Dedicating Temples
Sermon
Sermons on the First Readings
Series III, Cycle B
Object:
So much is happening in chapter 8 of 1 Kings that we almost want to get dressed up for an amazing celebration! The Ark of the Covenant is moved into the new temple, the temple is dedicated, a cloud of glory arrives, people have a mystical experience, and Solomon explicitly takes on the mantle of his father David. Then he begins to "preach" a kind of wisdom that is just amazing. While I am tempted to stay with the spectacle of the service of dedication, the sights and sounds and smells, I am compelled to go to the part of the sermon that Solomon gives and to bring it into a modern context.
This is a dress up day. It is a big day. The temple (that will one day be destroyed) is just now being dedicated. It is a moment of consolidation for the Jewish people, consolidation of leadership, of architecture and of nationhood. It is a good time, like the 800 years in France that achieved the great French cathedral at Chartres or the period after the American Revolution when America was war free for a time. Things were able to come together. People had time to think. Solomon's attention turned from wisdom to the generation of principles by which to guide people. His first principle was that of fatherhood: he wanted to make his father proud. He wanted to fulfill his father's promises to their now common people. Solomon was showing what many leaders do when they move in next to the town statue. They position themselves as the one whom tradition favors. Think of the musical The Music Man. New guy comes to town and sings his first song in literally the same posture as the statue at the center of the town common. Many leaders know the folk wisdom, "You can do anything for which you can declare a precedent." Say that "we have always done it this way" and in most organizations you are home free. Solomon dedicates the temple, has a mystical experience while doing so -- even nature cooperates -- and then goes on to deliver a very consolidated sermon. That is what compels me to this text.
He says many good things but then he says one surprising thing, "Likewise when a foreigner, who is not of your people Israel comes from a distant land because of your name -- for they shall hear of your great name, your mighty hand, and your outstretched arm -- when a foreigner comes and prays towards this house, then hear in heaven your dwelling place, and do according to all that the foreigner calls to you, so that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your people Israel, and so that they may know that your name has been invoked on this house that I have built" (vv. 43-44).
Solomon is taking the very consolidation of his leadership and his temple and his moment and spreading the goodness around. He could go "tribal" here. He could go local. He could refuse to stretch his people and tell them they are great just the way they are. That is not what good leaders do. Good leaders push their people. Good leaders expect a lot from their people. Good leaders see that to make a great country you must give it away to the "aliens," the newcomers, and the foreigners. Good leaders see that the foreigners have something to offer.
Surely those who are working on the magnificent movements of immigrants to our country listen in on this passage. Surely the two-year-old girl who died crossing the desert, buried with a rosary around her neck, in Tucson, Arizona, would have welcomed Solomon as her leader. Surely the families of people who are deported because they have broken the American law and are here in our great country "illegally" would have welcomed Solomon as a leader.
Strangely, and especially strange to the stranger and the newcomer, periods of consolidation of nation and tribe result in openness to the new, the different, and the strange. These are periods when the locals feel afraid. These are periods when aliens are in danger. I think of the great line by New York Times columnist, Thomas Friedman, that "the price of oil and the pace of freedom seem to go in opposite directions." We need safety in order to have adventures. We need safety in order to be open to the stranger. Solomon was giving people that safety -- he was spending down his legacy, spending down the money in his bank. He was taking a risk precisely because he was so secure.
We might actually argue that the great social gains of the '60s were the direct result of the security of the '50s. Women's lives completely changed. Now they haven't fully changed but they surely did change. The post-war security allowed America to consolidate its energy and spend its budget.
How many women have been president of the United States? How many women pitch for the New York Yankees? Check out, sometime, how many op-eds are written by men and how many by women. In the Times the number is about 80/20 in any given month. For years, I kept a tab on my refrigerator of how many women were on the front page of the New York Times. It wasn't pretty compared to the number of men. But so much change has happened!
Once I broke down in tears while driving on Route 91 into Hartford. Why? There were two women on the side of a large building in basketball uniforms. The UConn women's team had won big and the Hartford skyscraper had decided to write them forty floors high. Why was I crying? I played basketball in high school and college for a team that had to push its bus up a South Carolina hill while being passed by the working bus the men had. They laughed as they passed by. We were often late for games. We wore the same uniforms years in a row. The men did not.
I am simultaneously amazed at how far women have come in terms of social equality and how far we have to go. We need a period of consolidation and security before we are going to be able to go any further. Women shall be aliens until that great leader and great time.
Carol Gilligan, a remarkable scholar of girls, tells us that her research shows that things are actually not better, internally, for women. She sums up her research as follows: An eleven-year-old girl goes to a pizza shop and orders pepperoni. A twelve-year-old girl with the same group of friends, in the same pizza shop, orders, "I don't know." She can't decide what she wants. Even if she knows what she wants, she is not sure she wants the boys to know that she knows. A fourteen-year-old girl with the same friends, in the same pizza shop, may say, "I'll have whatever you have." This summary of the experience of girls is Mary Magdalene's story, a story that is remarkably important in an age of stasis regarding the social equality of women and girls. We go from a strong woman bearing religious truth to weak women afraid to speak. The fact that Magdalene got written out of the big book is very important. Girls don't know how to order pizza because Magdalene was written out.
Why does the situation of aliens matter? Because Solomon was right as a leader; he saw that to have good power you had to spend it on behalf of the outsider. We consolidate precisely in order to grow. We secure precisely in order to be free. Solomon's sermon had one line that made all the difference: "because of your name" the aliens come. It is the very success of a great country that pushes it to be greater and even freer. It is not a bad America that struggles in an ongoing way with the rights of immigrants or women! It is a great nation leaning and urging itself to be greater.
Solomon showed us the way: In the name of our fathers and our past, in the name of the very temple we have dedicated, new and better things are on their way. Amen.
This is a dress up day. It is a big day. The temple (that will one day be destroyed) is just now being dedicated. It is a moment of consolidation for the Jewish people, consolidation of leadership, of architecture and of nationhood. It is a good time, like the 800 years in France that achieved the great French cathedral at Chartres or the period after the American Revolution when America was war free for a time. Things were able to come together. People had time to think. Solomon's attention turned from wisdom to the generation of principles by which to guide people. His first principle was that of fatherhood: he wanted to make his father proud. He wanted to fulfill his father's promises to their now common people. Solomon was showing what many leaders do when they move in next to the town statue. They position themselves as the one whom tradition favors. Think of the musical The Music Man. New guy comes to town and sings his first song in literally the same posture as the statue at the center of the town common. Many leaders know the folk wisdom, "You can do anything for which you can declare a precedent." Say that "we have always done it this way" and in most organizations you are home free. Solomon dedicates the temple, has a mystical experience while doing so -- even nature cooperates -- and then goes on to deliver a very consolidated sermon. That is what compels me to this text.
He says many good things but then he says one surprising thing, "Likewise when a foreigner, who is not of your people Israel comes from a distant land because of your name -- for they shall hear of your great name, your mighty hand, and your outstretched arm -- when a foreigner comes and prays towards this house, then hear in heaven your dwelling place, and do according to all that the foreigner calls to you, so that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your people Israel, and so that they may know that your name has been invoked on this house that I have built" (vv. 43-44).
Solomon is taking the very consolidation of his leadership and his temple and his moment and spreading the goodness around. He could go "tribal" here. He could go local. He could refuse to stretch his people and tell them they are great just the way they are. That is not what good leaders do. Good leaders push their people. Good leaders expect a lot from their people. Good leaders see that to make a great country you must give it away to the "aliens," the newcomers, and the foreigners. Good leaders see that the foreigners have something to offer.
Surely those who are working on the magnificent movements of immigrants to our country listen in on this passage. Surely the two-year-old girl who died crossing the desert, buried with a rosary around her neck, in Tucson, Arizona, would have welcomed Solomon as her leader. Surely the families of people who are deported because they have broken the American law and are here in our great country "illegally" would have welcomed Solomon as a leader.
Strangely, and especially strange to the stranger and the newcomer, periods of consolidation of nation and tribe result in openness to the new, the different, and the strange. These are periods when the locals feel afraid. These are periods when aliens are in danger. I think of the great line by New York Times columnist, Thomas Friedman, that "the price of oil and the pace of freedom seem to go in opposite directions." We need safety in order to have adventures. We need safety in order to be open to the stranger. Solomon was giving people that safety -- he was spending down his legacy, spending down the money in his bank. He was taking a risk precisely because he was so secure.
We might actually argue that the great social gains of the '60s were the direct result of the security of the '50s. Women's lives completely changed. Now they haven't fully changed but they surely did change. The post-war security allowed America to consolidate its energy and spend its budget.
How many women have been president of the United States? How many women pitch for the New York Yankees? Check out, sometime, how many op-eds are written by men and how many by women. In the Times the number is about 80/20 in any given month. For years, I kept a tab on my refrigerator of how many women were on the front page of the New York Times. It wasn't pretty compared to the number of men. But so much change has happened!
Once I broke down in tears while driving on Route 91 into Hartford. Why? There were two women on the side of a large building in basketball uniforms. The UConn women's team had won big and the Hartford skyscraper had decided to write them forty floors high. Why was I crying? I played basketball in high school and college for a team that had to push its bus up a South Carolina hill while being passed by the working bus the men had. They laughed as they passed by. We were often late for games. We wore the same uniforms years in a row. The men did not.
I am simultaneously amazed at how far women have come in terms of social equality and how far we have to go. We need a period of consolidation and security before we are going to be able to go any further. Women shall be aliens until that great leader and great time.
Carol Gilligan, a remarkable scholar of girls, tells us that her research shows that things are actually not better, internally, for women. She sums up her research as follows: An eleven-year-old girl goes to a pizza shop and orders pepperoni. A twelve-year-old girl with the same group of friends, in the same pizza shop, orders, "I don't know." She can't decide what she wants. Even if she knows what she wants, she is not sure she wants the boys to know that she knows. A fourteen-year-old girl with the same friends, in the same pizza shop, may say, "I'll have whatever you have." This summary of the experience of girls is Mary Magdalene's story, a story that is remarkably important in an age of stasis regarding the social equality of women and girls. We go from a strong woman bearing religious truth to weak women afraid to speak. The fact that Magdalene got written out of the big book is very important. Girls don't know how to order pizza because Magdalene was written out.
Why does the situation of aliens matter? Because Solomon was right as a leader; he saw that to have good power you had to spend it on behalf of the outsider. We consolidate precisely in order to grow. We secure precisely in order to be free. Solomon's sermon had one line that made all the difference: "because of your name" the aliens come. It is the very success of a great country that pushes it to be greater and even freer. It is not a bad America that struggles in an ongoing way with the rights of immigrants or women! It is a great nation leaning and urging itself to be greater.
Solomon showed us the way: In the name of our fathers and our past, in the name of the very temple we have dedicated, new and better things are on their way. Amen.
