How to make an altar out of everyday items
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What are your favourite things?
I’m hoping you have less abstract answers than raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens but are thinking of more real things like brown paper packages wrapped up with string.
To make it easier, I’ll tell you a couple of mine: I love Facebook. I know this might be a bit controversial but I genuinely enjoy scrolling through my feed because I’ve learnt to fill my feed with lots of good things. Every morning I see pictures from my family, friends, pictures of nature, my home county of Norfolk and it’s beautiful coastline. I also love bread. It’s a bit cliche but I started making sourdough bread in lockdown and now our kitchen counters are constantly covered in flour.
But what has this got to do with wisdom?
The word used for wisdom in the bible is the hebrew word ‘chokmâh’ and it doesn’t just mean intelligence or good decision making but artistic skill. In fact two of the first people to be filled with the Spirit of wisdom were Bezalel and Oholiab, my favourite dynamic duo from the book of Exodus.
Bezalel and Oholiab were artists and craftsmen, and they were given wisdom to create the tabernacle which is the place where God's Spirit would stay for years and years in the middle of the nation of Israel. It was a holy place, a place of worship and it was designed to reflect creation and the garden of Eden, to put Israel’s perspective on God. Made of gold, silver, bronze, fine linen and thread, it was a place of natural beauty.
One of the interesting things about these two is that Bezalel, the chief artist, was from the family line of Judah, a son of Israel. If you follow Judah’s line throughout the bible into the New Testament we see that Jesus is also from this family line. One of the things Jesus’ promises to a woman at a well in the gospel of John chapter 4 is that soon there would be a day where you didn’t have to worship at the tabernacle, or on a mountain, but you could worship God anywhere in God’s Spirit of wisdom and in truth. I’d like to focus on that first one: wisdom.
I believe that today we can use wisdom to create places of worship using the beautiful things God has given us just like Oholiab and Bezalel, and just like Jesus.
So how do we build altars, tabernacles, places of worship outside the Church walls?
How do we worship God with more than music, and more than just a feeling?
I call it “meaning making”. Let’s get into the process of making meaning from the things already in our lives. If we say that “every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from [God] the Father”, then how do we use these ‘favourite things’, these gifts God has given us in our lives as altars to worship Him on?
It might be hard if you’ve never done this before but I’ll give an easy one to start - making bread. When I make bread, I mix all these ingredients together, I make it salty, I add the yeast and work it to bind it together, I let it prove for hours sometimes over a few days, then when it comes out I knock the air out, then prove it again, then I bake with warmth and a water bath and then it’s done and ready to eat.
I believe that’s what God does with us. He puts the ingredients together, He kneads the truth of His word into us, He lets us prove and grow, then sometimes He has to knock hot air out of us, then He might have to let us grow some more before baking us into something complete and ready to go out into the world.
God knows what we’re like, that we can’t keep coming back every Sunday and remind ourselves again and again what He’s like - only to get so far. I believe God is asking us to make reminders right in front of our eyes that bring us back to him.
So it can be easier with bread, or nature if that helps. But take whatever your favourite thing is now: a board game, a song, an armchair, and turn it into an altar, find the Spirit of God's wisdom, and use that wisdom to make it your place of worship that leads you back to Him.
Worshipping is hard through a screen. I love singing but maybe in this strange time God is calling us to worship in different ways. How can we, while we can’t sing together, learn to worship God, remind ourselves of Him everyday, find His wisdom in everything?
For God has said:
“Make an altar of earth for me and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, your sheep and goats and your cattle. Wherever I cause my name to be honored, I will come to you and bless you” - Exodus 20:24
