SERMON
ALTARS
IN THE WORLD
based on the book by Barbara
Brown Taylor
Prayer
of Illumination
Lord,
open our hearts and minds by the power of your Holy Spirit, that as
the Scriptures are read and your Word is proclaimed both orally and
visually, we may hear and see with joy what you say to us today.
Amen.
Sermon
Scripture: Joshua 22:26-28 MSG
26 “So
we said to ourselves, ‘Let’s do something. Let’s build an
altar—but not for Whole-Burnt-Offerings, not for sacrifices.’
27 “We
built this altar as a witness between us and you and our children
coming after us, a witness to the Altar where we worship God in
his Sacred Dwelling with our Whole-Burnt-Offerings and our sacrifices
and our Peace-Offerings.This way, your children won't be able to say to our children in the future, 'You have no part in God.'
28 “We
said to ourselves, ‘If anyone speaks disparagingly to us or to our
children in the future, we’ll say: Look at this model of God’s
Altar which our ancestors made. It’s not for Whole-Burnt-Offerings,
not for sacrifices. It’s a witness connecting us with you.’
Altars.
The Bible has some 235 references to the subject, depending on which
translation you use. References that speak of building altars and
tearing them down, altars to the one God Almighty and altars to the
many false gods of early Palestine. In Hebrew, altar is mizbeah, a
place of slaughter or sacrifice. The altars of the Hebrew people
were flat stones or tables dedicated to God and often used for the
sacrifice of lambs and doves. But altars were also built to remember
acts of God, to mark a place of visible connection to God, such as
stones for remembrance in today’s scripture from Joshua. Altars
are considered to be holy places, often reserved for the inner
sanctums of churches and synagogues. But should they be or are they
limited in such a way?
Last
Christmas Luke gave Rick a book by Barbara Brown Taylor titled
“Altars in the World”. I picked it up last June to use for my
daily devotion and prayer time. Taylor intended the book as a
resource for helping us in our spiritual journey to explore the
myriad of altars that exist everywhere – holy places that connect
us to God on a daily basis. The book was divided into 12 chapters
and I have touched or will touch on 5 of those chapters in other
parts of today’s service. Which leaves us with 7 more to explore.
Brown-Taylor speaks of each altar as a Spiritual Practice. In my
daily prayer drawing you’ll find a quote from the book, a short
haiku poem summarizing the quote, and my prayers around the border.
The drawings blend my photographs and my scribble figures.
Chapter
4 is on the Practice of Walking the Earth
Yes,
just plain simple walking. We all can do it. Rick often tells me he
is off for a “Closer Walk with Thee” - he uses his walks as a
time to talk with God and listen to God. But do we walk with
awareness, do we take the time to look around, to listen to the birds
singing, the hum of life around us, the gurgling of the Powder River
as it winds through town. Or are we making lists in our mind,
talking on the phone, or listening to our music with earplugs
blocking out the greetings of those we pass by? Walk with purpose!
Walk with awareness. Walk
with God!
When
Moses encounters God on Mount Sinai he is told to remove his shoes
for he was walking on holy ground. All the earth is holy! Take off
your shoes! Is there nothing more blessed than the feel of damp
thick grass on bare feet? What about the joy of walking barefoot at
the edges of the waves with the cold sand under our toes. We are
more in touch with all creation when we can feel both the comfortable
and the rough. Besides, barefoot walking forces us to walk with
awareness, lest we step on something painful!
The
Practice of Getting Lost - Wilderness
Most of us do not considerable getting lost a spiritual exercise! But think about it! God had the Israelites wander in the wilderness for 40 years! There is something to be learned, a sense of faith and trust developed when we have to rely on others to help us find our way.
We can’t learn some lessons by taking the easy path. We all need time in the wilderness. Time and again, people find their faith grows in the difficult LOST times of life, not during the smooth 'freeway' sections. Adversity develops a strength of character and faith we might not otherwise attain.
Try deliberately going a different route home, noticing something you’ve never seen before. What holy altar might be around an unexplored corner? What experiences do we miss, opportunities to encounter God, when we take the routine, the safe path? Consider the altar of ‘Getting Lost’!
The
Practice of Encountering Others – Community
Building
community is one of the major focuses for the Young Adult Volunteer
program Luke coordinates in Albuquerque. Have you ever considered
such an activity as a spiritual practice? Brown-Taylor writes, “The
hardest spiritual work in the world is to love the neighbor as the
self – to encounter another human being not as someone you can use,
change, fix, help, save, enroll, convince or control, but simply as
someone who can spring you from the prison of yourself...if you will
allow it.” Community frees us from selfishness. Community puts
others first.
Fred
Rodgers knew about community and neighbors. He wrote, “Appreciation
is a holy thing – that when we look for what’s best in the person
we happen to be with at the moment, we’re doing what God does all
the time. So in loving and appreciating our neighbor, we are doing
something sacred.” When was the last time you paid a visit to a
neighbor just because? Making those connections with our neighbors
creates holy altars throughout a village.
Practice
of Living with Purpose – Vocation
What
in the world is sacred about my job, you say. I’m just a blue
collar worker, nothing important! But no work is too small to play a
part! Everyone is needed in the job of Creation love! God doesn’t
separate us into a caste system based on our means of support. And
in every job there are opportunities to find altars – holy and
sacred situations where God is at work alongside you!
And
yet, sometimes it isn’t our PAID job that feeds our soul. Paul was
a tentmaker by trade – it’s what he did for a living, to put food
on the table. But the ministry of spreading the gospel fed Paul’s
soul. Many a volunteer for service organizations will tell you their
volunteer service is a far more sacred altar in their life. It is a
blessed individual who finds the vocation that not only feeds the
soul but also the family!
The
Practice of Saying NO! - Sabbath
And
on the 7th day of Creation, God rested. Sabbath means
taking time, perhaps just an hour for a start, to spend with God and
God alone. It doesn’t have to be a Sunday, it doesn’t have to be
for 24 hours, it just has to be! This is probably one of the hardest
altars for us to find! There are so many other things on our lists,
surely God can wait. But can we?
We
are somewhat cursed with this idea of a ‘Protestant Work Ethic’.
We must produce! We must be busy! I am so guilty of this. My list
is sometimes all consuming. Will people think me lazy if I take a
day to do nothing but focus on God or to search for holy altars?
Will I think I am lazy? I am much better at reminding friends and
family to “Repeat after me...say NO!” than I am to say it to
myself.
The
Practice of Carrying Water – Labor
Physical
work is spiritual work? Holy work? It sure can be!! It is all a
matter of approach and attitude. Author TB
told of digging potatoes for the first time and the apprehension of
physical work. But she discovered the joy and outright fun of the
experience. I can relate. Digging potatoes IS like a treasure hunt!
Labor is not punishment. Labor is not degrading. Labor done with grace and awareness can be blessed beyond measure. Sweat can be sacred! Hydrosis is holy! Take the opportunity to seek God in the altar of physical chores. Talk to God while cleaning house. Say a prayer while mowing the lawn. Give thanks for the strength to do the work.
The
Practice of Feeling Pain
Our
last altar is the practice of feeling pain. This is a hard one. It
is difficult to see the holy in one’s own or another’s pain. We
so often quickly resort to the why’s and how long’s? We want to
deny the pain. We want to fight it. But if we engage the pain and
give it our full attention, it is possible to find the altar hidden
in the hurt.
The
author writes, “Pain is one of the fastest routes to a no-frills
encounter with the Holy, yet we do everything we can to avoid it.”
Job did not avoid it – his complaints against God-Almighty are
eloquent in the Bible. If you need a script, you can find it there. For
those willing to stay awake, pain remains a reliable altar in the
world, a place to discover that a life can be as full of meaning
as it is of hurt. Hope
through pain is holy.
Some
of these practices may seem like strange altars. Some are more an
attitude than a pillar of stones. But hopefully they will awaken in
you an awareness to look around and see the possibilities, to seek
the holy in a variety of ways and places. I want to close with a
country song that I just discovered that reminds us all that we don’t
have to wait until church on Sunday morning to find the Altars in the
World.
Sing
“You Don’t Have to Wait ‘Til Sunday”
CHILDREN'S MESSAGE
"Paying Attention -
How
many times have you heard your parents or teachers tell you, “Pay
Attention!” Lots? Did you ever think that maybe God is telling
us to pay attention also? That to stop and really look at the world
around us is one way to pray?
Have
you watched a caterpillar creep across a sidewalk? Or a hawk soar in
circle high overhead? But
we have to look at the tiny details, both near and far. We have to
REALLY pay attention! .
What
do you see in this picture?
When
we stop and pay attention to everything around us, we see God at
work. We see the holy in every creature and plant.
And
then, we say thanks to God!
CALL TO WORSHIP - Waking Up to God
CONFESSION OF SINS - Wearing 'Skin' - Humanness
PRAYERS and CONCERNS - Practice of Being Present to God - PRAYER
BENEDICTION - Pronouncing Blessings
