Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“You need make for me only an altar of earth and sacrifice on it your burnt-offerings and your offerings of well-being, your sheep and your oxen; in every place where I cause my name to be remembered I will come to you and bless you.”
NL Daily Devotion for Friday, June 24, 2022
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
This little statement is a breath of fresh air. Right after delivering the Ten Commandments and before pages and pages and pages of detailed rules about how to live and especially how to worship God, there’s this nugget about a small, simple way to worship. At this point it seems God doesn’t want gold and silver statues in the temple. All they want is for people to have “an altar of earth.” That’s right. A pile of dirt. Just a simple place they can gather and offer sacrifices.
Moreover, God says that this can be done anywhere and everywhere—in every place their name is remembered at such a humble altar, they will come and give blessings.
It stands in stark contradiction to the Israelites’ future of insisting there is only one place to worship God (Jerusalem) in an elaborate, gold-and-silver-filled temple.
At Camp Koinonia in the Catskill Mountains of New York, where I went often as a youth, there is what is called the “Chapel in the Pines,” a simple outdoor gathering space with a bonfire pit. It was all that was needed to experience communion with and worship of God. No extravagant cathedral required. There’s a little part of me that thinks maybe God really does prefer it that way.
What spaces do I find most meaningful and inspiring for worshipping God?
