What is sacred?

The Saturday before VBS there were several of us gathered at the church to hang cardboard and construction paper around the sanctuary in such a way as to make it look like a jungle. While we were working one of the high school girls plugged in her iPod to give us a little tuneage. Mostly Christian stuff. The shuffle function then chose a secular song. It isn't important which one.

Halfway through the song, a very upset person stormed into our church and told us that such music (i.e. secular) was not appropriate for "this house of God." A reasonable calm defense was given, but he wasn't having any of it. In order not to offended our brother in Christ we turned the music off. (Then talked about the event amongst ourselves for the rest of the week).

We could talk all day about secular music, the House of the Lord, meat sacrificed to idols, becoming all things to all men, and the 40 thousand other topics that this encounter raises. But the question that stuck with me is, "What is sacred?".

The easy definition of sacred vs. secular is to define secular first. Secular is what belongs to the world, Sacred is everything else. But is it that easy? If there is a chair sitting in a church building, does it belong to the Lord? The Church is the House of the Lord. If I remove the chair and place it in a restaurant, or even (gasp) a bar, does the chair lose its sacredness? When did it become sacred the first time around? When it was purchased by the planning committee, and therefore became property of the Lord (via the church). Or does the object become sacred once it crosses the threshold of the church?

And if that is the case, if the church is holy ground, wouldn't the song we were playing become sacred because of its surroundings?

Here is the problem, the building isn't sacred. The building isn't holy ground. What made the tabernacle holy? What made the temple holy? It was the presence of the Lord. Where is the Lord's presence today? It is in the lives of His followers (or it should be, but that is another topic for another time, maybe when God calls me to overseas missions). The church (the structure) is NOT HOLY. The Church (the men and women who follow Christ) is holy. We are going to skip the whole, "Well then can we do whatever we want and make it holy?" tangent (short answer= no).

Ironically, the message of VBS this year was that we (the Church) are the living stones that make up the temple of the Lord. It is us working together through the Spirit that make up the Church. And we as people certainly are NOT holy. My holiness is that of Christ's.

That is to say that through the perfect live of Christ that is now mine through the work on the cross and the presence of the Holy Spirit within me, I become holy. Close to four years ago, God began to impress on me the idea of Relationship. How vital relationship is to what we do as a Church. This week I began to see how important Redemption is.

For my inclusion into the Royal Priesthood, my standing as a temple of the Lord, my privilege to be a living stone making up the Church of Jesus, all of it happened through Redemption. If secular is what belongs to the world, then sacred is what belongs to the Lord. I belong to the Lord, the church building belongs to Lord (because it, not unlike me, has the function of serving the Lord), music, food, games, fun, miles of construction paper fashioned to look like a jungle are all sacred because they are taken from the mundane and repurposed to be used to bring God glory.

For me it was the reminder that ministry focuses on Relationships, but cannot neglect Redemption. We must purposely but ourselves in contact with the secular. That is we must go and find those who do not yet belong to God and bring them to Him. That can be done by going out to the jungles or by decorating your church to look like one.

--Serving Him alongside all of you, just from further away,

--Jesse "Gonzo" Letourneau