Reformation Sunday (NL4) John B. Valentine
1 Kings 5:1-5; 8:1-13 October 26, 2025

“WHAT DOES A CHURCH LOOK LIKE?”

So ....

As I suspect most of you know ... I’m fresh back from my continuing education sojourn to Turkey and Greece and some of the places and spaces of the New Testament ... and seem to have finally recovered from the jet lag!

It was a fascinating trip to be sure! To see:

• The Parthenon in Athens .... and

• The Hagia Sophia in Istanbul ... and

• Most of the places to which Paul wrote letters in the days of the earliest church ... Philippi and Ephesus and Corinth and Thessaloniki and the like ... and

• Most of the seven churches referenced in the Book of the Revelation ... Ephesus again ... and Sardis and Smyrna and Pergamon and so on.

But it most certainly wasn’t “a vacation”.

It was go ... go .... go ... go ... go!

On the bus by 8 in the morning and rarely off the bus before 6 at night.

As one of my traveling companions described it for us each day ... as he boarded the bus and settled in to his seat toward the back ...

“What are we going to see today ... people? I’m betting it’s going to be rocks and ruins!”

And what did he say each evening as we got off the bus ... with his booming bass voice???

“So what did we see today ... people? Did anyone see any ruins? Did anyone see any rocks? I told you! Am I smart or what??”

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Now I don’t want to dispute the veracity of what our traveling companion articulated each and every tie we got on and off the bus ...

But ... looking back on all that we saw ... I think ... were we take that same trip again ... I’d encourage him NOT to say “Rocks and Ruins” ... but rather suggest “Stones and Sanctuaries” or something like that.

Because what we saw on that excursion ... again and again and again ... was sanctuaries ... worship spaces ... sacrifice spaces.

Ancient spaces set aside to the worship of this, that or the other god. Tons of them!

So ... for instance ... the first day out ... we saw what was ... for a long time ... the world’s biggest worship space ... the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul ... that was originally erected as a Christian sanctuary and later converted into a Muslim one ...

And we saw ... in the same city ... a place called Hagia Eirene ... “Holy Peace” ... the first building ever constructed as an actual Christian worship space ... the first church building in the whole world ... back in like the year 337.

Then again ... in the days that followed ... we saw:

• Temples dedicated to the worship of Zeus ...
• Temples dedicated to the worship of Apollo ...
• Temples dedicated to the worship of Athena ...
• Temples dedicated to Poseidon and Asclepias and Aphrodite ...

And ... perhaps most disturbingly ... we saw:

• A temple dedicated to the worship of Emperor Augustus ... and
• A temple dedicated to the worship of Emperor Trajan ... and
• A temple dedicated to the worship of Emperor Nero ... with a sign on it that described that much-detested emperor as “the lord of the land and the sky and the seas”!

Those caught my eye ... in part because they were reminders that the emperors weren’t just honored ... they were worshipped ... and sacrifices were offered TO them ... not FOR them ... even when they were alive!

But the point being ... it was stones and sanctuaries ... again and again and again.

So I find it more than a little bit ironic ... maybe even serendipitous ... that today’s lesson from the book of 1st Kings is all about Solomon and a sanctuary ...

And this one particular king’s desire to build a worship space to honor the Lord our God.

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You see ... the Bible has a long, strange history when it comes to building temples ...

Because temples ... in the ancient world ... were all about people wanting to build things ... to build things in honor of their particular deity.

All over antiquity ... people built temples and worship spaces ...

• In part so that they could be sure where their god or gods ... were ... and

• In part to assure that their god or gods were accessible to them ... and maybe

• In part ... to keep their gods in a box ... tied down and over there ... and away from my stuff and my reality.

They built worship spaces so that they could know that their god was on their side ... and that ... when divine intervention was needed ... be it in a time of war or a time of disease or a time of famine ... that they would be able to garner some divine attention.

So it’s kind of curious that when ... in the Bible ... God’s chosen people first get these ideas that they ... like every other nation out there ... should build a temple to honor the Lord their God ...

God says “No!”

When the Hebrews are wandering in the wilderness in Exodus ... God goes with them wherever they go.

They just have a fancy tent ... something called the “tabernacle”. And they set it up whenever they set up camp ... and it functions as their worship space ... and as a reminder that their God is in their midst wherever they might be.

And when anyone suggests that maybe they should build a permanent structure as their worship space ... God says “No” ... “No, thanks” ... “Not now.”

It’s kind of like God is thumbing God’s nose at all the other so-called deities of the day ... and saying ... “Real Gods go where their people go ... real Gods are where their people are” ...

Rather than being located in one place for all time ... and requiring that their people come to them.

In fact ... it all kind of comes to a head with King David ... who desperately want to build just such a Temple to the Lord his God ....

But ... to whom ... God makes it abundantly clear that David shall do no such thing.

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Anyhow ... in this morning’s Scripture lesson ... David’s son Solomon DOES finally go and build God ... and the Israelites ... a temple.

After 500 years of “living in a tent” ... Solomon says “enough is enough”.

“This is Jerusalem. This is the Holy City. And we’re building a temple to the Lord our God right here!”

And he does just that.

And the Temple that Solomon builds is just massive and magnificent ... one of the biggest temple-complexes in the ancient world ... and it becomes the focal point of Israel’s worship life.

And yet ... even after that point ... the prophets are occasionally want to remind the Israelites ...

“Don’t get too wedded to this here Temple thing. Don’t forget that the Lord our God was entirely comfortable living in a tent and traveling with the people in days now past.”

You may remember how ... last week ... when the people were saying “We want a king, we want a king — because everybody else has a king ... “ ...

And God was saying “Listen ... you don’t really want a king ... you just THINK you want a king ... because kings make lives difficult for their people”???

So ... this week ... it kind of feels a bit like the people are saying “We want a space ... we want a Temple ... because everybody else ... and every other god ... has a temple wherein they know God can be found” ...

And perhaps ... just perhaps ... God is saying “Listen ... you don’t really want a temple ... I don’t really NEED a Temple ... because temples tie worship to particular locations and yet REAL worship doesn’t happen in a space ... it happens in your heart.”

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I mean ... what is it that Saints Peter and Paul are going to say about worship and worship spaces when they write their letters to friends in the early church?

• “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?”

• “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you?”

• “Come to him, a living stone ... and like living stones let yourselves be built into a spiritual house.”

Stuff like that.

And what is it that Jesus says about worship and worship spaces when he has that conversation with a Samaritan woman ... the woman at the well ... in the fourth chapter of the Gospel of John?

This woman says to Jesus: “Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.”

And Jesus replies: “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem ... the hour is coming and is now here when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

It feels to me that maybe the underlying message here is directed to people who want to tie God to a particular place ...

And that message is ... “If you’re going to tie God to a particular place ... start here ... in your heart ... and here ... in your head ... and not this, that or the other building.”

Because it’s inside of us ... in our hearts and minds that worship ... reverence ... respect ... honor ... REALLY happens.

I mean ... let’s be honest ... folks.

I LOVE our worship space. I love this building ... not because it is so lovable ... but because it is tied to a whole bunch of life-events in my family history ... and our church-family’s history ... and to people who’ve been a big part of my life.

Between baptisms and confirmation services and weddings and concerts and memorial services and the like ... and countless work projects and sanctuary decorating parties ... a lot of who I am is tied up in this space.

But this space is not essential to my worship of the Lord our God.

THIS space ... on the other hand ... my heart and my head ... IS essential to my worship of the Lord our God.

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You know ... it’s Reformation Sunday around here.

It’s the day on which we sing the Lutheran fight song and thank God for Martin Luther and stuff like that.

And it’s usually a day on which we bandy about some of Luther’s key teachings about “salvation by grace through faith” and “the priesthood of all believers” and the like.

But one of the most shocking things that Luther did during the course of his ministry was what has been called the “desanctification of space”.

Seriously .. In the world in which Luther grew up ... it was presumed that there were two kinds of spaces ... sacred spaces and profane places.

• Sacred spaces ... churches and cathedrals and monasteries and the like were places where God was ... and God could be encountered.

• Profane places ... homes and castles ... and barns and fields and orchards and the like ... were places where God was not.

But Luther’s insistence was that God was everywhere ... and God could be encountered anywhere ... be it at the family dinner table ... or in a library or a classroom ... or out on the highway ... or in one’s workshop or in the kitchen or wherever.

Which ... in turn ... meant that ... rather than just some spaces being “holy” ... all of a sudden ... the whole of the world was “holy”.

Which ... in turn ... meant that “doing godly things” didn’t so much happen in worship spaces as it did out and about in the world ... wherever and whenever one encountered one’s neighbor in need.

After all ... as Luther was fond to say ... “God doesn’t need your good works, but your neighbor sure does.”

Think on these things .....