February 23, 2014 | 4:00 p.m.

The House of God

Edwin Estevez
Pastoral Resident, Fourth Presbyterian Church

1 Corinthians 3:10–11, 16–23

I want you to take out your cell phones. Yes, in church, I’m asking you to take out your phones. Now I would suggest silencing them before you get some awkward sound we all laugh at from a call or text.

Now if your phone has this capability and good signal, I want you to search on Bing or Google the following: The Cave at Lascaux, France, and the Cave of Gargas with hand prints, and the Cave of Alta Mira in Spain.

If your phone doesn’t have this capacity, share with someone, or close your eyes and try to imagine it. You see, these caves tell us that nearly 30,000 years ago, our human ancestors gathered in caves to paint walls with dyes they created from plants and insects and using reeds and other tools. Anthropologists along with other scientists have wondered why. A brother in the faith, Dr. Vanhuysteen, wrote about his own idea as to why in a book titled Alone in the World? As he describes it, these ancestors gathered, as ritual, in search for meaning, depicting images of their lives and dreams on these walls in ecstatic-like ceremonies. He argues that the images of hand prints on the wall were very likely placed by people lying prostrate, a common position of surrender in many religions.

Dr. Vanhuysteen continues by arguing that what makes human animals distinct from others is that, and here he quotes another anthropologist, “we are the praying animal.” In every culture around the world, at every time in our history, human beings have searched for meaning, forming narratives to explain their origins and their end and creating sacred spaces in which to enact these stories.

This is why, to this day, we gather here in a church like this or a mosque or temple—to search for meaning, to connect our lives to a greater power that we believe, in some mystical way, is housed here. In today’s scripture, Paul is referring to such a sacred space, the temple. His readers, Jews figuring out how to follow in the Way of Christ, would have made the connection immediately. The temple was a central symbol to the Jewish people, especially in Diaspora, away from their homeland. Now I won’t be able to get into the details of why Paul is writing this to the church in Corinth, but I do want to explore the context of the temple and leave us with some takeaways from our scripture today.

First, imagine the creation story of Adam and Eve told around a fire by Hebrew mothers and fathers to their children, told by the elders and healer women to the tribes, celebrated with ritual and special foods, like holidays you and I know. In the creation story, it is implied that God walked with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, which is the tragic point of the story, as Adam and Eve hide from God because of their sin. The Garden was their cathedral, their sacred space where they would encounter God’s very own Self.

Much later on, another story tells of the Hebrew people who are liberated from Egypt’s slavery and called to the Promised Land. In the desert, they build a tabernacle to honor God’s presence among them. It is there where they would ask forgiveness, where a priest enacted rituals and where people were prayed for. The Ark of the Covenant was housed there (think Indiana Jones and you’ve imagined its mystical and symbolic role). It showed God’s desire to dwell with God’s people.

The tabernacle foreshadowed what would much later be built by King Solomon: the temple. It signified God’s enduring presence with God’s people. Much like the sacred spaces in the caves or the Garden as cathedral and the tabernacle in the wilderness, it was a sign that human beings aren’t alone, that we have meaning and are loved by something greater than us, who will protect us and bring us home. Temples are meant to be strong and beautiful, to last so as to honor God’s everlasting presence.

In another story, the temple is destroyed, and many prophets offer up the “why,” reflecting back the collective sin of people that is destructive to community. Isaiah, Jeremiah, all names you’ve heard here, and other prophets point to the hope that the temple will be rebuilt. The prophets offer their insights and proclamations so that the Hebrews, far from home in Babylonian exile or after the Roman destruction of the Second Temple, look to the temple as a symbol not only of God’s promise, but of the hope to return home, the reassurance that God has not left God’s people.

Then, something interesting happens before the Romans destroy the Second Temple. We’re told about Jesus. Like the time when God walked with Adam and Eve, Jesus, full of grace and truth, God with us, walked among us. He walked city streets and markets; he visited villages and hamlets. He sat at table with tax collectors, with prostitutes and sinners, unlike other religious leaders who wouldn’t have been in those spaces.

We are told he offended some people by suggesting that the temple would be destroyed and raised again in three days and at other points implying that he is greater than the temple. Later, some parts of the Newer Testament point to Jesus as the temple—the place of God’s abiding presence, the place of connection, of renewal, of meaning-making.

Jesus is pushing back against the temple system of his day, because he believes it isn’t doing right by the widow, the orphan, the stranger—it is not living into its call to be a house of prayer for all nations, not just the Jews. He wants worship to occur where two or three are gathered and wants it to come from the heart and not simply by ritual.

Then, in our scripture, here comes Paul, who pushes it further. 1 Corinthians 3:16 says, “Do you not know that you all are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you all? For God’s temple is holy, and you all are that temple.” Here the temple isn’t a place but is instead the gathering of community, much like people who gathered at the caves 30,000 years ago. When we gather, we are the temple of God.

Here are two things I love about this: It reveals to us God’s relentless, enduring, and stubborn desire to be God with us and among us and for us. God isn’t satisfied when we’ve placed the Creator on the throne as King; it isn’t enough for God to remain in the heavens as we look for respite and succor; instead God comes to us, like in the Garden, like through the prophets, in Jesus, and in the Holy Spirit to live among us. God doesn’t leave us to our devices or to our demise; God doesn’t leave us alone.

We enter caves, gardens, gather around fireplaces and on mountains, we build cathedrals and chapels to seek God, to seek meaning, to find the answer to our questions, to find love and “home,” but instead we discover that God is seeking us, searching for us. We come to God and realize that God has come to us. We try finding God and realize that God has found us. God has not given up on you or any one of us: we worship a stubborn God.

I love God’s stubborn love, and the second thing I love about this passage is that it tells us we are beautiful, holy, sacred spaces. You may have come this evening feeling shame or guilt for your past, unable to live in the present or imagine the future. You are God’s holy temple. You may have come this evening feeling insecure, unworthy of love, having no value. You are God’s holy temple. You may have committed a grave wrong; you may have lost your way; you may be a wandering sinner, a Prodigal Daughter or Son. You are God’s holy temple. A preacher once stirred up his listeners with a wonderfully deep proclamation: “Some things are loved because they are valuable, and some things are valuable because they are loved.”

The good news of God’s amazing grace is that you are forgiven and transformed. You’re not just declared not guilty, you are renewed. You aren’t just let off the hook or told to go your way, but you have become the living temple of God. In you, right now, in some mysterious and mystical way, God’s Holy Spirit dwells within you. Your life will change, your heart will transform, because you are God’s holy temple. There God will remind you that you’re loved beyond imagination. How will you change? When? What? You’ve already begun to change, by God’s grace. You know that or will come to know that in the secret of your heart and by others who see it in you. “Some things are loved because they are valuable, and some things are valuable because they are loved.”

I want you to take out your phones one last time. This time, I want you to search for the most beautiful sacred sites in the world or the most beautiful sacred structures. You’ll find cathedrals, mosques, ancient ruins in Peru and Guatemala, all across the world, where people have gathered in search of meaning. You see, there are beautiful things that are valued, so we love them—like precious metals and wonderful constructions and natural resources—but other things become beautiful and valuable because they are loved. “Some things are loved because they are valuable, and some things are valuable because they are loved.”

Paul isn’t telling us that these sacred spaces are no longer of value and that we shouldn’t come to church anymore, but instead, that when we gather, we are reenacting the building of God’s temple, where God’s presence dwells, where God’s love is shared, where all are welcome. We are valued because we are loved.

We reenact that each time we gather at this Table. As we gather at the Table this evening, I want you to imagine yourself as one of the sacred spaces you’ve found in your Internet search or one you’ve imagined in your own mind,. Maybe it’s this wonderful sanctuary or a forest of your youth; maybe it’s a mountain top or gorge, a tree by a river, a ruin you visited. Imagine that you are a sacred space. Carry that image with you as you come to the Table. Carry that image as you walk out of here tonight into the city. What would happen if you saw yourself as a sacred space, as the dwelling place of God’s Spirit? How would your treatment of others change? How would your lifestyle, your work ethic, your diet, even the way you think, how would it change? Because when you realize that you are a sacred space, you will care more for your body, that it be respected and honored, and you will care that people feel welcomed and loved. You all are the house of God. We are the house of God. With Christ as our foundation, we bear witness to this amazing truth: we are not alone; God’s stubborn love is always with us. “Some things are loved because they are valuable, and some things are valuable because they are loved.”

Amen.