VII.
Once more back to the altar that Abram builds – What’s the purpose of an altar?

VII.
Genesis 13:8-18 (NRSVue)

Then Abram said to Lot, “Let there be no strife between you and me and between your herders and my herders, for we are kindred. Is not the whole land before you? Separate yourself from me. If you take the left hand, then I will go to the right, or if you take the right hand, then I will go to the left.” Lot looked about him and saw that the plain of the Jordan was well watered everywhere like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, in the direction of Zoar; this was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. So Lot chose for himself all the plain of the Jordan, and Lot journeyed eastward, and they separated from each other. Abram settled in the land of Canaan, while Lot settled among the cities of the plain and moved his tent as far as Sodom. Now the people of Sodom were wicked, great sinners against the Lord.

The Lord said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him, “Raise your eyes now, and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward, for all the land that you see I will give to you and to your offspring forever. I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring also can be counted. Rise up, walk through the length and the breadth of the land, for I will give it to you.” So Abram moved his tent and came and settled by the oaks of Mamre, which are at Hebron, and there he built an altar to the Lord.

IX.
How do you know an altar when you see one?

Maybe its place in a “house of worship”?

Maybe what’s on the altar?

Maybe what you want to put on the altar?

In this week’s Scripture passage, we see Abram building an altar, but nothing more is revealed about it.

Is it enough to build the altar? Does the very act of building it make it holy?

Even if you have not built an altar, what places (and events) stand out to you as holy? Why?

charles
{ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est}