Isaiah 56:1, 6–7
Ephesians 2:19–22
John 4:19–2
We are all a little more sensitive to worship spaces these days. Some have been open; others have been open but not for major celebrations with many people. Then there are the restrictions of numbers and distance. Even today, when we are to be celebrating the anniversary of the dedication of the monastery chapel as a place of prayer and sacrament, we cannot gather in it. It is in reality the feast day of that sacred place, the anniversary when that place became a place dedicated to our God. Yet it will not hold us for the Eucharist today. Our space is too small for distancing. We have to celebrate some of that feast day keeping distance from the very place where for over forty years the monastic community and its guests have prayed and met the Lord.
We have heard a lot about buildings and structures in our Word today: house of prayer, temple, sacred place, dwelling place, foundation, structure, capstone. It would seem, at first glance, to reinforce the importance of sacred buildings where people of faith can gather before God and with one another. It is as though in these special places a presence dwells and is held and God and Jesus become localized. And so we do want them to be beautiful for our God and Father.
Maybe it is a good thing that during this pandemic we must keep our distance from the very sacred dwellings we have grown accustomed to. In this way another understanding of these sacred spaces comes to light. Listen carefully to what Jesus has to say about the treasured sacred places of his tradition and time: The days are coming when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. You won’t need the Holy City Jerusalem or its temple or for the Samaritans to whom he is talking, Mt Gerazim and its temple. What Jesus says is that it is not the buildings that hold the worshiper in place. Rather, it is life in the Spirit that binds those who worship the Father. And the Spirit is not limited to place and space. The Spirit brings together all those who are in relationship to the Father. The sacred place, the place to worship is in the Spirit that was breathed upon us by Jesus and who was poured into our hearts at baptism. It is living in the Spirit that holds us to Jesus and to the Father. ……And the other binding force among worshipers is the truth. And the truth is quite simple: that Jesus is the Father’s Son. Worship is in fact an acknowledgement that the Father and the Son are living with us in the Spirit. Ultimately, if we want to see what this ‘building’ that holds us worshipers looks like, then Jesus simply tells us, wash one another’s feet. That is how I have loved you and that is how I will know that you are a true worshiper of the Father.
Jesus says that the Father is looking for such people who know the meaning of love because they are living in the Spirit and truth. The building or the temple is physical, but its physicality is in the relationships we have with the Father and in the way we lay down our lives for one another. That can be seen and touched. And when we are doing that, we are in something beautiful.
Paul makes a similar point while staying close to using structural images like foundation and capstone. Jesus is the capstone, he is the point of unity holding us together. His energy, his love, and saving death are the key that holds all in place. The Church is about people living in the truth of Christ. What is marvelous in Paul’s image of the community is that we are in process. We are growing into a temple sacred to the Lord; we are being built together into a dwelling place. The building is not yet finished; we are part of making it happen. If we thought the Church was set and finished, Paul gives us hope today. The process is ongoing. Each of us is still being built into a relationship with one another with Jesus as the capstone; we are leaning into him.
For Paul the coming together in Christ was a coming together of Jew and Gentile. An old faith community and a new faith community in which all are fellow citizens. Once Christ is the binding presence, then our distinctions no longer alienate us from the other but become part of the new whole that is being built by God. What we think can separate us from one another can come together in Christ. What seemed so disparate, so distant from others now becomes part of the household of God. There are no second-class citizens, there are only citizens and members of God’s household. Our community membership is not based on our criteria but on that of being aligned to the capstone that is Christ. That will make us into a real dwelling place for God.
Isaiah could not make God’s criteria any clearer. “My house is to be called a house of prayer for all peoples.” God seeks and God chooses not to be exclusive but to be inclusive. Our God is looking for foreigners and strangers to come to him. He is looking for the extended family. We may gather normally in limited space. But God’s point is the space is not limited because the Spirit of God is not limited.
Perhaps it is a blessing that we are not gathered in the very house of God whose dedication we celebrate today. We are fasting from that space so that we can grasp the breadth of God’s vision for those who make up the community of believers, the community of worshipers. Today we are to think of the Church as a gathering space in the Spirit where the Father’s love is active and alive. We are really celebrating the gift of the relationship we have with the Father through the Son. A gift manifested by living in the Spirit. It is the Spirit who weaves us all together as citizens of the one family obeying the command of love that works the justice of our God.
Prior, Fr. Joel Macul, OSB