So Joseph died in Egypt. 

Having saved the family from famine, this great-grandson of Abraham dies in hope of the day when they will return to the Promised Land, the land of Abraham’s sojourn and God’s covenant. And as he requested, the people pack his bones in a coffin, promising to carry them along when the time comes.  

Decades pass; the people of Israel grow in influence and power. Like many immigrant groups which establish themselves in a new land, they become a threat to the powers that be. (There are still those who are threatened by immigrants and newcomers to the land. Some things never change.) So the Bible says that, eventually, “a Pharaoh who knew not Joseph” oppresses them in bondage and slavery.   

Four hundred years pass...bitter years of oppression and hopes deferred. All the while, Joseph’s bones await the deliverance. The turning point comes in that beautiful phrase, “God heard their groanings, and God remembered...” 

And when God remembers, God acts, because God always keeps his promises. 

Enter Moses.... 

God calls him out of a burning bush to go to Pharaoh and say “Let my people go.” And lo and behold, Pharaoh does just that—albeit after some fairly dramatic object lessons and audio-visual effects on the banks of the river Nile. Once again, the people are on the move, this time the whole tribe of Israel moving out of Egypt in the great Exodus across the Red Sea, led by a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. Once again, like their ancestor Abraham, “living in tents, looking for a city.” 

One tent had a particular meaning—the “tent of meeting.” It was a moveable holy place, where God met Moses to talk with him face to face. The people gathered outside and shared in the worship and praise. Eventually the tent of meeting became the “tabernacle,” a portable sanctuary for a traveling God. 

Not unlike our old Apache pop-up camper!   

It’s a 1962 Apache Scout, one of the simplest of campers, basically a canvas tent on a small trailer. We hauled it around the Great Lakes, to the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone, through Boston traffic and Bar Harbor, from Wilmore, Kentucky to Washington, D.C. Wherever we went, we’d pop it open and all of a sudden we’d have “instant home.” Even today, the smell of canvas and Coleman fuel are the incense of memory and family times: 

• of the boys poking sticks in the campfire,

• telling stories by lantern light,

• evening prayers in sleeping bags,

• sacred moments when we came together as family, and in fact, met God in a pop-up camper.

So Moses built a tabernacle of animal hides and hand-me-downs, a pop-up, portable tent of praise for a traveling God.  

1.  The tabernacle was sacred space, holy ground, where God met the people. 

Read the book of Exodus and you will discover that more attention is given to the planning and construction of the tabernacle than any other part of the story.  It’s laid out in incredible detail—from the tables and lamp stands to the fifty loops and fifty bronze clasps on each of the curtains, from the high altar to the high priests’ underwear, punch lists and technical touches by the score—because the tent of meeting was sacred space, holy ground.  

You might also note that the first time the Bible says a person was filled with the Spirit of God, it wasn’t talking about prophets and preachers, it was speaking of Bezalel and Oholiab, the architect and construction manager for the project. (See Exodus 31:1-6) 

Finally, the last notation in the Book of Exodus reads: 

So Moses finished the work. Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Throughout their journeys, the cloud of the Lord was upon the tabernacle by day, and fire was in it by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel. (Exodus 40:34-38) 

I believe in “sacred space.”           

I believe in the importance of a place set apart, places made sacred by our encounters with God. I believe in the power of symbol and sound, art and music, the holiness of beauty as well as the beauty of holiness—and these sacred spaces become holy ground when God meets his people.  

Cherry Run Camp is a small Methodist campground nestled in the hills of western Pennsylvania, one of those old-style Methodist camp meetings. Every summer it meets for ten days of preaching, singing, praying (and for the kids, a few early romances on the side). I can still remember old “Daddy Schaffer” calling us to dinner with an old school bell, my first feeble attempts at worship leadership in the youth service called “Singspiration,” more than one trip to the altar to give my life to Christ, and more than one summer girlfriend. Fortunately, the relationship with Christ lasted longer than the girlfriends! 

It’s no accident that the large assembly hall used for preaching and worship was called the tabernacle. It’s really not much more than a roof on stilts, with plank pews and a common bench for a kneeling rail where we would respond to the invitation on about the 23rd verse of “Just As I Am.” 

I hadn’t been there in decades when a few years ago we stopped through there on the way to a youth mission trip. Now it seems so much smaller than I remember and those experiences seem distant from my present life. But the place looms large in my memory, for it was one of those places where as a teenager I met God, where summer after summer in my youth I heard the Word preached and renewed my commitment to Christ—sacred space, holy ground.  

This congregation has been on an incredible journey in the past several years.  

The construction of the CLC, the addition of this glorious organ and the renewal of the sanctuary represents untold hours, individual talents, millions of dollars invested in sacred space. And as we come down to the final punch list, we would offer up the same prayer Moses prayed over the tent of praise: 

• That the cloud of God’s presence would fill this place

• That the fire of God’s spirit would be felt in this place

• That the light of God’s mercy would shine through this place

• That this place would always be a “tent of meeting” where we encounter God—holy ground

Moses’ tabernacle was sacred space because it was the place where God met his people, and.... 

2. The tabernacle was common space, common ground, where the people met together. 

With Moses in the lead and the priests standing by, the book says they all stood outside their own tents until the cloud appeared and they knew God was present. And God’s presence was experienced in community…together. When the  tabernacle was constructed, it became the symbol not only of God with them, but of their life together. It was made sacred not only by God’s presence, but by the presence of God’s people….together.   

We come together here to build our world of faith, to nurture our hopes and dreams, to share our joys and sorrows, our tears and laughter. We come here to bless the most sacred moments of our lives—birth, marriage, death—and the space is made sacred in the gathering of the people together… common ground. I have experienced it just often enough to know it is true, that God is present in the gathering, and Jesus fulfills his promise: “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, lo, I will be in their midst.” 

Ever since 1995 when Robert Putnam coined the phrase in a relatively obscure academic journal, the term “Bowling Alone” has become a kind of shorthand for the fact that civic engagement in American culture has declined in recent years. Putnam’s point was that though we may be bowling just as much as we always did, we are not as likely to do it in organized leagues. And of course, his concern was not just bowling. He studied political parties, PTAs, labor unions, fraternal organizations and churches, concluding that declining levels of participation are evident in every area of civic life. Five years later, in 2000, he released a book to back up his study which detailed with stunning consistency that practically every indicator of civic involvement shows the same thing: As Americans, we are bowling alone. (See Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, Simon & Schuster, 2000)

In religion, the same seems to be true. Today there is more interest in personal spirituality and less commitment to organized religion or the church—just me and Jesus. Personal spirituality is at a high, but it is not necessarily connected to corporate worship and organized religion. 

Now, let me quickly say that I wouldn’t minimize the importance of personal spiritual disciplines.  Meditation, prayer, Bible study and personal devotion are essential to our life of faith. But the God of the Bible is primarily a communal God. God makes himself known in common space, on common ground. Contact with this God is always personal, but never private. The God of the Old and New Testaments always calls us into relationship with each other, even as we grow in our relationship with him.   

You may be able to “bowl alone,” but you can’t get to heaven alone. We are all going to go together. To stand in God’s presence is to stand not only on holy ground, but on common ground, where all are welcome to gather in the presence of Christ until the day when every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord; until the day when we fulfill St. Paul’s vision where  “There is no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female, for we are all one in Christ Jesus.”  And if we are all going to have to get along in heaven, I’d like to give it a try now: 

• Black and white

• Rich and poor

• Young and old

• Asian and African and Hispanic

• Gay and straight

• Urban and suburban

• Maybe even Methodist and Baptist, Republican and Democrat, liberal and conservative, red and blue.

This week in the Free Press, our own Dan Krichbaum has reminded us of the racial division of our fractured metropolitan area and the need for racial reconciliation. In this day, I hope the church can be a symbol of a new community, coming together, common ground. When we come into the tabernacle, we not only meet God, but we meet each other…all of God’s people…together, and God is made known in the midst.  

My friend Tom Frank, professor at Candler School of Theology, Emory University, recently wrote a book called The Soul of the Congregation. He talks about his experience as a pastor and that moment of insight, that “kairos” moment when God breaks into our worship in new ways:

I used to hope for such moments of presence every time I conducted worship, even knowing full well that the most I could expect was maybe once in five Sundays. But at times I could never predict, the space of the sanctuary would perfectly meet the time of our worship and we would become a congregation.

 

At some time out of time, in this space out of space, we would become one body in the presence of each other and of the Holy One.

 

If I knew how to package that sort of kairos, I would write that instead of these reflections. All I know is that it just happens. We make our spaces in the hope that presence will visit us, and sometimes, even here, it comes, a sign of grace and hope.

          (Thomas Frank, The Soul of the Congregation, page 136) 

The tabernacle was sacred space, holy ground where God met his people. The tabernacle was common space, common ground where the people met each other. 

3. And the tabernacle was portable space…because God is always on the move.  

In the Exodus, the God of the covenant, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of ages past becomes a traveling God dwelling in the midst of a traveling people, always on the move. Unlike the pagan gods of the mountains, isolated, set apart, unattainable and untouchable—and unlike the gods of Egypt, resident solely in the Pharaoh himself— the God of the Exodus is a God who deigns to travel with his people on the dusty roads of life and meet with his people in the common places of life.  

This God is a God who migrates with his people in their long and lonely sojourn through the wilderness. This God will be present even when the water runs dry and food becomes scarce, when the old people die and when children get cranky, when the battles rage and the people despair, in the face of their sin and in spite of their doubt or in moments of holiness and hungering hope. The God who chooses to make himself known in a pop-up tent of praise can never be: 

• Pinned down or pigeon-holed

• Bottled up or buttoned down

• Locked up or nailed down

• Held down

• Put down

• Boiled down or bolted down, ever again!

This God is a God who calls us into new ventures, new discoveries, new learnings and new revelations on a daily basis, always changing, always new, always creating, always moving on. In the words of the new hymn we sang a couple weeks ago: 

God of change and glory,
God of time and space.
When we fear the future, give to us your grace.
In the midst of changing ways,
Give us still the grace to praise. 

Well, as you have probably figured out, this sermon series is all about the journey—the journey of faith and the journey of our life together, the uncertainty of the times and the challenges of our day— all the while affirming the presence of the God who wanders, the God who travels in a pop-up tent, the God who is ever moving us forward into his good future, calling us to live in tents, looking for the city.   

Bruce Larson influenced the faith and thinking of many of us who shaped our ministries in the ’70’s, wrote more than twenty books, insightful workshops, and reflections on faith and life. In his book on the Exodus called simply The Presence, he says: “God is a moving, living God, who wants a relationship with you and me. He wants us on His road, moving down the highway of life.” 

He says we are often deflected into wanting another kind of God…“a God I can predict; a God I can keep in a box; a God who will always be in a certain place when I need Him.” But he says: “The living God is much more demanding.  He is always out there ahead of us and we’ve got to find His will and catch up with him.” (Bruce Larson, The Presence, page 81) 

So Moses pitched his pop-up tent, this portable holy space, the tabernacle. It was just a tent, but it was sacred space, holy ground where God met his people. It was common space, common ground, where the people met together. It was portable space, changing ground…because God is always on the move.