Where Is Your Holy Ground?
Where Are You Reminded God Is With You?
by Eric Elkin
A small piece of sacred ground is on the southern tip of Manhattan Island in New York City. It rests on a trapezoid-shaped parcel of land in the middle of the financial district. Financial engineers who keep the cogs of capitalism grinding walk by it daily, oblivious to its presence. Only tourists with a specific purpose visit it. Because it rests in the shadows of skyscrapers, even sunlight rarely visits the sacred place.
In the summer of 1985, I was assigned to visit the New York City Vietnam Veterans Plaza. It is the only reason I know this sacred ground exists. The task was part of a staff training experience. Pastor Bob Nervig, Koinonia's executive director, understood the Plaza's sacredness. He wanted our summer camp staff to visit the memorial wall to meditate and pray for the families and friends who experienced loss.
People often visit war memorials to remember the lives of women and men lost to war. The monuments built to remember soldiers, like the more famous Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington DC, contain the names of veterans and a quote. The New York City Vietnam Veterans Plaza is different. It does list the names of the 1,741 New Yorkers who died fighting the war in Vietnam. However, most of the monument contains excerpts of letters soldiers wrote to loved ones at home.
When you sit in the amphitheater and read the words of soldiers, you are invited into their lives. You get to meet them and the conflict they are enduring both externally and internally in their lives. The soldiers are more than names. You meet their families, comrades, and friends. Visitors who take the time learn the complexities of their lives. It is then that you realize you are walking on holy ground.
Pastor Bob knew what he was doing when he asked us to visit the Vietnam Veterans Plaza. His intent was not to remember a war but to nurture our ability to listen. Most of us were from the Midwest; we didn't know New York or New Yorkers. We all had our biases, and biases stand in the way of listening. To meet and serve people, you need to hear about their experiences. You need to be able to enter into their lives.
In our reading today, Moses encounters God through a burning bush. God asks Moses to remove his shoes because he is walking on holy ground. But it is not the land that is holy. It is the relationship between God and Moses which makes the place sacred. In a way, Moses is making himself vulnerable. He sets aside a small form of protection and his bias about God. These things are necessary for Moses to enter a deeper relationship with God.
I have been to hundreds of places people would consider sacred ground. However, the most powerful holy ground experiences came from building a relationship with someone different from me. These relationships require us to take off our sandals of preconceived ideas and assumptions to serve someone in need. A devotion on this passage asked, "When have you found yourself powerfully reminded that God was with you?" My answer is when I feel most connected to strangers and their lives.
Click to read Exodus 3:1-6, 9-12
Reflection Questions:
When have you walked on sacred ground?
What made the ground “sacred”? Was it land or people?
When have you found yourself powerfully reminded that God was with you?
What does being present with God look like?