A-ha! Altars

Genesis 28:10-19


Have you had one of those A-ha moments?

One where suddenly you know what you didn’t know before. Or you recognize someone or something in a whole new way.

If you went to Vacation Bible School or on pilgrimage this week, you might have had one of those Ahas of God’s presence and God’s blessing.
But even if you weren’t out looking for God, you might have had one too.

Think about Jacob.
Jacob is the black sheep of the family, who has swiped his older brother’s birthright for a bowl of stew, and stolen the blessing meant for Esau with a dirty trick. So his brother is ready to kill him, and now Jacob is on the run.
And when he falls asleep in the middle of nowhere, he has a remarkable dream.

A stairway to heaven – with messengers trotting up and down to communicate with God – but as he watches, God is right beside him. And God promises him everything he has plotted and cheated for, and lots more besides: land, children (lots and lots of children) who will be a blessing to the whole earth.  A secure and wonderful future.
God promises to protect him, provide for him, and bring him back home safe and sound. God promises never to abandon Jacob.

And Jacob wakes up with his big “Aha!” on the tip of his tongue.
God is here, where I never expected it.

Not in some distant heaven, but standing right next to me.
Here, with me, even though I never really believed it before.
God has come looking for me and I don’t need plans or schemes or channels or official messengers or anything else to find and be found by God, to bless and be blessed by God.

Has that ever happened to you?
I hope it has.
It’s happened to me.
But the thing is, I don’t always remember that.

I know I’ve been discovered by God’s love; I know I’ve discovered God right here, in Sunday School classrooms and quiet conversations, in Lake Michigan and in grocery store parking lots and other unexpected places.
But I can’t always get that moment back.
I don’t truly remember many of those experiences, and I don’t always remember what I’ve learned from them.
Which is too bad.

Because even though it’s easier, in some ways, to live without that spotlight certainty of God right here, focused on you, when we don’t remember that immediate, present presence of God, we can start to feel forgotten, alone, bored and, well, easily tempted to get ourselves in trouble. Prone to overwork, or to quit without trying.
And when we do remember, we become our best selves: generous, forgiving, hopeful,
because we know we don’t have to do this on our own.

God might have come looking for Jacob over and over and over before the dream in the story we heard today, but this is the Aha that shaped Jacob’s life.
It’s not that Jacob is transformed into a different person.
For the rest of his life, he’s still the guy who doesn’t hesitate for a moment to seize his own advantage.
But it changes the world. At least, his world.
Now he’s a man who remembers that he is known and loved and claimed by God.

There’s something that happens in this story that doesn’t happen in every encounter with God: in the Bible, or in our lives.
When he wakes up, full of his Aha, his discovery that God is right here and that he is abundantly blessed,
Jacob makes an altar.

It’s not a very fancy altar. An average size rock, upended like a pillar, with a little oil drizzled on it. But Jacob marks the spot so that he will never forget that this unlikely place is the “House of God.”

There’s one Aha moment in my life that I haven’t forgotten (well, there are more – but this is the one I’m telling you about.)
Last spring I went on a clergy retreat in the North Carolina mountains. I knew it would be a pretty good experience, but in the middle of that week I discovered that truth all over again:
God is here. Not just everywhere, not somewhere, but here, with a love and a blessing that we can’t run away from.
I knew I knew that already. But I still had Jacob’s vivid “Aha.” God is in this place, in my life, where I wasn’t really looking.

So I made an altar.
I didn’t set up any rocks at the retreat center (as it happened, there were already plenty of signs that said “God is here.”)
I bought a little watercolor of the North Carolina mountains. A little altar, in a frame, that came home with me to stand up and say “God is here.”
And on the days when I don’t remember that in the ordinary way, I can look at the picture, and discover that Aha all over again.

I’d like to tell you that it’s completely changed my life.
It hasn’t. I still forget lots of those everyday discoveries of God’s presence and blessing.
But there’s one more thing in my life to renew that discovery. A second chance, and a third, and another and another to live into the awareness, deep down, that I am known and loved and blessed by God.

You may have altars, too.
Photos or mementos or stories from one or two really special experiences that bring the discovery of God’s love to you fresh, again and again.

What would it be like if we marked all those places in our lives, so that the world was covered in altars?
So that we’re surrounded by God’s unmistakable nearness, discovered by God’s delighted, loving presence, all over again, in our homes and in the grocery,
every time we enter the classroom, or the living room, or the pew?

At the back of the church there is a basket of rocks. Take one, and make an altar.

If you’ve had one of those Ahas this week, mark it on the stone, and take it home with you, or to the office, or wherever you need it most.
Or just put a stone in your pocket, and when an Aha happens, mark the spot. Not a fancy altar – just enough to remember that here and now you know that God is here, with you.

This week,this month, this year, when the Aha of God’s presence finds you,
when God’s blessing discovers you where you weren’t even looking,
take a moment to make an altar.

Move a rock.
Take home a picture.
Write a note, and stick it under your pillow, or in the visor of your car, or in your wallet.

Make an altar that marks you, over and over and over, as known and loved and blessed by God.

It might change the world.
But if it marks you, that’s enough.

Sunday July 17, 2011