Episode Transcript
Carey Griffel: [00:00:00] Welcome to Genesis Marks the Spot, where we raid the ivory tower of biblical theology without ransacking our faith. My name is Carey Griffel, and today we are continuing our worship series. Cindy Beaver has once again joined me, and we're going to be talking about the concept of sacred space. We have a few questions that we're going to be bringing to the topic of sacred space. Not that we're going to be answering these in full today. But part of our study here is getting these questions to you so that you can then research these things yourself.
So part of what we want to do is establish a few questions that you might find interesting and you might find other associated questions aside from what we're offering in our conversation here today.
So some of these questions that we want to look at ... What should we think of is the [00:01:00] standard or the archetype of sacred space? This is a really interesting question to me because I think it's a bit up in the air actually, is the theme of sacred space beginning in the Garden of Eden and that kind of thing.
There is much to say about the roots and the imagery of sacred space that is in that, but. The question I have in my mind also is, is that how the ancient Israelite would have been thinking? Is that their primary idea of sacred space? Or, was their idea more in line with the tabernacle and the temple?
Are those actually the archetypes of sacred space? Not that they don't stretch back into creation, because I think they do, but which idea would kind of gain prominence in their minds? And to some degree, maybe it doesn't really matter, because there's that overlap, and there's imagery and metaphors and things like that, that are both [00:02:00] connected.
But it's a question that I think that we should keep kind of loosely in our minds because we are trying to get into the ancient person's head. And as such, we need to think about what they found important. What was primary to them? So, that's one of my questions. Another one is, how should we think about other types of sacred space in relation to the archetype?
Because there's a wide variety of ways that places are sacred spaces. There's a wide variety of types of sacred spaces we might be able to say as we look through scripture. How do those relate to the archetype? And the final question I would bring to your attention today is, Is the idea of sacred space all about how they're so sacred that we can't touch them?
Are sacred spaces places that humans aren't normally allowed? Or is there another way we can think about that? Or is that only part of how some sacred spaces [00:03:00] work? So those are kind of the questions that are floating around in my head this week. So with that being said, welcome Cindy.
Cindy Beaver: Hi, Carey. Hey, everybody. Yep. I'm back.
Carey Griffel: We're so glad to have you here. I know people have been enjoying the episodes. We've gotten a lot of good feedback and that just makes my day.
Cindy Beaver: Mine as well. It's nice to be able to exercise these muscles and share what I have learned throughout the years as well as I just really enjoy our conversations. So I'm glad people are appreciating us getting together every now and then.
Carey Griffel: So when we think about sacred space, we've talked a lot about it in a lot of different ways in my podcast.
You know, as far as creation as a sacred space. So, that's what we have in Genesis 1. The whole cosmos is described in terms of temple building. It doesn't use a lot of the technical words that we see for tabernacle and temple later in scripture, [00:04:00] but the entire concept is really there. In fact, in Genesis 1, it's the only place that we see the word holy, and that word is attached to time, to the Sabbath.
It's not attached to any space, per se, but because it's attached to time in Genesis 1, and we can see that concept of the temple there, I think that we can also have some presumed ideas there, I think, especially because of the imagery in the temple and the Tabernacle that is so related to creation.
Cindy Beaver: As well as the whole understanding from other cultures within the ancient Near East, the, Inauguration of a new temple was celebrated over a seven day period.
And so with creation taking seven days, that really ties into the, okay, what we're really doing is establishing a temple. With functions that it needs to oversee and the functionaries that are put in place to oversee [00:05:00] what is happening in that temple. So, I definitely think that there are correlations there that would make us think that, okay. And again, not in our modern days, but if we start thinking, what did the ancient Israelite have in their head? This seven day thing. and seeing the steps of what's going on, they would immediately associate that with, okay, they're setting up a temple.
Carey Griffel: And so what we're doing is we're taking the idea of the sacred space and temple and seeing creation through that lens.
Cindy Beaver: The other thing that we need to also keep in mind of is when the tabernacle and the temple were eventually Built, they had all of the same imagery going on that was reflected in Eden: trees. Any of the posts, like the two big pillars that were outside of the temple, any of the support posts that were used even the lamp stands, those were trees.
And so you have [00:06:00] this garden imagery, then you have the things that were carved into the woodwork or even sewn into the draperies or the vestments. And those were images of fruit. Pomegranates are mentioned. And then you also have the cherubim being embroidered into the curtain that separates the holy place from the Holy of Holies.
Again, all of this is the cherubim are the throne guardians. They are guarding the way into the Holy of Holies. So all of these images bring you right back to Genesis 1.
Carey Griffel: And Genesis 2 is very related to the tabernacle and the temple as well. You have zones of sacred space in the tabernacle and the temple, and you seem to have that same kind of structure in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2, where you have the world, then you have Eden. Then you have the garden, which is situated inside Eden. So you're, going [00:07:00] into progressively more sacred space as you're looking at that kind of a situation. Going into Eden, going into the garden. The image there is of the tabernacle and of the temple.
Cindy Beaver: Yes, , it's reflected in the courtyard of the tabernacle in the temple, then the holy place and then the most holy place. So definitely , the three different levels of increasing closeness to Yahweh magnified as increasing areas of holiness. I think it's also interesting how when the tabernacle specifications , and this was then copied in with the temple is the use of metals, , out in the courtyard. Bronze. You go into the holy place silver, you go into the Holy of Holies gold. So there's even the elements that are being used in the various areas, the worth of them increases as you get to the more holy areas.
Carey Griffel: And a lot of people read the rest of [00:08:00] Genesis and they think , there's no more sacred space like that.
I do think there's a lot to be said about the idea that the sacrifices and offerings that were being offered in Genesis 4, they were happening right outside of Eden. So Adam and Eve were kicked out of the garden and kicked out of the sacred space, but where do sacrifices happen? Where are they actually doing the offerings?
It's actually the outer court and the outer spaces. They weren't going into the most holy place in order to sacrifice. Some of the blood was brought into the most holy place, but the actual act of sacrifice was happening outside of there. And so we have that kind of idea that's going on in Genesis 4 as well.
Cindy Beaver: Definitely you can see the parallels.
Carey Griffel: And when you think about doorways and you think about thresholds, Those were very essential places in the ancient Near East. Either for a city, like the city gate was a very important place and part of the city. People's [00:09:00] homes, their threshold of their home was also a very important place.
And we've kind of lost some of that. Today, we have this idea of the welcome mat in front of our door , and the idea of welcoming.
Cindy Beaver: Carrying the bride over the threshold. You also have, what are those things that , the Jewish people put on their doorway? Mezuzah. A mezuzah scroll with the words from Deuteronomy. And you see like in Fiddler on the Roof where they're always, you know, touching the side of the door when they're coming in and out. That is something that's very important to them. So the doorway. In Jewish life, even till today, still recognizes the importance of the threshold and connection to God.
Carey Griffel: Of course, we've talked a lot about the high places and mountains and holy hills and things like that groves of trees, all of these kinds of places. That's how they're thinking about sacred places. Like, as far as, like, at the [00:10:00] top of a hill, that might have not been accessible to everyone. Not everyone's going to be climbing up the hill to do whatever they're going to do.
But groves and also streams and places like that, those were places that were very accessible to people. So you have this wide range of what a sacred space is, or how we can be thinking about a sacred space. And of course, that's going to depend on how we define the word sacred. To begin with, like, what does that even mean, and how do we think about sacred?
There's a lot that we could say about sacredness and holiness and all of that kind of thing. But the easiest way to look at it is that sacred is something that is set apart. It's something that is designated for a particular use in relationship to God as opposed to relationship to something else, right?
Cindy Beaver: Right. And it can be a space or it can be an object.
Carey Griffel: And it can be time as well, as we know. You can have sacred people, , you have the priests [00:11:00] and you have other people who take particular vows that make them set apart. And so that's kind of the idea that we're thinking. sacred doesn't have to mean that you step in that area and then zap, you're killed because you've entered sacred space.
There's a wider definition of that and there's this idea of the concentric rings and as you're getting more and more sacred then you might be killed because you're approaching God's holiness too much To the point that if you're approaching there in the wrong way, or you're doing it in an unclean way, You're not pure, then there's going to be consequences to that, right?
But the idea of sacred space is not entirely Just the holy place. It's a wider concept and there's those zones of sacred space.
Cindy Beaver: Yes, when you look at the Day of Atonement that ceremony was not just I mean it was to cleanse the temple and reset the cleanliness of [00:12:00] everything but it was also Purifying the entire land, the promised land.
It was, again, the definition of holy, there's definitely increasing holiness as you get closer and closer to the Holy of Holies and the Ark of the Covenant. But it's definitely got a much broader concept than just the items that are in the temple or around the temple.
Carey Griffel: Yeah. And I think we can connect this with the idea of what an archetype is and how an archetype works. You have this idea that there's the ultimate version of something, right? Like the best and highest level of it. Now that doesn't mean that other things aren't also related to the archetype, but it's not the same as the archetype, if that makes sense. And that's why you can have the different types of sacred space and how they can be used differently.
As Christians, we can approach God directly. And this is an amazing miracle that we have. Like, people back [00:13:00] in the day did not have that kind of relationship with God and that freedom of approaching God. The reason we can do that is because of Jesus. However, we don't need to take that to the point that your average person couldn't approach God at all, in any way.
I think that's taking it a little bit too far, especially in the context of, like, Genesis and the patriarchs, where they would have their household gods And they would be relating to God at their thresholds, but they could also go to a place that would be a higher level of relating to God to inquire of God, more sacred spots, and things like that.
So, , we don't have the idea in Genesis that we have that crops up very prominently in Exodus, where suddenly we have Sacred space and like Moses is supposed to take off his sandals at the burning bush. We don't have anything like that throughout Genesis. No kind of area where [00:14:00] it's so sacred that you have to do particular things.
to remove your uncleanliness in order to approach these sacred spaces.
Cindy Beaver: We can also see in Genesis that the patriarchs, Abraham and Jacob, when they did have a one on one encounter with the angel of the Lord, or God, you know, depending on how he revealed himself to them, but they would build an altar and have a memorial of that place as especially sacred.
You look at Bethel and Jacob slept there. Well, previous to that, Abraham had set up an altar there. So there are two patriarchs that have gone to that place. Jacob went there twice, at least, and had significant encounters with God and so they remembered that and Bethel retained its special holiness connection for centuries.[00:15:00]
And it's still very special, I think, in, many people's hearts that Bethel is, the house of God.
Carey Griffel: Yeah. And that's what it means in Hebrew. And that's a really interesting one to be looking at when we look at Genesis, because There's a question of how does a place get to be sacred, why is it sacred, and , in the narrative of Genesis, that's what we see happening.
When the patriarch has an encounter with God, then that space becomes a sacred space. An altar is built, or a memorial stone is set up, so that people who come to that space, they are aware of its special nature. So, there's this idea of the presence of God in sacred space. When there is a very high encounter with God, where the angel of the Lord is showing up, for instance.
Then that spot in particular is going to be a place that is designated and is going to be [00:16:00] marked.
Cindy Beaver: Yes, even the encounter that Hagar has , the well is named. So even she, not even being an Israelite or, you know, just a concubine of Abraham's, but still she has that recognition that this is an important site and the site is assigned a specific name to memorialize that special encounter.
Carey Griffel: And in the ancient world, names were very important and people would want to know about the names of not just people, but places. Because that would tell them about the place and what meaning and purpose the place has. Now, let's go ahead and read a little bit from Genesis about Bethel. It shows up in Genesis 12, which is, of course, , where we see Abraham.
In Genesis 12, verses 7 and 8, it says, Then the Lord appeared to Abram, and said, To your offspring I will give this land. So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had [00:17:00] appeared to him. From there he moved to the hill country on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west, and Ai on the east.
And there he built an altar to the Lord, and called upon the name of the Lord. It's very interesting. There's two altars that are built there. You have the first altar that's built because God appeared to Abram and gave him his promise. And then Abram moves on, and he continues to build altars. And then we see Bethel show up in Genesis 13, in verses 3 and 4 it says, And he journeyed on from the Negev, as far as Bethel, to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai, to the place where he had made an altar at the first.
And there Abram called upon the name of the Lord. So already, Abram is going back to the same places, and he is treating those as sacred places. He's probably going there for reasons to [00:18:00] worship God, to call upon God.
Cindy Beaver: And to reconnect with him, have a sacrifice, build that relationship again, kind of what we talked about in our last episode with sacrifice that it's, it has to do with relationship building Abraham remembered that a promise was made to him and he wants to ensure that, you know, that promise will be fulfilled and so he is doing his side of the maintaining of that relationship.
Carey Griffel: And it's pretty clear that these memorials and altars are things that other people can also come upon and probably understand their purpose, right?
This is a cultural thing. It's not that Abram was just making altars and somebody would come across that and not understand what this pile of rocks was or what the purpose was. People would come upon that and they would know that there was that situation, that somebody had worshipped there.
Cindy Beaver: An example that we have in [00:19:00] today's world is where you might see on the side of the road a cross, and you know that an accident occurred there and someone passed.
You might not know who or the exact specific scenario on how somebody died, but you do know that this is a memorial place where somebody lost their life in an accident. And so that's the type of thing that We can relate to or understand of there's going to be a unique way that these rocks or whatever are set up So that it is instantly recognizable as not just you know Caused by an earthquake or something like that that somebody put something together, it signifies something special and Since these types of formations were associated with worship people would understand They might not know exactly which God it was But, they might understand that the god for this area has, somebody has set up an altar and done sacrifice and or worship at this [00:20:00] location.
Carey Griffel: And Bethel shows up later with Jacob in Genesis 28. And I actually want to read a section of this so that we get this whole story in our minds. Starting in verse 10, it says, Jacob left Beersheba and went toward Haran, and he came to a certain place and stayed there that night. Because the sun had set, taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place to sleep.
And he dreamed, and behold, there was a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven. And behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. And behold, the Lord stood above it, and said, I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father, and the God of Isaac, the land on which you lie, I will give to you and to your offspring.
Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south. And in you and your [00:21:00] offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed. Behold, I am with you, and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land.
For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you. Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it. And he was afraid and said, How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. So early in the morning, Jacob took the stone that he had put under his head, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil on top of it.
He called the name of that place Bethel, but the name of the city was Luz at the first. Then Jacob made a vow, saying, If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and clothing to wear, so that I come again to my father's house in peace, Then the Lord shall be my God.
And this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God's house. And of all that you give me, I will [00:22:00] give a full tenth to you. There's actually a lot we could talk about in that passage. First of all, one thing that stands out to me is that the place wasn't already called Bethel to Jacob. Somebody had moved in and put up a city and called it Luz instead of Bethel.
So between the time of Abraham and the time of Jacob. There has been change in the area, which makes a lot of sense because Abraham was wandering around, right? He didn't, he wasn't staying in this place. So other people were there. Other people lived their lives. Other people did what people do, and they create their own cities, and they create their own situations.
And this situation of Bethel and the altar had been lost. So Jacob wasn't aware of this when he came to the same area. Now, was it exactly the same area as Abraham? Probably, but maybe not. It was the same general area. And Jacob has this situation where he encounters God [00:23:00] instead of the angel of the Lord, it's God in a dream with that ladder, which may itself be something like a ziggurat, perhaps, and the angels going up and down on it. And he has this experience with God, and he receives the same promise that Abraham gets back in Genesis 12. And so this idea that the same space is being utilized by God, that makes me wonder about the longevity of sacred space in time.
Like, once a space has been declared and made sacred, especially by an appearance of God, does that then maintain that status through time? Like, how does that work? I don't really have any... I don't have particularly good answers for, for this because of the long history of everything and so many things have happened in one particular spot.
But it does make me think about it. And it makes me think about, I've never been to the Promised Land. I would like [00:24:00] to go. It's, it's this draw to visit the place that the Bible's narrative played out in. And all of these places that, are now fought over by different groups and different people and they're wanting it to be something sacred to them and to this other group and these other You know, there's so much fighting that goes on there.
Cindy Beaver: They want to claim it for themselves and prevent others from being there, which is totally the antithesis of what God's intention is. Yeah. I do see that, you know, Bethel is definitely in the long term memory. It's a definitely a special place because as we go up through the history of israel after the exodus the tabernacle gets located at Bethel. Northern Israel builds one of its two temples at Bethel. So they recognize this as sacred [00:25:00] space and they keep it alive at least until the fall of northern Israel.
Can a sacred space lose its sacredness?.
Well, what if we think about the churches in today's world? I mean, I remember my church building a new building and we all wrote a Bible passage on the floor, you know, and then it was covered over with carpet. But we were standing on the word of God. That was kind of the symbolic thing of what we were doing.
And of course, you know, bishops would come and consecrate it and do all this stuff. Well, now you think of. Churches that have closed because they're in a farming community and people have moved off. I mean, there is a ceremony that can be performed where sacred space is deconsecrated. So I think. Yes, you can lose your holy status, your stamp of [00:26:00] holiness, whatever it is either through, you know, some kind of a ritual or, you know, think of the, the exile and when people were kicked out of the land, was the land still then regarded as, I mean, they looked to it as being holy, but it was tainted. In Deuteronomy, it even talks about the land will spew you out, in that instance, I'm just processing this out loud, the land is holy.
The Holy Land was holy, it spewed out the unclean.
Carey Griffel: Yeah, yeah, as you trace the theme of sacred space, and the idea of zones, and the idea of This is maybe a little more holy because of what happened here, because of God's presence here, in a unique way, at a unique time. Like, those seem to be kind of marked in space and time.
It seems like there's reasons why people fight over particular places rather than other [00:27:00] places. And it's because... There's meaning there. It's because certain things have happened there. It's because they're important for various reasons. Now, sometimes those reasons are, that's the place that has the watering hole.
Right? So, when you have the groves of trees, and the streams, and also the sacred places, well, Of course, those are also going to be fought over because those are the places you need to water your flock and to be able to survive a long journey because you got to have water to take with you to some degree, you know, and that kind of thing.
So it's like two things going on there at the same time, but are they really that different? And I asked that because in terms of land functioning in a way that causes flourishing of humans. And it promotes life. Is that not also what a sacred space is supposed to [00:28:00] do? It's like, we're, it's supposed to be a place that is connected to our flourishing.
It's connected to us worshipping God, and God blessing us in a way that we can live our lives in connection with that worship, as disciples of God, and become flourishing human beings in the way that we're supposed to be. So I like that connection of life and sacredness.
Cindy Beaver: I think, you know, you look at in Ezekiel with the new temple and the water is coming out from the altar and.
And it turns into a river and it flows to the Dead Sea where it makes it clean and makes it, you know a place where life can once again, flourish, we see the same, John, the Revelator was using Ezekiel as his metaphor in Revelation, where he talks about the water flowing out from the throne of God and the [00:29:00] tree on both sides of the river. I don't know I've never quite figured out how one tree can be on two sides of a river, but but whatever And it's giving out all sorts of different fruit 12 different kinds all throughout the year But you know again, I do think that there is that whole purification process and that holy can clean impurity.
Jesus would touch a leper and he would be clean. Because of his holiness, he did not get sick. He was able to provide and push his health into them.
Carey Griffel: Because he is the very source of the holiness. Yes. You can't take a holy implement and have the same kind of situation because a holy implement would be defiled by impurity.
But the very source of holiness, that's something very different.
Cindy Beaver: Yep. And I think even, you know, if, if a holy implement, you know, like a bowl was defiled, I think they had to [00:30:00] destroy it. I don't think that there was anything that they could do to clean it. I think there were some certain things like metals could have through fire and that type of thing.
Carey Griffel: Right. Yeah. I think there's a difference between metal implements and like pottery. If it's pottery, they would just shatter it after it was used. Whereas, they would need to go through a ritual washing for a metal item.
As I read through Genesis, it's so interesting because you have these mentions of places, and they're not just there for incidental detail. The original reader would have read those places and would have been like, oh yeah, that's the place that this happened, and this happened, and this happened, and all these other things happened. So they had this whole matrix of time and space and covenant and people wrapped up in all of that.
So land was so integral to the way they saw themselves and the way they recorded their history and thought about it. So , the idea of the sacredness [00:31:00] of a place was wrapped up in the identity of the people. And that's part of why I'm thinking about the idea of the archetype of sacred space. Because to the ancient Israelite in particular, , it was related to who they were as a people. Because they were related to God. Now, of course, we can track back through Genesis and say all of humanity is related to God. And that's why we can also track forward to Jesus, and Jesus is bringing to himself all of the nations, and not just sequestering himself in the nation of Israel and saying that these are my only people.
He's saying that all of people everywhere are his but throughout much of Israelite history, their concern was their nation and their own people. And that's kind of hard for us to understand, I think, today. It's very situational. Of course, they took that too far, and that's why the prophets come swooping in and going, [00:32:00] You guys have forgotten the whole point here.
It's not this self centeredness that you guys are living into. It's broader than that, and you guys have forgotten the entire meaning and purpose. And so that's such an interesting up and down of the history of Israel. It's like, they're blessed. We're so happy to be in covenant with God, oh, let's go do our own thing over here and get off kilter and then God swoops in and goes, stop it, you guys, but
Cindy Beaver: yeah, let's go through the motions, you know, and that'll keep us safe.
And it's like, no, you have to do this with a sincere heart. And I think , that's also part of the holiness thing. When the tabernacle was being inaugurated and they offered incense improperly. Immediately fire went out from the throne of God and destroyed them. , or when the Ark of the covenant was being transported and the poor dude was just trying to help it not [00:33:00] fall.
But again, he touched it in an irreverent manner and he died and scared the pants off of david, but it really all goes back to that relationship with Yahweh. And are you sincere? And are you, are you doing things properly so that you are respecting this holy, sacred space, this holy, sacred object? What is in your heart.
And I think, you know, I kind of think that the whole Ark of the Covenant situation was a lesson, just a reminder to people that this is super holy and you have to treat it this way. The person that, that was killed was collateral damage. to the object lesson, is kind of what I think,
Carey Griffel: well, and it seems like the person who did that probably had some knowledge, and information, and awareness of what he was doing.
Because [00:34:00] pagans took the Ark of the Covenant, and they weren't killed when they touched it. They, they had to have touched the dang thing. But they weren't killed, because they weren't in covenant with God. They were missing something that this other situation had in it. I don't think it's God being just random and saying, well, you know, too bad, so sad.
I think there is much more to the situation; that there was knowledge and experience that he really should have known better whatever that was, whether he was worried about appearances, whether he was, who knows, we don't know the precise information that was going on there. But my guess is that he knew a whole lot more than somebody else would have known or would have had experience of.
This question, too, of can you worship accidentally? How much intentionality is needed there? Can you enter a [00:35:00] sacred situation and be damaged by that? Can you enter a worship situation and be affected by that in some way? And how does that happen? How does that relate to people who are outside the situation who don't know?
I mean, this kind of relates to that whole debacle with John Piper lately about coffee in the sanctuary. And how do you see that? Why would that be bad? And is it bad? Are you being disrespectful or are you not being disrespectful? And to me, a lot of that has to do with where is your heart?
What do you even know about it? Are you even aware of the situation that's going on? Do you understand the meaning? And are you really trying to be self centered and I'm going to do this anyway or do you just not understand the situation and the purpose and intent of the area and what's going on? [00:36:00] You know what I mean?
Cindy Beaver: Even, you know, are the church leaders condoning this and encouraging this? I mean, there's a megachurch near my home and they have theater seating, including seats that have cup holders. And they have a coffee store out in their narthex. So, to me, that is communicating an expectation that it is okay to bring your cup into the sanctuary.
, that our leaders are fine with that. But then you get you know, on the flip side you have much more formal denominations, such as the Orthodox church. And it's like. You don't bring anything in. You've been fasting since you went to bed last night. We're even careful to make sure that one little crumb of the host bread does not fall on the floor. That a drop of the wine does not fall on the floor. There's a little napkin that's put underneath the. The participant at the time that [00:37:00] they're , receiving Eucharist. , and the sanctuary is not used for anything other than worship purposes. Occasionally a lecture or class, but if at all possible, those types of activities are done elsewhere to reserve the sanctuary as a holy space.
And it is treated as such. A lot of it goes down to the understanding of the leadership and what is, and what is not tolerated or accepted. And I think that that's what John Piper was trying to communicate is in my church, this is okay. This is not okay.
Carey Griffel: Yeah. It's so easy for us to go down those paths of, look, this is the way I see it, so everybody's gotta see it this way, and if you don't, then you're wrong. But are, are we really being faithful communicators with each other if we can't understand the perspective of the other person?
So in my small church, we have a snack time. We tend to bring [00:38:00] like a full on breakfast for everyone to share. Other people just bring snacks, and either way that's fine. The snack time happens in between the announcements, and before the actual sermon that my pastor gives. And so, to me, that snack time is part of our worship. We have the worship songs, we have the announcements, we have our snack time, and we have the sermon.
, that's the structure of my church services that I go to every week. And to me, the meaning that I have there is that the snack time it's not just this casual, we're just eating because we're hungry. To me, it's about fellowship, and that's part of our worship. So, in my situation, it's very appropriate to have that food and that coffee at your table. I would not suggest that that's the same in an Orthodox Church I'm not gonna bring my meaning and my structure of thinking and saying you guys are just wrong Because in my opinion, we're both taking worship [00:39:00] very seriously We just are doing it in a slightly different way But in my opinion, we're both have that high view of what we're doing There's that purpose and intentionality behind it and to me, that's the question Are you being intentional, or are you just not even thinking about it?
Is this not even something that you consider? And I think that's part of this conversation of, how about let's think about that, and if we're not doing it intentionally, if we're not doing it with meaning, if we're not doing it as part of worship itself, why are we doing it here? Why are we having this kind of a situation?
Is it detrimental to people in some way? Is it helpful to people, as far as worship and our relationship to that? That's how I'm looking at it. And I'm open to saying, well, you know, maybe there's better ways we could be doing it. Maybe we could move the snack time to a different time. I don't know, but [00:40:00] our church service is pretty long as it is, so maybe we'd have people fainting after the sermon, because it goes on so long.
I don't know.
Cindy Beaver: Well, in the Orthodox Church, we've been fasting, and the church is usually an hour and a half to two hours long, and then we have coffee hour, which is where we get to eat, so. But definitely, you know, it is a long time. I must say that your snack time seems to be, when I think of the new Christian church and Paul is talking about the love feasts where, you know, they, it is not just Eucharist or communion. It there's food. I mean, he's even telling the rich people to, you know leave more food for those that are less able to provide because this is the biggest meal that they're going to have and maybe the only one that they're going to be able to really have all week long because of what they can afford.
So don't be a pig. If you have to eat at home before you come, eat at home before you come. [00:41:00] Those types of things. Or, and I know the church where I used to go, they tried for a while on Sunday evenings where it was a soup meal during the service. You know, so again, to kind of mimic the whole love feast experience.
There's also the time where, you know, in the morning services, they had coffee and donuts or whatever in the Narthex area. And we had multiple services, so sometimes, you know, the first service would have the coffee and donuts after theirs. But some people would be coming in for the second service and grab coffee and donut and chit chat with the people that were coming and going, and then it's like, I'm not finished and I just wander into the sanctuary.
Most of those people aren't thinking. That's where I think I have a bit of a discomfort because, and I did it, you know, but I just wasn't thinking because I wasn't concentrating on the worship service as a holy space. It was where I was going to [00:42:00] receive the word of God. It was much more about what I was getting out of it as opposed to what I was putting into it.
And so I think that's where there is the rub and maybe some enlightenment or new direction could come from us of, again, are we being intentional about our actions? Let's think about what we're doing and why we're doing it and whether or not, biblically, are we treating sacred space appropriately?
Carey Griffel: Yes.
Yes, exactly. That, and that's what I would say is that we can learn from each other in, huh, this person has a different view and I should really understand that because that might better inform my practice. That might elevate the way that I worship because suddenly I'm understanding things in a deeper way.
In a more intentional way. I'm not just going [00:43:00] about motions and thinking this is what I do and then this is the next thing I do and this is just our culture and that's just what we do and how dare you try and tear any of that down. Well, is the conversation a little bit more like, well, can you think about the what you're doing and why you're doing it?
Let's think about this intentionally and let's put the meaning where it belongs. and that, that's exactly what you said about the love feast. That's exactly it. , that's how I view it. In the New Testament, it was clearly Paul was talking about a meal. It wasn't simply and solely a liturgical ritual.
Now, it probably involved that. I would be shocked if it didn't.
Cindy Beaver: I think that the ritual part would have come after they Had their lesson of whatever, whether it would be reading of a letter that one of the other apostles had sent, you know, one of the circulars, or [00:44:00] whether it would be reading from the Bible and discussing the scriptures.
I mean, those types of things were even going on in the synagogues and you know, that they did reflect and use the synagogue and Jewish worship practices as their starting point for what eventually became Christian worship. But then, you know, after they had the sharing of the word and things like that, they would move into the Eucharist part of , the worship service.
And we have to keep in mind that in those first centuries, people that were not baptized. So like the catechumens or inquirers, the God fearers, even I would throw in from a, a Jewish perspective, they were excused. They did not partake in this part of the ceremony. So they may have had the meal and learned the word, but then they would have been excused.
And only the true members of the church were there present for [00:45:00] the reciting of the creed. The Lord's Prayer and then participating in communion. Those were the secret rites. And like the mystery cults had other secret rites. And you can see in some of , the other letters, like I think Pliny and things like that, where it's like, well, they're, they're participating in cannibalism, you know, and the people were guessing about what was going on because it was secret.
It wasn't made public until later. And so that's what you're seeing play out. So that in this way, you almost see that as here's the extra step of holiness. So everybody can listen to the word and get something and have a common meal and have table fellowship together. And now we're going to increase the level of holiness to God's baptized members, Christ's body, participate in the Eucharist and the communion and those pieces that, and sharing the words that Jesus [00:46:00] taught.
Carey Griffel: So, so what you're describing there is from documents in the early church. We actually know how they did things. , we have bishops and other people who are talking about it and writing letters and things like that.
So we have these documents. It's fascinating to me in particular, just myself, that we do have those documents. Because when I was growing up in the LDS church, there was this idea of the apostasy, right? The falling away. And then the question in my mind was always, when did that happen, and how long did it take, and how can we really trust these early documents, you know?
And you end up cherry picking the early church fathers in a really bad way. To some degree, we kind of still have to cherry pick, because church fathers didn't all agree with each other. So we have to gather all of the evidence as a whole, and say, he was on the right track. He wasn't so much on the right track.
So it's this [00:47:00] matter of looking at church history and pulling out the truth from that broader consensus of many people talking about it, and many people talking about it through time. One thing I do wonder, as far as this idea of the Eucharist and ritual and, you know, the idea of especially catechumens being excused.
It seems to me, and this is just how I'm thinking about it, I'm just kind of throwing out my thoughts here. You have the early church and it's, it was clearly, The house church movement kind of a thing, where people were getting together in houses in small groups at first, before the church grew larger. As soon as you're growing larger, , and we seem to see this in the Old Testament, when we're moving from Genesis throughout Scripture, when things get bigger, You need bigger things you need firm ritual [00:48:00] because if you're just gonna leave everyone out to do their own thing You're gonna start getting some really strange ideas involved.
And so you need to start putting some fences there and Making some things formalized in a way They might not have been formalized before and it's so to me that I wonder how much of that's going on and to some degree We don't have a lot of information because of the way ancient documents are, and a lot of this, why would even people talk about it?
They're living out their lives. Unless somebody's writing a letter to someone else about it, and it's been preserved, we don't have that information of how things were changed, what happened there. And, as Christians, I do think we can take the historical church as something very serious, right? Like if, if we don't trust the historical church and how it developed, then we have nothing to really formulate our dogma on.
So we need to [00:49:00] take this thread that's happened throughout history and say it's happened this way, and there's a reason for that and, we really need to kind of dig into the purpose and intent of all of those things. In light of scripture, so that, that's kind of a hard work for us to do today, to some degree.
I'm not trying to suggest what the later church did is taking the early church and changing it. , it's just this natural progression of things need to get more formal, and they need to get really established in a different way. You know, so. So, and that's interesting to me as a Christian too, who's, I'm not tied to a particular denomination or tradition.
So, how do I then read what I see in scripture and interpret that for myself in my own context and look at that in light of church history. That's why this whole concept of worship and the whole topic of it is complex. And we've gotten to these areas where we're like, well, I don't really know, [00:50:00] are we doing worship okay?
Is it okay what I'm doing? And you really, it's, I think it is important to be digging into this and saying, I don't know, are we doing it okay? Let's actually have a real look at that, and And let go of, some of our thinking and, try and say, where am I going wrong? Am I going wrong? How can I improve it?
Yeah.
Cindy Beaver: Yep. And I think we can look, I mean, you see in the New Testament that bishops are starting to be assigned. You see the Bishop of, Jerusalem Jesus brother, James, . And so they were setting up some structure and that the bishops had certain qualifications or levels of understanding that the first ones they had to have been, you know, taught by an apostle and so that things could be handed down for them.
But the other thing that we need to understand is that there was autonomy of the bishop to conduct his churches the way he wanted them. In the whole arguments of [00:51:00] what books are in the Bible and which aren't, the canon and things like that, there were several different lists there and it was based on which scriptures are you reading in your church? Which scriptures are you reading in your church? And you know, it wasn't until many, you know, centuries later that they finally decided, and it was mostly because they wanted to produce a book that they had to come to some consensus, but I mean, the scriptures they were reading really depended on which copy of the Jewish Hebrew Bible did they have? And those Bibles varied as well. There wasn't a Masoretic text back at that time. And so some books would be there, some books wouldn't, but these were , what they started with of just, this is what we're reading. This is what we're doing. And they gradually came to consensus.
Then they had the ecumenical councils and there were seven of them were really pivotal in those early. Few centuries, but you know, [00:52:00] they only discuss certain things. They didn't set everything about, this is what a, church worship service should look like. They were arguing things about is Jesus man and God. They were arguing about the Trinity. They were talking about Mary and whether or not she was the mother of God or just the mother of Jesus. And they were trying to also put the Christian faith into the Greek philosophical terms. And so , what that tells us is that some of the variations for how churches worship were okay. You had general guidelines, but the bishop was the one that, was really responsible for his area of saying, this is how we're going to do it. And so then you see a centuries go on. And again, I'm talking more from the Orthodox church, but you know, eventually the Western churches would come and do similar things, but you'd have the different patriarchates.
There was a patriarch from [00:53:00] Alexandria, Egypt. There was a patriarch from Antioch, there was a patriarch of Corinth, I think, anyways. And then Jerusalem. And so there was like five or seven of them. . Eventually there was a patriarch in Russia. And so that's where you start getting, you know, there's the Serbian Orthodox church and there's the Russian Orthodox church and the Greek Orthodox church. All of them is because of the patriarchates that had been set up with their own organizational structures, they were in communion with each other. And sometimes they wouldn't be in communion with each other because the bishops would disagree with what one church was doing versus the other church. So, but there was flexibility. That the leaders would decide this is how we are going to do it.
So, yeah, that's just a little bit more history lesson of how the early church went. And you're absolutely right. The Holy fathers, , the apostolic fathers did not agree with [00:54:00] each other. , and so the way the Orthodox church looks at it is, you know they're big capital T traditions. That the entire church must follow and then there are smaller t traditions that are more local. You know, are you going to have at Pascha, are you going to eat this meal or are you going to do that type of a thing that those were much more flexible. There was definitely some dogma and certain things that were core that had to be followed that came down as teachings from Jesus and the apostles, but there's still a lot of flex.
, what kind of music are you going to be chanting? Is it Byzantine? Is it Russian? All of those types of things could flex and sway. And still the churches were in communion with each other.
Carey Griffel: That is so hard for us to see or to understand today. Like this idea that a group can work [00:55:00] together like that and have flexibility. But also have some firm core without one overarching, you guys are going to do it this way, and you're going to do it my way or the high way, and that's all there is to it. And that's how I see the church working in the New Testament, for one thing. And that's even some, you even see that kind of flexibility in the Old Testament in some ways as well.
You had the core, sacred space, you had the temple in Jerusalem. But , there was that indication that you could still slaughter animals and eat them elsewhere. All worship was not done in Jerusalem, so what did that mean and how did that look? And in all of these different ways of looking at sacred space and interacting with God in the space you have,
Cindy Beaver: Well, and we don't know all that much about the synagogues and what they would study.
But you do see some of the rabbinic writing and even those, the rabbis don't necessarily agree with each other.
Carey Griffel: Oh, that's [00:56:00] for sure.
Cindy Beaver: You know, and so it's okay. You're arguing over gnits. But the core message is the same. And so I do find it sad that on the Western churches, it does seem that the denominations are just, I'm right and everybody else is wrong.
A friend of mine just married a pastor and he's actually an interim. And he has five tiny, tiny churches all within a small area, and all of them are financially struggling. But any suggestion to merge those churches? Nope. Nope. We're not going to do that. You know, it's like, were you the Swedish Lutherans or were you the Norwegian Lutherans?
Or which way? You know? And it's like, stop it. Stop or this is the church was I, I was married at well, you know, [00:57:00] time passes and things change. And what's important for you and your memories , you know, it's this merging of these churches has nothing to do with your memories or what's important to you. It's about the health of the church, the health of the community. What, why waste money keeping five roofs from leaking when you could invest in one building, come together and look at how much more you could achieve... enlarge your group love one another, you know, it's just a super sad story of how divided instead of united we've become.
Carey Griffel: And that seems to speak into that question of sacred space and , its continuation into the future. It's a hard question, because to some degree, you're like, well, it's gotta continue, like, there's a reason it's sacred, you know? But does that mean that you just have to hold your horses so tightly [00:58:00] that it can't ever change and it can't ever do anything that is working with other Christians?
Like, I don't personally call myself a Protestant, because that's how I see things working in so many churches, is they're just gonna stand their ground in one particular thing, and And declare their independence, and it's like, well, could you be a little more flexible and we could all just come together and worship together?
And that sounds like a better idea to me, but, I don't know, it's like, you know, it's hard to get this idea of independence away from people. I have to have my idea, and I have to have my culture. Well, you can still have your culture somewhere else merging with other people. How about you work that out some way, you know?
I have a hard time seeing a lot of people coming to my church because of the way we do things and the way the sermon is structured and things. I understand if that's not something that's super comfortable to you, but how about we work together [00:59:00] to do something together and, you know, have different kinds of services perhaps, different kinds of sermons perhaps.
Or, you know, you can work with people and it's less about compromising and giving up. You know, sacrificing, losing something for yourself, and more about how can we broaden and work together? How can we bring ourselves together and do something even bigger and better? But you know?
Cindy Beaver: There's , a center, I don't know if you've heard of... Feed my starving children. It's an organization that it's, it started here in the twin cities area where I live, but I know it's gone elsewhere and they either have centers in different cities or they can do a remote thing where they will send , the supplies and equipment needed in trucks and have food packing things from various locations.
But what they're doing is they're, putting these very nutritious food packs together. They call them manna packs. They kind of [01:00:00] taste like chicken rice a roni. But you know, there's soy in there. There's rice in there and then vitamins and some flavorings. And what's so neat is it is Christian based, but it's not sponsored by any church. People go there, whether or not they're Christian or not. I mean, I've done it for work activities. But to me, it's the way that I can physically do something. That is going to benefit less fortunate people. Whenever there's a food crisis from a hurricane or even just places where there's famine, these boxes of meals are going out to, and millions of people are served this food. But what I love about it is, yes, it's mostly, I mean, it's a lot of Christians, but I don't know if they're Catholic or if they're Orthodox or if they're Lutheran or if they're who knows what they are.
Some of them are not even Christians, but we all come together. And we pack this [01:01:00] food and it's very joyful. And then at the end, we go back into the warehouse. Those that are interested, it's not required, but those that are interested, then go back to the warehouse and see all of the boxes that we've packed. And we raise our hands over them and say a prayer of blessing that this food will help. And it's like, can't we do more of these types of things? This is what Jesus asked us to do. And so, I almost see that as a sacred space, we're doing something that he said, care for each other. And yeah, no, it's just a warehouse with rice and soy and some other stuff.
You're wearing a hairnet and plastic gloves.
Carey Griffel: But you know, you're in a situation like that, you're encountering God. And you're encountering God with other people. And then suddenly that place has a meaning. It has a purpose that's related to... Everything God's [01:02:00] doing, related to human flourishing, related to us connecting together as people, as the image of God, that's an incredible image.
And just, yeah, I think if we take the idea of the archetypical sacred space, the tabernacle, or the temple, or creation as a whole, or you know, whatever it may be, and we start seeing those things in our lives. Just, just like you just did. You start seeing how those things apply to what we're doing.
And once you start doing that, you go, hmm. Yeah, I guess maybe I used to be flippant in church eating when I shouldn't have been. And you, start seeing these intentionalities that you can start living in a way that really aligns with the intent and purpose of sacred space entirely. what does that even me? And how does that apply to us? It's this idea that once you understand the concept of things in the Old Testament, in particular in the Ancient Near East, [01:03:00] you understand their way of thinking, you start saying, well, they were pretty different, but they weren't really that different. And it does apply to me, and it can absolutely root itself into my life in application.
I see that a lot. People are like, well, The Bible meant what it did to people back then. Does that mean it doesn't mean anything to me today? Well, it's the exact opposite. It means so much to us today. And once we start uncovering those pieces, it's just, it's a beautiful thing.
Cindy Beaver: It is, and, you know, the awareness of I should be doing better, that's repentance.
You're turning towards God. You're intentionally thinking more about how can I be a better person? How can I serve others? And by serving others, you're loving Him. Another thing to share about Orthodox is that annually, the priest will come to every parishioner's home and sprinkle holy [01:04:00] water, blessing the home.
Because an Orthodox Christian's home is also sacred space. Because we're supposed to be reminded that it isn't just my one or two hours of church on Sunday, holiness and sacred space should be shining its light around the world in every home, everywhere. I do like that concept of, of the little candles or the lights. And you know, that you see those pictures of the globe when, where the bright lights of New York and Chicago and LA, and yet then you see other places that are more remote and it's less , but it's like. What God wants us to do is to spread our little lights everywhere , and make everywhere holy.
Carey Griffel: And understanding creation as that temple building, , the more I think about it, the more I really do think the temple is the archetype, but it has to be part of everything. It has [01:05:00] to be also creation. The reason we can't just take creation is , that, The entire world has so much involved in that, like how do you tease out the purposes of sacred space and what that means and how it relates to God.
So if you take the temple and you understand everything else in relation to that, then suddenly it's all, it is that more intentionality and, Your life is worship. But that doesn't discount the worship and the sacred space in our churches, or in our homes, or in these other ancient places of worship. It doesn't take anything away from those places.
Instead, those places are shining the lights on what everything else means. If we didn't have those special places, we wouldn't understand it at all to begin with.
Cindy Beaver: I like this statement that Jesus says in John four, when he's talking to the woman at the well, he says to her, [01:06:00] woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain, Mount Gerizim, nor in Jerusalem, will you worship the father. Anywhere is holy space.
Carey Griffel: There's so many other places we could go into scripture to trace things.
And I think we're going to have to do a little bit more of this in targeted ways later. Because there's so much in the Old Testament. We have every book of the Bible has a way of, introducing us to sacred space. And I think every book of the Bible has a different kind of angle on how we can view sacred space and what that means.
And also the idea of anti sacred space. The idea that there's places that are kind of the opposite of sacred space and again That doesn't take away the idea of the cosmos as sacred, but it's going to add to our view
Cindy Beaver: Yeah, I mean we can look at how Even Sacred Space was defamed, like in Ezekiel, where he's having the vision that [01:07:00] God is showing him of pagan activities taking place within the temple.
We can talk about the Valley of Hinnin, where they were doing child sacrifice to Molech. There's the places, the high places, we see Josiah, we see Hezekiah. Tearing them down. We see, I think it was Hezekiah that destroyed the serpent that Moses had constructed because people had started to worship that just as an idol image.
So yes, I mean, we've talked about it previously, but even just the layout of the temple and the tabernacle and the increasing holiness, as well as the different items that were located within the temple, there's so much in the Bible that we could go into. We've just... It's kind of down the 50, 000 foot fly through.
Carey Griffel: This conversation has gone some interesting directions that I didn't, I didn't plan out, but I've enjoyed it. And I think [01:08:00] there's so much to be discussed with other believers, especially in other Christian traditions. How do you view worship and what does that mean and how can we bring all of those things together and learn from each other as well?
Cindy Beaver: I agree. I agree. And again, I don't think there's necessarily just one way to do it.
Carey Griffel: Oh, I completely agree, Cindy. And I think that's a pretty good place to wrap up our discussion, especially since we've gone a bit long today. But it's been such a good discussion, and I hope that everyone listening has enjoyed it as well.
Thank you again, Cindy, for joining us in the topic. And I'm really looking forward to getting into more detail about sacred space, because I do think that looking in the Bible and seeing how it's presented really can help us in our own current day. There's a bit of a transition that we need to make between the Bible's time and our time, but I think there's so many sound principles there.
[01:09:00] And to be honest, this is one of my favorite topics. Because understanding how sacred space intersects with the world , and how we should see our lives in the world, I think that's very, very important for the Christian. To be honest, it's a lot of why I do this podcast.
So, I want to thank Cindy for joining me. I want to thank you guys for listening, and I hope you enjoyed it. If there's anything you'd like to say, any feedback you'd like to give me, any questions you have, feel free to contact me on Facebook. Find me in my discussion group. Email me through my website at genesismarksthespot. com
Thank you guys for sharing the episodes. Thank you for rating the podcast and Interacting in my discussion group because all of those things help other people to find my content Don't forget to sign up for my newsletter, which I will be sending out more regularly Starting this next week and hopefully doing some more blog [01:10:00] posts on my website as well So, with all of that, I wish you all a blessed week, and we will see you later.
