"Can God Really Dwell on Earth" (June 7, 2026 Sermon)

Can God Really Dwell on Earth?

Rev. Dr. Stephen M. Fearing·June 7, 2026·Guilford Park Presbyterian Church

2nd Sunday after Pentecost (Year A)

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1 Kings 8:22–30

Then Solomon stood before the altar of the Lord in the presence of the whole 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 with 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 that 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; hear and forgive.

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You all get a little bit of an unscripted sermon this morning, because it’s been one of those weeks. So I’ll keep my comments brief.

I am grateful this morning for the anthem that Jordan and Abigail just lifted up for us, because it is an incredible segue into the text before us — specifically the line they just sang: the heavens are your tabernacle. The heavens are your tabernacle. “God of glory beyond our galaxy” is a wonderful way into this story, in which Solomon dedicates the temple that had been years and years in the making since the beginning of his reign.

So, friends, let us pray. O Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable and pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

Yes, indeed, the heavens are God’s tabernacle. But most of us don’t have the ability to go up into the heavens, so we make places like this one, where we can come and encounter God. And I want to begin by saying that this is not a bad thing.

The Holiness of Beautiful Spaces

I have had the privilege of worshiping in some of the world’s most fantastic and beautiful worship spaces. On Tricia’s and my honeymoon, we went to Rome, and I stood in St. Peter’s Basilica. How many of you have been to St. Peter’s? It is hard to imagine — hard even to explain — just how big and beautiful that space is, with St. Peter’s Square reaching out its arms to embrace the world, as Jesus would have us do. Back in college, I traveled to Istanbul, Turkey, and stood in the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque. The Hagia Sophia is so grand that you can look up and literally watch birds soaring near the top. I’ve worshiped at Washington National Cathedral. I’ve been blessed to officiate two weddings this year at Duke Chapel — even though I hate Duke, it is a beautiful space. And Jasmine and Joshua, as many of you know, were married at Riverside Church in Manhattan. These are beautiful spaces.

And of course, I want to include our own beautiful space here. It may be humble in size, but it is no less beautiful, and it means so much to all of us, for good reason. This sanctuary was one of the reasons I chose to be your pastor. It was very low on the list — because I came here for the people — but the people of this church have gathered in this space since the late 1950s. For decades, this has been a beautiful place where we have gathered: to celebrate weddings and baptisms, to worship and sing, and to weep as we have said goodbye to those we love.

I love that this worship space truly is ours. If you are new to our congregation, when you leave today, take a look at the wood carvings at the end of each pew — carved by members of this congregation nearly seventy-five years ago. This table, at which we are about to break bread, was built by Rick Cromer, whom we sang to heaven about a year ago. And these beautiful stained-glass windows were purchased in the 1950s for a whopping $600. But aren’t they beautiful? This is a wonderful space where we gather, and I want to honor it and give thanks for it.

Solomon’s Remarkable Curveball

I want to set the stage with all of that, because at this point in 1 Kings, it has been several years since Solomon prayed the prayer we journeyed with last week — the prayer in which he asked God for a lev shomea, a listening heart. Since then, Solomon has spent years building this temple. It was a staggering achievement. (If you ever have trouble falling asleep at night and want a few chapters of the Bible to drift off to, the chapters that precede today’s story do nothing but list, in excruciating detail, the temple’s dimensions and adornments.)

And then we arrive at this moment, after all those years of building, when it is finally time to dedicate it. It is important to recognize that this temple was not only a theological accomplishment but also a political decision, meant to place Israel firmly on the geopolitical map alongside other major players. There were many reasons this temple was built. But in this moment, Solomon gathers all the people together in this beautiful worship space and gives thanks to God for meeting them there, going on at length about how the holy will be encountered there.

So we hold that in one hand. Then Solomon throws a remarkable curveball. After rightly giving thanks that God is met in this place — whether that place is the temple, Guilford Park, St. Peter’s, or a small church in the middle of rural North Carolina — it doesn’t matter, because this is where God finds us — after all of that, Solomon has the wisdom to say this in verse 27:

But will God indeed dwell on earth? Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, much less this house that I have built.

I love that line because I think Solomon knew what many of us know: that we sometimes treat our worship spaces in ways we don’t even realize. Without intending to, we can try to domesticate God. As Walter Brueggemann observed many times throughout his scholarship, whether we realize it or not, the very places we build to gather can become places where we attempt to manage and possess the holy. But Solomon says this cannot be done.

God Cannot Be Contained

I want us to remember this day. Yes, indeed, this place is holy. It is where we gather to sing, to pray, to wonder, and to be challenged by the words of Scripture. And yet, Solomon was right: we cannot contain God in this space. My guess is that a sermon like this has been preached from this pulpit before. But all of us — pastors included, myself included — need that reminder from time to time.

Because yes, God is here. And God dwells everywhere.

God dwelt in the hospital room a few weeks ago, beside the bed of Skip Bailey, as I gathered with his family to sing, “There is a Balm in Gilead.” God dwells in the veterinary office when we gather to say goodbye to our furry loved ones. God dwells at the kitchen table during uncomfortable conversations about how we will afford groceries or rent. God dwells in the auditorium where our graduates celebrate their achievements and wonder what comes next. And God will dwell wherever this bread is carried after today’s worship, to our sick and our homebound.

I think this is what makes communion so special. We share it mostly in this room — but not always — because we are gathered in this beautiful space to dwell with God, and then we leave with God, and God goes with us.

Come to the Table

So here is your simple homework assignment for today. Come to the table. Come just as you are, with whatever brokenness you may feel, whatever joy or burdens you may carry, and dwell with God in this space. Meet God here — really here. And then carry the God you meet here out into all the places in the world where God already dwells.

In the name of God the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer, may all of us, God’s beloved children, say: Amen.

"Disciples Live By Faith" (November 9, 2025 Sermon)

Text: Job 19:23-27a

“Why does wickedness happen?" This question—part philosophical, part theological—is the one posed to Galinda the Good Witch at the beginning of the musical Wicked.  It comes in the midst of the show’s opening number, “No One Mourns the Wicked,” in which the people of Munchkinland rejoice that Elphaba, the so-called “Wicked Witch of the West,” has met her demise.  The play then goes on to recount how Elphaba and Galinda became unlikely roommates at the University of Shiz where the two of them become conversation partners in answering for themselves - and for us - the question: “Why does wickedness happen?”

But long before that existential question brought those two characters together like a comet pulled from orbit as it passes the sun, another screenplay, a collection of poems you and I know as the Book of Job, wrestled with the same profound inquiry. Job, of course, wasn’t wicked. On the contrary, he was about as far from wicked as it gets. A man of integrity. Mr. Rogers on steroids. Mother Theresa to the max. He was the kind of guy who’d give you the shirt off his back.  Job was as righteous as they come.  But a life of integrity does not shield one from suffering (my apologies to the Enneagram Ones among us, for that’s a particularly tough pill to swallow for perfectionists!).  Job loses everything: his family, his health, and his wealth.

Friedrich Nietzsche once famously said, “To live is to suffer; to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.” The Book of Job is a collection of poems describing one righteous man’s search for meaning amid his suffering. When we seek meaning in the midst of wickedness, we all need conversation partners. We need these partners because answering the question of “why do bad things happen to good people?” is an existential inquiry that’s far too big for one person. No, Galinda needed Elphaba and vice versa. And Job, too, needed conversation partners as he wrestled with his plight. Today’s scripture appears in the middle of the largest section of the Book of Job (chapters four through twenty-five), where Job’s three friends (Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar) share their thoughts on the matter, each failing to convince Job of their arguments.  In response to the second of those conversation partners, Job says the following:

For I know that my vindicator lives
    and that in the end he will stand upon the earth;
and after my skin has been destroyed,
    then in my flesh I shall see God,
whom I shall see on my side,
    and my eyes shall behold, and not another.

While the NRSVue translates verse 25 as “for I know that my vindicator lives,” I suspect you’re more familiar with the translation, “for I know that my redeemer lives.” That was the title of a beloved hymn written by English Baptist minister Samuel Medley exactly 250 years ago. Coincidentally, it was originally sung to the tune DUKE STREET, which is the same tune we’ll use to sing our closing hymn today as well as the postlude Dr. Bill will play from the organ, a piece he arranged himself back in 1988. In 1775, Samuel Medley wrote this hymn which some of y’all might recognize.

I know that my Redeemer lives;
what comfort this sweet sentence gives!
He lives, He lives, who once was dead;
He lives, my everlasting Head.

It’s remarkable, really, that this triumphant text was first inspired by the words of a man who had every reason to despair. Job had done everything right. But he still lost. Years later, in a galaxy far, far away, Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the Starship Enterprise would express this messy reality with this proverb: “It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness; that is life.” Job knew this reality all too well, although it took him quite a while to accept it. Who among us doesn’t struggle to hold the reality of wickedness in one hand and the existence of a God who’s both all-powerful and all-good in the other?

Remarkably, Job was able to stay faithful amid wickedness. We might be amazed by his perseverance, but I hope we don’t do so to the point that we forget that we are doing the same thing right now! You and I are gathered today because we know that our Redeemer lives. That’s what worship is all about. Yes, evil surrounds us, and our Redeemer lives. Yes, SNAP benefits are being denied to our neighbors, and our Redeemer lives. Yes, as Job said just a few chapters later in the book, “the wicked live on, reach old age, and grow mighty in power,” and our Redeemer lives. So, the question then becomes: how did Job keep the faith, and how might we do the same in these hectic times?  How do disciples live by faith when all seems so unstable, unkind, uneasy?

Well, let’s start with what the Book of Job has to teach us about what faithfulness is not.

First, faithfulness in the midst of wickedness is not about denying reality. Job doesn’t deny his suffering or pretend that everything is okay. Faith isn’t about burying your head in the sand or ignoring the messiness of the world and the complex reality of wickedness. Don’t get me wrong, friends; optimism isn’t a bad thing! But optimism is not the same as faith. Faith diminishes when it’s separated from reality. Conversely, faith is strengthened when it is clear-eyed and focused on the broken places in the world where Christ is calling us to serve our neighbor.

Secondly, faithfulness in the midst of wickedness is not about withholding our pain from God.  The character of Job is a master class in maintaining open communication with God, even when we might be tempted to turn inward and shut down. You see, Job’s three friends offer him overly simple arguments to explain his suffering. Each suggests a form of retributive theology, which holds that suffering is a direct result of one’s actions, good or bad. Job’s wife, on the other hand, maintains her husband’s innocence and instead encourages Job to curse God. Caught between these two arguments, Job eventually decides to confront God with no small amount of audacity.  Job sues God, asserts his continued innocence, and demands an explanation from the Almighty. Job doesn’t passively accept his circumstances. Faith, then, is being honest with God in both our praise and our despair.

As it turns out, today is the 87th anniversary of Kristallnacht, or the night of Broken Glass, the evening of riots in 1938 in Germany when more than 1,400 synagogues and prayer rooms throughout Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland were destroyed.  7,000 jewish businesses were demolished and 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and incarcerated.  Kristallnacht is widely regarded as the official transition to open violence against the Jewish people.

The noted Jewish scholar, Nobel laureate, and Holocaust survivor Ellie Weisel once recounted a poignant moment as described by Martin Thielen: “A group of men in his barracks decided to have a trial - a trial unlike any trial you’ve ever heard of before. These men decided to try God for the horrors of the Holocaust.  They had been men of faith, but their faith had profoundly disappointed them. So they decided to put God on trial for abandoning the Jewish people. Young Wiesel was asked to witness the proceedings.  The charges were brought; the prosecutor listed them one by one: God’s people had been torn from their homes, separated from their families, beaten, abused, murdered, and burned in incinerators. A defense was attempted. But in the end God was found guilty of abandoning his people, maybe even guilty of not existing.  When the trial was over, a dark and profound silence fell on the room. A few moments later the men realized it was time for the sacred ritual of evening prayer. At this point in the story, Wiesel recounted a remarkable fact. These men who had just found God guilty of abandoning them - these same men began to pray their evening prayer.”

Friends, that’s faith. Faith doesn’t sugarcoat the horrors of the world. Sometimes, faith means putting God on trial and demanding answers to the unanswerable. But then it picks itself back up and keeps enduring, trusting that the silence of God isn't a permanent verdict.

What faithfulness is, in the context of the Book of Job, is amazement.  When God receives Job’s summons and takes the witness stand, Job makes the prosecution’s case. "I’ve been righteous and you’ve been cruel,” Job asserts. "Answer yourself, God of Creation!" Now here, we wish God would “come clean” and finally explain to Job the reason for his suffering. But God provides no simple explanation; for there is none to be had.  Instead, God invites Job to the spiritual practice of amazement.  Famously, God says in chapter 38, “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?”  God goes on to describe various aspects of nature, from the creation of the earth to the behavior of wild animals.  “Who provides food for the raven when its young cry out to God and wander about for lack of food?”  God reminds Job of both the complexity and majesty of the world and the limits of human perspective.

Some of us, I’m sure, may find such a response inadequate, and I respect those feelings because there are times when I also share that sentiment. I hold that thought in one hand, and in the other, I choose to hold amazement and wonder.  When I myself am daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief, I take the wisdom of the Book of Job and take Mary Olivers “Instructions for living a life: pay attention, be astonished, tell about it.”  Ultimately, Walter Brueggemann asserts, Job’s journey of faith is about surrendering his moral certitude and understanding that his integrity and righteousness doesn’t save him.  God saves him.

This is what Brueggemann had to say on the topic on a sermon he gave at Columbia Theological Seminary, my alma mater:

The battle to be fought in the church now, in our society generally, is for speech and faith that will sustain us. Job, and even more his friends, are models of ideological certitude.

That kind of moral certitude, however, does not matter ultimately, because we are not saved by our virtue. No one can stand in the face of the whirlwind on a soap-box of virtue. Virtue has many ideological faces in our society-and they all kill. It may be the over scrupulousness about sexuality and piety and all those treasured old-fashioned virtues. Or it may be the ideological agenda of the right, getting things settled about prayer in the public schools or homosexuality or the Panama Canal. Or it may be the strident programs of the left and being correct about abortion and welfare and divestment. Whichever party we belong to, we hold it all dear and precious, and we brood in our virtue, confident that the others are without credibility.

Job learned what we all learn sooner or later. Virtue does not suffice. Integrity does not give life. Being right is no substitute for being amazed.

Being right is no substitute for being amazed. If you remember nothing else from this sermon, remember these words:  Being right is no substitute for being amazed.  That is what faith is about, especially when wickedness tries to suffocate our theological imagination. We keep returning, time and time again, to amazement. And if we think this is some meaningless, abstract theological exercise that’s a waste of time when people are concerned about basic needs like food, remember this: amazement inevitably leads to gratitude. And gratitude, in turn, inevitably leads to generosity. And generosity is what heals our world. It is what feeds our neighbors. It is the fierce gentleness that stands fearlessly between those who suffer and the violent ideologies that assail them.

So friends, let us be faithful practitioners of wonder in a broken world.  Because that’s what disciples do.

I’ll close by returning to our wickedness conversation partners, Elphaba and Galinda.  At the end of the musical, the two enemies-turned-friends sing the number “For Good,” in which they say goodbye to one another, ask for forgiveness for the times they’ve hurt the other, and stand in awe and wonder at what they’ve learned from each other.

Like a ship blown from its mooring by a wind off the sea,
Like a seed dropped by a skybird in a distant wood,
who can say if I’ve been changed for the better?
But because I knew you, I have been changed for good.

Friends, together we are disciples—imperfect and generous, capable of both great good and deep wickedness—on this journey of life. And perhaps we can learn from Elphaba, Galinda, and all those who open themselves to the spiritual disciplines of wonder and gratitude that being right is no substitute for being amazed.

In the name of God the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer, may all of us, God's children, say: Amen.