10.26.25 – Sermon written and preached by Leigh Rachal @ FPC Abbeville, LA

Last week, we heard of God’s call to David,

the shepherd king whose heart sought after God.

David longed to build a house for God,

but that dream was given to his son Solomon.

In today’s reading, the promise is fulfilled:

Let us listen for how this story still speaks to us,

how we might find ourselves in God’s story of dwelling and delight.

Read: 1 Kings 5:1–5; 8:1–13

And we continue to hear the stories of the Hebrew Scriptures

through the lens of the Gospel of John

and how these stories reveal how God’s presence has always moved among us.

Let us listen together for the Word of the Lord.

Read: John 2:19–21

Sermon: Where God Dwells

I think there is something deep in us that wants to build a house for God.

To make space that feels worthy of the holy, where the air itself seems to hum with reverence.

A place where the invisible becomes visible.

Across centuries and cultures,

people have built temples and cathedrals, chapels and shrines,

trying to make room for the divine.

And yet, this morning – on Reformation Sunday –

we find ourselves in the lineage of a tradition

that stripped those sacred spaces down to the bare essentials.

Our Presbyterian ancestors

took out the gilded statues,

whitewashed the walls,

and placed the pulpit at the center of the room

(though some of us have moved it to the side and added a lectern….)

The reformers believed that what made a space holy

was not its ornamentation

but the Word proclaimed,

Not incense or icons

but the gathered people of God.

Our sanctuaries became simpler, but the impulse remained the same:

To make a space where we might encounter the Holy.

There is something in us that longs to point and say: “Here. Here is where God is.”

It is the same impulse that led Solomon to build the temple – to take the beauty and strength of cedar and stone

and give it shape for the sake of worship.

A place not only to honor God,

but to remember that God had chosen to dwell among the people…

His father, David, had carried the dream of building a temple.

But David’s life was too tangled in conflict and war,

so the task passed to Solomon — whose name means peace.

He was the one who would build a house for God.

Not a tent to move from place to place,

but a temple of stone and cedar, filled with light and song.

When it was finished, Solomon gathered the people and the priests.

They brought the Ark of the Covenant, the sacred chest that had wandered with them since their wilderness days,

and placed it in the innermost room of the temple.

And then, scripture says,

a cloud filled the house of the Lord so completely

that the priests could not even stand to minister.

The glory of God filled the house.

And the people knew: God was here.

We understand that longing to build sanctuaries and call them holy.

And whether they are majestic and ornate or simple and austere,

we hush our voices when we enter,

because we can feel that something sacred lives here.

We know that God is bigger, grander,

more magnificent than our daily lives can contain.

And it is true.

God is beyond us….

God is the uncreated Light,

the Holy One,

the Mystery that holds galaxies together….

As we sang this morning, “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty.”

The awe of Solomon’s temple lives on in our hearts.

But the story doesn’t stop there.

In the part of this story just after we stop reading,

Solomon prayed his great dedicatory prayer for the temple and in it he says something startling:

“Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, O God - how much less this house that I have built.”

He knew, even then,

that no building, no matter how beautiful,

could hold the fullness of God.

The temple was never meant to contain God.

It was meant to help the people remember God.

To give them a place to gather, to pray, to bring their best,

to lift their eyes and remember

that the God who led them through the wilderness still led them now.

God held off allowing his people to build a temple.

Because there is danger in constructing these holy spaces.

It’s not about the place itself, but the danger is in forgetting what the space is for.

Because over time, it can become easier to point to the building

than to live the covenant.

It can become easier to protect the walls

than to protect the widows and the poor.

It can be easier to think, God is in OUR place,

than to recognize God walking among THEM.

And that’s where Jesus’ words begin to shake things up.

When he says, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up,”

he’s not talking about stone and mortar.

He’s talking about himself, about HIS body,

the place where heaven and earth meet.

He is helping us to understand that God is not contained behind a curtain.

God walks among us.

God eats and laughs and weeps and bleeds.

The holy has moved into the ordinary.

The transcendence of God has not been lost.

It has been embodied.

The same glory that filled Solomon’s temple

also fills human lungs.

The same presence that we once understood to hover above the Ark

also breathes through us,

as near as our next inhale.

That’s what we mean when we say

God is both transcendent and immanent,

both beyond and within,

in the vastness of the stars and the pulse in our wrist.

The Holy One who cannot be contained

chooses to dwell here:

in flesh… in breath… in love….

Sometimes we think we might prefer a God who stays at a distance

or closed up in a temple.

Sometimes we still might prefer a God who lives only in the heavens,

because that feels safer than a God who lives next door.

A God who thunders in holiness

is easier to revere than one who sits at our table.

But the scandal of the incarnation,

and the promise of Pentecost that follows,

is that God refuses to stay far away.

God’s glory doesn’t just fill temples.

It fills people. It fills creation.

It fills us.

When we sing A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,

we’re not declaring OUR own walls to be strong.

We’re remembering that God’s faithfulness is what holds us together.

That grace, not grandeur, is our refuge.

This is how we find ourselves in God’s story today.

We are not the builders of a temple.

We are its living stones. And we need every stone….

The Spirit of God dwells not just with us,

but within us.

Our hearts become altars.

Our daily lives become offerings.

Our shared love becomes the sound of worship rising like incense.

God is in the breath that steadies us.

God is in the neighbor who waves across the fence.

In the tears we shed for someone else’s pain.

In the hands that set the table and pour the cup.

God is in the work of justice that mends what is broken.

And in the quiet moments when peace returns.

And yes, God is even in the ordinary holiness of this place,

this small sanctuary on this Sunday morning

and in each one of us.

The glory that once filled Solomon’s temple

has not vanished.

It is just also on the move,

and multiplying,

and filling the whole world with grace.

The same Spirit that filled the temple also fills us.

We are a dwelling place of the living God.

And the world around us - every tree, every face, every breath -

is alive with the same holy presence.

The psalmist (Ps. 139) said,

“Where can I go from your Spirit?

Where can I flee from your presence?

If I ascend to heaven, you are there;

If I make my bed in the depths, you are there.”

There is nowhere we (or anyone else!) can go that is outside the reach of God’s love.

There is no distance too far, no sin too big,

No place too ordinary…

For God to dwell.

The presence that rested on the Ark,

that filled the temple with cloud and light,

also fills the earth with breath and being.

It fills you. Your life, your laughter, your tears, your touch….

They are all places where the Holy One chooses to dwell.

So, as we leave this place today, let us remember:

We are walking sanctuaries,

living temples of the living God.

The walls of the church may mark a sacred space,

but God’s dwelling does not end here.

It goes with us –

into every word of kindness,

every act of justice,

every breath that carries love into the world.

The glory of God still fills the house.

And God’s house is everywhere.

Thanks be to God.