Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Readings – I Kings 8: 1, 6,10-11, 22-30, 41-43; Psalm 84; Ephesians 6: 10-20; John 6: 56-69
Let’s spend some time with the first reading, the long reading, from I Kings. We know very little about the first temple of Israel in Shiloh. We know that it is where the boy Samuel served the elderly priest Eli. It was there that the Ark of the Covenant was housed. It seems that it was a dark place and that Samuel slept beside the Ark that contained the two stone tablets Moses brought down from Mount Sinai. Eli also slept in the temple. Most likely it was lighted by torches and candles. When the people of Israel went out to war they carried the Ark with them. When the first king of Israel, Saul, lost to the Philistines, they took the Ark of the Covenant. The second king of Israel, David, recovered the lost territory and expanded Israel; he also recovered the Ark of the Covenant. King David made Jerusalem his capital city and brought the Ark and the Tent of Meeting to the new capital. The Tent of Meeting was from the southern tribes and was the meeting place where Moses gathered the people of Israel during the years of wilderness wandering. King David united the two sacred artifacts of the Northern and Southern tribes and placed them on Mt. Moriah, the highest point of Jerusalem. There King David aspired to build a temple, but holy scriptures tell us that the Lord God said, No thank you. King David’s son, King Solomon was to build the first temple in Jerusalem.
In I Kings we learn of the magnificent temple. It was framed in cedar and cypress from Lebanon, and stone. It was sixty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and thirty cubits high. A cubit is the length of a man’s forearm, so the building was ninety by thirty and forty-five feet tall. The interior of the sanctuary was overlaid in pure gold with chains of gold with the altar also overlaid in gold. Even the floor was overlaid in pure gold with doors of palm trees and open flowers overlaid in gold. All the descriptions depict the interior as dark, illuminated by torches and filled with thick clouds of incense. The temple was a massive and imposing building where the presence of God was experienced as massive, mysterious and imposing. It took seven years to build, and from a far it was blindingly brilliant in the bright sun. High on Mt. Moriah it inspired pilgrims and traveler alike.
Build in 1,000 B.C.E. it was destroyed by King Nebuchadnezzar and his Babylonian army in 586 B.C.E. The temple on Mt. Moriah was destroyed, the mount leveled.
Now let’s return to our corner on Market and Snyder. The rose stained- glass window sparkles on days like today with its jewels of glass and brilliant color. Our west rose window is best viewed in the late afternoon when it turns golden. The three panels of restored glass, rooted in earth tones with glorious blues and purples in the heavens, are primarily panels of stained glass of glorious golden light. Interestingly, Mary Kittera Snyder chose not to feature any biblical figures, not birds, sea creatures, animals, or humans, not even a saint is displayed here at All Saints. This is pure speculation on my part, of course, but I suspect her favorite Gospel was the Gospel according to St. John. It starts with:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and
the Word was God. All things came into being through him, and
without him not one thing came into being. What has come into
being was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light
shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
The light of Jesus is “the light of all people”. While we on occasion use incense but not clouds of it, we are here bathed in light rather than in smoke and darkness like of the temple in Jerusalem. And as we are bathed in light, we are the flesh and blood saints, rather than surrounded by colored stained-glass saints. Perhaps, just speculation on my part, but think of it. We are the saints of God, bathed in the light of God, gathered here today at the corner of Market and Snyder in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania.
I would add—what an awesome honor bestowed on us as we begin with this fall our 125th anniversary. And, I would add, what an awesome responsibility bestowed on us.
We are to walk as the saints of God, in this place, and in our homes, in our places of business, in our classroom, and throughout our community – bathed in light.
Time to stop for now. Be of good cheer! Be of good deeds! Be people of light, even when darkness swirls around. Be the saints of All Saints—wherever your walks take you.
Amen
