Lent 3 C- The Dust Of The Tabernacle’s Floor

God said, remove the sandals from your feet, you are standing on holy ground.

The priests were barefoot in the Old Testament when doing the sacred rites in the Temple. At Catholic Masses in Thailand and Southern India, with great reverence, the people remove their shoes at the door.

According to Numbers 5:17, even the dust of the Tabernacle’s floor possesses spiritual properties, it was mixed into holy water.

We have no dust in the sanctuary in front of our tabernacle because Mr. Bellevue cleans it so well!

What about the holy ground of our souls?

In 1 Cor. 11:30 St. Paul teaches that receiving the Eucharist can either heal you or kill you.

We remove our dusty sandals of sin by confession with contrition and repentance.

Walking with bare feet symbolizes humility and mortification in Israel. In 2 Samuel 15:30, King David did penance barefooted, and Isaiah did too, in Isaiah 20:2

But not those in our 2nd Reading today. St. Paul says, Yet God was not pleased with most of them, for they were struck down in the desert.

Paul says the five things God was displeased by them were-

Their idolatrous worship and feasting in the Golden Calf episode, their fornication with Moabite women, their testing the Lord, saying, “Are you with us?” after the miracles he did for them, and their complaining.

Paul is saying that they lost their salvation and suffered death by the destroyer.

Paul may be alluding to the Destroying Angel in Exodus 12:23 where the firstborn of Egypt were slain.

1 Corinthians 10:14 says, “Therefore, my dear friends, flee from idolatry.” 1 Corinthians 6:18 says, “Flee fornication.” They are actually the same things in the wisdom literature of the Bible.

Removing sandals and walking bare footed is also a sign of vulnerability and being open to support and helping others.

Sandals were removed when mourning according to Ezekiel 24:17-23.

e.g., Grammy-winning Christian singer Steven Curtis Chapman and his family were all barefoot during a funeral service as a mark of reverence to ground made holy, they said, by the loss of Maria Sue, their 5-year-old who had died after being accidentally struck at their home by a reversing SUV driven by her brother.

A Hasidic teaching says that the world is filled with sharp objects and stones. When you wear shoes, you can walk without feeling those objects. Leaders must feel every impediment, and the pain of people on the road of life and emphasize with them.

Going through life believing in God's holiness and trusting in His promises and helping others is like walking barefoot.

But Moses was on a mountain, on high ground, where there is protection. Genesis 3:15, Mary, with Jesus in her womb, steps barefooted on the serpent. He crushes Satan’s head.

Praying to Jesus offers a “safe refuge” we are in grave danger, and in these perilous times; and “all” (nobody should be left out); everybody must be saved from the hands of the enemy and be brought to the safe refuge of heaven: children, youth, families. Amen