Seeking God in the Temple

St. Mark's Episcopal Church

Second Sunday in Lent

March 4, 2007

This third sermon in my series on the Psalms of Lent is called “seeking God in church.” Now, you might be thinking, “Isn’t it obvious that God is in church? Why should we have to seek God there? Don’t we come to church to find God?”

For those of us already “in church” this may seem to be the answer. But it is not the answer for many people we know and see every day, and it is sometimes not the answer for us! Let us look more closely at the Psalm for today: I invite you to turn to Psalm ___ [page 14 of your service booklet] and follow along as I “tease apart” some of the words and phrases.

Some Bible commentators have observed that this Psalm may actually be two Psalms in one. When we look at verses 1-9, we see a tone of praise and confidence. Two images are intertwined: that of a battle where the warrior is kept safe, and that of the dwelling place of God, or the temple, which becomes a refuge. These two images were also present in last week’s Psalm—you will have to read that sermon once I post it online because we were snowed out last week, except for seven hearty folks who came at 7:45! The opening words of the Psalm, “The Lord is my light,” are the motto for Oxford University, emblazoned on its crest and walls. This university is one of the oldest in the world, and it was founded by Christians.

Verses 10-18 show a more negative or fearful tone. The Psalmist expresses fear and even a kind of despair and cries out to God for deliverance. The images here are more like a perilous journey away from family, away from home, on an unknown and dangerous path. The Psalmist ends on a note of encouragement reminding us that God comes as we wait patiently.

But let us return to the idea of finding God “in church.” I believe the Psalmist is more interested in “seeking” than in “finding.” He doesn’t say, “I will find God in the temple,” but “I will seek him in his temple.” The theme of seeking is one that is woven throughout this Psalm as the common denominator. The word “seek” is used three times in the Psalm, more than any other time in a single Psalm. This word is also found throughout the Old and New Testaments. In this context, it means “to inquire,” or more broadly “to earnestly go after something.” This kind of seeking is not just an intellectual exercise but a total commitment and openness to what is unknown.

Now, I am taking a bit of a risk here, but I am speaking as much to myself as I am to anyone else. We as church-goers are always in danger of ignoring and losing our thirst to seek. We are far away sometimes from what first drew us to the church and the faith, or maybe we have never really asked ourselves, “Why am I doing this? Why am I a Christian?” Our recent experiences here at St. Mark’s with the Alpha program have reminded many of us what it is like to be a seeker—one who earnestly desires to find out who Jesus is and what difference God makes in life. For those of you who are not familiar with Alpha, it is a 10-week series of dinners and inspirational talks by the Rev. Nicky Gumbel, an Anglican priest from London. The Alpha talks were put together when Nicky went outside the doors of the church and spoke to hundreds of seekers to try to find out what questions they had about life and about Christianity. These were folks, young and older, for whom church was a dead institution and Christianity a kind of playacting of morality. However the strength of the Alpha program is not just the content of the talks but the opportunity to break into smaller groups and discuss with others, ask questions and seek God together. Everyone involved in Alpha, no matter how long they have been involved in the church, is a seeker.

Today’s Psalm reminds us that the temple where God dwells is not just in the church! Last week’s Psalm reminded us that dwelling with God means to abide with God and that God’s temple for us is not a place but a person—Jesus Christ. The Gospel of John tells us that God became flesh to dwell among us. The word “dwell” means to pitch a tent, even as the Hebrew children wandering in the wilderness on their way to the Promised Land “pitched a tent” for the fabled Ark of the Covenant, the place of the Ten Commandments. Each day, the tent was folded up, and each evening it was put up, and so traveled with the people until the time when Solomon built the first temple. But this temple was destroyed, not just once but several times, and in 70 AD, just decades after the Resurrection, it was destroyed never to be rebuilt even to this day.

The paradox we often miss is that God is found through seeking. The shelter that the Psalmist longs for, the dwelling on the rock, is not a location but a relationship. Even as our earthly relationships grow and change, so we are invited on a path of seeking, waiting, then seeking again, waiting again, dwelling or abiding not in one place or location but in an attitude of trust and expectation. This is a good message for Christians during the season of Lent when we are thrust into a journey with the ashes of death on our forehead. We are all traveling toward death, but how we travel, who we seek, and how we view that journey make all the difference! Church can be much more than just a holy filling station. Church must be more than a place to “find answers.” Church should be an attitude of seeking that invites us to look for God everywhere and in everyone. Seeking is not experimenting or just dipping into a spiritual buffet. There are many of us, in church and elsewhere, who have gotten comfortable with the world as we see it and have given up seeking. Likewise there are many who are desperately seeking but view the church as an alien territory filled with folks who cannot understand the seeking heart. This Psalm invites us to acknowledge the hunger we still have for God and to become a seeker, eager to find God, not as we expect him to be but as He reveals himself through the living Lord, Jesus Christ.

Just to get another perspective on this Psalm, I invite you to listen as Eugene Peterson’s words from “The Message” Bible reshape the images of the Psalmist: From verses 5-18: