Present Without the Flags--June 10, 2022

Present Without the Flags--June 10, 2022

"Do you not know that you are God's temple, and that God's Spirit dwells in you?" [1 Corinthians 3:16]

So there's a long-standing tradition in the United Kingdom that the "royal standard," the official flag of the royal family, only flies at Buckingham when the Queen is in residence there.  If she is somewhere else--say, on a trip, or at another royal estate, there's no royal standard flag flying.  As the current queen of England has advanced in years, she has had fewer and fewer public appearances, and that has also meant there were fewer and fewer chances people might have actually to see the Queen.  No flag at the palace means she's not there at the time, and if she's not there, you're not going to catch a glimpse of her. Pretty straightforward, right?

Of course, the other thing about being the Queen of England is that if you aren't in the royal palace where the public can at least make a tourist visit, you aren't going to be reachable anywhere else, either--it's not like the Queen would saunter out the front gate of Buckingham Palace to go shopping alone in the local market to pick up some potatoes to cook up for dinner and some new light bulbs to replace the one that's gone out in the hallway.  Buckingham Palace was the best chance you had of seeing Queen Elizabeth, and even at that, you knew the odds were slim.  

To be very honest, I think a lot of Respectable Religion assumes that God is basically just a cosmic version of the Queen of England--generally distant, and the only chance you really have of catching a glimpse will be at the proper street address, and only at times when the flag is flying.  That is to say, we often act like God is bound to a particular location, and visitable only during posted office hours.  Call it a temple, a church, a shrine, or a "thin place" (as the old Celtic tradition conceived of those locations that were closer to the unseen and the divine), but basically they are all variations on the same assumption that God is tied to particular locations, and if you want to encounter the divine, you show up there. Ancient Israel flirted with this thinking from time to time, occasionally telling the people that was only to be found in this ONE Temple in this ONE city, Jerusalem, which just happened to be controlled by the king and his forces.  And certainly Christians have carried the same thinking forward over the centuries, too, building special churches on the sites where special events happened (or were rumored to have happened), and making a big deal about our buildings as "sacred" space.  We still get all fussy about what you're allowed to do inside a church building, or who is allowed to touch the altar, or not swearing once you're inside the main church doors and underneath a steeple, as though it's the street address that makes the difference.  We still operate in so many ways like meeting God is a "where" question, akin to catching a glimpse of the Queen when you notice the flag is flying at the palace, rather than as a "who" question--as in, God choosing to be present and dwelling within the gathered community of people.

This is Paul's point here, even though it blows up an awful lot of conventional wisdom about encountering the divine.  The standard thinking for many, both in ancient Israel and in the Roman and Greek pantheons, was that you met the god or goddess of your choice by going to the right temple, and at that location you were more apt to get in touch with the deity you were seeking.  It was about getting to the right place at the right time--akin to getting to the palace when the royal flag is flying--because the assumption was that the gods were somehow tethered to their temples and holy places.

Paul lights a match and sets all that thinking on fire here, because he insists that God isn't primarily interested in a "where" so much as in a "who"--that God chooses to dwell, not at a certain street address, but among people... who are like you and me.  Paul's way of cutting to the chase is to say, "You are God's temple, and God's Spirit dwells in you." That blows apart the old conventional wisdom that meeting God is about getting to the right place at the right time, and instead insists that God chooses to be present especially among the gathered people, rather than inside a temple, sanctuary, or shrine.  

That doesn't mean that it's bad or sinful for congregations to have buildings, but it does dramatically change our understanding of their importance.  Buildings are tools--they can be useful for particular things, but they are not where God is confined.  At our best, our corporate worship recognizes that, too--we can worship together in the park or in the town square, or in the church yard, or at the hospital, or in the woods, and the thing that assures us of God's presence isn't whether the space has been properly blessed, but simply the fact of God's blessing on the people of God wherever we go.  

So what would happen if today we saw our actions, our words, and our thoughts as always happening in the very temple of God--the meeting place between God and humanity?  What would happen, what would change, and what would we be more daring to try if we saw our daily ordinary human existence as the place to meet God, rather than assuming God only meets people for an appointed hour on Sundays underneath steeples?

That's what we so often get wrong in Respectable Religious Circles--we are still struggling with the old logic that our buildings are what make us holy, rather than the exact opposite as James sees it: it is our presence as God's holy people that makes any street address holy as a secondary echo.  It's not the real estate--it's the real presence of Christ with us, among us, and within us. 

Lord Jesus, help us to see your presence among your people.