Ezra 1:1-4; 3:1-4, 10-13
Others here cannot recall the New York city skyline before the attacks on the World Trade Center on that fateful day.
But we have all seen pictures, videos, and heard descriptions of those towers.
Even for those who have never seen the towers, they, too, are inextricably tied to them as an iconic national symbol that remains as potent today in our psyche as it did on September 12, 2001.
The destruction of those towers left a gaping scar on the skyline of New York City, and that geographic scar in turn left a deep emotional scar.
Following the attacks declarations of war were made, there were calls for response from leaders, there was a need for prayer and reflection, concerts were held, memorials built, and almost any other reaction that one could imagine.
But no reaction or response could heal the wound caused by the attack.
What the attack did was supply a physical location where we could express our grief as a nation by associating it with those two towers.
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| NYC Skyline before 9/11 |
Politicians and leaders assured the citizens of New York City and the entire nation, that the site would be rebuilt, in not only defiance against those who orchestrated the attacks, but in order to restore hope and healing to the nation and the city itself.
Meetings were held less than 5 months following September 11th to propose designs for the new construction.
But regardless of the early planning and proposals made by those charged with the planning, criticisms and controversy ensued over what, if anything, should be done with that place.
Later further controversy arose when Larry Feinstein, the leaseholder on the property, claimed, while commenting on the 2037 completion date,
“Billions have been spent on this project even though it is still just a hole in the ground”
and "I am the most frustrated person in the world....I'm seventy-eight years of age; I want to see this thing done in my lifetime.”
What is interesting is how the financial center of the world became the central expression of America’s grief and loss.
Not the Statue of Liberty, the White House, or Mount Rushmore, but today when we think of an expression of what we would call American exceptionalism, we have a tendency to envision a reconstructed World Trade Center standing on the horizon of the New York City skyline.
I’m sure that for many of you this is a painful memory.
But this memory that sticks in all of our minds gives us a taste of what the returning exiles and Ezra feel as they, too, return to the geographic epicenter of their own identity.
For us the World Trade Center was the center of the financial world, but imagine for a moment what it felt like to see the spiritual center of the world destroyed in the midst of an invading army.
This tragedy that we hold so closely gives us an insight into the story we hear today in Ezra, when we hear that they “wept with a loud voice when they saw this house, though many shouted aloud for joy, so that the people could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the people’s weeping.”
This doesn’t sound much different from the controversies that surrounded the construction of the current World Trade Center site or even the opening of 1 World Trade Center which now rises high above the city skyline.
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| NYC Skyline today |
Each dedication and opening has been met with both triumphant shouts of joy and simultaneous tears of mourning.
And much like Ezra’s plan to rebuild the Temple we have also vowed that such a tragedy will never occur again.
The painful memory of the devastation left in the wake of the Assyrians, the Babylonians, and witnessing the strength of the Persians leaves Ezra and the returning exiles with only one hope for surviving in the new world that they now face:
First, rebuild the Temple;
Second, build a wall that will exclude anyone outside of their returning community; and
Third, get God to sign the lease and move back into the Temple.
The greatest fear is that if it isn’t built just right, by the right hands, surrounded by the most devout followers they just aren't so sure that God will come back at all.
And if God doesn’t come back, they know that they don’t stand a chance against the forces they face in this new era.
But nostalgia is a funny thing.
Nostalgia is a sentimental longing, usually grounded in feeling rather than the reality of what really was.
The truth be told, Israel was traveling down a road towards destruction long before the Temple was destroyed.
The Temple didn’t prevent the suffering and destruction of Israel.
The Temple only stood for 23 years before the Northern Kingdom and the Southern Kingdom divided in conflict with one another
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| The Temple before exile |
Egypt invaded 27 years after the Temple is completed.
93 years after the Temple is constructed a drought ravages the region.
And neither the presence of the Temple, nor the words of the prophets sent to guide Israel prevents invasion, tragedy, war, famine, and suffering time and time again.
If we are really honest about it, historically, it would almost seem that the Temple stood during the days of Israel’s greatest suffering.
But Ezra, Nehemiah, and the returning exiles plan, prepare, and begin construction of a new Temple to usher in a new golden age, reminiscent of the era that maybe they are seeing with rose colored glasses.
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| The Temple rebuilt by Zerubbabel |
Their plan is to put all their trust in a building.
A mere empty shell that will no longer be occupied by God.
Regardless of the careful construction,
regardless of their pure religious practice,
regardless of the exclusivity of those who can enter into the surrounding walls,
I would argue what they are building is not a Temple.
It’s not even a synagogue or a church. It is museum, a mausoleum, kept safe behind a wall, sealed behind a glass pane.
~
Within our own Christian faith there are many illustrations that can help illuminate how this occurs in our own faith tradition. There is none greater than our own Holy of Holies; the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
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| Church of the Holy Sepulchre |
This church is built on top of the sites that most consider to be the location of Christ’s crucifixion and the tomb in which he was buried.
It is a site frequented by Christians, from around the world, making the pilgrimage to see the site and touch what some believe to be the very stone of Golgotha; Mount Calvary where Christ was crucified.
This church -located within the walls of Jerusalem today- has space that is shared by the Greek, Armenian, Roman, Coptic, Syriac, and Ethiopian Orthodox churches.
These six different expressions of the same Christian faith, that we ourselves claim, are so incapable of sharing the property that the keys to the building have been entrusted to a Muslim family who daily unlock, lock, and safeguard the church as well as those inside.
The keys have been handed down from generation to generation and the responsibility is considered a great honor to this family.
But even the precaution of entrusting the keys of this revered site to an outside party has not assured the care one would warrant to such a place.
In 1927 an earthquake shook Jerusalem and damaged the structure of the building.
Not only due to the earthquake but the climate, large numbers of visitors, and the normal wear and tear of time, this site has fallen into great disrepair.
Actual physical fights have broken out between Priests and Monks in the church, and no agreement can be reached among them in how best to repair the damage or who is responsible for what repairs where.
As a result, inside the church you find plywood, scaffolding, ladders, and even railroad ties holding the fragile building together like duct tape and bandaids.
This lack of civility and cooperation is the cause of my favorite point of interest throughout the entire structure.
It isn't even a permanent structure; it is a ladder located just above the front door of the church under a window.
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| The "Immovable Ladder" |
It is known as the “immovable ladder” and has been sitting, propped against the wall above the front door for at least 250 years.
It's made of cedar wood that is slowly rotting away and for no reason
what-so-ever except for the simple fact that no one can agree on who is responsible……
to take it down.
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Much like Ezra and the returning exiles we continuously find ourselves attached to objects and buildings.
We're latching onto these things as if they are the true expressions of God, the true expressions of God at work in the world, at work in us.
When we fall into this trap we find ourselves building walls around these places, this…. STUFF.
Encasing this stuff behind glass with the intention of protecting it from the world but in doing so it becomes nothing more than just stuff
Stuff that lays dormant, and in our stuff’s dormant state it begins to rot and decay.
Much like the Temple, it will rot and decay.
Rotting from the inside out,
Rotting from corruption,
Rotting from the absence of an authentic faith,
Rotting from an exclusive faith being hoarded from those outside the walls.
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George Carlin talked about stuff in a bit in 1986.
He claimed that a house is nothing more than “a place to keep your stuff…. while you get more…. stuff”.
He went on to say,
“Did you ever notice when you go to somebody else’s house you never really feel quite at home?
You know why?
There’s no room for YOUR stuff!
Somebody else’s stuff is all over the place!
And what awful STUFF it is!”
~
The Church, God’s Church, not the Temple, not the church of the Holy Sepulchre, not even Our Saviour’s but God’s Church, the Body of Christ is not just the place to keep YOUR stuff, MY stuff, OUR stuff, but it is a place to invite everyone in with their stuff
Their sin,
Their brokenness,
Their hate,
Their fear,
Their anger,
Their pain,
Their hurt,
Their loneliness,
Their suffering,
Their ……STUFF.
Because the Church is not a place where we go, but the Church is who we are called to be.
Not encased behind the glass of these walls to rot and decay, but dragging the Gospel out into the world on our backs the way that Christ did.
Amen
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