The Wonders of Life: Keep the Flame Lit

Isaiah 6:1-8

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor. Psalm 8:3-5

“If we really understood the Mass, we would die of joy.” — St. John Vianney (the Curé of Ars)

“And though all that remains of the Temple is one wall, still to stand and pray in that spot is to feel the presence of three thousand years of Jewish prayers.”— The Rabbi Sacks Legacy

“As he gazed at the icon of Mother Mary, he felt the Holy Mother’s arms opening wide and welcoming him.” — Professor Bruce Beck, Hellenic College of the Holy Cross

As we continue this sermon series on the wonders of life, last week we discovered how, through a deeper appreciation of nature, we could be more connected to God and more connected to ourselves. This morning, we find that some of the most traditional ways are still amongst the most powerful—finding God through sacred ritual.

For me, one such moment took place at the Benedictine Abbey of Montserrat near Barcelona. It is a short train ride from the city to the foot of the mountain. You then find yourself in an absolutely spectacular setting, followed by a fairly rigorous hike of about an hour to the abbey.

The physical exertion adds to the awe of the location. We arrived just in time to enter the abbey as a service was about to begin. It was packed—standing room only. As these children began to sing, a hush—a holy hush—enveloped the space. Their voices reverberated off the ancient stone, and the sound was of such crystal-clear purity that you imagined you were being entertained by angels.

These diverse religious experiences all point to a similar thread, known in Hebrew as Shekinah.

Most religions and denominations have special pathways to cultivate an experience of the divine through space and place, or through deep listening made possible by the arrangement of prayers, candles, and incense.

Shekinah means “dwelling” and refers to God’s immanent, sometimes numinous, presence—a spine-tingling, hair-raising, ecstatic and surreal moment,

Precisely Isaiah’s experience. He described a uniquely powerful moment of encountering God in the temple—one unlikely to be replicated for you or me.

So where does that leave us? The temple has been destroyed, and God is not traveling in a pillar of fire as in the wilderness.

But of course, the Temple’s destruction did not lead to the disappearance of the experience of God, but rather to its expansion across the world:

“After the destruction of the Temple, the synagogue became a miniature Temple… Jews discovered that holiness does not depend on buildings of stone but on acts of faith, study, and prayer… The Temple was never about a building. It was about creating a society of justice and compassion that would bear witness to God in the world… When the building was destroyed, the mission remained. In place of the physical Mikdash, the Rabbis taught, every home can be a sanctuary and every heart a fragment of the Temple.” — Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, teaching on Tisha B’Av

There is a thread not only throughout Scripture, but across the planet, of transcendent moments in which people of many faiths describe similar encounters with the surreal, the sublime, and the sacred. I will share with you several stories from a variety of traditions that I pray will help you find the practice that attunes you to these Shekinah moments.

Art is an underappreciated vessel for the sacred in our Presbyterian world. As Pope Francis said: “A work of art can open the eyes of the mind and heart… something bigger, something that speaks, capable of touching the heart, of communicating a message, elevating the soul.”

And the Orthodox Church has a powerful theology that connects people to God through art known as icons, described by Dr. Bruce Beck as “windows into heaven.”

Until about fifteen years ago, I had absolutely no knowledge of this. On a journey I took with several clergy—a Baptist preacher, a Catholic priest, a Presbyterian minister, a Lutheran, and a rabbi—we found ourselves at the Orthodox Cathedral in Boston.

There we were introduced to Dr. Beck, who shared the story of how he became an Orthodox Christian. He began as a Southern Baptist in Athens, Georgia, came to Boston to pursue a PhD, and met his wife there, an ancient Greece scholar. Through her studies, she was drawn to Orthodoxy and eventually converted. When their first child was born, he agreed to raise the child Orthodox.

When his wife was too tired to take the baby to church, he would carry the child in a sling and walk quietly in the back of the sanctuary. He first noticed something changing when he found himself tearing up as the Gospel texts were read. He had studied those same texts academically, yet they had never moved him emotionally.

Then one day, as he gazed at an icon of the Holy Mother, he felt her arms opening wide and welcoming him. He described this as a non-verbal experience of what he called material holiness—the belief that the material world can be used by God to help the faithful in their journey toward God.

He went on to describe the process of iconography:

“Iconography as a sacrament results from the icon’s and the iconographer’s communion with the Divine. The iconographer must engage in a spiritual discipline of fasting, abstinence, prayer, and Eucharist to prepare for a project. To execute an icon requires something of an ascetic lifestyle, which is why many iconographers are Orthodox monks and nuns.”

We Presbyterians are deeply concerned with things making sense, with a rational approach to theology and religious practice. I believe this is laudable and essential. I come from a family of academics, and I was a math major. For much of my life, I had a utilitarian approach to feeling- and experience-based religious practices. I was skeptical of them.

But as I grow older, I find myself less concerned with explanations and more interested in exploration. I first heard this articulated by Dr. Peter Gomes when he was chaplain at Memorial Church at Harvard. He knew people like me well. In one conversation, he said something that has stayed with me: faith should be outlandish. He said, “I want it not to make sense. When people come to my church, we do not do explanations. My goal is to keep the flame lit, not to explain the nature of fire.”

As people continue to hunger for more Shekinah, old traditions are being repurposed and reinvigorated. A colleague of mine, the Rev. Bob Hurst in Alabama, told me about his encounter with Anita Diamant, author of The Red Tent. They met at Mayyim Hayyim, a mikvah—a place used by Jews for ritual immersion.

Traditionally, women used the mikvah following their monthly cycle, and it is also used in conversion and other life-cycle events. But this mikvah has been re-envisioned as a place to encounter God. Diamant helped renew interest in this ritual, especially among Reform Jews in the Boston area. Many who have used it report powerful experiences of God. What is fascinating is that this most physical of Jewish rituals—one that literally places people in contact with their bodies—has facilitated profound encounters with the transcendent. Diamant said, “A ritual that forces people to get out of their heads has facilitated the most powerful spiritual experiences.”

For Muslims, it is the sacred Black Stone, believed to have fallen from Paradise and given to Abraham by the Angel Gabriel, touched or revered in imitation of the Prophet Muhammad.

How can we learn from these traditions that are outside of our historic Christian practices as Presbyterians?

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks wrote in The Dignity of Difference: “The test of faith is whether I can make space for difference. Can I recognize God’s image in someone who is not in my image…? If I cannot, then I have made God in my image instead of allowing Him to remake me in His.”

That is, if we affirm that everyone is made in the image of God and they have a seed of the Spirit planted within them, and even if they don’t have the same doctrine or faith that I do, they have something to teach me, something to share with me that I need to learn from. And it is not all about head knowledge.

[[Time Out!]] [Occasionally in football the quarterback will call an audible and change the play. I’m calling an audible in the sermon and shifting texts! After all, tomorrow is Martin Luther King Jr. Day]

I recently reread what is, for today’s geopolitical context, a world-altering text. It made me think about today’s world and how sad I am about the state of war and politics across the planet. The problems in the Middle East and Europe and Asia and Africa and in our country are not new; they have been with humanity always, but God offers a promise, a radical promise.

In the nineteenth chapter of Isaiah, we are told a recounting of the idolatrous sins of Egypt and Assyria, both enslavers and conquerors of Israel. God promises wrath and judgment upon Egypt for its idolatry and past enslavement of the Israelites.

But then the passage takes a radical turn. God promises not only to save Egypt and Assyria, but to bless them alongside Israel: “Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel my heritage.”

God’s power will make peace between nations, cultures, and religions long at odds with one another. These moments of reconciliation are among the most powerful ways of knowing the Shekinah of God.

Which reminds me of our Christian understanding of God’s Shekinah. And it came in the form of an infant who was laid in a manger. And he powerfully manifested the presence of God through bringing justice and dignity and hope to those who are despised by the world. He showed us that God’s justice and God’s holy presence are inextricably linked. And that when people experience the justice of God, they also experience the holiness of God.

Jesus promised that wherever two or three are gathered in his name, he is in their midst. I would argue that whenever people gather—whether they know it or not—in the pursuit of harmony, forgiveness, and understanding across divides, they are gathering in the name of Jesus, the Prince of Peace.

I am convinced that the path to healing this world is the path of respect, of listening, of understanding people who are not like us. It is the bridge that will be the forerunner to Isaiah’s vision of the healing of the nations.

I am deeply grateful for the faith God has given me, for the family who instilled it in me, and for the privilege of serving the Presbyterian Church. It is my greatest honor. Yet I also know that my experience of God is incomplete. I do not know everything about God, nor does the Presbyterian Church.

Every encounter I have had with people of deep and respectful faith—Muslims, Jews, Sikhs, Buddhists, Hindus—has enriched me immeasurably. Their willingness to share their own sacred ways of encountering God has expanded my heart and my understanding of the Shekinah, and given me hope for a new world. Amen.