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August 31, 2008 sermon

Soaked in Grace
(Isaiah 43: 1-3a, 4; Exodus 3: 1-15)

Reverend Minister Sally Harris

When we don’t have enough inspiration, wisdom, imagination, will, or faith to do what seems to lay its claim on us, or to work the change that seems required, have mercy on us O Holy One of Burning Bush and Sacred Story. Soak us with grace...find a way to each of us that we may be your presence in the world. Amen

How do I begin telling my story. There is so much out there about who I am, what I did, what I missed that I wonder if there is any room for my words… Any room for how I saw it and what I experienced. So much is missing when one reads a biography of someone. The tedious moments of everyday, of every life are not recorded. We all like to skip to the good parts, the action, the reaction… but the story begins long before I saw that burning bush. Now you might remember that my life was saved by mother and sister… they hid me in the river Nile and then dear Miriam watched over me until a most surprising thing happened. The Pharaoh’s own daughter, the very Pharaoh that threatened to take my new born life… his daughter found me and saved me. For many years I was nurtured with the influence of my mother’s Hebrew faith yet I lived as royalty in Pharaoh’s palace. My heritage was as a Hebrew slave yet I was at ease in the Egyptian citadel of power. Until that day when my worlds clashed and my privilege as an Egyptian gave way to my compassion as a Hebrew and in that moment I made a choice. I saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew to death and I was compelled to act, to defend and in turn to let go of my privileged life as a member of the ruling class. In that moment I became a fugitive from justice. I crossed the Sinai peninsula fleeing some two hundred miles and once again found refuge from the storm – this time not in a royal palace but in a rural place.

It was hard at first to leave the action of the privileged, the arena of power, the excitement of the city but in the end it became a comfortable exile. I found love, married and enjoy working for my father-in-law, Jethro. I liked doing ordinary things and my days were full with the tending of sheep and tending to a regular kind of life. Gradually the bad memories of Egypt faded. But I must confess I sort of felt in limbo… in the wilderness mostly at ease but there was a wondering, a wandering, a waiting. So I kept busy and figured my wondering was just a misguided longing for the action of the powerful. I tried to become attentive to the silence, the doldrums, the meandering of my days. Indeed I did settle into my comfortable exile.

And then one day while tending the sheep in this wilderness I saw a bush out in the middle of nowhere, burning. The odd thing is that it did not quit; as long as I stood there watching it, I never saw a single twig turn to ash. Glowing like a coal beneath the flames, the bush was not diminished, and finally I had to take a close look. I said to myself "I must turn aside and look at this great sight and see why the bush is not burned up." It was when I turned aside that suddenly a voice came to me… it was like God saw me stop, saw me let the sheep wander, saw me pay attention to the miracle right under my nose, and then, only then God spoke, calling me by name and telling me to take off my shoes. I was somewhat reluctant to do that, standing so near this ball of fire. But I also recognized it as a act of hospitality, a sign of welcome – like God was saying: “Kick off your shoes – get comfortable in my presence.” And though my sandals protected me from the ground they also rendered me insensitive to what my soles might feel. It was an invitation to a simple act of reverence, comfort, openness and vulnerability. This God was definitely not one of the local, lesser gods; no, this was the God that my mom told me about as a child, the God of my ancestors. This God recognized the cry of God’s creation. Every cry, with the individual throb of suffering it expresses, seemed to be falling, cry for cry, not on deaf ears, but on the heart of God. I suddenly realized that I had always thought of God as a story, a hidden kind of God. I started to wake up to the idea that God is actually hidden within the suffering- within the cry of creation, within the cry of those enslaved. I started to re-think this kind of presence until… I was asked to get involved. I was ask to help out those I left behind – the captured ones, the unrecognized ones… this God wanted me to arrange their escape. This was a very bad idea. In the first place, I am on the most wanted list. In the second place, I have some major misgivings about my abilities. I can barely lead this flock of sheep; what will I do with an entire nation? And this voice really does not offer much reassurance – at least not the kind I want, such as a guarantee of safe passage and a game plan.

Looking for any leverage I can find, I decide I better find out exactly whom this bush and this voice belongs to. Sure, they belong to the God of my ancestors, but what is this God’s own name? What is this God’s essence? If I can discover that, maybe I can have a little power over this deity who is asking so much of me. Not wanting to be too obvious I inquire of the bush, "If I come to the Israelites and say to them, `The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,' and they ask me, `What is the name of that God?' what shall I say to them?" Not that I want to know for myself, you understand, but if they should ask, who shall I say is calling? “

The Voice spoke from the heart, from the earth, from the flames: "I was what I was, I am what I am, but I will be who I will be. Yes, I will be who I will be. And so will they. "I AM WHO I AM. Tell them that I AM sent you." Now what kind of answer is that? Imagine sitting next to someone at a party. You introduce yourself and talk a little while before you realize you never caught the other person’s name. "Excuse me, " you say politely, "but what is your name? " "I am who I am, " the person says, "I was who I was, I am who I am, I will be who I will be. " In other words, it is none of your business who I am. If we are afraid to call it a rude response, it is at least an evasive one. By giving me such a puzzling name God let me know that there was no controlling this God. It is an answer that certainly put me in my place. And it helped me find my place – what about you?

For some reason Moses decides to believe this burning bush, he accepts this call, and he never sees more than the backside of God again. The end of the story, of course, is that he delivers Israel to the promised land and becomes one of the heroes of the faith. Yes those were the good old days: burning bushes, angels of God, pillars of fire, parted seas, all those unmistakable signs of the presence of God. What wouldn’t we give for one clear direction from God, one burning bush to call us by name and tell us what to do? At least I think that is what I want. Most often I stay so busy sometimes I wonder if I would hear my name. Sometimes I get so focused on my list of things to do that I might only notice a burning bush if it scorched me. And then, like Moses I just might be wary of what this bush might know about me, of what it might ask me to do. So if I stay busy with all those pressing tasks that demand my time, maybe God will not notice me or see that I already have enough to do and call on someone else.

A burning bush? I didn’t see it. A burning bush? I haven’t got time.
A burning bush? There is a reasonable explanation.
A burning bush? Someone, please, put it out.

"Earth’s crammed with heaven, " wrote Elizabeth Barrett Browning, "each common bush aflame with God. Yet only he who sees takes off his shoes. The rest set round and pluck berries." Or tend sheep. Or run errands. Fill in your own blank. Then stop, if you are willing. Stop and take off your shoes, again and again, knowing that wherever you are; wherever we are, is holy ground. Risk being vulnerable, getting burned, looking foolish, being wrong.

We need to be turning aside, looking into every bush, every face, every event – the big and the small, the hoped for and the feared, the bad and the good – looking into every one of them for God’s presence. Believing that whatever is going on, the God of many names is close at hand. And finally, if we are still willing, we could go the last step. For once we get the knack of seeing burning bushes everywhere then we must consent to being set on fire ourselves, to be for someone else the presence and call of God. Imagine Moses, coming down from that mountain and responding to the call of God: soaked in grace, never alone, and never again the same. Imagine us, you and me, soaked in grace. For you see:

I AM WHO I AM is with us, has been with us all along, and will be with us forever. Can we believe it?

[resource: Weekly Seeds & BB Taylor ]

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