Remembering the Lord His Way
Today we begin with
Moses speaking to the people about how to remember the Lord their God once He
has brought them into the Promised Land.
It basically says, “set up and altar and inscribe this law for all to
see.” That part is self-explanatory
enough. But then I hit a sentence that
took my mind in a totally different direction: “Do not use any tools of
iron.” See Deuteronomy 27:5.
I asked myself the
question: what’s so wrong with using tools of iron? And I came upon a fairly simple answer as I
asked the question. The altar is to be
made of uncut stones. In other words,
the place of worship is to be made up of things the way God made them. Moses was telling the people to create a
place of worship that would remind them of who God is and of what things His power
is capable. God doesn’t want the people
to build an edifice displaying the greatness of human engineering. Rather, God wanted the people to build a
reminder of God’s awesome power.
Don’t get me
wrong. God doesn’t have a problem with
people using tools and making buildings using cut stones. We know that God gave directions for a
manmade tabernacle. He allowed Solomon
to build a temple in Jerusalem. So this
isn’t going to be a tirade on how our church edifices are problematic to God at
all.
However, I think it
is a warning to us that the more we as humans do in the building process, the
more dangerous the worship of the work of our own hands becomes. If we build a simple church with
functionality, we set ourselves up to be able to focus on God much more
easily. It we build a gorgeous church
with all kinds of artwork, statues, woodcarving, plush carpet, fancy doors,
fancy bibles in the pews and things like this then it will be much more likely
that we stop worshipping God and we actually start worshipping the beauty of the
space that we have created.
Sure, we’ll talk
about how the beauty of the space will draw people in – but even that comment I
don’t buy. If people are coming in to
our space because it is beautiful, then we’ll be attracting people who are naturally
disposed to worship our space and not our God.
Rather, if we have a functional space that is all about the true worship
of God then when people come into our midst those who stay will be staying
because of the worship that is happening there and the presence of God that
they find.
The Heart of Worship
You see, it isn’t
really about “man-made” or “uncut” as much as it is about what is in our hearts
and what the point of our worship is. I
think Moses is careful here to tell the Hebrew people to be intentional about
setting themselves up to be able to worship God rather than their own
creations. Remember, these are slaves
out of Egypt coming into a land of wealth and opulence – you remember the “milk
and honey” part, right? It will be easy
for these people to become infatuated with their opulent lifestyle and forget
their God. Unfortunately, we are not so
different from the Hebrews as we might like to think.
String of Curses
The second portion of
our scripture deals with the curses.
Again, I think the curses are fairly self-explanatory, especially if we
have read through the first 4 books of the Bible already. So what I am going to focus on today is that
Moses has the people stand up and pronounce the curses themselves. Sure, Moses has said these things to the
people in the past. But as they
transition into the Promised Land Moses has these people proclaim the curses
themselves.
Why is this
significant? Have you ever been a part
of a play, musical, or some sort of a performance? If you have, then you will know that there is
a big difference between being a part of a performance and watching other
people perform. When we watch, we are
entertained for a little bit but we are not really likely to be affected all
that greatly. When we participate in the
performance we must take it much more seriously, we must practice, and we are
far more likely to internalize the things that are going on in the
performance. Moses wants the Hebrew
people to not just witness the act; he wants them to internalize it.
The same should be
true for us as spiritual people. My
favorite kind of Bible Study is one where we open up the scripture and proceed
through the study with everyone’s participation. Sure, the leader may have an agenda of what
they would like to teach, but we also go along and are open to pursuing
questions that spontaneously arise even if it means going down a bit of a
rabbit trail. The reason that I like
this kind of study is because when everyone is involved, everyone has a greater
chance of internalizing the information.
I think as spiritual people we should be all about being as involved as
possible in our spirituality – taking roles of leadership whenever
possible. When we participate, we
grow. When we lead, we grow even more!
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