Year 1, Day 77: Exodus 28

The Mundane Leads to Good Discussion

Exodus 28 is another fairly straightforward chapter.  I find it interesting in these chapters that while the information may be fairly bland, the blandness of the information makes great room for “rabbit trails” of theology.  I think it is good for us to be willing to pursue rabbit trails periodically.  So while I don’t wake up as excited to read these chapters of Exodus – at least not as excited as I was to read the chapters about the plagues and the exodus story – I am actually more excited about the theology being done because it is more conceptual and less explanatory.  I don’t know if that makes sense to anyone else’s mind today except my own, but I felt the need to get that out.  I guess it is amazing to me how God can take harmless and mundane chapters like this one and spin it into a deep theological pursuit.  Yeah God!

Twelve Tribes

As I read through Exodus 28 I was struck by something profound.  God tells Moses to inscribe the names of the 12 tribes onto the gemstones so that Aaron could bear them with him during his priestly service.  What is profound about this is the reason given: as a reminder (Exodus 28:9-12 – also note that most of Exodus 28:15-30 is related to a similar concept minus the actual inscribing of the names).  As a worship leader, I don’t do that – obviously.  I may wear an alb and a stole every Sunday, but I don’t carry any names with me.  And I began to wonder if I should.

Don’t get me wrong.  The last thing I need is another meaningless ritual for me to start worshipping rather than actually worshipping God.  So I’m not suggesting that I institute another meaningless ritual for the sake of doing ritual.  On the other hand, I think back to the interlude post that I did about a month and a half ago regarding prayer.  In fact, I am haunted by that post almost daily.  As a spiritual leader, maybe there is something to this “remembrance” piece that I am missing.

So I had a thought.   Who knows, maybe I was inspired by March madness brackets.  Here is my thought: I really need a spiritual “diverging radial diagram” {This is a reference for those of you who are familiar with Smart Art in Microsoft Word}.  Such a diagram would represent all the people with whom I am truly spiritually connected.  Each day – or week, or whatever routine I choose – I would carry that diagram into the sanctuary where I worship and simply remember those people before God.  {Since my definition of prayer is a lived experience and not just words I think or say to God, of course it would be a “remembering” in prayer whether formally or informally – hence the reference to the interlude post I made earlier.} 

I wonder if that is a practice that everyone could benefit from.  I’m not saying that we all have to show up to church every day and pray in the sanctuary for the people with whom we are spiritually tied.*  But then again, there would be nothing wrong with it, either!  But I do think I could benefit from regularly remembering those people to whom God has spiritually fastened me.  I think we all could benefit from such a practice – in the sanctuary of the church or in the sanctuary of our home or even in the sanctuary of our car/bus/train/etc.  There is something powerful about regular routine prayer and remembering those to whom we are connected.

A Little Deeper

As I reviewed what I had typed before moving on to the rest of the passage, another thought hit me.  What if each time I gathered for worship I took in this diagram and prayed for those people at some point during the service?  Perhaps it could work in the minutes before the service begins as a preparation for worship?  This idea would never work for me as I am never physically ready to begin worship until about 10 seconds before I walk in the sanctuary, which is about 15 seconds before it is to begin. 

Or perhaps it could work as a list of people I pray for during the prayers of the people when I give time for anyone in the community to lift up prayers for whomever they desire?  This might work for me, although I do have a list I’ve been using every week for the last 6 years.  

I’ll have to give this idea some thought, but it could really be a great idea for people who want to center themselves in prayer about their spiritual relations and who only have access to their worship space once a week.  But, it should be more about the pray and not about the actual space – see a few blog posts back for that conversation.  Anyway, I digress …

Breastplate

So let’s move on to the breastplate.  Aaron is to wear the breastplate every time he comes into the holy place of God.  You might ask why – I hope you do!  While I think much of the reason is for our sake as a tool for remembrance as I detail above, I also think back to the parable of the persistent widow and the unjust judge found in Luke 18:1-8.  In that passage Jesus seems to be teaching us that God desires us to continually bring our prayer requests before Him.  Persistence is to be a part of spirituality!

Okay, we need to be honest about these Hebrew people.  They are going to try God’s patience time and time again.  You know, not unlike the ways that we continue to try God’s patience time and time again.  I wonder if God doesn’t have Aaron wear a representation of God’s people in two places as a constant reminder to Himself that although these people often actively go against His ways that they are still His people.  And as such, we should be praying persistently for God’s people for the same reason.

All of us – spiritual and non-spiritual alike – try God’s patience.  We should be praying for each other persistently in God’s presence for no other reason than as a reminder to God that we are still His people even when we try Him.  Of course, it isn’t that God will forget us – but because God wants us to do it.  God directs us to pray this way before Him.

In the end, combining this passage in Exodus with Luke 18 seems to have brought me to a conclusion.  I need to do a much better job of persistently praying for those with whom I am spiritually connected.  There’s just no other way to sugar-coat it.  I simply need to do a better job at it.  If God expected of it from Aaron as the worship leader of the Hebrews, then as God’s appointed worship leader wherever I am I think it is fair to say that God expects it of me.

Not Alone

As a final thought, do notice that Aaron is not established to do the work alone.  Aaron is given helpers – for the time being they are primarily his sons.  But these helpers are not to do anything they want.  They are to be trained – one might even say discipled.  They cannot do whatever they want, but they are to do it in the manner that God wants.  We should see this in our congregations as well.  The pastor should have assistants.  But those assistants need to be trained, too.

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*As a complete tangent, I learned something that I didn’t know up until yesterday.  Did you know that the typical Roman Christian worshipped God every day of the week during the first few hundred years of the church?  For example, the practice around 730 A.D. was that worship was held 7 days a week.  Most of those days it was just a simple prayer service to start the day.  But the typical practice of a Roman citizen who was Christian was to attend worship daily.  That blew my mind.