Sights and Insights
Devotion for Feb. 8, 2022
God said to Jacob, “Arise, go up to Bethel, and settle there. Make an altar there to the God who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau.” So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, “Put away the foreign gods that are among you, and purify yourselves, and change your clothes; then come, let us go up to Bethel, that I may make an altar there to the God who answered me in the day of my distress and has been with me wherever I have gone.” – Genesis 35:1-3 (NRSV)
This is the big week. The Super Bowl is upon us. No, the Eagles will not be in it this year, but it is still a big day for many people. In fact, I have read that in the U.S. it is the second biggest day of the year for food consumption (Thanksgiving is first), and tops in vegetables eaten. It is sure to be the biggest television event of the year, too. In fact, over the past ten years or so the number of people in the U.S. watching the game has gotten bigger and bigger. I find that interesting, because when I first moved to Malaysia in 2012 I was able to watch the game, but after a couple of years they stopped broadcasting it due to lack of interest.
It has been somewhat interesting to me to jump back into the frenzy of the Super Bowl the past two years. While not in my top tier of favorite sports, I like watching football. I played one year in high school before switching back to soccer for my last three years. Still, the frenzy of the day being the biggest celebration of the year in this country can feel a bit disconcerting to me. I understand being excited about a big game, but the scale of the event beyond the game appears all the odder having been away from it entirely for a few years.
I think that people long for a dependable rhythm of events. This was true long before the pandemic intensified that feeling. The lack of other rituals in our life that tie us into communities is sorely felt, even if that need is unrecognized by most people. The rhythm of game day – preparing the food, watching the pregame activities, commercials, halftime show, getting excited as the game (hopefully) comes to an exciting conclusion (maybe we will even have to be reminded of the details of the NFL playoff overtime rules yet again this postseason!) – provides a sense of excitement and predictability that adds color to an otherwise often drab time of year. Some of the longing for predictable rhythms, though, stems from our collective loss of the sense of the value of ritual. We have discarded many of the traditional rituals that have given meaning to people for centuries, and so that need for ritual creeps back into unexpected places, like football games. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying the ritual of football games, of course, but it is also important to recognize the value of rituals that provide a deeper sense of meaning in our lives.
At the beginning of January, the New York Times had an article about New Yorkers who had set aside places in their homes for prayer, meditation, and giving thanks. As the pandemic has moved religious ritual into our homes gathered around a screen, it is important to surround that experience with a sense of a holy space and a holy time to give a sense of depth of meaning to the religious rituals that we share. It’s not that this a requirement given by God, but rather a human need to help us recognize God at work in our lives and in our worship.
Do you have ways to mark your worship time at home as holy? Are there ways that you have prepared a space for the sacred within your living space? It need not take up a great deal of space – even having a small moveable cross that you put on the table in front of you during worship can make a difference. Feel free to share with me some of your ways for creating a sense of the holy in your home, and if you are willing and we get enough responses I can include them as a future “Sights and Insights” devotion.