Malachi 4.1-2a, Luke 21. 5-19
“Some were speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God…”
The opening words of today’s Gospel reading seem very apt for today here at St Mary’s, because later this morning, after the 10 am service, there’s going to be an open meeting to talk about the plans for the building project here. I’m not sure that we will be running to something quite as spectacular as the temple in Jerusalem, but as many of you will know, there have been plans for many years to make some change to the building adding much needed facilities. The process has ground on very slowly, hindered by Covid, changes of staff and various planning hitches, but it looks as if there is a real prospect that something will happen in the not too distant future… Because of that the PCC thought it was important to revisit the plans to check out whether priorities might have changed. I’m not on the PCC, by the way – just a retired priest helping out a bit – so I don’t have any special insights into all this.
It’s been obvious to me over the year or so I’ve been here that there are deep feelings about this that people long for some changes, but are maybe fearful too and that’s really understandable and normal. Place matters to us. Familiar buildings, familiar landscapes – that sense of home, the place that is ours, where we belong. Change can feel uncomfortable. We worry about it for all sorts of very justifiable reasons.
If it’s any comfort, I was reading a history of West Malling church, written at the time of the last big rebuilding project, in the opening years of the twentieth century, by the then vicar, Rev Lawson, which gave us the church we know now. After lamenting the rather unsatisfactory Georgian nave he had inherited, which he described as “gaunt” he commented that despite this, “it was naturally full of hallowed associations to those who had worshipped within its sacred walls for years. To them it was the parish church which they had learnt to love; and we can sympathise with the regretful feelings of some, when they saw it taken down, stone by stone in order to give place to an edifice more suited to the better taste of our own generation.” The building we are sitting in now is that new build which so shocked the congregation then… This space is where the organ stood, with the pulpit in front of it… That rebuild was just another chapter in a story of building and rebuilding which stretches right back to Norman times, and maybe beyond. Every generation makes its changes, and probably felt a bit unsettled by them too.
Buildings matter to us. And they mattered just as much at the time of Jesus. The Temple which so overwhelmed the disciples in the Gospel reading was the latest in a long line of buildings on that same site.
At first the people of Israel had worshipped in a tent, reminding them of the time they had wandered in the wilderness after God had freed them from slavery in Egypt. For centuries that was fine – and God seemed to like it that way, if we listen to what he said through the prophet Nathan to King David when he wanted to build something more permanent. But David’s son King Solomon wasn’t happy with that. A proper nation needed splendid buildings! So he built the first Temple, at huge expense. It stood for a couple of hundred years, until the Babylonians destroyed it when they took the people of Jerusalem into exile.
When the exiles came back seventy or so years later, they built a new temple, but it was a modest affair – there wasn’t the money or energy for a big build . It would have to do.
But eventually another powerful king arose, King Herod – the one who had all the babies of Bethlehem killed. That tells us all we need to know about him, but history confirms that he was a paranoid megalomaniac, the kind of person who has to build, and build big to make himself feel secure – - if you are starting to think about Trump Towers and new White House Ball rooms, I’m not going to stop you making that connection. For King Herod it was fortresses, harbours, aqueducts and whole new cities…he was obsessed with building things that would impress people and curry favour. But the most important building project he undertook was the expansion and glorification of the Temple. Building work started shortly before Jesus was born, but it was such a vast project that by the time of his death it had only just been finished. It was around 40 years in the making, which sets our building project into a different light…
Herod’s was spectacular though, shining and magnificent on the top of the hill on which Jerusalem is set, bringing pride and glory to the nation, “adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God”. It was this new Temple which so impressed Jesus’ disciples.
But Jesus words bring them down to earth with a bump. “As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.” According to the Gospels it was this perceived threat against the Temple – the symbolic centre of the nation – which the authorities seized on to condemn Jesus. In fact, Jesus hadn’t said that he would destroy the Temple, simply that it would be destroyed, but that nicety didn’t bother his enemies. This was a sign that he meant trouble.
But Jesus was right. By the time Luke wrote his Gospel, Herod’s fine Temple had been reduced to rubble, destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD. All that remains of it now is part of the Western Wall, still a very important symbolic place of prayer, but a pale shadow of what went before. The destruction of the Temple provoked a huge crisis of faith for Jews and Christians alike. Where would people meet with God now? Where would they look for his presence?
For Christians the answer was simple – in Jesus and in one another, in the new communities that had been drawn together by faith. For several centuries, while persecution against them rumbled on, Christians had no church buildings. They met in each other’s houses, strengthening one another through times of change and turmoil, through those wars and insurrections, earthquakes, famines and plagues that Jesus foretold, times when they were dragged in front of kings and governors.
That doesn’t mean that church buildings don’t matter – we really do need to do some work on ours! - but it is a reminder that what happens within them matters more- the opportunities they give us to strengthen our faith, draw close to God, welcome others, love and serve our communities. That may happen in many different ways. Through Sunday worship, through groups that can meet during the week, through community activities that can take place in them, and as places where people can come and sit quietly to pray.
That’s why the PCC is asking for your involvement, your support, your prayer at this moment, so that this church building, can continue to be a place where the love of God is known and shown to people today as it has been for so many people before us.
Amen
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