Walking Temples--September 8, 2026

Walking Temples--September 8, 2026

[Jesus said to his disciples:] "Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Again, truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” (Matthew 18:18-20)

There is no single place--no unique spot on the map--where Christians have to go in order to meet Jesus. There is no "X" to mark the one and only place where access to God is granted, and there is no building, shrine, cathedral, or chapel in which the Spirit is confined like a bird in a cage.  The radical claim of Jesus is that he chooses to be present among us--wherever his followers are assembled in his name.  We don't have a particular brick-and-mortar building to which we all must go and make a pilgrimage. We are, so to speak, walking temples. 

We should acknowledge how different that is from a lot of the other experiences of our lives.  For many things in our lives, especially those of great importance and significance, you have to go a particular place in order to access the thing you are seeking.  If you want to see Niagara Falls, you have to go there, to the place on the Niagara River where the land drops and the waters of Lake Erie empty into the waters of Lake Ontario.  If you want to see the Washington Monument, you have to go to a particular spot on the National Mall in Washington D.C.  And if you want to see Stonehenge, well, you will need to get yourself across an ocean to Salisbury in England.  Some places in the world are like that--you have to go to one specific place to see the thing in all its glory.

The ancient world had its share of wonders like that, too: if you wanted to go see the Colossus, you had to go to Rhodes.  The Great Library of Alexandria was only available in--you guessed it--Alexandria, and even then only before the great fire.  The Sphinx of Egypt was only viewable in Egypt, too.  A great many ancient religions had a similar sense of place.  If you wanted to worship Zeus, you went to a local temple of Zeus. If you wanted to worship Artemis, you went to a shrine in her honor (or you might have gone to the really impressive statue dedicated to Artemis in Ephesus, which was particularly impressive).  Even ancient Judaism had a single Temple in much of its history, located in Jerusalem, which was designated as THE place where rightful worship of God was to be conducted and proper sacrifices were to be offered.

So when Jesus comes along and says, "Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them," it's a pretty bold claim.  Jesus is saying that his community works differently than the pagan religions of Zeus, Apollo, Artemis, and all the rest.  He is saying that access to him is different from going to see the Great Sphinx or visiting Niagara Falls.  He is saying that there is not a solitary, unique building where his followers have to go in order to be in his presence. The meeting point isn't a where, but a who.  To be in the community of Jesus' followers is to be in the presence of Jesus, no matter where we happen to be.

But, of course, that begs the question: how can Jesus be present in all sorts of places?  What is it we should be looking for to know we are in his presence?  After all, I would know if I was at Niagara Falls because I'd see the water, feel the spray, and hear the thundering sound of the falling water.  If I were at the Washington Monument, I would see the top of the obelisk.  The reason nobody says, "Wherever two people who like waterfalls meet, Niagara Falls is there among them," is that it's obviously not true--the most you can get from a bunch of waterfall enthusiasts is that they will tell stories about waterfalls they have been to, or maybe some pictures and commemorative postcards.  But Jesus' claim is something stronger: that where his community of disciples is, he is.  You don't have to be in a church building, or within a certain radius of a steeple.  You don't have to be standing under a large wall-mounted cross or have candles lit.  There doesn't need to be organ music playing or a praise chorus repeating in the background.  Just wherever Jesus' followers gather in community, he is in our midst.  But... how would we know it?  How can we tell?

Well, not to be sentimental about it, but I would venture that at least part of the answer is love.  What binds us together as the Christian community is love--first and foremost Jesus' love for us, and then through us for one another.  That does not require being in a particular spot on earth.  It does not depend on being in church building, shrine, or cathedral.  We become the living conduit, the human river, so to speak, through which Christ's love flows, first into us and then beyond us.  But the Christian community--unlike sports teams, social clubs, cultural groups, or ethnicities and tribes--is formed and bound together by Jesus' claim on us, not our sameness, likeminded-ness, or common background.  We can gather as Jesus' disciples, from whatever places, stories, languages, and experiences we have come, because Jesus' love is what draws us.  And that is real and true whether it is three people praying in a church meeting room, a hundred people in a Sunday morning worship service, a dozen volunteers feeding neighbors in a free community meal, one friend visiting another in a hospital, or Revelation's vision of a multitude of people too large and numerous to count. You can't bring Niagara Falls everywhere, but you can find Christ's love in all places, and that's the calling card of Christ's own presence.

We don't have to wait until Sunday to meet up with Jesus.  We will recognize him anywhere on the map where his kind of love is present, making us into walking temples wherever we go.

Lord Jesus be present among us, and help us to see you in our midst.