Drawing Closer to God

The Altar of the Ordinary

 

This morning I am going to begin with an Old Testament story.  This story is commonly called “Jacob’s Ladder”.  I’m sure you know this story, but I want to tell it again.  I want to use it as sort of a metaphor for life. 

 

Jacob and Esau were twins.  Their struggle with each other, which began in their mother’s womb, continued their whole lives.  Although they were twins, it would be safe to say they were… un-identical.  Esau was hairy, Jacob was smooth.  One was a mighty hunter, the other a cook.  One was rash, the other cunning.  One was brave; one tricky.  One was his Father’s son.  The other a mama’s boy.  I’m sure I would have liked Esau... but, Jacob, not so much.  In fact, the name Jacob means cheater.

 

They did have one thing in common; they both wanted their father’s blessing.  Our story begins right after Jacob has lived up to his name and tricked his father; Isaac.  Isaac has just given Jacob the blessing which he intended to give to Esau.  Esau doesn’t take this very well. 

 

Genesis 27:41 Esau held a grudge against Jacob because of the blessing his father had given him.  He said to himself, "The days of mourning for my father are near; then I will kill my brother Jacob."

 

Jacob was afraid of Esau.  Jacob assumed Esau was going to knock the stuffing out of him.  So, Jacob listened to his mother and got out of town.

 

Genesis 28:10-11 Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Haran.  When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set.  Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep.

 

Let me make sure we have the setting correct.  We have this less than honest man; Jacob.  He is currently homeless.  He is on the run.  He is alone.  He is sleeping on a rock.  All Jacob has is… his father’s blessing.  Perhaps, that is enough.

 

Genesis 28:12-15 He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.  There above it stood the LORD, and he said: "I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac.  I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying.  Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south.  All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring.  I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land.  I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you."

 

God honors Isaac’s blessing on Jacob.  The land Jacob is sleeping on is going to be The Land.  His kids and their kids and their kids are going to spread from the west to the east to the north to the south and cover the land.  God promises to watch over Jacob until the blessing is fulfilled.  God promises to fulfill Isaac’s blessing on Jacob!  I guess the blessing was worth cheating for.

 

What Jacob says next is the reason I am telling this story.  Where the metaphor for life begins

 

Genesis 28:16-19 When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, "Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it.”  He was afraid and said, "How awesome is this place!  This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.”  Early the next morning Jacob took the stone he had placed under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on top of it.  He called that place Bethel.

 

Jacob realizes the significance of this amazing dream.  Jacob looks around for something to set up as an altar.  There was the rock he slept on.  He turned it up on its end as a marker of God’s promise.  He called the place Bethel which means… house of God. 

 

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This morning we are off to a new spiritual destination.  We have been in the Thin Place of Worship all of the summer.  This morning, on our metaphorical cruise, we are going to a new destination that, in many ways, is the opposite of The Thin Place of Worship.  The point of the Thin Place of Worship has been to teach us that in our corporate worship we can draw close to God.  In our singing, praying, scripture reading, Lord’s Supper, preaching and even as we watch the kids give, we draw close to God… together.  There is an interaction within us; a chain reaction of connections; a joining together of embers to make a flame which draws us, as a body, closer toward God.  Worship is a great place to connect to God.  We must never forget how important it is to be together.

 

But, less, we think worship only happens between these walls, on Sunday morning, we are off to an opposite location.  We are leaving the “holy” to go to the “ordinary”.  We are leaving the “expected” to go to the “surprising”.  We are leaving the “ritual” to go to the “impromptu”.  We are going to join Jacob in saying, “Surely, the LORD is in this place.”

 

I am calling our new destination…The Altar of the Ordinary.  We are going to discover how to draw closer to God in ordinary places.

 

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Perhaps, this is where we should have begun our spiritual journeys.  I tend to think that I must do something spectacular to draw closer to God.  God can only be seen when we exercise some serious spiritual discipline or make some extreme sacrifice or attend some big event.  The point of the Altar of the Ordinary is God is all around us, all the time.  This is what Paul taught in Athens…

 

Acts 17:24-28 ^“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands.  And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else.  From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.  God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.  For in him we live and move and have our being.”

 

The last place we tend to look for God is under our feet.  We don’t think about finding God in everyday activities.  We don’t realize God… in the chance encounters; in the accidents of life; in the ordinary.  “What possible spiritual encounter could there be in a trip to the post office?  How could something as common as a toothache give a glimpse into heaven?”

 

“No one longs for what he or she already has, and yet the accumulated insight of those wise about the spiritual life suggests that the reason so many of us cannot see the red “X” that marks the spot is because we are standing on it.”  – Barbara Brown Taylor -

 

We want a secret treasure map which has the red “X” in some mysterious place.  “You have to be determined to find God.  You must work hard to draw close to Him.  Only those who give 110% will find God.”  Yet, I think we are going to join in with Jacob saying, “Surely the LORD is in this place and I was not aware of it”.  God may be in places we would never suspect.

 

We lack the imagination to realize we have everything we need.  We are where we need to be.  All we need do is look down and see the “X” between our feet and, then, look up to see God standing at the top of the ladder. 

 

Jacob’s dream of a stairway to heaven tells us God is there for us.  God is standing at the top of stairs inviting us to join him, “Hey, come on up”.  The bottom of the stairway is anchored in the ordinary.  The first step of the ladder is where we are.  The invitation is to step up from the ordinary into the presence of God. 

 

 “Surely the LORD is in this place and I was not aware of it”.  Bethel is an ordinary place which allows us to draw closer to God.

 

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What makes the Altar of the Ordinary meaningful  is we are Jacob.  Jacob was certainly not a great man of faith like Abraham.  Jacob was never asked to offer his son on an altar.  Jacob’s altar was just a dream, not a knife and a boy.  Jacob himself was ordinary; like us.

 

Jacob was an ordinary sinner... like us.  We try to get the best for ourselves and we don’t often think about the hurt we do to others.  We listen to our mothers who tell us to run, instead of standing and face the consequences of our actions.  We avoid facing our brothers, when we have hurt them.  Our name could be Jacob. 

 

That is why we can join Jacob saying, "Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it." (Then the Bible goes on to say…)  He was afraid and said, "How awesome is this place!” 

 

It was an awesome place because the God of the Universe appeared to a cheater and gave him the blessing.  Isn’t that our experience?  The God of the Universe comes to us and offers us a blessing…

 

James 4:8,10 Come near to God and he will come near to you…  Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

 

The Altar of the Ordinary is an awesome place because the God of the Universe appears to you at the top of the staircase which is anchored in your ordinary and says, “I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you”.  How awesome is that?

 

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Then Jacob says, “This is the gate of heaven.”  Jacob’s pillow/rock marked the gate to heaven.  This is the point of our new spiritual destination.  It is in the ordinary things, like a rock, where we find gateways to God.

 

Barbara Brown Taylor, who jump started the ideas of this sermon in her book “The Altar of the World”, states…

 

“There is no spiritual treasure to be found apart from the bodily experiences of our human life on earth.  My life depends upon engaging the most ordinary physical activities with the most exquisite attention I can give them.”  – Barbara Brown Taylor -

 

Over the next couple weeks, that is going to be our challenge.  We are going to find these gates to heaven by giving exquisite attention to ordinary activities.  We are not just going to be studying about them.  We are going to be acutely paying attention to them.

 

Who wants to study the menu when you could be eating?

- Lets don’t read recipes about how to make bread; let’s eat bread

- Let’s don’t study about how we should love each other; let’s love each other

- Let’s not do systematic theology; let’s practice a systematic way seeing God for real.

 

The Altar of the Ordinary invites us to find the gate to heaven in our everyday life!

 

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Genesis 28:18-22  Early the next morning Jacob took the stone he had placed under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on top of it.  He called that place Bethel, though the city used to be called Luz.  (That is what I’m talking about.  Turning the Luzes of this life and turning them  into Bethels) Then Jacob made a vow, saying, "If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear so that I return safely to my father's house, then the LORD will be my God and this stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God's house, and of all that you give me I will give you a tenth."

 

Jacob created an altar in the middle of nowhere and poured oil upon it and made it a scared place.  He gave it a name; God’s House.  In so doing, Jacob demonstrates there is no such difference in the secular and the sacred.  There is distinction in the physical and the spiritual.  There is no separation between body and soul.  The Altar of the Ordinary is where we will draw close to God by paying exquisite attention to our lives.

 

Let’s join Jacob in saying, “Then the LORD will be my God!”

 

Tim Stidham

Los Alamos Church of Christ

August 28, 2011