Jacob left Beer-sheba and went toward Haran. He came to a certain place and stayed there for the 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. And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven; and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. And the Lord stood beside him 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; and 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 all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring. Know that 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 woke 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 Jacob rose early in the morning, and he took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up for a pillar and poured oil on the top of it. He called that place Bethel ... .
(Genesis 28:10-19a)
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I just want to explain - in case you misunderstood the meaning of the sermon title - that today's sermon is not about some strange biblical diet plan. Actually, the idea of the "thin place" has been around in Christian circles for a very long time. It first appears (as far as we know) in writings from St. Angus MacNeese. The name might allow you to guess that Angus was a Scotsman. Actually he was a Scottish monk who lived in the 9th century. There are a lot of legends about his life (which is usually the case with those who have been declared to be saints by the Roman Catholic Church - stories of miracles being performed by them; people praying to them or through them and having their petitions granted.) The truth, though, is that we really don't know very much about Angus's life. But we do have some of his writings. We know that there was a place in Scotland (and we don't actually know exactly where it was) that captivated him. It was apparently a valley that was often shrouded with mist and if you looked at the valley from above in the early morning on a clear day you could see the sunlight shimmering off the mist, contrasting with the lush green of the hillsides that surrounded it. It sounds quite beautiful. And Angus became convinced that here - in the midst of all this beauty - was a place where heaven almost came into contact with earth; where the barrier between the two was almost gone. It was a heavenly place on earth for Angus. And it's for that valley that he coined the phrase; that mysterious and beautiful valley was Angus's "thin place" - where heaven seemed to almost touch earth.
I suspect that we all have such places. Everyone probably has such places. In my last congregation we actually did a Sunday in which we asked members of the congregation to submit pictures for us to display of their own "thin places" - the places where they felt God's presence most powerfully. And every single one of those pictures was of something beautiful or heart-warming. I could understand why these places were so meaningful to those who had taken the pictures and who loved these places and thought of them as places where heaven and earth met. But it also troubled me just a little bit. I started to wonder if perhaps we don't equate God too easily and too readily with only the beautiful things. It strikes me as a little bit like our celebrity-fixated culture. We pay attention to beautiful people because they're beautiful people. We listen to beautiful people because they're beautiful people. In some respects, beauty speaks to us more than words, and an image can be more powerful than all the logic we bring to bear on a subject. Politicians have learned those lessons well. And so, since we obviously believe that God is good, and since we equate goodness with beauty, we also start to believe that God must be beautiful, and that God must be revealed only by the beautiful things of the world. Which is why you listen to me, of course!
I find myself thinking of a popular and beloved hymn: "All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small." The problem is that we don't really believe that. The hymn talks about little flowers and little birds, and purple headed mountains and running rivers. Bright and beautiful things, indeed. And that kind of thinking gives us all sorts of freedom. Little birds we like - house centipedes on the other hand we're quite willing to quickly and ruthlessly do away with, even though aside from their yucky appearance they're actually quite inoffensive little creatures who won't hurt you and who help to keep the real pests under control. But they're not beautiful. Monty Python put out a spoof of that hymn:
All things dull and ugly,
All creatures short and squat,
All things rude and nasty,
The Lord God made the lot.
Each little snake that poisons,
Each little wasp that stings,
He made their brutish venom.
He made their horrid wings.
And he's got a point. Which, in an admittedly roundabout sort of way, brings me back to Jacob's experience in today's Scripture reading.
Jacob encountered God. His dream was a wonderful one, of a ladder stretching from heaven to earth, and angels going up and down the ladder and God standing at the top of the ladder. It's a great image of a God who wants to be involved with the creation. But I found myself interested not so much in the vision as in where Jacob was when he dreamed the dream. It seems from the description that he was for all intents and purposes in the middle of nowhere. The NRSV that we read from today says that Jacob came to a "certain place," but other translations just say basically that he arrived "someplace." It's nothing special is the point. There was no reason anyone would arrive at this place and have an experience like St. Angus had. No one would have looked at this place and said, "Ah! God must be here! This is where heaven meets earh." No one. Not even Jacob. He was just tired apparently and he wanted a place to sleep and so he put his head on a rock to close his eyes - because a rock was the best thing he could find for a pillow in this dreary place! There was nothing spectacular here. Jacob just fell asleep - and he dreamed. And, as anyone with even a passing acquaintance with the Bible knows, our dreams are often where God speaks to us. And after this wonderful vision, Jacob awoke, and he said, "Surely the Lord is in this place - and I did not know it!"
Why would he have known it? We don't expect to encounter God in the dreary or the mundane or the every day (and even less in the various uglies mentioned by Monty Python.) But maybe that's the lesson we should take from Jacob's dream. We don't need to scour the world for "thin places" where haven and earth seem almost to touch. Everywhere can be such a "thin place." No matter where we are and no matter what we encounter, heaven is so close - right there - we're almost able to touch it. Maybe every place we go is sacred ground. Think about that. There's a popular Christian chorus that starts with the words, "We are standing on holy ground; and we know that there are angels all around." Think about that. Every place we go is sacred and holy ground. Wherever we find ourselves - "surely the Lord is in this place," even if, like Jacob, we didn't know it at first. Maybe we should be keeping our eyes and ears open for an experience of God - because such experiences can happen everywhere and anywhere and anytime. That's what Jacob discovered. And perhaps the fact that he not only discovered it in this place - just "someplace" that he ended up lying down to rest - but that he discovered it in a dream is the most important thing of all.
Dreams come from within us. And what did Jesus say about the Kingdom of God? He said that it was within us. Yes, we all have our thin places where heaven seems to almost touch earth and which in their very beauty or majesty bring thoughts of God to our head. But maybe you don't have to travel to get to them or search to find them. Maybe you just have to explore your heart and your soul. maybe you just have to look deep within. Maybe the thinnest place of all is within us - where God's Spirit touches us always. Maybe our own very heart and soul is holy and sacred ground - a "thin place," where heaven and earth are almost touching.
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