Don't Blame Them

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

July 14, 2013

Don’t Blame Them

2 Kings 25:8-17

It is somewhere,

nailed shut, tight in a wooden box,

stacked among crates by the thousands.

Stenciled on the side of the box it says,

“Property of the US Government”

and underneath the words are a 14-digit identification number.

It could be in any of the dozens and dozens of warehouses

the government has scattered throughout Northern Virginia.

For some reason, many think it is in Herndon.

I am talking, of course,

of where the Ark of the Covenant is stored.

You know the Ark – not the boat that Noah built for the Flood,

but the box the Lord God told Moses to have made,

to have made of wood overlaid with gold.

A box made to hold the two stone tablets

inscribed with the Ten Commandments.

(Exodus 25:10)

The Ark was made in Moses’s time,

but for the next few hundred years

it had no permanent home.

It wasn’t until Solomon built the great Temple

that the Ark finally had a permanent place,

in the back of the sanctuary,

in the Holy Of Holies.

(1 Kings 8)

There it was put during Solomon’s rule,

more than 900 years before the birth of our Lord,

and there it remained for the better part of 400 years.

There it remained until the year 586 BCE,

the year King Nebuchadnezzar

and his Babylonian army came thundering into

the kingdom of Israel in the north

and then down into the kingdom of Judah in the south,

finally storming into Jerusalem,

where they laid waste the city,

and, as we heard in our lesson,

looted and then destroyed the Temple –

destroyed it completely, burned it,

leveled it.

Our lesson said nothing about the Ark,

about whether the Babylonians found it,

or what might have happened to it.

The Bible is silent about the fate of the Ark.

Into this gap stepped Hollywood

with Steven Spielberg and George Lucas

giving us a story, fanciful,

 yet just plausible enough for us to believe

that the Ark could very well be in a warehouse in Herndon.

The Bible may not tell us directly of the Ark’s fate,

but I think our lesson offers us a pretty good clue

as to what happened:

We heard that the invading army of the Babylonians

scoured every inch of the Temple,

and “took away the pots, the shovels, the snuffers,

the dishes for incense,

and all the bronze vessels used in the temple service,

as well as the firepans and the basins.

What was made of gold

the captain of the guard took away for the gold,

and what was made of silver, for the silver.”

(2 Kings 25:14-15)

The ark was covered with gold,

every part of the outside surface.

The captain of the Babylonian army probably had his soldiers

smash the ark into pieces,

throw the shards of wood on the fire,

and collect the gold,

probably then to be melted down

and turned into jewelry for Nebuchadnezzar’s wife,

or the king himself.  

The two stone tablets inside the Ark,

the ones with the Ten Commandments inscribed on them –

what happened to them?

The solders probably tossed them aside

as worthless, value-less,

of no interest to them,

smashing them in the same way Moses smashed the first set

when he saw the children of Israel

worshiping the golden calf, the golden idol.

It isn’t likely that we’ll find the Ark of the Covenant

in a warehouse in Herndon,

or anywhere else.

It was probably just one more bit of loot

taken by the Babylonian army            

as they destroyed the great Temple,

the Temple that had stood firm and proud for 400 years,

the House of the Lord,

the place where God promised

his divine name would dwell forever.

(1 Kings 9)

But 400 years after Solomon built the Temple,

after the Ark was put in the Holy of Holies,

God was no longer able to sit

“enthroned upon the cherubim,”

the Temple no longer the dwelling place of the Lord God,

for the Temple was nothing more than charred ruins.

      

And yet, even though they lit the fire

and fanned the flames,

it wasn’t the Babylonians who destroyed the Temple.

We cannot blame them.

It was God’s own children who destroyed the Temple,

God’s own children who had been tearing down the Temple

stone by stone, brick by brick

almost from the moment Solomon

finished his prayer of dedication.

God’s own children destroyed the Temple

through their faithlessness,

through their disobedience,

by turning from God time and time and time again.

God sent prophet after prophet to call to them

to tell them they were going down the wrong path,

they were going the wrong way.

God sent prophet after prophet urging them,

warning them, almost pleading with them:

“Stop living in disobedience,

your heart and mind turned from God.

Don’t you see what you are doing:

you are tearing down the very

House of the Lord in your faithlessness.”

Speaking through the prophet Jeremiah,

we can hear God’s dismay

as he asked his children:

“Has this house, which is called by my name,

become a den of robbers in your sight?”

(Jeremiah 7:11)

It was the people of God,

the children of God,

who destroyed the Temple,

a point God didn’t want them to miss,

saying to them through the prophet,

“Have you not brought this upon yourself,

by forsaking the Lord your God,

while he led you in the way?”

(Jeremiah 2:17)

Six hundred years after the Babylonians sacked Jerusalem,

our Lord Jesus Christ found that once again

the House of the Lord had become a den of thieves,

through the same faithlessness,

the same greed,

the same disobedience,

the same pridefulness.

Two thousand years later –

are we any different, you and I?

Any better?

We all know the news,

the trends in churches of all denominations:

people are leaving, turning their back on churches,

turning their back on religion of all denominations.

The impetus behind this trend

is that more and more people,

especially those under the age of 30,

don’t like what they see in churches

of all sizes and all denominations:

They see corruption, greed,

hypocrisy;

congregations and clergy more concerned with

power and money and politics

than with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Ideology corrupting theology.

What they see is that once again,

it is God’s own children

who threaten the destruction of God’s house,

the threat coming from within,

not from the secular,

the immoral,

the agnostic,

the godless.

It is our own failure to follow the teachings of our Lord,

to follow God’s commandments,

to live Christ-like lives

that is always the greatest threat to God’s House.

Our young folks headed to Triennium this week

will spend much of their time there learning what it means

to be a child of God,

a disciple of Christ.

The goal of Triennium is to help our young people

“wrestle with their own sense of self

as young Christians in today’s world.  

so that they will hear God saying,

“I AM with you.  

I AM calling you.  

I AM preparing a place for you and a path for you.

I AM challenging you to be my eyes, hands,

and feet in the world.”

I am challenging you to build my house,

and not do things that would tear it down.

We know God is not to be found in one place,

We know God is not contained by bricks or walls or roofs.

God is found everywhere –

every place where there is love,

where there is compassion,

where there is goodness,

where there is forgiveness.

The holy of holies where God is to be found

is in our hearts.

We can box up, brick up God’s love;

or we can let it flow through us,

let Jesus show through us,

through how we live our lives.

The choice is yours,

the choice is mine:

Do we build or

or do we tear down and destroy?

Imagine a place:

Imagine a place where mercy resides,

where love is lived,

where compassion is given, lived,

shown, shared;

a place where all God’s children

know welcome,

know home.

Imagine a place where no one goes hungry,

where all share freely,

where no one knows loneliness,

no one knows fear,

all know hope,

all know peace.

Imagine.

(adapted from Cynthia Langston Kirk)

        

Imagine?

There is such a place,

a place we are called to build,

a place we are equipped by the Spirit to build:

the House of God. 

           

AMEN