5 min. read
This is not a newsflash. Consider it a public service announcement and a reminder from about 2500 years ago.
Before Jesus of Nazareth ever walked the earth, we were told the God he called Father was not contained in a building we may deem sacred. And if there was any doubt as to what that meant, Jesus made it clear that this particular God was not at all interested in what we’d call a sacred institution either.
There are some stubborn cultural norms that we continue to cling to century after century in regards to what God chooses to condone. And this specific cultural norm of a church building equates God’s approval with God’s presence. We’ve become so numb to the machinations of our habitual stubbornness that we seem to no longer care if God is present in a thing or a system; as long as we call it “sacred” God must approve.
Maybe you’ve been told that in present-day US America, God’s house is akin to a church building. It’s a quaint metaphor that was given birth by the scriptural narrative. But, like we so often do, we cast the meaning of the metaphor in our likeness and understanding rather than letting it re-narrate the way we understand reality.
Maybe you’ve been told that you have to be a participant in the institution that built and pays for that church building, and you must be a member of the system that runs the institutional business and programming from the base of that church building, in order to know God. The western Church understands capitalism and utilitarianism better than most things, and so appropriates anything in our sphere of life — including whatever we call “sacred” — into these isms.
And maybe you’ve even heard a story about a guy named Jeremiah …
Not the Temple of the LORD
Jeremiah — a memorable voice within the rich heritage of prophets who spoke truth to power and was largely ignored by everyone — was given a message to convey to all the participants in the religious institution of his day. You can read the story in Jeremiah chapter 7.
God tells Jeremiah to stand in the gate of the Temple and deliver a message to the religious leaders and all those gathered in the Temple building for worship. And by the way, “God’s Temple” and “the LORD’s house” were synonymous terms throughout the Hebrew scripture. Centuries ago, we were already equating approval with presence.
While at the gate, Jeremiah delivers this message: “Do not trust the deceptive voices of your leaders who tell you that God approves of this system. Do not believe them when they say, ‘This is the Temple of the LORD! The Temple of the LORD! The Temple of the LORD!'”
What is the message being conveyed here? Surely we, and those who were present, want it to mean something other than the plain sense of what it appears to mean. Because it appears that God is saying quite clearly: “I don’t live in this thing you call a Temple. This is not my house. Not my dwelling. And furthermore, the religious leaders who try to condone this whole religious system by pointing to this building as evidence of my approval are lying to you.”
Alas, that’s exactly what the message means.
Jeremiah continues by telling the people that what God wants has nothing to do with a sacred building and especially is not interested in some religious system or institution. God is looking for the community of people to “act justly one with another, and do not oppress the alien, the orphan, and the widow” (Jeremiah 7.5-6). That is, love everyone you come in contact with in an uncontrolling way, and do not persecute those who are strangers to your faith and to your community nor those who are defenseless and have no one looking out for their interests.
God Left
Another prophet named Micah picks up on this theme and explicitly states what “worship” should look like. You can read it in Micah chapter 6. Micah says that all the supposed worship happening in the sacred buildings does not impress God. Apparently worship is more about what the worshipper needs and wants than what the worshipped is interested in. Instead, says Micah, what God wants is for us to do justice, love kindness, and live humbly.
This is worship: do justice, love kindness, and live humbly.
But the listeners then, like the listeners for centuries, like us today, did not think that was possible. So they clung to the religious buildings and institutions, feeling a safety in it all. Because it is comforting to pay professionals to tell us what to do, rather than work together to discern what is right. It’s comforting to look at a building and be reminded of God once and a while, rather than living like God is present in every person we interact with. It’s comforting to have systems, programs, and processes — all supported by our money and resources — that give us some sense of purpose, rather than simply learning to love rightly, to act justly, and to live humbly in the long and painful process of community.
To illustrate the point of these prophets, God did something remarkable and showed it to yet another prophet in a vision. This guy’s name is Ezekiel. You can read the description of the vision in Ezekiel 10. A few years after Jeremiah’s message was delivered, most of the rulers and middle-class of the population were carted off to Babylon. While standing near a river in a foreign land, Ezekiel sees something like the presence of the LORD rise up out of the Temple and leave.
God left. God left the building and the institution in a physical way in a final effort to get the message across.
Jesus and Us
About 500 years later, the divine presence physically enters the human realm again. This time literally: in a human. A visible and tangible expression of the point God has been trying to make. Jesus of Nazareth becomes God with us. And just about everything Jesus does that is told in the narratives shows either a disdain of the religious system, or it shows him completely ignoring the institution.
Shouldn’t this tell us something? Shouldn’t this final and emphatic example show us the shortcomings of our religious institutions and meaningless buildings? Shouldn’t how Jesus lived say something very clear to us?
Apparently not.
We very quickly invent a new system that within 300 years is co-opted by powerful political authorities and the whole cycle of institution, and buildings, and power grabbing, and organization begins again.
To some extent, I get it. As humans, we like to organize. We like to control. We like clear parameters. It’s kind of hard to live a life in community that freely enacts justice and loves in an uncontrolling way when our inclinations prefer to keep everything in a nice, neat box.
Some of the results of our stubborn clinging to cultural norms instead of living out the message of the prophets and Jesus are:
- we don’t really worship God in our buildings all that much; we worship “worship” …
- we don’t follow the God who Jesus called Father; we follow a very small and limited Jesus …
- we cannot simply respond to God’s presence and activity; we must fill out lots of forms, and wait for committee decisions, and adhere to decrees from religious leaders …
- we don’t provide for those who go without, nor care for the suffering, nor resource the betterment of other humans; we put the majority of our resources into buildings and institutional machinery.
These are just a few effects. The list could be much longer. But I’ll stop there because it is reminding me how expensive, and discouraging, and ineffective our need for organized safety and comfort truly is.
Our need for organized safety and comfort is expensive, discouraging, ineffective.
Look, I’m not saying let’s abandon all the church buildings and dismantle the institutional system of paid religious professionals. Actually this already is organically happening in small pockets of the world. When something is dead, it seems it finally figures it out at some point.
What I am saying is this. We can do better. We can be more authentic. We can be more faithful to the way of Jesus.
And if the story that informs my perspective tells me anything it is this: death must happen before there is resurrection. And finally, when new life occurs it is not simply a recapitulation of the old life.