A reflection given to Canterbury Baptist Church on 7 July 2024. This congregation is facing a move, as their property is about to undergo a major redevelopment. And while there will be much to gain (don’t even mention the toilets), there will also be a great deal of loss. Given all this, I reflected on the theme of God’s dwelling place. Listen here.
Where does God live? What does God’s house look like? Does God live at church? These are big questions often asked by small people, but I wish more big people would ask them. Because I reckon many big people haven’t really worked out the answers, even though the questions have been floating around for thousands of years.
‘For me,’ said a child once, ‘God is a feeling, and I feel it here. It’s the easiest place for me to feel close to God.’ ‘I agree,’ said a teenager. ‘When you look at all the faces, and see them smiling and joyful, you know God is here.’ ‘It’s like the Acts church,’ said a visitor. ‘Very dynamic, very alive, with people practically hanging out the windows.’
I heard these comments some years ago at a church review. Maybe it was the best church review ever. Maybe, at least for a time, we’d made a house for God. All the work to bring people together, and to create a safe and welcoming place where the Spirit might seek to dwell, felt worth it. Because isn’t that what we’re all aiming for? We all want our church to be a place where people feel close to God. We all want to go to church and know that God just might show up.
I look around at this building, soon to be redeveloped, and I know that God’s Presence has been sensed here, too. And I think about all the memories and prayers and experiences that must be anchored in this place. For some of you, it’s where you came to faith and, for some, it’s the site of your baptism. For some, it’s the place where you fell in love, or were married, or brought your babies to church for the first time. For some, it’s where you attended the funeral of a loved one, where you remembered the decades of worshipping side by side, and celebrated their life, grieved their death, and released them back to God.
So for many of you, this building is the site of a significant spiritual memory. And it’s not all births, deaths and marriages. Maybe a sermon or prayer or testimony or conversation challenged you in new ways and helped you grow in faith. Or perhaps you entered into a fund raising effort and discovered the gift of giving generously. Maybe you raised your voice in song one day and suddenly felt in your bones the unity of all people. Or maybe someone’s face lit up when they saw you, and you realised just how much you are loved.
And for some, I expect that the beautiful stained glass windows behind me are significant. When the sermon has droned on for a bit too long, let’s say, I even suspect that one or two of you may have allowed your attention to wander to the windows, where your spirit has been fed and your imagination has been set on fire.
In other words, in one way or another, at some time or another, many of you will have had an experience in this building where you felt God’s Presence comforting, challenging, guiding, encouraging or simply accompanying you. So, does God live here? Is this what God’s house looks like? Does God live at church?
Way back in Exodus, the people of Israel were wandering the wilderness and, like us, they wanted to know where God lived. So Moses had them make a portable dwelling for God. They built a beautiful wooden space decorated with silver and gold and fine tapestries, and it contained sacred objects for worship. Special priests were chosen to approach the dwelling; and great heavy curtains of blue, purple and scarlet fabric hung between the dwelling and everyone else. Ordinary people couldn’t go near. God was too special, too sacred, and so the priests acted as mediators between God and other people.
But God wasn’t tied down. When God’s Presence filled the dwelling, the people of Israel stayed put. When it lifted, they continued their journey, carrying God’s dwelling with them. They made long poles so they could carry the dwelling without touching it, yet move with God’s dwelling in their midst.
After many years the people settled down; and after many more years, they decided they wanted to be like all the other nations. So they appointed a king and then, even later, they built a Temple. It was over ten stories high, and was one of the wonders of the ancient world. When the Temple was built, God’s dwelling was placed inside it, behind a great heavy curtain many stories high. And still, ordinary people couldn’t go anywhere near it. It was considered too special, too sacred.
But everyone knew where God lived: in the Temple, behind the curtain, in the dwelling, and inaccessible to all but the high priest. And even he (it was always a he) could only go near it after meeting strict requirements and following a strict ceremony, and only on very particular days and at very particular times.
That seemed to settle the question for a while. But then there was an invasion and the Temple was destroyed. The people were scattered and sent into exile and again they were forced to ask, Where does God live? Was God with them in exile? How could they be close to God if the Temple lay in ruins hundreds of miles away?
So the rabbis reminded them of their ancestors’ time in the wilderness, when God’s Presence travelled with them. In exile, however, there was no tabernacle, no Temple, no visible dwelling place for God. So they developed the theology of the Shekinah, describing the feminine Presence of the divine. Wherever God’s people gathered, she dwelled. When they were joyful, she celebrated with them. When they suffered, she ached. When they were sick, she watched over them with tender care. And when they sought wisdom, she illuminated the way. The Shekinah was present in synagogues and at festivals, but also on the road, in private homes, in conversation, and wherever God’s people were to be found. She was usually depicted as light.
Now, this decentred Presence who travelled with God’s people and who turned up in their homes and hearts was, for most people, both comforting and empowering. It meant that, wherever they were and whatever happened to them, God’s Presence was with them. However far they were from the Temple, however distant a priest, God’s Presence was with them. They could be living in a foreign land, separated from their home and their family and enduring the most terrible suffering, but still God’s Presence was with them, sharing in their joys and sorrows, guiding their steps, and watching tenderly over them all.
Yet others found this theology deeply threatening. Kings, perhaps, and religious authorities. Princes and patriarchs and all who benefit from hierarchies, religious control, and centralised systems of power. So when the opportunity came, elite exiles returned to Jerusalem and rebuilt the Temple with the funds and blessing of the man at the absolute top of the hierarchy, the Persian Emperor. Worship became highly regulated and Temple-centric, and God’s people were taught once again that God’s dwelling was behind the curtain.
This is the context in which Jesus’ story begins. Yet there must have been some nagging doubts about God’s dwelling place, because John’s account is all about this question.
Right at the beginning, John sets out his position. He tells us that the Word which was God and which spoke the world into being became flesh and dwelt among us. In other words, the divine Presence has been clothed with flesh and is found among the people. Can you hear the echoes of the Shekinah?
And yet, what does this actually mean? Well, the rest of John’s account answers this question as placed in the mouths of Jesus’ earliest disciples. When they first meet the Word made flesh in Jesus, the first question they ask is, ‘Where are you dwelling?’
To this Jesus replies, ‘Come and see!’ So the questioners check out the place where he’s staying. But somehow they’re not satisfied by seeing the guestroom or his doona cover. They know there is a much bigger answer to their question, so they keep on following him around.
They follow as he turns water into wine, spends time with people of different faiths and cultures, heals all sorts of people, and throws a picnic for thousands. They follow as he criticises religious authorities for using Scripture to treat people like trash. They follow as he shows up the hypocrisy of a crowd all set to stone a woman, and as he rejects the idea that disability is a punishment for sin. They follow as he spends time with women and disciples them, and as he weeps at the death of a friend. And they follow as he strips down to his undies and washes their feet, and feeds them for the last time, and tells them that he will be betrayed and handed over to the authorities.
And still they wonder where God dwells.
So Jesus tells them that he is going to prepare a place for them in his Father’s house: and that in this house there are many rooms. And despite rumours to the contrary, Jesus is not saying here that he is going to make a place for them in heaven after they die. Instead, understood in the context of the whole sweep of the gospel and of what has gone before, Jesus is saying that through his death and resurrection he is relocating the place of God’s dwelling. It will no longer be hidden away in the Temple, off limits to all but the elite and mediated through a powerful few. Instead, echoing the Shekinah, God’s dwelling will be among the people.
As John describes it, first, Jesus’ own precious body was God’s dwelling place. Then, through the gift of the Holy Spirit, God moves into the body of those who share in Jesus’ body, that is, those who gather to eat his flesh and drink his blood and open themselves to his Spirit. And then, through the bodies of these disciples as they move about the world, God’s presence flows out into the neighbourhood.
For Jesus tells his disciples that he dwells in the Father and the Father dwells in him. Then a little later he says, ‘Dwell in me, and I will dwell in you.’ Because God dwells in Jesus, then when we dwell in Jesus, God dwells in us. We become the dwelling place of God.
Just in case you were looking at the windows and you missed it, I’ll say that again: We become the dwelling place of God.
When we are filled with Christ’s Spirit, the Presence is alive among us. And indeed, Matthew, Mark and Luke all tell us that, when Jesus dies, the Temple curtain is torn in two. God’s dwelling is no longer hidden, set apart, and accessible only to the chosen few. It’s now open and available to everyone. The Word became flesh and lived among us, yes, but through Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, the Word continues to live among ordinary people like us here and now.
This all sounds a bit complicated, so let’s summarise:
Question: What does God’s house look like?
Answer: Jesus tells us it has many rooms.
Question: But what do the rooms look like? Do they have purple velvet curtains? Are they super-fancy and lined with gold?
Answer: Nah, they’re a bit shabby. Because we are the rooms: we are the places where Jesus loves to dwell. That’s why there are so many rooms!
Question: How can Jesus dwell in us?
Answer: He says, ‘Dwell in me, and I will dwell in you.’ So he lives in us whenever we dwell on the Word and make our home in him. Whatever we dwell on—whatever we pay attention to and spend time on and pour our money into and think most about—shapes our world and forms our spiritual home.
We can devote our lives to any number of things: work, sport, fashion, gossip, TV, or our own unwellness, to name some of the most obvious. But if we would have Jesus dwell in us, then we would do well to dwell richly in the Word, telling the stories, praying the psalms, reading the letters, pondering the prophecies, dreaming the revelations, and letting this Word shape our hearts and become our most familiar home.
But dwelling in the Word is by no means limited to Scripture. John’s story shows that it also means following Jesus to the places where he loves to be present. We must follow him to weddings and parties and picnics on hillsides, and dinners at home with friends. We must follow him into generous conversations with people of different faiths and backgrounds and cultures and lifestyles, ever curious, always humble, never presuming to know what people need. We must follow into spaces of teaching, feeding and healing, and through the conflicts which are triggered by these acts. We must follow beyond centralised power structures and a mediated faith into freedom and the responsibility which comes with this freedom; we must follow beyond rule-based readings of Scripture into the vast wild universe of grace. And we must follow through times of betrayal and terror and loss and death, knowing that God’s Presence will be with us through it all.
So as you prepare for the turning of the first sod, certainly recall and celebrate your memories of encountering God’s Presence here. But do not cling to the building, or grieve too hard over what will be lost. ‘Do not let your hearts be troubled,’ says Jesus. ‘Trust in God. Trust in me. In my Father’s house,’ he says, ‘there are many dwelling places … and you know the way.’ (John 14:1-2a, 4a).
Take a few minutes now to reflect on a moment when you have encountered God’s Presence beyond these walls. In conversation, perhaps. At a party. At a bus stop. On the street. Among friends and enemies and strangers and dinner guests, in feedings and healings and conflict and forgiveness. Because wherever people meet and, however fleetingly, share their lives, the God made known in Jesus Christ has a tendency to show up.
Now tell each other of these encounters. Think about their hallmarks. Wonder how you might be more open to these moments in the future, and how you might facilitate more of them. Then let these stories and wonderings guide you over the coming months and years, as you leave the building and head to where Jesus is already waiting. For he is out there now, beckoning you to follow him, far beyond the walls of this or any church.
Let us pray: Holy God,
you are never limited to the structures we build,
but sometimes we forget.
Guide us to where you are already waiting
and open our hearts to your Presence,
that we might glimpse you wherever we go
and bear witness to your tenderness and love.
We pray in the name of Jesus, in whose spirit we seek to dwell: Amen. Ω
Reflect: Where have you known the Presence beyond church buildings? What were its hallmarks? Can you tell a story about it?
A reflection on John (with a focus on 1:14, 1:35-38 and 14:1-7) given to Canterbury Baptist Church on 7 July 2024 © Alison Sampson 2024. Photo by Nick Abrams on Unsplash. This reflection was prepared on the lands of the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation.
Alison and the whale 