May 19 2021 Day 98

Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, how much less this house that I have built!

Solomon is dedicating his magnificent temple to God. And after having done so, he acknowledges that God cannot be contained in a temple. Oh, that we would remember this!
People of faith throughout the world get tripped up, with the notion that God is somehow contained in a building. I’ve known many good Christians who come to church, pray, repent and worship, and then leave the building, and seemingly leave God there too. Whatever encounters of God they might have had in the building are both forgotten and ne’er repeated. God is conveniently contained in the building. People can come experience God when it’s convenient, or skip it if it’s not convenient.

But that’s not the way God operates. God is everywhere and cannot be contained. If we go to church, God is there. If we go to the grocery store, God is there. If we intentionally skip church for whatever reason, God’s there too.

I absolutely enjoy the fellowship and community created by the physical space of church. And it seems to me that this pandemic has spotlighted this issue our God that cannot be contained. At its worst, the pandemic has highlighted people who have mistaken the building for God’s presence. In some instances, their deep desire to return to the building illustrates that God is in the building, and if they cannot get in the building, they cannot get to God.

At its best, the pandemic has helped strengthen our understanding that the church is not the building, and God is not in the building. We are the church, with or without the bricks and mortar. And God is present in the world, with or without the bricks and mortar.

How is it that I can preach the gospel or be the church when I cannot go into the building? Or when we are able to return, it’s amidst the Scarlet-Letter-ish nature of some people wearing masks and others chiding them? Like Solomon, I need to remember God is present everywhere, bidden or unbidden. In every comer of the world. By loving God and loving my neighbor in all those places, I can spread God’s good news.