‘Our ancestors had the tent of testimony in the wilderness, as God directed when he spoke to Moses, ordering him to make it according to the pattern he had seen. Our ancestors in turn brought it in with Joshua when they dispossessed the nations that God drove out before our ancestors. And it was there until the time of David, who found favor with God and asked that he might find a dwelling-place for the house of Jacob. But it was Solomon who built a house for him. Yet the Most High does not dwell in houses made by human hands; as the prophet says, “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house will you build for me, says the Lord, or what is the place of my rest? Did not my hand make all these things?” ‘You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you are for ever opposing the Holy Spirit, just as your ancestors used to do. Which of the prophets did your ancestors not persecute? They killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One, and now you have become his betrayers and murderers. You are the ones that received the law as ordained by angels, and yet you have not kept it.’ (Acts 7.44-53, NRSV)
What can be made for God that God did not make? He has made the heavens and the earth and all that is around us He has made. So why do we toil over building the right buildings?
What are we really worshiping?
The above window is beautiful and a wonderful rendition of an understanding of the good shepherd, but if this window and the building around it become the center of our attention we are no better than the stiff necked uncircumcised people of heart and ear who had the law handed to them by the angels, but fail to keep it. The law is not about being in the right, it is about right relationships and being there with and for each other. The law is not meant to keep people away, but to show us how we are to live together for the furthering of God’s kingdom.
So do you worship the building you worship in, or do you love and worship God? Because there is nothing you can make that will impress the creator of the universe!
aSacredRebel 