The Grandeur of God

Grace Episcopal Church, Madison NJ
August 23, 2009

The Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost
Year B: Proper 16
1 Kings 8:1, 6, 10-11, 22-30, 41-43
Psalm 84
(Ephesians 6:10-20)
John 6:56-69

The Grandeur of God

Last Sunday I had so much to tell you about our mission trip to Camden that I didn’t have time to deal with our Old Testament lesson. For much of the summer we have been following the story of David – his journey from the youngest son of Jesse out tending the sheep to ruling as Israel’s king. We’ve heard about David, warts and all. We’ve heard about David, who was chosen by God to rule God’s people, but who was also capable of great selfishness and immorality.

Last week we heard about David’s death and the passing of the crown to his son Solomon. Solomon, of course, is remembered mostly for two things – his great wisdom and the construction of the Temple in Jerusalem.

Last week we heard about Solomon’s wisdom. The author of First Kings tells us that the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream and said, “Ask what I should give you.” That’s quite a question and I’m sure many of us offered the same kind of blank check might not be quite as high-minded as Solomon.
In the dream the Lord says “Ask what I should give you.” And in reply Solomon says, “Give your servant…an understanding mind to govern your people, able to discern between good and evil.”

God is pleased with this answer and gives Solomon wisdom – and since Solomon hadn’t asked for them, God also gives honor and riches.

So the reign of wise Solomon begins.

Solomon’s other claim is what we heard about in today’s lesson – the construction of the Temple in Jerusalem.

The author of First Kings goes to great lengths to describe the grandeur of the Temple. It was built with enormous and expensive stone blocks. Long beams were needed to support the large building. It was decorated with gold and brass. It was designed not so much as a place to worship but as a place for God to reside.

So, in today’s lesson we hear about the priests bringing the Ark of the Covenant – the holiest object of all - into the inner sanctuary of the Temple. Of course, Solomon knew that no building can contain the God of the universe yet he spent enormous amounts of wealth to construct a temple to glorify God and to provide a place spectacular enough to remind people of the grandeur of God.

It’s a familiar story, isn’t it? For most of Christian history we have tried to construct buildings not to contain God but to glorify God and to remind people of the grandeur of God.

Maybe you’ve visited some of these spectacular, magnificent churches of Christianity. I remember visiting St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome – usually listed as the largest church in the world – and being nearly overwhelmed by its size and its grandeur. I found it disorienting – there was so much to see I wasn’t sure where to look and I wasn’t sure what was the front or the back of the building.

Maybe some of you have visited St. Paul’s Cathedral in London – a bit smaller but in the same league as St. Peter’s. Enormous amounts of resources were spent – and continue to be spent – to create a building that glorifies God and reminds people of the grandeur of God.

These holy buildings don’t have to be as large or as grand as St. Peter’s and St. Paul’s to remind us of God’s grandeur. My home parish, St. Paul’s in Jersey City, is a little wood frame Victorian located in the middle of a side street. It has many charms, but what I love the most is a round blue window with a dove representing the Holy Spirit. When the sunlight comes through that window the whole church is bathed in blue light. For me that was always a physical reminder of the grandeur of God.

And our own Grace Church isn’t too shabby, is it? A century and a half ago the people who first began building could have constructed a simple, utilitarian structure. Instead they piled up stones into something beautiful, trying to give glory to God and to remind people of God’s grandeur.

And back in the 1950s the parishioners who expanded this church could have just built something plain and relatively inexpensive to accommodate the growing congregation. (It was not exactly a golden age of church architecture!) Instead they gave as much as they could to create something beautiful to glorify God to remind themselves and future generations of the grandeur of God.

And this is all good. Certainly one of the most attractive aspects of Anglicanism and the Episcopal Church is what’s called “the beauty of holiness.” We go to great lengths to make our churches beautiful and to make our worship beautiful. We wear colorful vestments, use silver vessels and brass candlesticks, and sing gorgeous hymns all to glorify God and to remind ourselves of the grandeur of God.

Each week the altar guild polishes and irons and the choirs rehearse all to make what we do today beautiful.

This is all good, but there is an obvious danger too. The danger is that we fall too much in love with our buildings, our shiny vessels and our lovely music. The danger is that the grandeur of our things distracts us from the grandeur of God.
Today’s gospel lesson is a powerful reminder of where we truly find the grandeur of God. We find the grandeur of God in Jesus. We find the grandeur of God in being part of the Body of Christ.

For the past few weeks we’ve been making our way through the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel. We’ve been hearing this deep and profound meditation on Jesus as the Bread of Life. And we’ve heard that when we eat Jesus’ body and drink Jesus’ blood then we become part of the Body of Christ – we abide in Jesus and Jesus abides in us.

John tells us that some of the disciples said, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?”

And, let’s face it, the Eucharist is difficult to understand. The Eucharist is difficult if we try to convince ourselves that when we eat this little sliver of bread and take a little sip of wine we are really taking the body and blood of Christ into our bodies.

But the good news is we don’t have to convince ourselves of anything. Instead all we need to do is be open just enough to the power and grandeur of God working within us. In the gospel Jesus is clear that faith is a gift from God. Faith is not something that we can talk ourselves into. Faith is not something that we can convince ourselves of.

If we are open to the gift of faith then we find the grandeur of God in Jesus. We find the grandeur of God in being part of the Body of Christ.

We are reminded of the grandeur of God in our beautiful churches but we find the grandeur of God when we go out and live as the Body of Christ in the world. As the Body of Christ in the world we are able to see the grandeur of God all around us.

As the 19th Century Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins famously wrote, “The world is charged with the grandeur of God.”

When we live as the Body of Christ in the world we find the grandeur of God in seemingly simple moments. Just this past week I found the grandeur of God at the Community Soup Kitchen in Morristown when I looked down the line and saw so many of our young people eager to serve some of the poorest in our midst.
I certainly found the grandeur of God during that week in Camden when our young people and the adult chaperones threw themselves into a frightening unknown, willing to be bold for Christ.

We find the grandeur of God when parishioners rally around one of our own who has been hurt and is suffering. We find the grandeur of God when people visit a parishioner in the hospital or call someone who is lonely. We find the grandeur of God when some among us work hard to help someone dig her way out of crushing debt. We find the grandeur of God when some among us use their expertise to try to help churches in our diocese less fortunate than Grace. We find the grandeur of God every time someone drops a box of cereal or a jar of peanut butter into the Food for Friends bin.

Solomon built the Temple to glorify God and to remind people of the grandeur of God. We build our churches and take care with our worship to glorify God and to remind ourselves of the grandeur of God.

But we truly find the grandeur of God in Jesus. We truly find the grandeur of God in being part of the Body of Christ.

We find the grandeur of God when we go out and live as the Body of Christ. And when we go out and live as the Body of Christ we find that, indeed, the world is charged with the grandeur of God.

Amen.