A Spiritual Temple

A Spiritual Temple
1 Peter 2:2-10; Acts 7:55-60; Psalm 31; John 14:1-14

Do you ever look at decorating magazines like Better Homes and Gardens, House and Garden, or House Beautiful? It is always delightful to see the different colors and kinds of furniture that are used as well as the creative use of space. When you look at those picture spreads do you notice anything? There is never any clutter. There are very few knickknacks. The counters are nearly bare. There is always a lot a open space. You can walk through the rooms and not trip over any thing.

I always wonder who lives in places like that. Does anything ever happen in those homes? They don’t look lived in. They look like museums. “Don’t touch anything, don’t do anything.” I don’t know about you, but I could never live in a place that like. If I did, I would have to have someone following me around picking up things and putting them in their hidden storage places. You hardly ever see a wastebasket. Who of us doesn’t make trash?

Those of you who know me well, know that I am not a neat freak. If there is a flat surface, there is going to be something on it. When the building team was working on this building I dreamed of having a two-room office suite: one room for public use and a private room to live in. Well, that didn’t happen. My piles, my clutter overflow. And I have to work hard to keep it from spreading elsewhere. Anyone can look at my office and wonder if anything happens there. Most of the time I know where I have put things. But if I do too many archaeological digs in the piles, things will get really messed up and I lose track of things. Then I have to start on the bottoms of piles and sort what needs to be thrown out and what needs to be kept.

As messy as I am, I am better off than a hoarder. Have you seen that show on television? People actually have to do interventions to rescue these people from their addictive behavior of keeping everything. These are people whose homes can’t be walked through except at the danger of having piles of things fall on you. A person can be just about certain that nothing can happen in that kind of setting, except for an avalanche..

We build our lives in a variety of ways, including what we keep and what we throw away. Not just physically but also intellectually and spiritually. Here’s an exercise to try some time. If you were a house, what kind would you be? A colonial, a ranch, a split-level, a bungalow, a Cape Cod, a southern plantation, or something out of Frank Lloyd Wright, just to name a few styles.

Some of our lives are like those showplace homes, with nothing out of place and every thing in its place. Does anything really happen in those lives? Other lives are full and modestly cluttered. Some are artsy-crafty, others very refined. Some lives are folksy or homey, and others prim and proper. Some of our lives are so full that they spill over wherever we are, and some of our lives are very Spartan and austere. Some of us rush out and get the latest gadgets. Others of us keep the old ones, repairing them as needed until they can no longer be repaired. It is a cultural divide with each of those folks thinking the other is foolish and ridiculous. People have always been that way.

We build our spiritual lives in much the same way we build our physical lives. They are bare or cluttered, simple or complex, austere or overflowing. However they are built, they have to have a firm foundation. That foundation is Jesus Christ, the way, the truth, and the life.

If you have been downtown recently, you will have noticed that the mechanical shovel has been cleaning up the remains of what used to be the Emmitt House. There was basement under some of the building into which the debris fell as the building burned and later was demolished. The contractor has been busy removing all the soft debris – mostly wood from the cavities. Yesterday I noticed that the space had been filled in with the brick debris and dirt and tamped down by a sheep foot roller to compact the soil in order to provide a solid basis on which to put a new foundation and slab. This is necessary for any potential building that might be put on the space. The ability to support a structure must be uniform throughout. Remember Jesus’s parable of the buildings erected on sand and on rock?

We tend to think in terms of a very personal relationship with Jesus. Much of Jesus’ ministry was one on one: the woman with the ongoing hemorrhage, the invalid at the pool, the military officer who asked Jesus to just say the healing word, the woman at the well, the spiritually poor rich man, to name just a few. Jesus sent out followers in pairs to announce the coming of the good news. He dined with self-proclaimed saints and excluded sinners. He comforted a dying sinner on the cross next to his own. Jesus’ life and ministry directly effected many people beyond the twelve whom he called to travel with him. One by one and two by two Jesus built a kingdom community. The personal relationship is foundational to the spiritual temple which is to be the church.

As Peter matured in his understanding of Christ, particularly through Jesus’ resurrection and the gift of the Holy Spirit, he came to see that the realm of God’s rule was something more than the individual relationship that any one believer has with Jesus. Each believer, unique as each one is, becomes a living stone in the spiritual temple called the church. Peter chooses to use an architectural image, yet he doesn’t talk about building a building. We see that because while he uses the term “spiritual temple,” he counterbalances that with the terms “royal priesthood,” “chosen race,” “holy nation,” “a people.” “You have become this people so that you may speak of the wonderful acts of the one called you out of darkness into his amazing light.”

What Peter is saying to us, is that there is no “I” in church. Church is about being the people of God speaking God’s wonderful acts in Jesus Christ. That you which Peter talks about is not a singular you. It is the plural which is best spoken in the southern dialect, “y’all.” It is we together who make up the church.

Paul catches the same thought when he uses the image of the body of Christ. Not everyone is an ear or a mouth or a foot or hand. We are all cells in the body of Christ. All our cells have the same DNA, but the genes in the DNA call each cell to do special work so that some are hair, some are blood, some are skin, some are muscle, some are bone, etc. We share the same DNA, that saving grace of Christ. The Holy Spirit applies that DNA to us so that we are called to do different things as part of the body of Christ.

If we go back to the architectural image, as the living temple, some of us are load bearing beams, some are windows, some are wiring, some are drywall, etc. To continue with images related to building, a structure needs all the internal parts, often unseen, because they work together to hold the structure as one entire whole. Think of the trusses over your heads right now. It is not just a clever design. Each piece carries a portion of the load to the next piece in such a way that the total weight is distributed eventually to the tops of the columns and then to the foundation.

In our lives as part of the spiritual temple called the church, we are called to work together in such a way so that the weight of the work of being faithful is stressed and carried until it reaches Christ who is the foundation, the cornerstone, the key stone. What that means is that we are responsible for each other. Together we are the joists and studs, the beams and the cladding that make up the spiritual temple of the church. If one of us is not properly installed, if one of us is inferior, if one of us is rotting away, eventually the whole structure will suffer. If the one next to us is weak, we are called to strengthen them. If the one next to us is becoming unattached, we are called to help refasten them. We are responsible to see that each one of us the best living stone, board, nail, sheet rock possible so that together we may fully be God’s people in and for the world.

We are a spiritual temple. And every one of us is absolutely essential. None of us can be done without. “Once you hadn’t received mercy, but ow you have received mercy.”

Thanks be to God.

Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com. 
Copyright 2014 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.