The Robot on the Shelf (And Other Sacred Things)--July 16, 2021

The Robot on the Shelf (And Other Sacred Things)--July 16, 2021

"Now even the first covenant had regulations for worship and an earthly sanctuary. For a tent was constructed, the first one, in which were the lampstand, the table, and the bread of the Presence; this is called the Holy Place. Behind the second curtain was a tent called the Holy of Holies. In it stood the golden altar of incense and the ark of the covenant overlaid on all sides with gold, in which there were a golden urn holding the manna, and Aaron's rod that budded, and the tablets of the covenant; above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat. Of these things we cannot speak now in detail." [Hebrews 9:1-5]

On the day our now-son came home with us, we stopped at McDonald's for lunch on the way home.  He loved chicken nuggets, and so his first celebratory lunch as part of our expanding family was a kids Happy Meal, and the toy was a Transformer robot of some kind that fired a real projectile.  He loved it because it was a robot (and smelled faintly of nugget grease). I kept it because I knew we would want this keepsake forever, as silly as it might have seemed to an outsider watching.

In the moment, of course, I couldn't avoid the obvious symbolism of taking home a literal "Transformer" while we were also bringing home a child who would transform our lives--sometimes in ways we could predict, and certainly in plenty of ways we could never have imagined at the time.  But even beyond the obvious metaphor, I just knew I wanted to keep that first toy from the first lunch--it would remind me, and maybe in time, it would remind my son, of this journey of life we have shared.  Even if the memory of that day doesn't stick because he was so young, I hope the sight of the robot toy will remind him one day of how we have done our best to love him.  One hopes, at any rate.

So, even though most of the kids' toys these days have homes in cubbies in their rooms, or in the basement play area, the Transformer-Toy-From-The-First-Happy-Meal has a special place in the house.  I have built a special bookcase beside my closet door, and at the very top he is perched on permanent display.  Other important books and mementos line the lower shelves, but the Transformer-Toy-From-The-First-Happy-Meal is at the pinnacle, a fixed reminder of the story of our family's journey--and ongoing transformation.

I think something like that is the way to think of the assorted collection of mementos and souvenirs that became the holiest, most sacred objects in Israel's ancient memory.  They weren't "powerful" in the sense of wielding celestial energy to smite your enemies or harnessing lightning bolts.  Unlike the famous climactic scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark, the actual Ark of the Covenant wasn't used as an offensive weapon to reduce your enemies to dust.  It was a memory box, honestly.  It was a collection of souvenirs and old objects that had become sacred because they were imbued with memory from the journey of their homecoming to the Promised Land as God led this band of formerly enslaved people into freedom.  It was the stories that made these things holy--the stories of how God provided manna in the wilderness when the ornery people claimed there was nothing to eat, the story of how God raised up leaders like Moses and Aaron and Miriam, the story of how God gave the people a way of life and wrote it on stone tablets, while the people were literally melting down their precious metals to make themselves an idol at the same time.  The stories of how God went with the people--through the Sea, into the wilderness, and into a new home--and how they were transformed from a band of loosely affiliated tribes with the trauma of centuries of enslavement into a people striving to live together in justice and mercy, those stories came with objects that were picked up like mementos along the way.  And because of the ways those stories and objects helped the people remember whose they were, the people held onto them--they became sacred.  And so they kept them in a special box... which then got put in a special place, set apart from all their ordinary possessions. They just happened to call that place the "Holy of Holies."

If we think about the objects in our worship life like they are magical amulets with power in and of themselves, we'll make them into idols before the day is out.  But if we understand those objects as bearers of the story by which we are in relation with God, we can understand what it means to call them "holy" or "sacred."  The ark of the covenant--and inside it, the manna, the budded staff of Aaron, and the commandments--these were objects that came to have sacred significance, not because of their monetary value or potential as weapons, but because they were reminders of how God had, in the words of the hymn, "brought us thus far on the way."  And because the people knew they would need to teach future generations about where they had been and how God had gone with them, they set those objects apart, like putting them on the top shelf of the hand-built bookcase rather than in the plastic tubs of the basement to be forgotten or lost.  The objects weren't magic, but they did really and truly connect the people to the God who went with them.  They conveyed the presence of God through the memories that went with them, and the people were re-storied, or even re-membered, as they recounted the great saga from promise to enslavement to liberation to homecoming journey.  In a sense, they were sacraments--visible words that communicated the redeeming action of God.

I wonder, then, how you might tell your own life story, and what mementos from that story remind you of how God went with you.  Some of those objects might be obviously "religious" in nature, like the Bible you got when you were in elementary school, or the plaque with a cross on it from your confirmation.  Or maybe the program from your marriage ceremony, put in a frame somewhere, or the baptismal candle of your oldest child.  But some of those objects that bear the story of how God has carried you through will be surprising--a movie ticket, a handkerchief or a bandana of your father's, a notebook with handwritten chicken scratches written by someone important to you, a toy from a kid's Happy Meal.  Who knows what else?

Well, you do.  And if you can picture your own personal collection of objects you have held onto as reminders of how God has gone with you in your life's journey, through Red Sea crossings and wilderness seasons alike, then maybe you can appreciate how God's people survived on mere hope for centuries by holding onto the memory box we call the Ark of the Covenant.  And maybe we can understand why it was so important for those distant siblings of ours in faith to hold onto those objects and build a special place to keep them.  They reminded them of who God is... and because of that, whose they were, too.

May we be so re-storied as well, by the God who claims us and carries us.

Lord God, help us to remember how you have gone with us in this life's journey, and make us to hold on to all that reassures us of your presence.