Please read this passage before reading this homily.
In today’s reading, the Temple has been finished and is prepared for bringing the Ark of the Covenant into the temple. Solomon’s father, King David had brought the Ark into Jerusalem when he was consolidating his reign many years before this. Now Solomon, imitating his father, was bringing the Ark of God’s presence into the Temple.
Although Solomon had the priests offering many sacrifices, the text makes it clear that God was the one who was consecrating the temple. Much as Solomon would claim to have truly built God a princely house, it was God who had made it sacred.
We humans all too readily step in to claim a victory when the outcome puts us in a good light, but often times the result is the work of one or more predecessors and not of our own. We are like the fly on the head of an elephant that says, “Wow, we really make everything shake”, when the elephant had rampaged through the village.
My dear friends, God deserves the credit for all the good we have done. We, however, are the pencil or the pen what God uses for writing.
Jerusalem is held sacred by Jewish, Christian and Muslim people. The Temple Mount was the location of the Jewish Temple and the heart of their religious practice. The Temple Mount is also the location of a mosque very sacred to the Muslim people. Perhaps the presence of a mosque where once the Temple stood id a sign that has made Jerusalem special for himself and special to the three religions that trace their ancestry back to Abraham. Perhaps the sharing of the sacred spaces is a sign that God wishes peace on all the people of Jerusalem of all times.
Each of us has his or her own Jerusalem, one we do not wish to share with others. When we share our Jerusalems, we make the physical Jerusalem a more hallowed place than Solomon had made it.