Devotion • September 5
Today’s Scripture Reading
1 Kings 8:22–30 (31–40)
Then Solomon stood before the altar of the Lord in the presence of all the assembly of Israel, and spread out his hands to heaven. He said, “O Lord, God of Israel, there is no God like you in heaven above or on earth beneath, keeping covenant and steadfast love for your servants who walk before you with all their heart, the covenant that you kept for your servant my father David as you declared to him; you promised with your mouth and have this day fulfilled with your hand. Therefore, O Lord, God of Israel, keep for your servant my father David that which you promised him, saying, ‘There shall never fail you a successor before me to sit on the throne of Israel, if only your children look to their way, to walk before me as you have walked before me.’ Therefore, O God of Israel, let your word be confirmed, which you promised to your servant my father David. “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, much less this house that I have built! Regard your servant’s prayer and his plea, O Lord my God, heeding the cry and the prayer that your servant prays to you today; that your eyes may be open night and day toward this house, the place of which you said, ‘My name shall be there,’ that you may heed the prayer that your servant prays toward this place. Hear the plea of your servant and of your people Israel when they pray toward this place; O hear in heaven your dwelling place; heed and forgive. “If someone sins against a neighbor and is given an oath to swear, and comes and swears before your altar in this house, then hear in heaven, and act, and judge your servants, condemning the guilty by bringing their conduct on their own head, and vindicating the righteous by rewarding them according to their righteousness. “When your people Israel, having sinned against you, are defeated before an enemy but turn again to you, confess your name, pray and plead with you in this house, then hear in heaven, forgive the sin of your people Israel, and bring them again to the land that you gave to their ancestors. “When heaven is shut up and there is no rain because they have sinned against you, and then they pray toward this place, confess your name, and turn from their sin, because you punish them, then hear in heaven, and forgive the sin of your servants, your people Israel, when you teach them the good way in which they should walk; and grant rain on your land, which you have given to your people as an inheritance. “If there is famine in the land, if there is plague, blight, mildew, locust, or caterpillar; if their enemy besieges them in any of their cities; whatever plague, whatever sickness there is; whatever prayer, whatever plea there is from any individual or from all your people Israel, all knowing the afflictions of their own hearts so that they stretch out their hands toward this house; then hear in heaven your dwelling place, forgive, act, and render to all whose hearts you know — according to all their ways, for only you know what is in every human heart — so that they may fear you all the days that they live in the land that you gave to our ancestors. (NRSV)
Reflection
Some years ago, when my now 40-something niece was a very precocious three-year-old, we were out on an afternoon stroll while vacationing at our cottage in Maine. A half block from our cottage is a little Episcopal Chapel that is staffed by a rotation of clergy. My mother-in-law, and I, along with Meredith, stopped off at the chapel. As we stepped over the threshold, the little girl pronounced with the conviction of a preacher, “God is here!” We were stopped in our tracks. Yes, this little girl went to Sunday School with her folks. Yes, she knew it was a church. But her absolute certainty was a showstopper.
Was Solomon, whose temple this prayer is dedicating, in league with little Meredith? Well, actually, it seems he was struggling not with whether God was there but with whether God could be contained in such a space. After building a place of such beauty and a place that seemed the pinnacle of humanity’s praise for God, the king would say, “Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, much less this house that I have built!”
Solomon seemed to be saying, God is here and God is also beyond here. He was straining to express the breathtaking reality that God is so vast, so unfathomable, so beyond even our greatest imagination that he was left with little more to say. But maybe what is not stated in this prayer is that like the little three-year-old seemed to sense — God meets us in sanctuaries of splendor (like our Fourth Church sanctuary) and God also will be there in the unexpected arrival of peace or joy or a little child’s bold proclamation! And sometimes we can’t contain our praise or our acclamation! We simply cannot.
Prayer
You are here, O God. Open our eyes to the mystery. Open our minds to the unfathomable. Open our ears to the proclamation. God, you are here! Amen.
Written by Lucy Forster-Smith, Senior Associate Pastor
Reflection and Prayer © Fourth Presbyterian Church
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