Genesis 28:10-19a, NRSV,alt.
Jacob left Beer-sheba and went towards Haran. He came to a certain place and stayed there for the night, because the sun had set.
Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place. And he dreamed that there was a ladder— set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven; and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.
And the Lord stood beside him and said, ‘I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring; and your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring. Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.’
Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said, ‘Surely the Lord is in this place—and I did not know it!’
And he was afraid, and said, ‘How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.’ So Jacob rose early in the morning, and he took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up for a pillar and poured oil on the top of it. He called that place Bethel, that is “House of God”
Monday, February 2, 2009
Reverence
Our service’s theme today is “reverence”. It might strike you as a bit of an odd choice, or at least a bit stuffy: irreverence is celebrated in our culture. An irreverent look at something—maybe Jon Stewart on the Daily Show— seems to imply an honesty, a light skepticism, an inability to suffer fools or the pompous gladly. All good things.
I don’t want to have to compete with Jon Stewart. But I don’t think I need to. The sacred text today tells what may be the familiar story of Jacob’s ladder. I want to use this story to say something about the importance of reverence, and how reverence is integral to our relationship with God.
In the story, Jacob is traveling, he’s left his father, he’s about to settle in a new place. It’s getting dark, it’s time to stop, and he lies down on a stone. The stone is a hint right away, as many cultures use stones to mark sacred places. Jacob dreams—and we know how God can dwell in dreams.
In his dream, Jacob sees a ladder, alternatively translated as a stairway, a stairway to heaven. He hears God speak to him, and God makes a promise to him.
So Jacob has an experience of the sacred, a closeness with God. He’s in thin place, a place where the dividing line between the holy and the ordinary is very thin. When we wakes up, he exclaims “Surely the Lord is in this place- and I did not know it! How awesome is this place!” He calls the place Bethel, translated: the House of God.
This is a moment of reverence. Reverence is an ability to feel awe, reverence is being attuned to the sacred, where the sacred actually is.
Surely the Lord is in this place, and that won’t change if we stopped paying attention. But if we don’t have reverence for this place, we might not notice it.
What are the thin places in your life? Is the church a place where you can experience awe, experience the sacred, experience God? Can you feel reverent in nature, in the woods or at the top of a mountain? Or in the pounding beats of music or dance?
It takes work to be open to awe, and ceremonies and rituals are ways to enhance our capacity for reverence. In the story we read today, Jacob marks the place with a stone for a pillar, and pours oil on it to honor it. A little later in the narrative of Genesis, Jacob returns to this spot to build an altar. He doesn’t need to do it—God was in that place even without the altar. But the altar, the pillar—they help mark the place as special, set apart.
And so it is with our worship service here. The things we do are not necessary to worship God—we can worship throughout our life, just as we can pray without any words or ritual at all. But this ceremony—the time for silence, the breaking of the bread, the reflection on a text: this worship service helps us make space for God, to make space for feelings of worship or awe.
There is a danger to ceremony and markers of reverence, that they become empty: A worship service where everyone’s not “really there” . Or worse yet, the danger is that we try to generate reverence when it is inappropriate: an abuse of reverence—calling it unpatriotic to criticize the government. But reverence is not obedience, or lack of dissent, or even skepticism.
Reverence is an openness to and acknowledgement of the Spirit, the presence of God.
May we all find ways to feel that presence, in worship and in our lives.
Amen.
I don’t want to have to compete with Jon Stewart. But I don’t think I need to. The sacred text today tells what may be the familiar story of Jacob’s ladder. I want to use this story to say something about the importance of reverence, and how reverence is integral to our relationship with God.
In the story, Jacob is traveling, he’s left his father, he’s about to settle in a new place. It’s getting dark, it’s time to stop, and he lies down on a stone. The stone is a hint right away, as many cultures use stones to mark sacred places. Jacob dreams—and we know how God can dwell in dreams.
In his dream, Jacob sees a ladder, alternatively translated as a stairway, a stairway to heaven. He hears God speak to him, and God makes a promise to him.
So Jacob has an experience of the sacred, a closeness with God. He’s in thin place, a place where the dividing line between the holy and the ordinary is very thin. When we wakes up, he exclaims “Surely the Lord is in this place- and I did not know it! How awesome is this place!” He calls the place Bethel, translated: the House of God.
This is a moment of reverence. Reverence is an ability to feel awe, reverence is being attuned to the sacred, where the sacred actually is.
Surely the Lord is in this place, and that won’t change if we stopped paying attention. But if we don’t have reverence for this place, we might not notice it.
What are the thin places in your life? Is the church a place where you can experience awe, experience the sacred, experience God? Can you feel reverent in nature, in the woods or at the top of a mountain? Or in the pounding beats of music or dance?
It takes work to be open to awe, and ceremonies and rituals are ways to enhance our capacity for reverence. In the story we read today, Jacob marks the place with a stone for a pillar, and pours oil on it to honor it. A little later in the narrative of Genesis, Jacob returns to this spot to build an altar. He doesn’t need to do it—God was in that place even without the altar. But the altar, the pillar—they help mark the place as special, set apart.
And so it is with our worship service here. The things we do are not necessary to worship God—we can worship throughout our life, just as we can pray without any words or ritual at all. But this ceremony—the time for silence, the breaking of the bread, the reflection on a text: this worship service helps us make space for God, to make space for feelings of worship or awe.
There is a danger to ceremony and markers of reverence, that they become empty: A worship service where everyone’s not “really there” . Or worse yet, the danger is that we try to generate reverence when it is inappropriate: an abuse of reverence—calling it unpatriotic to criticize the government. But reverence is not obedience, or lack of dissent, or even skepticism.
Reverence is an openness to and acknowledgement of the Spirit, the presence of God.
May we all find ways to feel that presence, in worship and in our lives.
Amen.
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