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| Doors of the Cathedral Umbria, Italy; the Corporal Works Of Mercy. |
Building Temples seems a rather wonderful way to honor God. Every society expressing some form of faith has built them. They are among the wonders of architecture that are preserved all around the globe, either in their entirety or in their ruins. Solomon had built the first Temple in Jerusalem as a sign of a now domesticated faith and culture. A fortified capital with the center of worship at its highest point seemed a worthy aim and we are told it was acceptable to God. The Temple was a place of promise where prayers would be heard and responded to. There was but one condition. It is stated as a promise to Solomon and yet it is a promise to Israel.
“If you will walk before me, … with integrity of heart and uprightness, doing according to all that I have commanded you, and keeping my statutes and my ordinances, then I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever.” I Kings 9:4-5
If you fail at this and turn to other gods, all will lay desolate is the promise also. We know the history of failure. In fact we all house it to some degree.
The wonder of Christ is that we also know that God comes more personally and we also house redemption, forgiveness and new possibility. This is our faith as Christians. We are each temples of sorts able to offer worthy worship to God from some clear aspect of our being. The early Christian community had to come to grips with what this might be like and we read of this in the Epistle of James.
What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you?... But someone will say, 'You have faith and I have works.' Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith… For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is also dead. James 2:14, 18, 26
The author defines these works that show faith alive as rather simple acts that reflect God’s care back into life. On the one hand they are actions like feeding the hungry, clothing and housing the poor. On the other, he shows Abraham willing to sacrifice the promise of a linage based on some idea that this was required of him. This was reckoned as righteousness, added to his account of faithful actions even, as he was stopped from doing harm. God's intervention comes as a more merciful action in correcting Abraham.
The value of these works is not that they win us God’s approval as much as it is that they show in us God’s heart/mind and Spirit. They work within to make us more caring, more whole, more connected to the one quality that lasts and gives life. Call that love, call it compassion, show it in forgiveness, show it by actions of care that listen to life. By such energy we are enlarged. Sometimes we touch a core we did not know was ours, forgot we had. That core is God’s most holy temple made not with human hands and made of flesh joined with Spirit.
For my money, the reason for the Church is to school us in compassion and help us tap and organize its energy for good. Our value to the larger world is this organizing and enlivening principle. We mark society not so much by what we forbid which is easy, but by what we engage together to create in our society that reflects God’s care acted upon. This is the liveliness of faith.
So the next time you find yourself going to some place negative, stop. Center yourself and ask. What work can I now give myself to that is made of actions of compassion? Your healing may be here.
“For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is also dead.” James 2: 26
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