A Whereness of God

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! – 1 Kings 8:27

So Solomon begins his dedication of the massive temple he built in Jerusalem, the first of its kind for a God that had first been encountered by humanity somewhere around the Tigris and Euphrates rivers (we think), and who had led men, women and children to wander across borders of far-flung nations, in and out of slavery, self-rule and exile for millennia.
This is the God who compelled Abram to pull up stakes in Ur and travel all the way to Canaan. Who led Joseph and his brothers down into Egypt…Moses and his followers back out. This was a God of nomadic herdsman, itinerant workers, strangers in strange lands and vagabonds. Now Solomon would push a pin into the infinite map of the universe and say “this is where we will meet to encounter God.”
Solomon, in his wisdom, immediately recognizes the irony of the moment: How could the God who created the heavens and the earth, whom our ancestors met everywhere they turned, be contained in this one spot? Nonsense! Solomon’s Temple was not built to narrow the scope of God, but to focus the vision of God’s people.
A church is not built to corral God, but to corral us: God’s wandering, ADHD followers. If we simply stated that we would meet Sunday morning where we most encounter God, some of us would be up in the hills or down by the lake, others in an inner-city soup kitchen, a maternity ward or a Habitat for Humanity construction site. A couple of us would meet at the church, and a few of us wouldn’t even leave our homes.
We are followers of a God who supplies to us no name beyond Yahweh -- I Am. Christ’s given name, Jehoshua, literally means Through God I am Free. Christ sends to us the Spirit whose name means wind (ruah).
But sometimes for us finite, mortal beings, AWARENESS of God requires A WHERENESS of God; a specific place we set apart as communally holy, where we can come together, share our experiences and turn to our God as one to offer praise and worship. Building and maintaining a church are profound acts of worship: a reaching out for God, a humbling of our human intentions. Attending a church is an expression of love to God, an act of faith and sacrifice. From the moment you turn to begin your trip to a house of worship, you have begun a holy pilgrimage, not because you are moving from where God isn’t to where God is, but because you have set your mind and the coming hour on Christ, and are journeying with others to turn together to our God who is everywhere. It is the beginning of our offering before we put anything in the collection plate!
May your church always provide A WHERENESS of God. And, wherever you go outside the church, may you recognize your brother, Christ, in the freedom of will you enjoy, and take in the Holy Spirit in the very air you breath.