Tuesday, February 8, 2022                                        (today’s lectionary)
The better to worship you
How lovely is your dwelling place, Lord, our mighty God! Blessed are they who dwell in your house, continually we praise you. O God, behold our shield, and look upon the faces of your anointed.
Open the doors, come in all you people! Our building is new, and hopefully our hearts will follow suit. In our finery we welcome you. What fine pews we have. What shining silver goblets, All the better to worship you, O God. We will carry on this way … for at least today. But Solomon’s wisdom applies now, here, to us as well, and we must learn to pray wherever we are.
Can it indeed be that God dwells on earth? If the highest heavens cannot contain you, how much less this temple which I have built! But listen, Lord, to the cries of supplication which I, your servant, utter before you this day. May your eyes watch night and day over this temple.
Perhaps the infidels will come and destroy this temple. Perhaps dust and moths will circulate in hidden corners and secretly eat it away from the inside. Such things happen. Buildings that we build are not reliable vessels for the Spirit of God. We must eventually look elsewhere, as did this man:
Wooden Church by Charles Simic
It’s just a boarded-up shack with a tower
Under the blazing summer sky
On a back road seldom traveled
Where the shadows of tall trees
Graze peacefully like a row of gallows,
And crows with no carrion in sight
Caw to each other of better days.
The congregation may still be at prayer.
Farm folk from flyspecked photos
Standing in rows with their heads bowed
As if listening to your approaching steps.
So slow they are, you must be asking yourself
How come we are here one minute
And in the very next gone forever?
Try the locked door, then knock once.
The crows will stay out of sight.
High above you, there is the leaning spire
Still feeling the blow of the last storm.
And then the silence of the afternoon . .
Even the unbeliever must feel its force.
Oh my Jesus, carry us along in your unseen wake. “Follow me,” you say to Simon.
“Follow me,” you say to me.
Show me how you choose your way, and teach me how. Teach me to pray, Lord Jesus. You are prophet, priest and king.
I’d rather have one day in your courts than thousands elsewhere.
Jesus, when we’re together you’re likely to say, as you said to the Pharisees:
You nullify the word of God in favor of your tradition.
Guilty, guilty, guilty as charged. I must leave the windswept emptiness of the buildings, and follow you into the wilderness, become surrounded as you were by all your children. It is there, I think, never alone but always in solitude, that I can learn from you.
Listen from your heavenly dwelling and grant pardon.
It is there, I think, I can receive your forgiveness.
(Sketch, “Tolling Bell,” by Andrew Wyeth, 1970)
(1 Kings 8, Psalm 84, Psalm 119, Mark 7)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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