09-04-21

ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHING
September 4, 2021
Scripture: Exodus 38:1-3
He made the altar for entirely burned offerings out of acacia wood. The altar was square, seven and a half feet long and seven and a half feet wide. It was four and a half feet high. He made horns for it, one horn on each of its four corners. Its horns were attached to the altar, and he covered it with copper. He made all the altar’s equipment: the pails, the shovels, the bowls, the meat forks, and the trays. He made all its equipment out of copper.

Thought for the Day: Tomorrow, I am preaching from Exodus 36, what is the beginning of a larger section describing the Tent of Meeting, or what might be called the traveling temple in the Wilderness. In the above words, we hear of an altar with very specific dimensions, decorations and covering. In passages like this, there have been all kinds of theories presented over the years about why the specific size or shape of something – the altar was seven and half feet long (technically, five cubits). Some of the theories are interesting, and others are complete nonsense. Now someone might have nailed it, but we will probably never know for sure… at least on many of the specific numbers, size, color, etc. This is where we need to take into account what some call the “neighbor factor.” Some of the choices made in regard to the Tent of Meeting might have been simply to distinguish from, among other groups, the Egypt’s Tent of Meeting. When they went into battle, the Egyptians had a traveling temple. When a group, like the Israelites, was trying to find itself as it moved from slavery to freedom, it was important to make things different. Making a clear distinction between the old world and the new world is essential. If the past follows us into the present, the present often looks like the past. This isn’t good if your past included the pain of slavery. What do you change in your life, maybe simple things around the house, when you are trying to move forward into something different? Maybe it was some poor choices or an unhealthy relationship or maybe a painful betrayal. Most of us don’t just wake up one morning and put it all behind us. It takes work, but restructuring our lives, switching some habits or even repainting a room, can often help reinforce within us that change is happening.

Prayer: There are a few things we’d like to leave in the past. There are things that would be better off left behind as we seek to be a new creation. Come, Holy Spirit, and assist us in this work. Be our guide, both individually and collectively, for we desire to do more than dream of a change. We seek to make the needed change for a healthier self, community and world. Amen.

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