reformata sed semper reformanda: the church may be reformed but it stands always in need of reformation. And what is true of the church is true of each of its members. We are Gods temple, in whom Gods spirit lives: so we are challenged to live lives of holiness. Part of what that means is turning back to God, each day and every day. Part of what it means is following Jesus in breaking down the walls of hostility that divide human beings from each other, as groups or as individuals. And part of what it means is praying the Lords prayer as though we really mean it: hallowed be your name, not mine; your kingdom come, not mine; your will be done, not mine. For we are chosen by God and we are not our own. Praic Ramonn