Rebuilding a Temple

I spent some time in the book of Ezra recently, and particularly King Cyrus’ direction in Ezra 1 to the Jewish exiles that their God had told him to send them back home with all the items the Babylonians had pillaged from the temple. They were supposed to rebuild their destroyed place of worship and honour their God.

Now, I also know that Cyrus gave the same message to every other people group to rebuild worship spaces to their gods across his massive Persian empire. He wanted to keep the people’s goodwill so that they would protect his territory. He was pretty politically savvy and knew that surrounding areas could become a threat. Still, I believe that this message to the Jews probably was from God, and that God knew that in rebuilding they would find themselves and their Creator again.

We’ve been using the praise song Days of Elijah this September. It mentions themes of scriptures we’ve been looking at - the valley of dry bones, rebuilding a temple of praise, overcoming trials and death. It also anticipates the harvest and Christ’s return, and speaks of being the voice in the desert believing in God’s goodness despite the challenges we’re facing. This is a time for us to be hopeful. The pandemic is not in our rearview mirror, and we certainly hope to not have to shut down in person worship again after working so hard to open safely, but there is much opportunity for us even now.

I’m very aware that people are relearning how to do and be church. Our attendance has been lower than I anticipated, which supports the trend seen across North America of 25-75% attendance of pre-Covid times. Very slowly the exiles are returning and while our physical building was not destroyed, we are working to restore our trust in each other. The space seems foreign with pews roped off, mask wearing, and no hugging or coffee hour or group singing. We are rebuilding relationships and rethinking what it means to be church together.

We talked in the service about Ezra about how the temple foundation was built first and then the altar. These were most important. We talked about the foundation that is needed as we rebuild - the foundation of Christ and the Word - and how everything else needs to build up from that. Later in Ezra there is an issue with people living around Jerusalem who weren’t Jews wanting to help with the temple restoration project. The Jews turn them away, seeing them as outsiders and not knowing enough about the faith, perhaps not even being worthy to be part of it. The result is that these shunned people work to undermine the project and the whole thing gets stalled for years.

Was this the right thing to do, to turn these people away? Were they going to dilute the message and honour being bestowed on God? Were they just wanting in on this big thing without sacrifice and belief in it? We don’t know for sure. But perhaps it’s a word of caution to us as we work to rebuild.

It might be that those who have been around longest feel they should have more say. We may have new people unknown to anyone else because they joined us digitally or have been fringe participants. People from the broader community may have realized that they need God as this pandemic stretches on and on. Will we welcome them or find them an inconvenience because they know so little of our faith (and we have enough to worry about with the people already here who are resisting new protocols)? Will we recognize that ‘outsiders’ bring things that will benefit the church and can remind us of needing to connect to real needs outside our walls?

May God lead each of us as we work to rebuild safely and faithfully our church communities. May our foundation be secure. and our altar be prominent as we offer ourselves to God.