Exodus 27-31

Transcript

00:00:00:36 – 00:00:28:26
Clint Loveall
Welcome back, everybody. Thanks for finishing up the week with us this Thursday as we continue through a section of Exodus that we’re trying to kind of hit the ground running, move through a lot of material relatively quickly. We shift focus a little bit. We’ve been talking about the tabernacle and some of the accouterments, some of the accessories for the tabernacle.

00:00:28:26 – 00:01:02:03
Clint Loveall
Now we move into some of the decorations. I think what’s really interesting, we get to chapter 28. We have vestments for the priesthood. The idea that there is a priesthood has not you know, that’s not been assumed in the story. So the fact that we get to this part and now Aaron and his people, the the Levites, are kind of given that specific task of serving as the priests and there will be garments that distinguish them.

00:01:02:04 – 00:01:46:46
Clint Loveall
Those garments are very well thought out. They’re very scripted here. Chapter 29 There’s a significant chapter, significant section on the way in which those priests are ordained and some of their duties. Then 30, we get into the altar, we get into, you know, the sanctuary, the base and the anointing oil and the incense. And again, you know, Michael, as we as has kind of been the theme of the week, the micro look at this stuff is maybe briefly interesting and then I think becomes a little bit tedious.

00:01:47:18 – 00:02:16:55
Clint Loveall
So I think too, as we’ve been trying to do, to kind of back out and to say what is the big picture here of a temple and a priesthood? And you said something yesterday as we finished that really planted an idea was some a comment, something to the effect of the big things and little things. And you know, what’s interesting is the way that that dichotomy works in this book.

00:02:16:55 – 00:02:54:21
Clint Loveall
You know, we’ve seen miraculous plagues. We saw Moses courageously stand and lead the people. We’ve seen faith look like trusting God in the face of hunger and thirst and uncertainty and even danger. And now we see that faith is also these little things, like somebody’s got to embroider the curtain, somebody’s got to make the priest’s robe, somebody is going to hack stone and build an altar and get it the right dimensions.

00:02:54:21 – 00:03:24:28
Clint Loveall
Somebody is building an ark and it is amazing the way in which that kind of represents the idea that faith is always some combination of in our life of big challenges and big sacrifices and little things that need done. And it’s easy to think that God doesn’t care about the little things, except we’re in a section with about eight chapters that are very detail oriented.

00:03:24:36 – 00:03:48:07
Clint Loveall
I mean, God doesn’t just say, Hey, build a tabernacle, God gives dimensions, God gives kirtan instruction, God gives the embroidery instructions. And somewhere in Israel, in the desert, there was an Israelite embroidering the curtain because God said to do it. You know, it’s just an interesting way to frame these these texts, these stories.

00:03:48:23 – 00:04:16:40
Michael Gewecke
Because on one hand, I think most of us measure our life by those momentous events. We measure our life by the going through the Red Sea events. We don’t tend to measure our life in the intervening time between them. That’s where Exodus is very honest. I think it is honest about the mundane. And I’m going to circle back around to that word mundane, because in some ways I think you could make an argument that this text is actually the opposite of being mundane.

00:04:16:40 – 00:04:47:13
Michael Gewecke
But bear with me for a second. It’s this season of 40 years. It’s the impermanence of their homes. It’s the sheer trust and faith that this miran, this meandering tribe has, that they will have the food, the water, the resource that they’re going to need, that their flocks will be cared for. They are putting their entire lives in the trust that God is going to carry them safely through this very difficult season, which is what is represented by the wilderness.

00:04:47:13 – 00:05:12:54
Michael Gewecke
Wilderness is not just a faraway place, it’s a place of struggle. And in the course of the Bible and in the sort of lingua franca of the Scriptures. So here we have this beautiful sort of even ruddy image of the people piecing it together day by day. It’s the it’s the common life that they’re living, where we see God’s faithfulness and their constant return to faith.

00:05:13:15 – 00:05:36:25
Michael Gewecke
But then I think there’s a very important turn in the story as well. And I’m going to look here, this is chapter 30 verse 27 or so. They’re talking about the table utensils, lamp stands are talking about sacred, the anointing oil. And there’s this language in verse 29, you will consecrate them. So that they may be most holy.

00:05:36:25 – 00:06:06:52
Michael Gewecke
Whatever touches them will be holy. You will anoint Aaron, his sons, consecrate them in, or that they may serve as priests. This language of consecration, this idea of things becoming holy is the opposite of the mundane. It’s that this common stuff is now going to have a dividing line between their common use and between their sacred purpose. And that you mentioned before, Klint has a beautiful kind of connection to our idea of worship spaces, even to today.

00:06:07:10 – 00:06:24:43
Michael Gewecke
I mean, a room is a room if you walk into a space with a roof over it. I mean, that room could serve as a shelter to live in, though it may not be ideal for that. But when you’re a worshiping congregation, your sanctuary is not just a room with four walls and a roof over your head. It becomes a holy place.

00:06:24:43 – 00:06:50:24
Michael Gewecke
It becomes set apart away from common uses so that the people might, in the midst of a common week, come and have an experi sense, a reminder of that which is set apart, which is holy, ultimately God himself. And so I think these are the interesting tensions in a text like this. On one hand, man, I don’t think most of us care about how much bronze was overlaid over things.

00:06:50:47 – 00:07:12:00
Michael Gewecke
On the other hand, I think many of us care deeply about the place where we have gone to worship. But the divided holy places, the consecrated places that have made an impact in our ability to remember and see God’s work in our life. And maybe this then helps translate for us how we live in that.

00:07:12:28 – 00:07:42:01
Clint Loveall
Yeah, I you know, Michael, it’s easy to it’s easy to associate faithfulness and importance with big things and I think one of the one of the takeaways from these kind of chapters is the little things, you know, somebody was doing that somebody God gives this instruction, you know, make this out of blue and purple and crimson yarn. Well, somebody had to make that yarn, somebody had to sew that thing.

00:07:42:01 – 00:08:13:04
Clint Loveall
Somebody and you know why? Why, for instance, does God care that the priestly vestment is all blue? We have no idea. But God gives that instruction to the people and the people carry it out. And, you know, it’s it’s easy to understand how you I think our contributions to the faith when they seem small. The Sunday school teacher who shows up 32 times a year.

00:08:13:15 – 00:08:37:10
Clint Loveall
Right. To help young children learn the faith, to help children meet Jesus, and then says, well, I don’t I don’t do I just teach Sunday school? Right. You know, the person who brings cookies on Sunday morning, who took the time to do that and set them out in front of people so that people could have a moment of fellowship and welcome.

00:08:37:10 – 00:09:03:23
Clint Loveall
And yes, does it matter? It it helps. It does something. You know, the person who just see somebody they don’t know on Sunday morning and says, I’m not sure we’ve met. Welcome. Hello. It’s good to have you here. It’s it is not we are tempted to think of the big things, the monumental things, but it is so often the little things that matter.

00:09:03:23 – 00:09:29:20
Clint Loveall
And as you as you read this, one of the ways to read this is to look behind it and think about the people who really did these things, who shaped and created and carried and fixed and made, who carried out these things that God had instructed them to do. And I just to me, that gives a kind of dry section, a little bit of life.

00:09:29:20 – 00:10:08:40
Michael Gewecke
I think one of the things that this illustrates for us is how difficult it can be when you don’t share a worshiping practice, when you in other words, don’t go to the tabernacle, when you don’t go to do the sacrifices, when you don’t have the consecrated oil, when you don’t have the lamp stands, when this isn’t part of your worshiping experience, the vocabulary, the even practices that we have described in these chapters can seem very foreign, it can seem not inviting, and there’s not anything inherently wrong with that.

00:10:08:40 – 00:10:32:34
Michael Gewecke
But you got to remember, these people are now living thousands of years ago. They’re being called by God in a radically different place and time, and they are seeking to be faithful. But the God who was faithful to them is the same God who exists today. And I think maybe one translated the lesson that comes from texts like this is Christians too, should be mindful, I think, clean of the vocabulary that we use with folks.

00:10:32:34 – 00:10:55:54
Michael Gewecke
I mean, there are some church words that we have gotten accustomed to that other people, maybe people who haven’t been in the church with, have no clue what it means. I think there is a kind of translated lesson that we could learn here that sometimes it’s best to not call it the sacred altar and better to call it the table where we gather the practice, the gift that Jesus gave us, right?

00:10:55:55 – 00:11:19:44
Michael Gewecke
I mean, we have words for lots of different things. We want to teach our kids why that matters and all these sort of nuances. On the other hand, there’s merit in being simple in describing what the thing means and I think the fact that we might struggle to read these texts and relate to them may be an analog lesson for us about how others might struggle to relate with our own faith vocab areas and practices.

00:11:20:06 – 00:12:00:32
Clint Loveall
Yeah, and one of the one of the things to that end, Michael, that I think we see in the fact that there are six or eight of these chapters that the people took this very seriously. I mean, this is included in the book by which they get their identity being led out of slavery. And in that same book, there’s chapter after chapter of procedure and practice and instruction for even some of the most small and and kind of micromanaged the details.

00:12:00:46 – 00:12:43:55
Clint Loveall
That’s the seriousness with which they approached an organized faith, a practiced faith. And, you know, we take from that not the specifics. We don’t have an altar and we don’t have any fun. We don’t have these things. But but I think what churches can take from that is serious reflection on why it is that we do what we do, that Christians can understand that the things that we use in worship, the things, the tools by which we use to to worship together, do have importance.

00:12:43:55 – 00:13:10:55
Clint Loveall
They do have meaning. It it it matters what kind of music we sing and what kind of language we use and whether people are welcome there. There is more to it than simply Let’s get together and see what happens there. There is a kind of practiced familiarity that develops over time, and these are sacred things to the people.

00:13:10:55 – 00:13:26:09
Clint Loveall
Now we have to be careful with sacred things as we’re going to see in about a chapter, because sometimes those things are too sacred. But when when understood properly, I think they offer us a lot of benefit.

00:13:27:05 – 00:14:16:31
Michael Gewecke
So while you’re talking there, Clement maybe think that we maybe miss the difficulty of the task in worshiping regularly. And let me explain what I mean, because it simultaneously requires holding tightly to the core of the faith. In the case of the Christian faith, holding tightly the Jesus Christ, and on the other hand, holding loosely right. Holding in the other hand without grasping the the accouterments, the components of that worship to discern between what is the thing that is held and retained and pushed forward and taught, you know, what’s the baton that goes to the next generation?

00:14:16:44 – 00:14:47:49
Michael Gewecke
And what is the thing that we recognize there can be flexibility and there can be change. You know, this is a monumental sort of constant process in the midst of the church. And it takes graciousness, it takes compassion, it takes faith, it takes the willingness to lean into what are sometimes very difficult conversations because we newsflash, we don’t all feel the same about what things should be held on tightly and what things should be held loosely.

00:14:47:49 – 00:15:11:42
Michael Gewecke
And church is, I think, unique in that it’s a place where we don’t expect it to be easy. I think when we show up, we recognize that the presence of sacred things is going to up the ante of the conversation. So the question that that we build upon then is, Is Jesus Christ Lord? The answer and profession of the church is Yes, Jesus Christ is Lord.

00:15:11:42 – 00:15:33:37
Michael Gewecke
And so then everything is subject to him. And at our best, I think we try to resubmit even the stuff of worship. We try resubmit to Jesus and allow for him to lead and guide us into the future. That’s difficult work. It’s communal work. It can’t be done by one person, can’t be done by the pastor alone, can’t be done by a single church elder alone.

00:15:33:37 – 00:15:52:03
Michael Gewecke
That has to be done in conversation and it has to be done over time. And I think that the monumental task of that is the kind of thing that fills out multiple books of exodus. We look back on and think, Wow, that’s data that’s hard to read. They might look at that and say, No, it’s a living snapshot.

00:15:52:03 – 00:16:00:45
Michael Gewecke
It’s a captured moment of a people trying to do the same thing we’re trying to do the day, and we try to allow that to animate us and to remind us of why we’re here.

00:16:01:12 – 00:16:48:05
Clint Loveall
I think people are are often surprised when they encounter something that seems like a simple question, like, well, you know, why? Why do the prayers generally come before the sermon? Why does the offering generally come after the sermon? Why don’t we do that? I think people who aren’t in necessarily immersed in that are always surprised by the level of thought and the history of thought that goes into something as simple as when do we do the various elements of the service and that that is a living practice that has evolved, that has changed, it has been challenged and we see a snapshot of that for these people.

00:16:48:05 – 00:17:24:54
Clint Loveall
This this was for them the way and the place by which they engaged God together. And is it perfect? No. Is it overstated? Yeah, but they wrote it. It was that if we were to write the story of our stuff, we would put in details that 2000, 5000 years from now, people may not care about much either, but the things that are sacred to us, you can clearly you clearly feel that as you read this, that somebody cared how many Onyx things were on the priest’s shoulders.

00:17:24:54 – 00:17:36:25
Clint Loveall
Somebody cared what color this embroidery. I mean, it it mattered to them. And, you know, we can’t fault them just because it matters less to us.

00:17:36:50 – 00:17:57:48
Michael Gewecke
But that’s the beautiful tensions I see in this section, is all of the all of the this. And that’s right. That this is yes, they cared about the Onyx. They cared deeply about the bronze, They cared deeply about the basin and the oil. They cared about the fires, all that they cared about. And at the end of the day, those things would not even remain.

00:17:57:48 – 00:18:18:12
Michael Gewecke
When they went to the temple, there would be analogs of many of those things, but a lot of that stuff would be different when they had their own permanent space and certainly when on the other side, Jesus Christ. And now on the other hand, you know, I think it’s just these things are sacred and set apart and simultaneously they’re common and they only exist for the purpose of serving the worshiping people.

00:18:18:25 – 00:18:28:13
Michael Gewecke
That’s that’s the people who are living. That’s an expression of our lives. And yeah, if you look at this, if you read these chapters, I don’t blame you. If you think to yourself.

00:18:28:46 – 00:18:30:21
Clint Loveall
I’m glad we’re done with them.

00:18:30:21 – 00:18:37:42
Michael Gewecke
Yeah, I don’t blame you for them. On the other hand, if we can see that in it, we might see ourselves in it. And I think that’s a beautiful gift.

00:18:37:48 – 00:18:40:58
Clint Loveall
The good news is that next week we’re done with them.

00:18:40:58 – 00:18:41:36
Michael Gewecke
We got it done.

00:18:41:36 – 00:18:47:43
Clint Loveall
And we will be moving on to stories that are more familiar and I think maybe stories that are more accessible.

00:18:48:18 – 00:18:54:30
Michael Gewecke
Thanks for being with us. I hope there’s been something interesting here today. Look forward to seeing you as we kick off another full week next week.

00:18:55:01 – 00:19:03:27
Clint Loveall
Thanks, everybody.