DATE: October 12, 2014
SCRIPTURE:
Exodus 25:1-9 and Exodus 35:20-29
© Rev. Alison J. Buttrick Patton
My family recently went to see The Boxtrolls – a whimsical stop-motion animated film about a community of characters – called Boxtrolls – that live in underground caves beneath the streets of the city. The Boxtrolls are artists and engineers – They scavange cast-off trash from the city above to build their own fanciful underground world. They make music using upturned tubs and an old saw; they cover the ceiling with light bulbs that mimic the stars; they repurpose gears, nobs and springs to create fantastic inventions.
As enchanted as I was by these Boxtrolls, with their clever, creative flare, I was equally captivated by the creators of the film – artists and engineers just like their subjects: women and men who handcrafted every element in the film in astonishing, meticulous miniature – from the single flower that pokes up between the cracks in a sidewalk – just one inch tall – to the stops on a tiny trumpet; from the cheese laid out on a mouse-sized banquet table to an underground canal that shimmers like real water.
Their attention to detail is awe-inspiring. The story itself is about ingenuity and courage and living ‘outside the box,’ as it were. And maybe that’s why it appealed to me. Whatever the case, images from the film played about in my mind as I read these verses from Exodus, in which God provides a kind of blueprint for creating the tabernacle – the tent in which the people will worship and where God will dwell as they travel through the wilderness.
Now, in Exodus, the creativity begins with God – God is the designer – the Master Architect, who tells Moses, in no uncertain terms, that the people are to follow God’s instructions precisely. This is to be a holy sanctuary, God’s temporary home. It must be worthy of its divine occupant. But unlike those images from the making of Boxtrolls, there’s no giant hand reaching down from the sky above Mt. Sinai, to craft a gold-leafed table or weave the purple cloth. God relies on the Israelites, on their gifts and skills, to render what God has envisioned. So it is a kind of collaboration, after all.
“All the skilled women spun with their own hands, and… And the chieftains brought lapis lazuli and other stones for setting.”
Together, they were called to create something beautiful, a lavishly adorned mikdash, in the Hebrew, which means sanctuary or holy place. This sanctuary, although temporary, portable, needed to reflect the very best the community had to offer; all their treasures and all their skill: with faithful attention to detail, they would weave and craft, polish and gild, according to God’s design.
It brings to my mind the image of grand cathedrals with their gleaming columns, high arched ceilings, and resounding silence, like the Holy One has just exhaled. Do you feel God’s presence in such majestic places? Or does it feel a bit excessive, all that gold and silver, lapis lazule and perfumed oil? Do you wonder why God would demand such a lavish display of wealth? That’s what some of the folks in Bible study asked this week.
It’s a natural question for those of us who are children of the Reformation (500 years ago), when the excesses of the priests were condemned by Reformers like Martin Luther, and simpler, less ornamental expressions of church emerged. Our own New England congregational ancestors rejected ornate church decor in favor of simplicity: Away with stained glass windows and gold-leafed trim; away with icons and flowing robes; away with the center aisle, down which processed the grandly robed priests and bishops. We’ve inherited a Protestant faith that regards extravagance as suspect, too much show as indecent. Thou shalt not be distracted by such worldly indulgence, but focus only on the Word. “Sola Scriptura,” in the Latin.
If you find yourself ill at ease in grand cathedrals; if you question why all that money would go to building a church, rather than feeding hungry folks or housing homeless neighbors, well: That is thanks, in part, to our Puritan ancestors. They bequeathed to us a precious inheritance: a conviction that faith is more than fancy trappings: That discipleship is a matter of ethical living: of seeking justice for the oppressed and setting the captives free. So our Congregational ancestors fought against slavery, ordained the first woman (Antoinette Brown) and the first openly gay man (William R. Johnson); marched in Selma; built schools and health clinics and summer camps. This is an inheritance of which we should be proud.
But I wonder whether our ancestors in the faith may have lost sight of something about the nature of God in their noble efforts to reform the Christian, whether we didn’t throw out the proverbial baby with the bathwater, when we abandoned the pungent aroma of incense or the play of candlelight and shadow on a sanctuary wall; whether we lost a little transcendence, a little awe. I wonder whether we forget, now and then, that the one who liberated the Israelites from slavery also forged the distant stars and scatters bluebells across the forest floor; polishes the river rocks, paints the stripes on the snow leopard and carves shimmering spirals into the Nautilus shell. Once you look around, it’s hard to miss that our God, who cares so deeply about the wellbeing of all God’s creatures, also delights in beauty.
Even Jesus, that off-beat rabbi who hung out with women, lepers and other outcasts, sometimes favored what was lovely over what was practical. Once, while Jesus was staying at the home of Simon the leper, a woman approached Jesus where he sat at the dinner table. She broke open an alabaster jar and poured perfumed oil over his head, until it ran all down his hair. Jesus’ disciples were appalled – what a colossal waste of money. That expensive oil could have been sold to buy bread for the poor. But Jesus waved them off, welcomed the woman and acknowledged that extravagant act of anointing for what it was: a gift, a most generous gift, a heart-felt expression of love and devotion, hope and concern for this teacher who had changed her life. What she gave, she gave with her whole heart, a whole vase of perfumed oil, so that the aroma must have permeated the whole house where they gathered: the scent of gratitude, generosity, and love.
Which brings me back to the Israelites, and to Boxtrolls, for that matter. And to every artist and engineer that pours his or her heart into the creation of something magnificent. Herein lies the key: that we do what we do for the sake of love – not to show off; not to prove anything, or to compete with anyone; not to keep up with the Jones and certainly not to elevate ourselves above anyone else. These are all temptations against which God Godself warned in those ten commandments we read through last week: Thou shalt not steal or covet or worship anything that is not God; thou shalt not make any graven image; no golden calf. But to build a sanctuary, a Mikdash, to make it beautiful at God’s invitation, that is the opposite of greed. It is gift. Or can be.
God said to Moses, “You shall accept gifts for Me from every person whose heart so moves him or her.”
When what we give we give freely, even eagerly; when what we build we build to honor God, the first Creator, the Master Architect; when what we do in that space we do for God’s sake, to God’s own glory, then the giving is indeed a gift. Whether we are talking about a tabernacle in the wilderness or our very own Saugatuck Church, God calls us to lovingly and joyfully attend to the details, because we are preparing a place for God to dwell.
To be clear: We don’t have to achieve perfection before God will move in. That’s not even the goal. What is perfect, anyway? Who decides what counts as beautiful? I read a few of the comments attached to the Boxtrolls trailer on YouTube. It turns out (and I shouldn’t be surprised) that scattered among the positive reviews are several negative comments. “The boxtrolls are ugly! ALL the characters are ugly.” And maybe they are, by some measures. I mean, they’re trolls! They eat beetles and have only three fingers (plus a thumb). But I still love the care with which they were rendered, right down to the smile wrinkles, the crooked teeth and googley eyes.
Which, if you think about it, is how God loves us: in all our peculiar particularities. Whether we love vivid splashes of color or the beauty of a white-washed wall; Whether the gifts we render would be more at home in an art museum or under magnets on the fridge…
We would do well to remember this, lest we fall prey to every congregation’s bane, the endless debate about the shape of the tables or the color of the carpet. Too much of that sort of thing is a sure sign that we are making of our space an idol, that we’ve forgotten its true purpose.
It’s not about getting it exactly right; it’s about giving the very best of what we have to offer, as so many of you have done over these last three years, in countless ways visible and invisible. Today I give thanks for the members of our rebuilding team, (to John Walsh, Sara Walsh, Betsy Gillespie, John Locke, and Russ Blair), who have taken on so many of the tiny details that will help to make our church beautiful. At the end of the labor, which I know is intense, may there be a sense of joy, and of welcoming God’s spirit in.
This I know: When we bring our best selves, do our best work, worship with our whole hearts and treat one another with kindness; when we ask ourselves, “How can this sacred space help us to make a joyful noise…tell God’s story…inspire faith…serve others and welcome anyone who wants to be here?” When we ask, how can we reflect God’s love for beauty AND justice? …When these are the details that consume us, then we make of our church a masterpiece, a home away from home where God will surely be glad to dwell. May it be so.
Scripture Texts
Exodus 25:1-9 – Jewish Publication Society, adapted
1 The LORD spoke to Moses, saying: 2Tell the Israelite people to bring Me gifts; you shall accept gifts for Me from every person whose heart so moves him or her. 3And these are the gifts that you shall accept from them: gold, silver and copper; 4 blue, purple, and crimson yarns, fine linen, goats’ hair; 5 tanned ram skins, fine leather and acacia wood; 6 oil for lighting, spices for the anointing oil and for the aromatic incense; 7 lapis lazuli and other stones for setting, for the ephod and for the breastpiece. 8 And let them make Me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them. 9 Exactly as I show you – the pattern of the Tabernacle and the pattern of all its furnishings – so shall you make it.
Exodus 35:20-29 – Jewish Publication Society, adapted
20 So the whole community of the Israelites left Moses’ presence.
21 And everyone who excelled in ability and everyone whose spirit moved him or her came, bringing to the LORD his or her offering for the work of the Tent of Meeting and for all its service and for the sacral vestments.
22 Men and women, all whose hearts moved them, all who would make an elevation offering of gold to the LORD, came bringing brooches, earrings, rings, and pendants – gold objects of all kinds.
23 And everyone who had in his or her possession blue, purple, and crimson yarns, fine linen, goats’ hair, tanned ram skins, and fine leather, brought them;
24 everyone who would make gifts of silver or copper brought them as gifts for the LORD; and everyone who had in his or her possession acacia wood for any work of the service brought that.
25 And all the skilled women spun with their own hands, and brought what they had spun, in blue, purple, and crimson yarns, and in fine linen.
26 And all the women who excelled in that skill spun the goats’ hair.
27 And the chieftains brought lapis lazuli and other stones for setting, for the ephod and for the breastpiece;
28 and spices and oil for lighting, for the anointing oil, and for the aromatic incense.
29 Thus the Israelites, all the men and women, whose hearts moved them to bring anything for the work that the LORD, through Moses, had commanded to be done, brought it as a freewill offering to the LORD.