Again this week as last, our first reading today is from the First Book of Kings and like last week’s, it is a prayer spoken by King Solomon. Last week, it was a private prayer spoken in a dream late at night. Today, it is a public prayer. As long as it was, this reading is just a small part of the dedicatory prayer that Solomon offered when the Temple was finished and consecrated. In it, Solomon asks an important question, “[W]ill God indeed dwell on the earth?”[1] More specifically, Solomon is asking if God will dwell in the Temple, and the wise king immediately answers his own question: “[H]eaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, much less this house that I have built!”[2]
The building of the Temple in 957 BCE[3] marked a very significant change in the Jewish religion. Well, really, let’s not call it the Jewish religion because it wasn’t that, yet. Let’s just say, “The religion of the people of Israel.” These people were not, though we often imagine them to be, strict monotheists. Even in this prayer, Solomon leaves open the question of whether there might be gods other than their God: “O Lord, God of Israel, there is no God like you in heaven above or on earth beneath.”[4] There might be other gods, lesser gods perhaps, demigods, or even demons, part of a heavenly pantheon of gods, but this God, the God of the People of Israel is greater than any of those others.
There’s a story about a pastor giving a children’s sermon. He decides to use a story about forest animals as his starting point, so he gathers the kids around him and begins by asking them a question. He says, “I’m going to describe someone to you and I want you to tell me who it is. This person prepares for winter by gathering nuts and hiding them in a safe place, like inside a hollow tree. Who might that be?” The kids all have a puzzled look on their faces and no one answers. So, the preacher continues, “Well, this person is kind of short. He has whiskers and a bushy tail, and he scampers along branches jumping from tree to tree.” More puzzled looks until, finally, Johnnie raises his hand. The preacher breathes a sigh of relief, and calls on Johnnie, who says, “I know the answer is supposed to be Jesus, but that sure sounds an awful lot like a squirrel to me.”
When I find myself in times of trouble,
It’s the last Sunday of the Christian year, sort of a New Year’s Eve for the church. We call it “the Feast of Christ the King” and we celebrate it by remembering his enthronement. Each year on Christ the King Sunday we read some part of the crucifixion story. As Pope Francis reminded the faithful in his Palm Sunday homily a few years ago, “It is precisely here that his kingship shines forth in godly fashion: his royal throne is the wood of the Cross!”
Come Holy Spirit, Comforter, Spirit of Truth,
With churches suspending public worship out of concern for the contagion of Covid-19, the noval coronavirus, we Episcopalians (and many others) are prevented from receiving Holy Communion. An ancient practice of the Church in such circumstances, for there have always been those who, for whatever reason, are unable to take the Sacrament, is to make an act of “spiritual communion.” 
Two things happened last Saturday.
