Temples Come, Temples Go
Pentecost 14, 1 Kings 8:1,6,10-11,22-30,41-43; John 6:56-69
King David imagined a house for the Lord:
it would have been visible gift and reward.
The prophet came back with God’s word of delay:
“Let Solomon take up this dream in his day!”

Stone walls lined with cedar encrusted with gold
would stand as four centuries’ stories unfold.
The beauty created for that time and place
was broken by Babylon, leaving no trace.

When Jesus predicted their temple would fall,
those leaders decided to silence his call,
but forty years later, a litter of stones
was all that remained, like some dinosaur’s bones.

So let us imagine, and when time is right
it may be a dream will take flesh in our sight,
but can we let go of the forms of the past
when God calls us on to a new age at last?

Wise Solomon knew that the house they had made
with all of its beauty and meaning displayed
could never contain and define the divine –
God’s Spirit might take flesh in bread and in wine,

or come to fruition in one precious life
laid down as a gift when oppression was rife,
to rise like a temple rebuilt in three days,
the one who gives form to all meaning and praise.
	Barbara Messner 18/08/2021