“What if we treated people with the same kind of reverence that we treated our buildings?”
That question was posed to me this Fall as we sat in the parking lot outside our facility. We’d been studying Paul’s letter to the Ephesians and came across this line: “And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.” (Ephesians 2:22, NIV)
It’s an arresting question isn’t it?
For most of my high school football career, I didn’t actually play (I’ve never been gifted with good lateral movement which does not a successful football player make). But I did practice a lot and I was content to be a role player. On Thursday evenings during the season, various community churches would host our team with a meal and some kind of inspirational message.
It’s funny what sticks in our memory isn’t it? I recall that most of the churches served a brownie with ice cream for dessert. I remember that we had to wear matching t-shirts to dinner. And I distinctly recall that we were inundated with rules before going into the buildings: take off your hat; don’t cuss; take out your dip; say ‘yes sir’; don’t fight; don’t yell.
I’m glad our coaches spelled out the rules because high school football players can be…unruly.
Another time, I remember a friend coming to hear me preach when I lived in North Carolina. He hadn’t been to church in…maybe ever? This otherwise stalwart and fearless man was turned into a quibbling child by the prospect of walking into a church building. Would he be judged for wearing shorts? Would he be rebuked for not shaving? What if he didn’t know what to do – were we supposed to stand or sit or roll over? Would he actually be struck by lightning upon walking through the doors?
It’s not that our reverence for holy places is necessarily wrong. But what if God is more interested in holy people? What if God does not live in a temple made by human hands at all? What if he cared so much about people that he would take on a body and live and die to free us from bondage to sin and death and hell? What if his goal is to dwell among his people forever?
God has a tremendously high regard for human beings – much higher than we deserve. God has a tremendously high regard for your neighbors, coworkers, and family (much higher than any building). And, in case you need to hear it, he has a tremendously high regard for you too.
This work first appeared in the print edition of the Kingsport Times News on January 1, 2021.
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