By Chris Hughes
We’ve all made the mistake Jacob did when he woke up from sleep and declared the warm stone under his head “Bethel,” the house of God — as if X marked the spot for God’s dwelling place. He felt close to God in that moment and never wanted to forget it, so he set up his own little house of worship.
We all remember places where we felt closest to the holy, and our reaction is the same. We try to pin down and box up God’s presence so that we can keep coming back to it. It’s the driving force behind our zeal to build and maintain church sanctuaries on every street corner in every city. “Come here to feel God’s presence,” we say.
During the weeks leading up to Christmas, we spent a lot of time in church buildings. My Christmas season was full of church cantatas, concerts and candlelit services, and I had my own share of sacred moments as well. When the choir recessed and surrounded us in the sanctuary of Highland Baptist Church in Louisville on Christmas Eve, I thought for sure choirs of angels were joining them and that the church was being lifted from its earthly roots up into heaven — right then and there.
The problem is when we believe and practice that God’s presence is found only in buildings. By elevating our churches as holy places, we concede the rest of the world is profane and allow it to be degraded without a word of protest.
If we look to the Bible, we find that holy people have found God’s presence in all sorts of places.
From the very beginning, God nestled the first couple in a lush garden and surrounded them with rivers, hills and animals, pronouncing it all is good.
Abraham sat under the vast, starry sky in a foreign land, and God promised that his descendents would be just as numerous as those stars.
Moses and the Hebrew people trekked around wilderness between Egypt and the Promised Land, living off wafers from the grass and water from unexpected springs.
Even Jesus caught the spirit of God on the backside of some mountain, hearing the booming voice of God coming down from the heavens.
Here is our dilemma: We worship a God who declares all of creation good and comes to us in profound ways through it, yet we do it within the confines of a building built with human hands. While the rest of creation becomes desacralized – rivers poisoned, trees cleared and mountains leveled — we rest comfortably in the pew, upholding the sacredness of our own creation.
If you don’t believe this, try an experiment in your own church. If your congregation is struggling with a space too big or small, try suggesting a move to a different facility. Then suggest that your congregation begin taking action for creation care. After the dust has settled, chances are you will know full well which is more holy to the typical congregation.
So how about this as a New Year’s resolution for you and your church? Resolve to find the presence of God out in God’s creation, not just in God’s house. Dig your hands into the dirt and feel what God might have felt when breathing life into dust. Look up and get lost in the stars for a few minutes each night and wonder how God could have placed them all so carefully.
Plant a garden and live off the land, even if it’s just a few fruits and vegetables. Hike a mountain in order to take a broader view of the world where you live. See life all around that you did not create and will not outlive.
Practices like these will connect us to our Creator through God’s creation. If we don’t start practicing them soon, then one day the church might really become the only place left to seek the holy. In that case, we will miss out on a whole world of ways to experience God.