The Scandal of a Containable God (a homily for the building consecration service)
On June 2, 2025, we held a consecration service at 1836 B. St. Below is a lightly edited version of the homily Pastor Jesse preached that evening.
Then Solomon stood before the altar of the LORD in the presence of all the assembly of Israel and spread out his hands toward heaven, and said, “O LORD, God of Israel, there is no God like you, in heaven above or on earth beneath, keeping covenant and showing steadfast love to your servants who walk before you with all their heart; you have kept with your servant David my father what you declared to him. You spoke with your mouth, and with your hand have fulfilled it this day. Now therefore, O LORD, God of Israel, keep for your servant David my father what you have promised him, saying, ‘You shall not lack a man to sit before me on the throne of Israel, if only your sons pay close attention to their way, to walk before me as you have walked before me.’ Now therefore, O God of Israel, let your word be confirmed, which you have spoken to your servant David my father.
“But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you; how much less this house that I have built! 28 Yet have regard to the prayer of your servant and to his plea, O LORD my God, listening to the cry and to the prayer that your servant prays before you this day, that your eyes may be open night and day toward this house, the place of which you have said, ‘My name shall be there,’ that you may listen to the prayer that your servant offers toward this place. And listen to the plea of your servant and of your people Israel, when they pray toward this place. And listen in heaven your dwelling place, and when you hear, forgive. (1 Kings 7:22-30)
The Scandal of a Containable God
We are here to do something strange. We are consecrating and dedicating a structure, a building to the God who transcends space and matter. The God who, if he had hands and fingers, molded together the Milky Way galaxy like a Lego set. You know those new Lego sets that look like a bouqet of flowers? 750 pieces. That’s the cosmos to God.
So what right do we have to ask God to come and dwell within this conglomeration of concrete, steel, glass, and wood. It’s only matter. Why should the transcendent God care about 1836 B St? Why should he care more about 1836 B St than 1832 B St Hayward? Or why 1836 B St than 19722 Center St., Castro Valley? And isn’t God everywhere? In family worship and community groups, we invite God’s presence into our houses.
Solomon speaks the tension in our passage, the dedication of Israel’s temple. He’s just spent years and millions of dollars and man hours constructing the most ambitious architectural monument in Israel’s history. Israel completes the temple in 1 Kings 7. Solomon invites the whole assembly of Israel in verse 22 for the dedication. In front of everyone, Solomon clarifies the mystery and irrationality of it all, “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you; how much less this house that I have built! Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you; how much less this house that I have built!
God is high and lifted up. He is other than us. His ways are not our ways. As humans, we continually try to contain him. We try to squeeze God into our lives, our agendas, our time frames rather than the other way around. We do this with church. How often do we make our ministry plans without ever asking “What does the limitless, powerful God want for our worship, our children’s ministry, our preaching, our CGs?” Rather, we seek to contain God.
Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you; how much less this house that I have built! The God of the Bible is uncontainable. He refuses to be contained, to be constrained. He is the Creator, you the created. You exist for his purpose, not he for yours. He is not supporting cast in your life drama. He is the star, the blazing Sun in the middle of the solar system. Until you submit to his gravity, you cannot be free. You ever tried to go against gravity? Anthony Edwards, the high flying NBA slam dunker has a vertical over 5 ft. He can go against gravity higher than the rest of us and longer, but his hang time is maybe over a second. One second, and gravity’s got him again. You can’t contain gravity and you can’t contain the God who made gravity. No house, not Solomon’s temple, not Paris’ Notre Dame, not even Grace Lutheran on Hayward’s B street can contain him.
So what are we doing here? What is Solomon doing at the Jerusalem temple?
“But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you; No heaven, no house can contain God, BUT What’s incredible is Solomon boldly asks God to constrain himself. God does constrain himself. He restricts or limits himself. That’s a kind of containment, right?
He constrains himself in three ways. First, his people.
He constrains and contains himself in his people. He says so in verses 23-24: O LORD, God of Israel, there is no God like you, in heaven above or on earth beneath, keeping covenant and showing steadfast love to your servants who walk before you with all their heart; There is no God like you, in heaven above or on earth beneath.
Again, he is the uncontainable God, the eternal and exceptional one. Yet, Solomon says, this uncontainable God is the God of Israel. The very name God of Israel reveals a limitation. He’s not the God of Egypt, the God of Hammurabi or Babylon, but the God of Israel.
These are his people because he has entered into covenant with them. keeping covenant and showing steadfast love to your servants. A covenant is a limitation, a constraint. I agree to be this to you and not this. I will be your God and not your tormentor. It’s a constraint of possession. God is constrained by the people he has chosen and loved.
To illustrate, think of your marriage or your married friends. A marriage is a self-constraint. It contains two individuals and persons. I contain my wife in a way that no one else can and vice versa. It’s the same way with God. God’s people in a real way possess him and contain him. They don’t contain him exhaustively, but they do contain him truly. Which is why when Israel becomes utterly polluted by sin, God expels and exiles them from the land. Like the God who populated the pleaides, whose holiness burns hotter and brighter than the sun, was contained among his people. The uncontainable God constrains himself among his people.
2. The promise. He constrains and contains himself in his promise to his people. His promise constrains and contains him. He will live among his people and he promises to be with them. Solomon highlights the promise to King David, to his Father. Verses 24-25: you have kept with your servant David my father what you declared to him. You spoke with your mouth, and with your hand have fulfilled it this day Now therefore, O LORD, God of Israel, keep for your servant David my father what you have promised him. God declares a promise to David that one from his family would always be king.
Promises constrain us. On Facebook marketplace, when I promise I can come pick up a desk in Oakland this weekend, my weekend gets complicated. It’s more limited, less free. I need to be sure I have time to go to Oakland this weekend. I’m constrained by my promises. Our promises limit our options, our freedom. The more serious the promise, the more the constraint. The traditional wedding vow includes the promise to forsake all others. Constrained to one.
God makes a bold promise. If you know the history of Israel, the first king, the one before David, King Saul was a major dud. He was a rebel, who turned against God. You and I use the past to predict the future, which means we probably would not have promised anything to David. So far the kings had a bad track record. Wouldn’t it be wiser for God not to constrain himself?
There’s a sense in which my word, my promises contains me. My promises reveal my character and personality. My word, my promises contains me. Same with God. The uncontainable God constrains himself with his people and in his promise.
3. Finally, the Lord constrains himself to his people’s prayers.
This is actually Solomon’s major point in this prayer of dedication. Look at the contrast between verses 27 and 28 Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you; how much less this house that I have built! Yet have regard to the prayer of your servant and to his plea, O LORD my God, listening to the cry and to the prayer that your servant prays before you this day, Even though you’re the uncontainable God, hear my prayer.
You know whose god was truly uncontainable? The theism of a Thomas Jefferson, a God who made the earth, set it in motion, and then watched from a distance to see how the experiment went. Jefferson’s God would not be limited or contained by any appeals.
But what Solomon is praying is that God would be responsive, that he would listen to his people and act for them. Prayers are constraining.
Last year, my wife and I took two quick little overnight trips in the area. One was to Monterrey, the other to Healdsburg, both on our points. Both were about the same distance away. Both were on credit card points. But one was refreshing and light. The other was not. The difference was that we had our kids with us. Listen, I love my children, but there were a lot more requests. Could we go to McDonalds? Could we put on a podcast? Can we go to the pool? Constraining.
But this is Solomon’s main point. He prays that God would listen to his people’s prayers. If he would constrain himself, and listen to his people’s desires, their joys and laments, their sufferings, their litanies of need. A new car, a trustworthy friend, to hear their confession that they looked lustfully once again. She blew up at her kid again. And listen to the plea of your servant and of your people Israel, when they pray toward this place. And listen in heaven your dwelling place, and when you hear, forgive.
The uncontainable God bends his ear his children’s cries.
The answer is yes. Yes. Remember, the question Solomon asks? “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? It’s really THE question, the heart cry of every human. Is there a God? Is he near? Does he care?
Yes.
We didn’t read it, but elsewhere in chapter eight, when Israel’s priests carry the ark of the covenant into the temple, into the holy place, God’s glory cloud, thick and splendid and terrifying and beautiful, saturates the temple, so much so that the priests, the holiest, the saintliest, the godliest, could no longer stand to be there because the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord. The uncontainable God allows himself to be contained. Not fully, of course. It was not as if God was only there in the temple and nowhere else. But he was contained, constrained in some real way, he was present in his glory. He allowed himself to be contained in the temple.
But the temple is merely a warm-up, a prelude to the ultimate answer. “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? John 1:14 says that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Dwelt. The uncontainable God enfleshed. The uncontainable God contained in skin, bones, DNA, tissue. Jesus is God with us. He is the true temple.. “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up,” declared Jesus in John 2. Then John gives us this commentary. But he was speaking about the temple of his body. Jesus is the true temple.
And if that’s true, then Jesus is the key to our passage. Remember, God constrains himself by his people. But what if his people are faulty and fallen, but Jesus is the truly righteous one. He is the remnant who truly contains God’s presence. In Jesus, all the promises of God are a yes (2 Corinthians 1:10). Solomon asks God if Israel prays towards the temple, if he would listen. Now, we pray towards the true temple, the Lord Jesus. That’s what it means to pray in the name of Jesus.
If Jesus is the true temple, what does this mean for this space, for this carpet, these concrete walls? Is this merely matter? Is this sacred space? Is it more sacred than the cafeterium at Creekside Middle School?
The way we tend to think of sacred space has more of a pagan overtone than Christian. Sacredness takes on a kind of magical or mystical quality. But the Christian use of holy or sacred is always related to God. To be holy or sacred is to be set apart for the Lord. In the Old Testament, the instruments in the temple were set apart, the tools used to sacrifice to God. But after Jesus’ ultimate sacrifice, what’s interesting is that it is people rather than objects that bear holiness. It is those saved by Jesus who are now sanctified, set apart.
And that connects to one more way the old testament temple is fulfilled. Jesus is the true temple. But all those who are in Jesus are also the temple. Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple. (1 Corinthians 3:16–17)
Brothers and sisters, you are God’s temple. You contain the uncontainable God. You bear his presence. The Spirit of God dwells in you, lives among us. You are holy and it is you and what you do that makes this building sacred.
This was one of the chief objections of the Reformers. They objected to the ways the Roman Catholics idolized space and buildings and shrines. Martin Luther contended that what consecrated a place was not sprinklings and anointings but the word of God rightly preached. God’s Word is what set apart the sacred.
And as we believe that God does not dwell in temples made with hands, so we know that on account of God's Word and sacred use places dedicated to God and his worship are not profane, but holy. And that those who are present in them are to conduct themselves reverently and modestly, seeing that they are in a sacred place, in the presence of God and his holy angels.
Christ is our temple, and we are the temple. And therefore, the three ways God constrains himself are still what we as the church do every week.
Solomon rehearses the promise. Remember the promise, and that's what we do when we listen and read God's word and preach God's word. We are rehearsing God's promise every Sunday. Solomon asks, would you hear our prayers in this temple? And that's what we do. A worship service is just one long prayer, one long prayer to our Lord. What we do in this building is assemble as God's people. You are holy because of Jesus - what he has done for us.
This is my hope for us in this new building, that we would actually be the people of God, that we would be holy, that this building doesn't make you holy. You make this building holy.
Because of the Spirit of God living in you and friends, may this building be a house of prayer.May we pray bold prayers, just like Solomon prayed a bold prayer. May God answer our prayers - the prayers that are prayed in this building for His glory and for our good.
Is this building sacred? No, but you are- the church of Christ, who he died for. And because we come together in the name of Christ, we are His temple. We are his body. The Spirit of God - that same spirit of glory that the priest couldn't handle - is alive and at work in us.
O Lord, would you listen to our pleas? Thank you for bending down your ear to hear us. O Lord, thank You that we are your people. O God, would you be alive in us and among us in Christ's name we pray, amen.
