How is the custodian rewarded for taking care of the temple? Maybe you don't see any need for a reward. Maybe you expect some well-intended soul to take care of matters out of a simple love for the Lord. That's all very spiritually minded, but it rarely gets you the best results. Why? That is a very good question.
Especially when you consider what the temple might be. What if the temple is your physical body, sometimes referred to as the temple of the Holy Spirit? What if it is the congregation of believers which is also sometimes referred to as the temple of the Holy Spirit? Looking at the big picture, what if the temple is the created order itself, the realm in which the Creator has chosen to reveal himself to man? Is the custodian taking care of the temple and is he doing a job worth rewarding?
As a minister I am conscious of the image my fellow ministers and I present to the public. We preach that the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit (I Corinthians 6), but I see a lot of temples falling into ruin through neglect. We are all familiar with the litany of causes handed to us by our doctors. We eat too much. We sit too much. We don't eat the right kind of foods, and we don't handle stress well. Our faith tells us that God will take care of us even while we ignore him as he says, "I gave you a brain. Use it!"
I do not relish rising before the sun at 5:00 AM to walk two miles on a treadmill and work through other simple exercises. If it had not been for that arterial stint, I might not be so committed. Instead there I am, six days a week, heading for the torture room, and then considering what I can eat the rest of the day that will be tasty, cheap, and good for me. The menu has grown slim. Yet if my body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, then he deserves the best maintenance that I can provide.
For 25 years I served in a local church. The Apostles Paul and Peter refer to the people of God as a temple the Holy Spirit is building, one living stone at a time (Ephesians 2; I Peter 2). You have to wonder sometimes how God ever chose some of the building materials we see walking into a morning worship service (including ourselves). Yet there they are, chipped and cracked, stained and sticky, rough and ragged, from all walks of life. God looks at this ragtag bunch and tells us that this is our family, the brothers and sisters of Christ. These are the ones he welcomes into the Kingdom before all those Pharisees and scribes. Are we doing our part to take care of the temple?
Jesus reminded his listeners that it was the sick who needed the physician, not the healthy (Matthew 9). In the doctor's office the intake nurse finds out all the gruesome details. No treatment is provided. Only when the doctor sees you can the treatment begin. How often we as church members forget that we are not the doctor, nor do we expect those who see no need to meet the doctor to come into our midst. We welcome. We offer comfort and companionship, but the healing that is needed comes only through the hand of the Great Physician. He does not leave unchanged those who seek him. Do we take care of the congregational temple?
Can all creation be described as the temple of God? Jesus used the image of the earth as being the footstool of God (Matthew 5). He who is too great to be contained in any temple still sees himself vitally connected to his creation. It is a part of his royal throne room. And as such it deserves our special care.
The ecological concerns of our day should not be new or novel to the Christian. Such concerns should be a fundamental part of the way we express our recognition that we are stewards, not owners, of creation. Whether you see the present generation inheriting nature from our parents or borrowing it from our children, the Owner remains the Creator (Psalm 24). As stewards we are caretakers and will be held responsible for our stewardship. We honor God in the way we care for his creation.
We are the temple keepers, all the temples. In many ways we are winners and losers through the methods we care for the temples in this mortal existence. In other ways we will stand before the Owner, give an accounting for what has been in our charge, and receive the judgment. I know the reward I want to hear (Matthew 25:21).
