Homily for the 1st Sunday after Epiphany, 2022

Homily for 1st Epiphany, 2022

Fr. Tony Melton

Christ the King Anglican

This is an exciting Sunday. There have been several times in my life where the Psalms voiced the cry of my heart, but this morning’s nailed it. “I was glad when they said unto me, ‘We will go into the house of the Lord.’

This whole week has been electric. I’ve seen the Stonehaven teachers and students smile from ear to ear every morning when they walk in to their building. I’ve caught Brett doing fist pumps like Napoleon Dynamite when he thought no one is looking. I’m not ashamed that I’ve been giddy setting up my office, and saying Morning Prayer in our space in the mornings.

Both the Stonehaven School and Christ the King have awaited this day for a long time. To have a home. To have our own home. Something you can invest in as an offering to God and a testimony to your neighbor about what you stand for. A place where memories, sentiments, and habits find their roots.

But more than once this week, I have been warned by friends and acquaintances to “Watch out, getting a building is a trap.” In each of these cases, the warning came from someone coming from a Baptist or non-denom background, which doesn’t mean that I didn’t listen to them. I love my Baptist friends. The non-denom church preached me the Gospel and taught me the Bible. But it was valuable context for assessing the warnings I received this week. Growing up non-denom, I heard this a lot. “Buildings kill culture. Beware.” Have any of you heard this idea before?

Well, I’m sure you can understand why I’ve been cogitating on it this week. What will this next step in the life of this church plant mean for Christ the King? Will this building kill our culture? And into the midst of these ponderings and apprehensions came the passages for this Sunday. “I was glad when they said unto me, ‘Let us go into the house of the Lord.’” So this morning, I wanted to speak to that first. I want to explain how the people of God are to relate to “place” and “temple” so that we can understand this entrance into our place and temple within the light of the Scriptures. Following that, I’ll connect this Sunday for CTK to the 1st Sunday after Epiphany, and specifically the Gospel reading for this morning of Jesus getting lost at the Temple.

Okay, first, how are biblical Christians supposed to relate to places of worship? You see, within the traditions of the Church there is a difference in how we see sacred space and its purpose and value. You can see the difference when you drive through cities. There are the old cathedrals and there are Evangelical Churches. There are Sanctuaries and there are Worship Centers or auditoriums. Within these churches, the two sides talk past each other with little sympathy. The Catholic Christians press their noses against the stained glass, looking at the Non-Denom Christians, making their noses point even higher, and think, “They simply lack taste. There is no aesthetic.” And the non-denomers peak through their ship-lap backdrop and think, “They are just idolatrous”, forgetful that the idea they are voicing comes from Judas Iscariot, they ask, “Couldn’t this have been sold and the proceeds given to the poor?”

There are at least two theological differences undergirding the two ways of thinking about church buildings. The first and primary difference is about the nature of Christ’s presence with us here and now. Wasn’t this the substance of Jesus’ rebuke to Judas Iscariot? He said, “What a waste! Think of all the mission we could do instead!” And Jesus responded by reasoning that she had done this because He was present with her right then. Therefore, you can see the connection that for those who believe that Christ is present sacramentally, it would mean that we are more inclined to lavish gifts upon Him and to invest in the temporal beauty of our worship, just like when Mary of Bethany poured the spikenard on Jesus’ feet. Does that make sense?

The second difference is definitely a corollary to the first. There is a difference of understanding how the New Testament relates to the Old Testament. How does the Church relate to Israel. Even more particular, how does the church building relate to the Temple? And even more particular, how does a human being who worships the God of the whole universe relate to that God within the created world? Is worship to be immaterial, placeless, ugly? Or is it to be material, local, and beautiful?

The truth of it is, there are times when God calls His people to go through a season of placelessness. Abraham’s journey from Ur to Canaan, Moses and the Wilderness Wanderings, David fleeing Saul, the Ark of the Covenant dwelling in tents, even the tent of Obed-Edom for a time. Exile into the land of Babylon and Assyria. Placelessness. We saw how God used these times to shape His people. He uses it to make them tough, to be focused on mission and obedience. We ourselves have gone through this season. 21 and 1/2 months we were like the Israelites, setting up and tearing down camp every week. Worshipping outside in the heat and in the cold. It shaped us, and it was God’s will that we should be so shaped.

But in each of these biblical examples of placelessness, they always resolved in a return to an embodied, secure place. “God, we long to build you a house so we can live near you.” And God looks on this desire as good. Perhaps the best example of this is found in the story of the Solomon’s Temple. Solomon desired to build a house for the Lord that the nations of the earth would know the True God and come and worship Him. He made this building a wonder of the world. He spared no expense! And God looked down on this building that Solomon had made. Imagine being a spectator on that day when the Temple was dedicated. You’ve got Babel in the back of your mind. “I don’t know…God doesn’t always like it when we build big buildings…” But then the Glory Cloud entered the Temple and the cloud was so thick that the priests had to leave the building! Think about this story. Does it not reflect a willingness of God to dwell locally with us? Our God looks kindly on Solomon who says, “I have built a house for you to live in.” He deigns to fill it with His presence.

So this week, I’ve smiled graciously a couple of times when told, “Beware.” In a sense, they are not wrong. Buildings can lead to a hyper-localism and an idolatry. Look at the Jews before the Exile. Look at the Sadducees. There are, no doubt, blessings in the Wilderness and dangers in the Temple. But we can also say unequivocally, “I was glad when they said unto me, ‘We will go into the house of the Lord.’ For the Lord is present with us. He knows we thrive when we have home, and He meets us there.

This would have been a great point to wrap up this homily, but there is a problem. This is the first homily in a 5-week sermon series where I plan on preaching through the Gospel readings for the season of Epiphany. If Epiphany celebrates that the Mystery of the Gospel is revealed to all mankind, the Gospels in Epiphany explain the mystery. And here is the problem. I haven’t mentioned the Gospel passage yet. So if you’ll hang with me a few more minutes, I think the Lord has given us a pretty cool connection between our first Sunday back in our space and the 1st Sunday after Epiphany.

Thusfar, we’ve focused exclusively on Psalm 122 verse 1, “I was glad when they said unto me, ‘We will go into the house of the Lord.’ But verse 5 of Psalm 122 continues, “For there is the seat of judgment, even the seat of the house of David.” This word “judgment” is speaking about legal or tactical decision. It has deep resonance with the word “Wisdom.” It is saying that we can be glad when we go to the house of God because that is where the Son of David sits and issues wise judgment. I’ve tried to show how this Sunday of entering our sanctuary aligns with Solomon dedicating the Temple. What is so amazing is that in God’s Providence this theme perfectly overlaps with our Gospel reading for this 1st Sunday in Epiphany.

Our Gospel is from Luke 2 when Jesus gets left behind at the Temple, and His parents find him sitting at the Temple, questioning and teaching the elders, amazing all with His Wisdom. As I pointed out last year on Epiphany 1, Luke is very clearly mapping the silhouette of King Solomon onto the person and work of Jesus. Jesus is the New Solomon who sits in the Temple, at the seat of Judgment.

What does this have to do with Epiphany? We learn on this 1st Sunday after Epiphany that Jesus is the New Solomon, King of Wisdom, who sits at The Temple and bids the nations to come and learn from Him the paths of Life. The reputation of Solomon went out to all the world. The Queen of Sheba came to learn from Him. But as Jesus says in the Gospel of Matthew, “A greater than Solomon is here.”

Church, we worship the King of Wisdom, the only-wise God. This is good news to the world because the world is filled with foolishness. The heathen languish in folly. They want no teachers of Truth, even though the Teacher of Truth is manifest to the World, obvious to the World.

I began this homily by drawing a connection between the houses of the Lord and the presence of the Lord so that we can we can be glad when we enter into our place. But to this, I want to attach the emphasis of the Gospel reading. There is a connection between the houses of the Lord, the presence of the Lord, and the seat of Wisdom of King Jesus the New Solomon. In other words, every church where Christ is present is to be a “seat of right judgment” where the Wise King teaches the nations the Way of Life. And every church building is a part of the Great Epiphany of Jesus, the King of Wisdom. Our neighbors should be able to come in and sit down and sense the Spirit of the Child Jesus as He spoke with the elders, the Spirit of the New Solomon as He weighs competing claims and issues right judgment. Our church building is to be an emblem of the presence of the only-wise God.

This is a high calling, and one that should give us momentary trepidation. 2020 and 2021 revealed a problem in the Church. We have lost sight of this aspect of Christ’s Epiphany that we are to manifest the Wisdom of King Jesus to the surrounding world. By and large, Christians were shown to be fools, and not like St. Paul talks of “fools for Christ”, but actual fools. The vast majority of churches forgot that God’s people have been gathering in the face of great personal risk for centuries. We were tricked into thinking that our breathe of life was more essential than the Bread of Life. We were also tricked into believing lies and theories from all sides. There was a rashness to reactions in many, many parts of the Church, on a host of issues. We forgot that those in power profit from our constant outrage, and many were fools for being led along.

We worship King Jesus, the New Solomon. Our church building is an instance of His Temple where He sits, giving Wisdom to all who come. We share in this vocation. We are called to be wise, discerning, knowing the Truth, detecting lies, testing claims, slow to judge, but firm in what is clear and right. This vocation naturally puts us into the posture of prayer, for who feels sufficient to be an extension of King Jesus and the Wisdom he gives to the world through His Church? You can see why the ancient Collect or prayer for this Sunday, where we contemplate Jesus as the New Solomon reads like this, “Grant that they may both perceive and know what things they ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully to fulfill the same.” We pray for wisdom that we might manifest the wisdom of King Jesus in this city, in this neighborhood, in this building.

Yet this sense of inadequacy should in no way steal our joy. We are mere image-bearers of God, and this building is a mere image-bearer of the heavenly Temple. We are a hint, a pointer to the full reality. Whenever we fail, we simply point to Him. Whenever we manifest God to our neighbors, we give Him the glory. It is a humbling thing to be used of God for His purposes and it is a joyful thing to enter the courts of our God. “I was glad when they said unto me, ‘We will go into the house of the Lord.’…For there is the seat of judgment, even the seat of the house of David.” Amen.