A Sacred Place

A sermon preached at the Old South Congregational Church, Hallowell, Maine, August 27, 2006.

Text: 1 Kings 8:22-30,

The Rev. Susan M. Reisert, Minister

During my vacation, I got to thinking about space and place. I began thinking about place and space right at the beginning of our trip when we were trapped in Terminal A at Logan Airport on August 10^th, waiting for a flight to Orlando after missing the 8:15 flight because it took us three hours to get through the security line. Once we got through that line, we spent a lot of time on the “other side” of security in Terminal A. It turns out, if you are going to be stuck in an airport terminal, Terminal A is not so bad. The gates are adequately far apart to allow for a lot of seating, including rocking chairs. There are quite a few options for shopping and dining. We had a lovely long, leisurely lunch at a Legal Seafoods outlet that featured Guinness on tap (that made our long wait much more tolerable!). Terminal A even has a play space for children. We spent so much time in that play space that Margaret exchanged phone numbers and addresses with another girl named Margaret who was also waiting around in Terminal A for a flight home to Tennessee. Lots of people had missed flights on the morning of August 10.

I was thinking about space when we finally boarded our flight, which did not take off until after five o’clock in the afternoon. That 757 was packed. Joe and the kids sat together and I sat in the row just ahead of them. As most of you know, I don’t like flying. This flight didn’t help. I felt stuffed into a tube, cramped into a too small space for too many people with no access to fresh air or a decent place to stretch my legs. Space? What space? And, before I knew it, we were thousands of feet above the ground in this flying tube with space being in preciously short supply.

I was also thinking about space when we arrived in Orlando. This was Margaret and John’s first visit to Walt Disney World. The last time I was there was when Joe and I sent there together a few days before a ministers’ conference—this was before Margaret was born. After that long day of travel, I continued to think about place and space as the taxi made its way from the airport to Disney—we were staying at the Wilderness Lodge, not far from the Magic Kingdom. Even in the dark, it was hard not to be impressed with the vastness that is Disney World and Orlando in general. For what was basically Florida swamp land, there is a vast array of theme parks and hotels and retail establishments—along with all of the other kinds of things that find themselves in a resort area. We drove and drove, the kids’ eyes wide with disbelief, until we finally reached our destination. It seemed so far from the airport and so very, very far from our normal lives in central Maine. We were definitely not in Kansas anymore.

On our first day at Disney, we went, with Joe’s parents and Joe’s brother and his wife and their three kids, to the Magic Kingdom. It was important to Grandma that we be there, all together, when the Park opened-- which we did. We watched the opening show, featuring Mickey and the gang, Margaret and John still a little bleary from too little sleep. I don’t know who muttered it first—Margaret or John—but one of them said, “I’m not ready for this.”

Disney is a well-orchestrated and almost militaristic empire of time and space. Lines are carefully drawn so that people are always moving, with expertly calculated estimates for your waiting time posted on all the popular rides. The place is so vast that there are little places in the park where it almost feels like the place is almost empty and then there are other places and spaces where you get the full sense of sharing the park with more human beings than you can imagine—like when you are trying to get out of the Magic Kingdom just before the evening parade.

At Epcot we soared high over California, had lunch in a London pub, a snack in a Paris café and dinner in a Norway restaurant that included visits from Disney princesses—all without ever feeling out of place in our decidedly American vacation-wear. At the Animal Kingdom, we went on an African safari, but then had a most American lunch of pizza.

There is a vastness to the space at Disney, but also a sense that someone looked at that space and said, “Here is where I will build lots and lots of stuff.” There is a vastness to space in Maine as well, but that vastness has a lot more trees and a lot less concrete.

When we venture far from home, we may very well find ourselves thinking about space and place. We don’t think it about those things much when we are surrounded by the familiar. Yet, surrounded by the unfamiliar, we may develop a real sense of the quality of space and of its meaning.

Space is important to us.

I found it interesting that when I sat down to begin to think about what I was doing for today’s worship I found that the highlighted lectionary passage was very much about space and place. The eighth chapter of 1 Kings concerns the dedication of Solomon’s Temple, the first Temple. The building of that First Temple was a monumental task. Phoenician craftsmen were employed to build the Temple, with thousands of laborers employed or enslaved to do the hard work of construction of the Temple. Construction began in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign, after years of careful planning and the saving of resources that had begun under King David. The Temple was finally completed seven years later.

The Bible’s description of Solomon’s Temple suggests that the inside ceiling was 180 feet long, 90 feet wide and 50 feet high. The highest point on the Temple that King Solomon built was actually 120 cubits tall which means, for those of you unclear on the dimensions of a cubit, that the tallest part of the Temple would have been about 20 stories.

Talk about space.

The first thirteen verses of the eighth chapter of 1 Kings describe how the Ark of the covenant, the holy container holding the original stone tablets of the Ten Commandments, was brought up to Jerusalem from the city of David. Much of the rest of the chapter contains Solomon’s address to the people and the “prayer of dedication.” That is the part on which we focus this morning.

In building the Temple, Solomon has made real the promise given by God to his father, King David. The prayer of dedication is therefore an acknowledgement and celebration of the God who has kept the covenant with his people and is faithful to his promises. In parts of the prayer, Solomon’s belief in this God is confirmed along with the hope that God will continue to provide successors to the throne of Israel. The kings are understood to be God’s representatives and are much more than mere rulers.

The prayer also recognizes God’s greatness and unlimited presence. Solomon acknowledges that no matter how great and beautiful the Temple, it cannot contain (and therefore control) God.

The feature that set apart the Solomonic Temple from other temples in the ancient world is that there was no idol in it. It contained only the Mercy Seat over the Ark and the Cherubim overshadowing the Mercy Seat. This declared to the world that idols are unnecessary for God to be present. The God of Israel was not localized in any sense. Neither was He bound to any other form such as the Ark. Though great and grand and enormous, even in its design, the Temple reflected the limits in humanity’s ability to contain and to know God.

Amid this grand and glorious place, Solomon recognized its limits: “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!” Solomon continued with a personal plea, with humility and awe: “Regard your servant’s prayer and his plea, 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,’ that you may heed the prayer that your servant prays toward this place. Hear the plea of your servant and of your people Israel when they pray toward this place; O here in heaven your dwelling place; heed and forgive.”

Even amid the grandeur and wonder of the great Temple, Solomon knew that there were limits. Solomon knew that this great house could not contain God, nor could it control God.

We know something of this attitude, understanding and posture. From the grandest cathedral to an austere New England church building to our very own place that we call our sanctuary, we know the awe and wonder that place and space can bring in thinking about God and considering are own standing and position before God. We might wonder sometimes about the effort, and expense (both of financial resources as well as the expense of human effort and life) of constructing a grand place that is called a house of or for God. But, standing or sitting in such a place can render one speechless, as these structures, in their architecture, reflect that sense of wonder and sacredness and presence. These structures, from the elaborate to the plain, offer a differing and particular, but all significant, opportunities to reflect not only on the greatness of God, but also our relationship with that greatness and the various ways that that greatness is and has been understood and appreciated.

The church in Cambridge where I served first as student minister and then as associate recently sold their building in order to merge with another church, a church with a smaller, much more manageable building. Though I understand the reasons for selling, I am also very sad to know that the building will no longer serve as a church. I remember sitting in the large sanctuary with its very high ceilings and simple, white-washed walls—I remember sitting in that sanctuary on many occasions all by myself—and just enjoying the space, enjoying a little awe and wonder that a great space, a large, quiet sanctuary, can offer. In the middle of a busy and bustling city, the space offered a place of quiet and sacredness. There was a sense of greatness in the vast space, though that vast space was harder and harder to fill on Sunday mornings and difficult to heat in the winters. So, now it is in the hands of a local university which has not yet declared whether they will keep the structure or attempt to take it down to build something else.

We sit in this sanctuary, Sunday after Sunday, and I hope that even as it grows in its familiarity, that it continues to fill you with a sense of awe and wonder—that this space continues to assist you in considering the greatness of God and your relationship with your Creator. For those of us who gather here week after week, it can be tempting to look around this place and mostly see only those things that need mending or are not quite right. But, we need to learn to let go of those things—at least as we gather for worship—that this space may convey that sense of presence that no other physical space where we spend time during the week can convey. That was yet another of those thoughts that came to me as we approached Disney World and all of its space with something akin to a ground assault. Though it is impressive in its vastness and in its ability to entertain and manage great throngs of people, Disney does little to feed one’s soul or to nurture one’s spirit.

As we look around this sanctuary, as we pause for a minute to consider this space and its greatness and its ability to lead us to wonder about the presence of God, we—like Solomon—must also recognize its limits. This space cannot contain God, it cannot corral God, it cannot reflect the fullness of God. The only space that even comes close to that is the space that we keep in our hearts and in our minds.

Nothing compares, no physical structure can even come close, to the power of that space that we develop in our lives of faith in our own selves and among us as the people of God. But, just as our beloved sanctuary needs some regular maintenance and general upkeep, so does that space that we keep for God in our hearts and in our minds—in our individual lives as well as our lives as a community of the faithful, as a church. This glorious building is a wondrous and profoundly significant place and space. But, it is nothing without you, without us. It is nothing without those marvelous spaces of faith and hope and love that each of us brings to this space, to this church. This sanctuary is nothing without the individual and collective gathering of our God-spaces in our hearts and in minds that we nurture and develop through prayer and study and reflection, through praise and worship.

This sanctuary isn’t much of anything without our mindfulness of who we are as God’s people, of who has come before us—those who have nurtured and equipped this church community through the years. This sanctuary isn’t much of anything, as well, without some mindfulness of who will come after us. What kind of church are we nurturing and equipping ourselves as we seek to be good stewards, good witnesses, of God’s amazing presence?

Let us all pray for God’s continuing presence in this wonderful space of our sanctuary and in the space of our living as God’s faithful people. Thanks be to God. Amen.

[Some information for this sermon was taken from: www.templemount.org]