"When temples come crashing down..."

What do you do when something fabulous happens to you?  (Gather some responses)  Does anyone here sing when something good happens?  Maybe you've got a particular song that is your good-time song...  ("O what a beautiful morning, O what a beautiful day, I've got a wonderful feeling, everything's going my way.")

The book of psalms must have been used a bit like that.  It is the "Rejoice and Sing" of its day - a collection of verses with tunes now lost to us which covered the whole spectrum of human emotion from distressing laments to outbursts of praise.  Many of them were written to reflect great national tragedies and triumphs, and were used at the major festivals of the year when the priests and the King would lead the people through the words as they celebrated and reflected upon their journey so far as the People of God.

But many of them must also have been used and treasured for personal worship and devotion - their words of lament or praise expressing a grief or a joy much more individual. The psalm that we have heard this morning is a passionate expression of praise.  They are well-worn, well-used, much-treasured words.  Some people think that it was first inspired by the miraculous escape from Egypt, others think the words were inspired by their liberation from captivity in Babylon. Whichever it was, I can picture those words being taken up by countless thousands of Jewish men and women as fabulous things happen to them.

They want to shout their good news from the rooftops, they want the whole world to join in!

Our baby is born!  Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth; break forth into joyous song and sing praises! My love has recovered her health!  Sing praises to the LORD with the lyre, with the lyre and the sound of melody! I've fallen in love with the most wonderful person!  We're to be married!  Let the sea roar, and all that fills it; the world and those who dwell in it! I've won the Canaan all-comers goat-milking competition!  Let the floods clap their hands; let the hills sing for joy together!

The words of that psalm would have been used by ordinary people in ordinary places celebrating ordinary bits of fabulous good news.  They turned to those words because at their moments of greatest joy, they never lost sight of the God who wanted to celebrate with them. God was at the heart of their every celebration.

The same is true today for Dawn and Michael as they come here to give thanks to God for Zara and Caitlin.  These are our children - Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth; break forth into joyous song and sing praises!  God is at the heart of our celebration today.

The same is true today for Sandra and Charlie as they come here to give thanks to God for the love they have found together.  We're getting married today!  Let the world sing and those who dwell in it! Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth; Sing praises to the LORD with music and melody!  God is at the heart of our celebration today and every day.

If you look back over your life it must be true for you too.  There must have been occasions when you have shouted for joy like the Psalmist, times when you have wanted to trumpet the news from the rooftops!  God was there in that celebration, as he is here in our celebration today.

But alongside those words of celebration from the Psalmist we heard Jesus' words of foreboding about the temple. It was a beautiful temple. It was made of carved blocks of greenish white marble, some of them sixty feet long. The eastern front of the temple, and part of the side walls, were covered with gold plate, flashing in the sun. It was filled with beautiful ornaments. For forty years King Herod's workmen had been building it, and they were not done yet.  So we can excuse the disciples for their pride and patriotism as they pointed out its wonders. And we can understand their shock and horror when Jesus told them it would be torn down. They didn't want to believe him.

The temple was the centre of their world.  It represented, for them, everything that was right with the world.  It represented tradition, stability and hope for the future - past, present and future. There was a lot wrong with the world, but everything that was right was attached to the temple, or the idea of the temple.  The temple was the sign and symbol of God's presence in the midst of his people, it was precious to them beyond words.  And Jesus says it is going to be torn down, not a stone will be left standing.  And forty years later his prediction came true. Now there is no Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. The only trace is a portion of the foundation, now called the Wailing Wall.

What do you do when your temple falls? What do you do when the security and stability of your world are gone? What do you do when everything nailed down comes loose, and the people, and the institutions, and the laws, and the religion where you once put your trust, all fail you?

We are rightly celebrating today these two children and this marriage, but we are nor blind to the realities of the world around us.  Families break up, marriages fail.  Not all temples are built of marble and gold and stained glass. For some people a relationship can be a temple. Marriage can be a temple. Family can be a temple. Religious denominations or political parties or national pride or job or self-image can be temples, too. And these temples fall.

When Jesus tells the disciples that the temple will fall, they immediately think he is talking about the end of the world.  But if you look at what Jesus said carefully, it is quite obvious that Jesus is not talking about the end of the world at all.  He is talking about the end of the world as they knew it.

The precious things around which we build our whole lives, upon which we base all of our hopes for the future can fall.  The pillars on which we build all our hopes and dreams, though they seem so secure, can crumble.  And when that happens, it feels like it is the end of the world.  It is the end of the world - it is the end of the world that you have build around that particular temple.

Here at St. George's for about three years we built a vision of a future around the idea of a major redevelopment of the site involving lots of exciting plans for new facilities and new uses for the space we have.  In a way, for those of us who were most involved, day-to-day in planning, the whole idea became our temple.  And when that temple came crashing down, it felt like the end of the world.

Over the last year a few people have said to me that they are surprised that St. George's did not fall apart, that we didn't descend into bitter recriminations, that the minister didn't decide to jack it all in and go off to find another pastorate somewhere, that the members didn't sink into a deep depression and refuse to come anymore.

I think it might be good for us to think for a moment why that was.  I have thought about this a lot, and I have come to the conclusion that the answer sounds something like this:  there are enough people at the heart of this fellowship who have not built their lives on temporary temples, but who have built their lives primarily on Jesus Christ; there are enough people at the heart of this fellowship who know that our human goals and institutions are important, yet who also know that the only rock on which to build the foundations of your life is Jesus Christ.

Don't get me wrong.  I am not suggesting that our plans for the future, our marriages, our families, our jobs, the organisations we belong to are not important, on the contrary - they are vitally important because we express our Christian Faith through all of them.  What I am saying, though, is that they are all human temples and that any one of them might crumble one day, none of them is the right place to build the foundations of your life.

Temples fall.  Our lives are turned upside-down.  Disaster strikes... that is the real world.  We can be bruised and damaged, we can be battered and hurt when these temples fall, but if the foundation of our lives are built on the foundation of Jesus Christ then at the heart of our lives is the God who brings life from death, joy from sadness, hope from despair and peace from pain.

So, let us keep God at the heart of all our celebrations, and let us truly celebrate together the fabulous things that God has given us, but let us build the foundations of our lives on Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.