Sacred Space II – Jacob’s Ladder
“Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it.”
A beautiful way to state a profound truth, a truth many of us have experienced. Suddenly, in the midst of a set of circumstances, a community, or a place, we begin to appreciate that the Lord was there all along even if it took us time to realize it.
We know, at least on an intellectual level, that God is everywhere-present (or perhaps everything is always-present before God), but suddenly we realize that this is true here, with these people, in this place.
Sacred space.
But maybe our Jacob moments teach us something more than the principle of God’s everywhere-presence, as true as that is. After all, when Jacob awakes from his dream he doesn’t say “Oh, well that’s an interesting theological principle isn’t it? No place is different from any other because God is always present.” and then get on with his travels.
No, Jacob sets up rocks as a monument because – even though YHWH is always with him – this place is different.
As the Biblical narrative progresses the people of God must often be reminded that the traditions of their neighbors, traditions that limit the gods to particular places and times, do not apply to the Lord. David is initially told “if I wanted a house of cedar I would have told you to build one” when he begins plans for the Temple, and eventually the Lord abandons the Temple when his people are unfaithful to the covenant.
I wonder though if the people of God today might sometimes need a different warning, a warning not to buy into the stories of our neighbors, stories of a resurgent Gnosticism and post-enlightenment materialism that would tell us physicality and spirituality have nothing to do with each other.
There is more I want to say, but for today I will leave it there.
“I wonder though if the people of God today might sometimes need a different warning, a warning not to buy into the stories of our neighbors, stories of a resurgent Gnosticism and post-enlightenment materialism that would tell us physicality and spirituality have nothing to do with each other.”
That was what it has been for me. I “need” my little church of stained glass, altar, and candle in order to remind myself, no matter how feebly, that this cosmos is held. At least once a week, usually twice, I bring the whole of my being into that space. I bow. I genuflect. I cross. I make body perform vouchsafe faith that where I am is communicating what is Real and Who is Real. Though He is everywhere and I kind find Him in all places unexpected, there is something important about the expected place, the place that pulls me back to Center, calls me Home. But Descartes made us only thought and Kant delighted in the inkling, so that now we think Church is just as much Church on a TV screen as it is in a bodied community. Sure, if all we are is soul trapped in body. But if body matters, if God chooses to show up in specific places in specific ways, omnipresent as He is, then there’s something more we should be paying attention to.
Thank you for starting this conversation, Mason.
I am curious as to whether this is not so much “sacred space” as that we are simply inspired by certain spaces. I am thoroughly low church and have tended to go to churches that hang out in school halls. I believe that God’s presence is with his people and we can find him anywhere and everywhere. To the extent that I am transformed by (or more likely “in”) space to worship or to find God’s presence, it is space general rather than space particular: creation in its majesty (a clear starlit night) or our places in their banality (with others in a stark school hall or a cluttered living room). In contrast, spaces in which others are moved to worship (and specifically churches) have no impact for me whatsoever, and often quite the opposite – my problem; not theirs.
So maybe, to the extent that we find God in particular spaces, this is not because God is more easily found there, but because we have some reaction to the place that somehow helps us to focus. But we are all moved differently, and God is just as likely to reveal himself to me on the bus as in the pew.