Where do you live? I recall being asked that when we first came to Buderim. A further question about our street address was, we discovered, to find out whether we lived "on" Buderim. There was a big difference, we were told, and, thanks to the church's provision of a manse, we live "on" Buderim.
Where do you live? Well, your street address says where your home is, but does that really mean that the sum total of your life happens there?
When we lived in Stanthorpe, a man named Joe came to the door of the manse at 7am. Living under a bridge, he told us - "Could the Missus give me a cup of tea, please?" We gave him a proper breakfast. He ate with the enthusiasm of someone whose meals are a bit sparse. The following two mornings he came back at 7am "for a cup of tea". Then we didn't see him again. He would have rolled up his swag and moved on. He had "no fixed address" and travelled far and wide.
A few years ago, ABC radio had a programme on global travellers. Unlike Joe, they have plenty of money and never need to beg. They have citizenship somewhere, because they need a passport. They spend a couple of years here and a couple there, as they wish. They keep meeting one another wherever they go and become a kind of community. Someone is proposing construction of large floating cities in which they could travel the world together.
Whenever we pray the Lord's Prayer, we say, "Your Kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Heaven is surely where God's will is always done perfectly. But, as we read in Psalm 24.1, "The world and all that is in it belong to the Lord; the earth and all who live on it are his." So, while we think of God as "our heavenly Father," we recognise that he is not just "in heaven". However we choose to respond to him, the world - yes, and the life of each one of us - truly belongs to him too.
Solomon came to the throne after the death of his father, David. The tabernacle - God's tent - was still the place where the Lord's people gathered to worship and to offer sacrifices. It had been made first at Mount Sinai during their exodus from Egypt to the Promised Land - made according to the pattern the Lord had given to Moses. The pillar of smoke by day and of fire by night had guided them since the Red Sea. Now it rested over the most holy place of the tabernacle - a continual reminder that this was God's tent among all their tents, that God was living among them. When the pillar of smoke or fire moved on, they packed up all their tents - including God's tent - and shifted camp. When the tabernacle was re-erected, the pillar moved above it.
When they possessed the land of promise, they began living in houses - they now had a "fixed address". The tabernacle, God's tent (without the pillar of smoke or fire), was still there at various locations (Shiloh in Josh. 18.1, Nob in 1 Sam. 21, Gibeon in 1 Chron. 16.39). It was still the focal point of worship and sacrifices.
David was concerned about this situation. We hear him saying to the prophet Nathan, "Here I am living in a house built of cedar, but the Lord's Covenant Box is kept in a tent!" (1 Chron. 17.1) He purchased the threshing-floor of Araunah as the future site of the Temple (1 Chron. 21.18-22.1). But it was not to be in David's time (1 Chron. 22).
Now Solomon is planning to build a palace for himself and knows it is high time to fulfil his father's commitment "to build a temple where the Lord would be worshipped" (2 Chron. 2.1). In his message to King Hiram of Tyre, he clearly sets out his intentions - "I am building a temple to honour the Lord my God. It will be a holy place where my people and I will worship him by burning incense of fragrant spices, where we will present offerings of sacred bread to him continuously, and where we will offer burnt offerings every morning and evening, as well as on Sabbaths, New Moon Festivals, and other holy days honouring the Lord our God. He has commanded Israel to do this for ever. I intend to build a great temple, because our God is greater than any other god. Yet no one can really build a temple for God, because even all the vastness of heaven cannot contain him. How then can I build a temple that would be anything more than a place to burn incense to God?" (vv. 4-6)
Solomon is aware that "all the vastness of heaven cannot contain him". It is striking to compare the words of Stephen before the Jerusalem Council - "And [the Tent of God's presence] stayed there until the time of David. He won God's favour and asked God to allow him to provide a dwelling place for the God of Jacob. But it was Solomon who built him a house. But the Most High God does not live in houses built by human hands; as the prophet says: 'Heaven is my throne, says the Lord, and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house would you build for me? Where is the place for me to live in? Did not I myself make all these things?' " (Acts 7.45c-50)
After the dedication of the Temple, we read of the Lord's wonderful promise to Solomon, "I have heard your prayer, and I accept this Temple as the place where sacrifices are to be offered to me" (2 Chron. 7.12). Yet the Lord didn't dwell in Solomon's Temple in any exclusive sense. Was there a danger that they might begin to believe they had a monopoly on the Lord? that the Temple anchored him down? even that they had some kind of control on him, on his grace, on his protection, on his guidance…?
John begins his gospel with a statement about the Word - eternally with God and of the very essence of God. This Word, John says, "became a human being and, full of grace and truth, lived among us" (Jn 1.14a). The words slip off the tongue so easily we can miss the point of what John is saying. In the effort to make the text more readable, our modern translations can obscure some important elements of the original. Literally, John says that "the Word became flesh (i.e. became truly and fully human - not a vision, not a phantom) and tented (or pitched his tent - the RV has the marginal note 'Gk tabernacled') among us." There is little doubt that John was thinking about the tabernacle. (A number of scholars see a direct link between what John is saying here and Stephen's statement before the Jewish Council.)
During the days of his flesh - the period of the Incarnation - Jesus himself was the dwelling-place of God. Paul wrote, "The full content of divine nature lives in Christ, in his humanity" (Col. 2.9). To quote Charles Wesley, Jesus was
Please understand what we are saying here. While the man Jesus was fully God, living in a particular geographical location, God was still everywhere. The man Jesus still prayed to the Father. He had emptied himself of his heavenly prerogatives and power, and humbled himself to the point of death on a cross (Phil. 2.6-11).
Here truly is "Immanuel, God with us" (Mt. 1.23).
In the epistles we find another strand of thought. In 1 Corinthians, Paul is addressing Christians individually, "Surely you know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you!" (3.16) "Don't you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and who was given to you by God?" (6.19)
In Ephesians he is writing about the whole body of Christ - "You Gentiles… are now fellow-citizens with God's people and members of the family of God. You, too, are built upon the foundation laid by the apostles and prophets, the cornerstone being Christ Jesus himself. He is the one who holds the whole building together and makes it grow into a sacred temple dedicated to the Lord. In union with him you too are being built together with all the others into a place where God lives through his Spirit" (2.19-22).
Peter also, referring to Jesus as the living stone, calls on his readers to "Come as living stones, and let yourselves be used in building the spiritual temple, where you will serve as holy priests to offer spiritual and acceptable sacrifices to God through Jesus Christ" (1 Pet. 2.5).
Where does God live?
Yes, we have special places where we meet to worship him, but we can never contain him there. He is everywhere. But especially he dwelt here in the person of his Son, Jesus. And right now he wants to dwell in this world in and through you and me by his Spirit. The old hymn "He lives!" was right -
© Peter J. Blackburn, Buderim Uniting Church, 2 May 1999
Except where otherwise noted,
Scripture quotations are from the Good News Bible, ©
American Bible Society, 1992.
Back to Sermons