1 Kings 8:1, 6, 22-23, 27-30, 41-43; Psalm 84:1-4; Ephesians 6:10-17
Truth, righteousness, whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace, and faith.
I want you to imagine a man named Bill.
Imagine that Bill is divorced, and that he blames himself for the divorce.
Imagine that when Bill sees his kids, he sometimes gets mad at them, and feels guilty later.
Imagine that Bill feels like he’s not really best friends with any of his friends, and that it seems to him that most of his friends are more active socially than he is.
In fact, Bill is under attack by the dark power of guilt and doubt. But imagine Bill hearing the good news in a personal way: Bill, you are a child of God. God loves you, Jesus died for you, and the Spirit walks by your side through the course of every day. Nothing you have done can take away that love. It’s yours to keep.
Now imagine- Bill hears that good news and hangs onto it with all his might.
You shouldn’t have to imagine that the truth about God’s love is like a life vest for Bill.
Righteousness.
Imagine a boy- or a girl, it doesn’t matter.
Give him- or her- a name.
Imagine them being tempted as a teenager.
Imagine them trying a beer, maybe even smoking some dope.
Imagine them going through high school without having a real, serious, girlfriend or boyfriend.
Imagine them going away to college and seeing a great many of their classmates give into all sorts of temptations.
Imagine them seeing some of their classmates choose a different way, a righteous way, and experiencing an assortment of blessings. Love, good friends, respect, rewards for hard study.
But imagine your boy- or your girl- feeling left out of blessings, and thinking more and more of the temptations.
Now imagine that he or she talks about this with the college chaplain, and imagine the chaplain saying something like this: Righteousness is not about blessings and it’s not about resisting temptation. It’s about letting God hold your hand, and about you hanging on tight and knowing God won’t let go, even if you stumble. Righteousness is about loving God more than you think you might love any of the things you’re passing up, and any of the things you think you’re missing out on.
Now, imagine your student takes those words to heart. You shouldn’t have to imagine that righteousness is like a survival suit for your student.
Whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace.
Consider this very real story, told by UCC pastor Matt Fitzgerald.
“In Parting the Waters, the first volume of Taylor Branch’s history of the civil rights movement, there is a shocking photo of a lunch counter in
Fitzgerald goes on to describe the anger of the photographed crowd, insanity in their eyes. But “at the far edge of the photo’s boundary, there is a member of the mob who looks ashamed of the ugly scene. He is a young man with his eyes downcast, his face tormented. He appears to be in pain.”
Readiness to proclaim the gospel of peace hardly seems like much of a weapon, but love found its target that day. Perhaps we can imagine the young man at the photo’s boundary, going home and thinking about what he saw that day, studying his Bible for the truth about Jesus’ message, praying for the courage to walk righteously with God.
Perhaps we can imagine that the gospel of peace, preached by the actions of a non-violent demonstrator, was better jewelry than a gold cross, hanging about the demonstrator’s neck.
Faith.
Imagine a woman. Imagine her name is Jill.
Imagine that Jill is educated, articulate, ambitious, prudent and very, very thoughtful.
Imagine that Jill just cannot believe everything that’s in the bible.
Oh, Jill believes in God, and she believes in Jesus. But some of the things she reads in the Bible seem far-fetched to her, and some other things just seem- well, wrong.
Now imagine that Jill actually prays for the faith to believe everything, but doesn’t stick with it for very long because her heart’s not in it.
But Jill doesn’t want to brush God aside. Jill is a thoughtful person, after all, and she has seen plenty of people burn out for lack of faith, or lose course in life without faith to guide them, or become overcome by situations beyond their control and lose their joy over the goodness of life because they did not believe in a power that was greater than those situations.
So Jill struggles, until a friend says, “Maybe what you need to pray for is something simpler- like the faith to trust in the power of God, and the vision to see what God is doing in the world around you.
So imagine Jill praying that prayer, and maybe you can imagine that Jill’s faith becomes as a hot shower and a fresh change of clothes after a long, hard day.
King Solomon built a temple for the Lord, and he imagined that place becoming a house of prayer where all people- believers and strangers- might pray to the Lord. Some would pray in trust and others in desperate hope, but Solomon’s prayer was that God would answer all their prayers- that people would look and see what God was doing, and know that the Lord is good.
A house for God, a beautiful temple ornamented with Cedar, gold and silver.
But the psalmist turns that description around, and then comes back to it in a different way.
God’s dwelling place, in the words of the Psalm, becomes a place where we may dwell.
Our prayers and our praise are the ornaments of the life that we are given, and in so doing they open the door for God to take up residence in our lives.
Truth, righteousness, the gospel of peace, and faith- they are wonderful things, but they are nothing into themselves. They are like clothes in the closet. Unless we put them on, they are useless.
But when we put them on, they begin to work on us and make us strong (in a Jesus sort of way) from the inside out.
It may seem mysterious, and perhaps it is. But imagine this: it’s just the Spirit of God, making a dwelling place in you.
So go ahead- try it on.
In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen.
