Sermon for the 2nd of October 2022, St Georges

“I was glad when they said unto me:

We will go into the house of the Lord.”

- the first verse of today’s Psalm. May I speak ...

In Nick Hornby’s novel, How to be Good one of the characters

decides to go to church. Her daughter asks where she’ll find the

nearest church. Mum says immediately, “The one around the

corner. There must be one around the corner. They’re like betting

shops churches, aren’t they? There’s always one around the

corner and you never notice them if you don’t use them”.

Those words, “there must be one around the corner and you never

notice them if you don’t use them” give us the important reminder

that this church, dedicated to God and loved and cared for by you,

is not for you alone. This is a parish church and that means it’s

here “round the corner” for all live in this parish: people of faith and

no faith, the rich and the poor. The arrival of a board giving the

names of priests who have served here reinforces the reminder.

Bishops appointed Father James and his predecessors not as

chaplain to the gathered congregation but as Vicar of the

geographical parish.

And it doesn’t stop with Father James. All who worship here,

clergy and laity alike, share the vocation, along with his building, of

being beautiful for God and attractive to people. Like the early

Christians in Jerusalem, our faith is nurtured here as we devote

ourselves “to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking

of bread and the prayers”.

But it doesn’t end there. Nurtured in that ancient Christian

tradition, our daily lives will tell people “out there” that within these

walls they will find a friendly, caring and helpful community. So our

welcomes to the stranger in our midst are essential: we are here to

share this place, praying that people entering here for the first time

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will be drawn towards God and sing along with us, “I was glad

when they said unto me: We will go into the house of the Lord.”

Today’s first reading takes us back 9000 years before Jesus.

Solomon dedicating his newly-built temple to God. It took seven

years to build, and no wonder it went over budget with its 30,000

workers, 3000 tons of gold and 30,000 tons of silver. Solomon

must have been rightly proud of this temple, built as a sign of the

faithfulness of God to the People of Israel and calling the People of

Israel to respond and stay true to their covenant relationship with

God.

Solomon was not simply a builder, he also knew his theology and

asks: “will God indeed dwell on the earth? Even heaven and the

highest heaven cannot contain you, much less this house that I

have built!” God is too great to be enclosed, limited, to that

wonderful temple or to St George’s Church. God can be found

anywhere He chooses, making Himself tangible to His chosen

people – as He did Moses at the burning bush and on Mount Sinai.

The Victorian poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning puts it well:

“Earth's crammed with heaven, 

And every common bush afire with God.”

“And every common bush afire with God.”

for those who have eyes to see. Thank you for lavishing loving

attention and work on this church: I hope you didn’t go over

budget! Thank you, in your generation, for making this building an

attractive space where people can feel and know the presence of

God and be touched, called by God.

But do remember that this church is a junction, not a terminus. We

come here to encounter God with our fellow Christians, but we

don’t go away leaving God here. God is equally with us tomorrow,

wherever we are, whatever we‘re doing. He is the God who, in the

words of Isaiah, has “inscribed you on the palms of my hands”. A

wonderful, intimate image of God’s valuing of you and me, written

on the palms of His hands. Most importantly, this church is a

junction for all of us on our great journey to our true homeland

where, yes, we will worship with angels and archangels and all

those who have gone before us.

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St John tells us that, “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us”

and, in Jesus, humankind encountered God at His most intimate

and engaging self. In Jesus, the world was and is truly “afire with

God”. In today’s Gospel reading we see Jesus in the temple but

not Solomon’s temple. That temple was desecrated and destroyed

by King Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians 370 years after it

was built. Jesus is in the second temple, built when the Jews

returned from exile in Babylon and later enlarged and enriched by

King Herod. This temple certainly wasn’t one that could be hidden

“round the corner”: its precincts covered an area equal to 25

football fields and much of the temple was covered lavishly with

sheets of gold.

In this temple we encounter an unusually disruptive Jesus when

he “found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the

money-changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he

drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle.

He also poured out the coins of the money changers and

overturned their tables”.

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I can’t read this story of the cleansing of the temple without

remembering St Paul’s words to the Corinthians, “Do you not know

that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?”

This newly beautified St George’s reminds us that we are the true

and living temples of God, we are called to reveal His glory. Just

as Solomon and Herod lavished gold on their temples, so has God

lavished many golden blessings on you and me so that we may

reflect His beauty to others. That’s our baptismal vocation. Like

this church, however, our Christian lives sometimes get dusty and

need a freshening up. What tables need overturning in your life

and mine so that we can truly be beautiful to God and alive with

His love?

This clash between Jesus and the temple authorities was, of

course, inevitable. When they asked Jesus to justify his seemingly

reckless behaviour, he said, “Destroy this temple, and in three

days I will raise it up… he was speaking of the temple of his body.”

The clash arises because Jesus is Himself the new temple, the

new meeting place between God and His people. Jesus now

replaces both temple and the altar of sacrifice where the Jews

sought forgiveness for sin. With Jesus comes the new place of

forgiveness, outside the temple precincts, on the cross of Calvary.

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As the Letter to the Hebrews reminds us, Jesus “was offered once

to bear the sins of many”.

An important part of this service is the consecration of the new

altar. Altars are central in our churches because they remind us of

Jesus, Jesus the new the “holy of holies”. Jesus who replaced

both the altar and the animal sacrifices of the temple. Jesus, the

true “Lamb of God”, who was sacrificed for God’s people on that

cross. So it is that, on the top of your new altar, four lines intersect

at the four corners, making four crosses, reminding us of the

wounds of Jesus on the cross.

As today we share at the “table of the Lord” we are reminded of

the cost of the Meal, the Eucharist, in which we share. The Gospel

tells us that, Jesus, “in the same night that he was betrayed” (said)

“Take, eat; this is my body which is given for you …Drink this, all of

you; this is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed for you

and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this, as often as you

drink it, in remembrance of me”. We can’t make Holy Communion

with Our Lord here without remembering that His Bread of Life and

Cup of Salvation are the fruit of the cross of Calvary.

What a gift, what a privilege, what a joy! No wonder we lift up our

hearts, open our lips and sing with the Jews of old time:

“I was glad when they said unto me:

We will go into the house of the Lord.” Amen.