8. Bethel

The primary question we have been discussing so far is why we worship. Now we turn to another question -- where do we worship?  

There is a well-known story of Jacob having a vision of God and of angels on his way to find his uncle Laban. He woke up from his dream, and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven!” He named that place Bethel. This Hebrew word, beth (house) el (God), means the House of God. This tradition of someone feeling the presence of God somewhere, and then erecting a house of God there has been followed since time immemorial. Later when the realization developed that God cannot be limited by space, the houses of God became symbols.          

In the Judeo-Christian tradition, the entire world is the house of God. Actually our ideal world is Bethel. It  consists of heaven and earth, in which the will of God is done. The glory of God fills the earth in the ideal world (Isa 6:3). Heaven is God’s throne and earth the footstool of God (Isa 66:1). In the ideal world, the entire heaven and earth and everything in them praise God (Psalm 148).  

However, our ideal world remains as our ideal; it is not our present reality. Our real world is not a house of God because the will of God is not done on earth.  

When we realize that our real world is different from our ideal world, we would want it to return to its ideal state. We imagine the ideal world to be a world which has no evil at all-- either as another world in space (heaven or paradise) or as another world in time (Garden of Eden, or the new heaven and new earth as in the Book of Revelation).

The ideal world we imagine is actually a scale to measure our real world. Seeing it as a goal, our world can be transformed. In the absence of such a scale, our world’s process of change and development won’t have any clear orientation. Jesus presented the life in heaven as a model for the life on earth in the prayer he taught. (Let thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven).

Having an ideal world in our imagination is the first step. Giving it a concrete symbolic form that is accessible to our senses is the next step. Only then can it influence our subconscious mind. That is why we make a building and call it the house of God. It is a visible representation of the invisible ideal world within our minds. It is really not a house of God in itself, but it is a representation of the real house of God, which is the ideal world in our imagination. That is why we see a house of God as heaven or as the Garden of Eden. The purpose of a man-made house of God is to convert our world into the house of God.  

The symbolic representation of the ideal world takes varying forms according to the difference in time, space, and culture. The various religions and their subdivisions see the ideal world differently, and symbolize it in various ways. The claim that one’s own way of worship is the only true worship is fundamentalism. All houses of God built by the followers of all religions are symbols of the ideal world. They are named differently in various languages and religions-- temple, mosque, church, etc.

Only mature minds can see a house of God as a symbol of the ideal world. Immature minds see a house of God literally as a special place with the presence of God. They see only the houses of God of their own religion in that way. They can’t even imagine that God is present in the houses of God of other religions. The photograph of Metropolitan Paulos Mar Gregorios standing with folded hands before the Sivasankara temple in Kaladi created some uproar in those days. His mature mind could honor a Hindu temple along with a Christian one.  

This was the difference between Jesus and the Samaritan woman. She wanted to know which temple was the right one, where God dwells -- one in Jerusalem, and the one in Mount Gerisim. Jesus probably viewed both of them as the symbols of the real temple, the ideal world. The immature mind of the Samaritan woman is characteristic of most of the religious believers of all times all over the world. The exclusivism of seeing one’s own house of God and one’s own religion as the true ones is the superficial perspective of the immature mind. According to them, their own religion is the only true religion, and their goal is to create a world that consists of their religion only. The solution is to bring the followers of all religions into the mature view of Jesus that all man-made temples are the symbols of the real temple -- the ideal world.

We generally agree that worship is a ritual we perform in a house of God. But our understanding of the meaning of worship varies in the east and west of Christianity. What we have seen above is the view of the eastern Christian world. For the east, a house of God and the worship there are symbols of our relationship with God. Our worship represents the ideal life in friendly relationship with God, and a house of God represents the ideal world. All beings in the world constitute the true worshiping community. A worship in a house of God is not worship in itself, but it is a symbolic representation of the true worship in the true House of God. A priest is not a true priest, but a symbol of the true priest, Christ, standing before God representing the entire world. The bread and wine are symbols of Christ.

Paulos Mar Gregorios, explaining the eastern view of worship, asserts in his book, the Joy of Freedom, that staying in friendly relationship with God is the true freedom for us, and worship is the expression of the joy of this freedom.

The western Christian world has an entirely different view of worship. Accordingly, a church is a true House of God in itself, and a worship there is true worship in itself. The priest there is a true priest, and the sacrifice he performs is the true sacrifice. The pope of Rome rules the world as the visible representative of Christ. The bishops represent the pope, and the priests represent the bishops. People cannot contact Christ directly, but only through these mediators.

The reform movements in the west couldn’t adequately understand or correct the underlying literal view of worship. If they had known the eastern view of worship, they could have made the reformation more effective. The reformed churches also continue with their literal views like the catholic church.    

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