Readings: Haggai 2:2-9 and John 2:18-22 Evensong 1st February 2015
The readings this evening set out two contrasting ideas about what a temple, and in particular, a rebuilt temple should be. They are not just of historical interest; temples are not quite churches, but the comparison is close and as Christians we should be concerned about what the new covenant implies for our religion and our lives. I think these readings have something to tell us about what the church, the new church, and what goes on in it, should be like.
Some of Haggai’s imagery is extravagant, metaphorical perhaps, but what he is envisaging is a real building, a temple in the ordinary sense of a building to house God and a place of worship where the worshipper can feel a special closeness to God, whether through sacrifice on an altar or through the presence of a numinous idol or in the temple at Jerusalem a numinous empty space.
Because it is a building, a permanent structure, it should be worthy of its purpose, and hence the need for silver and gold, and by implication, embellishments beyond the tangible, in music and ritual. And the temple in Jerusalem was magnificently built and lavishly appointed and furnished; Haggai’s prophecy came true, for a while at least, until the Temple was destroyed. There are, however, hints in others prophets of a feeling that the magnificence and ritual of the Temple were not what religion should really be about.
It’s not clear quite what is going in in our reading from John. Jesus has just “cleansed” the temple, driving out the animals and the moneychangers (both of them, incidentally, legitimate and a convenience for Temple worship). What does it mean that he is asked for a sign for his action – a sign to explain what it means (if it wasn’t itself a sign) or a sign that confirms his authority to act in this high handed and provocative way?
What does emerge from this curious exchange is the disciples’ confidence, following the resurrection, that Christ had himself replaced the Temple. He was, they understood three years later, talking about himself, his physical body which they perceived as having returned on the third day, from the destruction of death. In its different way this is no less enigmatic than the allusive misunderstandings following the cleansing of the Temple.
What I think they understood it to mean was that the way in which we can recognise and connect with God, was not, or no longer, the Temple, or any temple, and its rituals, but understanding and trusting in the teaching, actions and suffering of the man Jesus whom they had known, and mysteriously continued to know despite his death. To know God was to understand that human man; and understanding him meant following him, acting like him, even becoming him, becoming as we say, Christ-like. Imitation is the core of getting close to God, and thus of worship. Good works, eradicating poverty and disease, kindness to our neighbour and even building and decorating churches, for example, are not to attain salvation, the credit we need to get to heaven, but the expression of that state, or the experience, however incomplete, of the kingdom of heaven.
These activities and experiences may tend to be concentrated in the buildings we call churches and the worship we conduct in them, but we should recognise that they are essentially peripheral, at best the consequences, not the object of Christian life. We tend to define being Christian as being a church-goer, we would say a practising Christian was one who darkened the church door occasionally, but that is surely not the essence of it.
This does not mean that we can dispense with churches. Church means both the building and the people who belong to it; as we try to imitate Christ we become as Paul tells us, his body; that is the means of carrying on his and his father’s work. As a body and a community, we need places set aside to learn and be inspired; to ask for forgiveness as individuals in a community and sometimes as community itself. We also need to meet to thank God together for his goodness. We need a place too where we can together be recharged with spiritual food and drink and a space to worship – simply to recognise God’s glory. But all these activities could happen anywhere; it’s convenient to do them in cathedrals, churches or chapels but those places and their decoration, ritual and so on are not essential. We could be Christian without them.
However, our tendency to concentrate our effort on the physical places, the buildings, the decoration and the sounds that fill them, has I think, rather tended to deflect us from what we should be about.
There are several reasons for this; the obvious on is the easy degeneration into idolatry; we have our special version of this in the Church of England where we revere anything old, any way of doing things because we have always done them; Cranmer’s depressingly prolix prose; degenerate gothic decoration; the praying subjunctive. Music too is an object of reverence and it can be touching, sensational and is often beautiful. Beauty in all this is important and serves a purpose, but it’s an ancillary one, not at the centre of what we do. It doesn’t do more than that.
Second, inspiring though music, buildings (very occasionally) and painting and sculpture can be, they inspire us as individuals; our reaction is essentially private and passive; true, it may be shared, but the spiritual response is ours alone. That may be valuable for the individual but it’s not I think our experience as the body of Christ. The arts visual or aural may sometimes bring comfort to an individual or an appreciation and the start of an understanding of God and they often please or inspire us, but not I think to go out and live the Gospel. Valuable as art and music are, they are not going to bring about the kingdom of Heaven, for all they may be an expression of aspects of that kingdom.
It is perhaps telling that this church, with a musical tradition of which it can be justly proud – and grateful to the performers and their supporters who make it possible – is not however, very good at demonstrating its commitment to the body of Christ here in Hampstead. We do, of course, have a sense of social awareness and responsibility and there are several promising initiatives, but we could do more and what we do could be closer to the centre of our life as a church. If generosity in time, skill and money are the gauges of that sense of belonging and commitment, we do not as whole score very well. We rely on the time and effort and financial generosity of frighteningly few and our basic activities are creaking and groaning for lack of volunteers.
These will seem odd themes for the service preceding the Friends’ of the Music’s AGM and it’s no part of my purpose to dissuade you from supporting that body, nor appreciating, as I do, the music that we have heard this evening and every Sunday. But I do think it is worth thinking and trying to be clear about the role of music, art and architecture in our worship, and more generally, our Christian life. If I have made a small, debatable, contribution to that clarification, I have said enough. Amen