(Please read the Scripture passage before reading the homily.)
It took Solomon and 180,000 forced laborers or carriers and stone cutters seven years to build the Temple. It’s completion was a glorious and festive occasion, especially for those who did not have to do the heavy work.
We have to be careful when we build a house for God. We cannot put God in house any more than we can put God in one of our pockets. God is slippery: when we think we have captured God, God reappears in another shape, form, or place. When we build God a house, we must be careful not to build a monument to ourselves or make the house itself the object of our worship.
Once, St Francis was called to rebuild the Church, which he could see was falling down. He started to rebuild the structure he saw before him, but it was the people who make up the Church that needed rebuilding. When we build or rebuild for God, we have to start with the people of God, not brick, stone, mortar, and wood.
What are the costs in human labor, human life, and human dignity when we build something? This past year, we learned that our nation’s Capitol was built by Black Slaves: what was the actual cost in human life and labor of the building that somehow symbolizes the freedom of our democratic form of government?
What is the human cost of our projects? How do we recognize the image of God that resides in every created substance as well as in the people involved when we undertake our projects?
We can rejoice with Solomon’s Temple, but we must not worship to building or the builder. The glory goes to God and the human glory ought to go to the thousands of the unnamed laborers, but the enslaved and the free ones.