July 10, 2011

Exodus 3:1-15

An Altar in the World: Spiritual Practices for Experiencing God’s Presence (part 2)

Rev. Cynthia Cochran-Carney, Willow Grove Presbyterian Church, Scotch Plains, New Jersey

1 Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; he led his flock beyond the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2 There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed.

3 Then Moses said, "I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up." 4 When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, "Moses, Moses!" And he said, "Here I am." 5 Then he said, "Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground."

6 He said further, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. 7 Then the Lord said, "I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, 8 and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the country of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. 9 The cry of the Israelites has now come to me; I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them. 10 So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt."

11 But Moses said to God, "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?" 12 He said, "I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain." 13 But Moses said to God, "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 his name?' what shall I say to them?"

14 God said to Moses, "I am who I am." He said further, "Thus you shall say to the Israelites, "I am has sent me to you.' " 15 God also said to Moses, "Thus you shall say to the Israelites, "The Lord, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you': This is my name forever, and this my title for all generations.      Exodus 3:1-15

As adults who are parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, mentors, friends of children and teenagers, we have important responsibilities.  Many things we need to teach children.  What are some of those things? .................... (manners, honesty, responsibility, love of God, independence, love of learning….)

Those are all important things and lessons.  I think about this a lot as a mother, a pastor, a youth leader, in discussions at the Moms' Group and with other parents.

The story of Moses and this chapter in the Barbara Brown Taylor book An Altar in the World struck a deep chord in me, a-lump-in-my throat kind of truth.  I think one of the most important parts of my life I want children and young people to have, in addition to feeling beloved by God, is a sense of awe and wonder about God's world, to notice and take in mysteries and beauty about creation.

I remember standing on the porch in Poconos at night.  The boys were wrapped in blankets and we take them outside to see the explosion of stars.  I grew up in suburbia and lived most of my life in cities or suburbs.  I had never lived in a place far away from sources and light. I was in awe on top of that mountain, especially in the winter, when the sky was full of blazing lights.

I was also in awe the first week of school in the Poconos when Jackson was getting ready for first grade.  I was making breakfast and looked out the window.  There in our back yard was a black bear. That was a moment of awe and maybe some fear.

One of the times I feel awe after moving to New Jersey comes usually in April.  It is the day when the forsythia bursts out.  That yellow explosion is amazing to me.  After a long dreary winter is fills me with joy and awe.

And I have mentioned before.  One of the times of awe was walking among the giant Sequoia redwoods in 2007.  We took the boys there so they could see and smell and touch those magnificent towering trees.  I remember going there with my mom and dad.  And I wanted the boys to be there have that experience of awe.

In the story of Moses and the burning bush, awe is connected to reverence. Reverence is the proper attitude of a small and curious human being in a vast and fascinating world of experience. Taylor quotes Paul Woodruff a philosopher.  Reverence is the virtue that keeps people from trying to act like gods. It is the recognition of something greater than self, something beyond human control, transcends human understanding.    (Taylor, An Altar in the World, pg. 21)

Reverence stands in awe of something. We see our limits and see others with reverence.

Taylor writes:

The practice of paying attention really does take time.  Most of us move so quickly that our surroundings become no more than the blurred scenery we fly past on our way to somewhere else.  We pay attention to the speedometer, the wristwatch, the cell phone, the list of things to do, all of which feed our illusion that life is manageable.  Meanwhile none of them meets the first criteria for reverence, which is to remind us that we are not gods.  If anything these devices sustain the illusion that we might yet be gods – if only we could find some way to do more faster.

Reverence requires a certain pace.  It requires a willingness to take detours, even side trips, which are not part of the original plan.  Early in the Bible there is a story about Moses, who would turn out to be God’s great partner in the liberation of the people Israel from bondage in Egypt.  He was not that yet, He was still a fugitive from justice, rising out in the Arabian Desert to beat a murder rap back in Egypt.    

Moses life changed one day while he was tending his father-in-law’s sheep. According to the storyteller, he had led the flock beyond the wilderness to Horeb, the mountain of God, when an angel of God appeared to him in a burning bush. The bush was not right in front of Moses, however. It must have been over to the side somewhere, because when Moses saw it, he said, “I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up.”

The bush required Moses to take a time-out, as least if he wanted to do more than glance at it. He could have done that. He could have seen the flash of red out of the corner of his eye, said, “Oh, how pretty,” and kept right on driving the sheep. He did not know that it was an angel in the bush, after all. Only the storyteller knew that. Moses could have decided that he would come back tomorrow to see if the bush was still burning, when he had a little more time, only then he would not have been Moses. He would just have been a guy who got away with murder, without ever discovering what else his life might have been about.

What made him Moses was his willingness to turn aside. Wherever else he was supposed to be going and whatever else he was supposed to be doing, he decided it could wait a minute. He parked the sheep and left the narrow path in order to take a closer look at a marvelous sight. When he did, the storyteller says, God noticed. God dismissed the angel and took over the bush. “When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, ‘Moses, Moses!’”

“Here I am,” Moses said, and the rest is history.  Before God asked Moses to do anything else, however, God asked Moses to take off his shoes.  “Come no closer.” God warned him, not because the ground was hot but because it was holy.  “Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.”                      (Taylor, An Altar in the World, pp. 24-25)

This story of Moses is powerful.  Moses has been forced to flee Egypt because his murder of an Egyptian slave-master became known. He fled to the Sinai peninsula “Midian”, and married Zipporah, daughter of Jethro.  Moses is shepherding “beyond the wilderness”: a mysterious place like the deep in the forest of fairy tales. Near Mount Sinai or “Horeb”  God appears to him in the form of fire,  a symbol in the Bible implying passion, purity, light, mystery, divine presence.

Moses is curious (v. 3) and leaves Jethro's sheep. What follows is the archetype for the calling of a prophet. God appears to the person and urges him to return to his people and serve as his spokesman, despite any opposition he may encounter, and his own shortcomings. As we find with other prophets (e.g. Jeremiah, Jonah), Moses is reluctant: in fact, he refuses four times. He has reason for not returning to Egypt, and yet he does return, because he believes that he is sent by God. Moses, like Abraham and Samuel, acknowledges God's call by saying “Here I am” (v. 4).

Removing one's footwear (v. 5) was a common form of respect in the ancient Near East. It was a way to show he was indeed on holy ground.

God gives Moses his commission. Moses raises 3 objections and then raises another:  what do I tell people your name is? (v. 13)   Reverence for God seems basic but to know someone's name was to have power over him or her. In the creation story, Adam names the animals and has dominion over them.  God's answer is enigmatic and the Hebrew is unclear: it can be translated The One who causes to be what comes into existence or it may indicate presence, and be intentionally vague. No one has power over God.  It is a form of to be. Moses is commanded to tell the Israelites that his title is YHWH or Yahweh (in Hebrew), or “ LORD” (v. 15).  Form of the verb to be - I am who I am, I will be who I will be.

As we experience reverence for God,  Taylor suggests in her book that this helps us develop a reverence for people.  She admits that a reverence to people is hard when people are annoying.  And yet she practices reverence for people.  She is also practicing a reverence for food.  She writes that we she bought food at the grocery store, she did not pay much attention.  But now she lives in a more rural area of Georgia and she grows some of her food.  She knows the people at the farmers’ market.  She has developed a reverence for food because she has connection to where it comes from.

The practice of paying attention is as simple as looking twice at people and things you might just as easily ignore. To see takes time, like having a friend takes time. It is as simple as turning off the television to learn the song of a single bird. Why should anyone do such things? I cannot imagine – unless one is weary of crossing days off the calendar with no sense of what makes the last day different from the next. Unless one is weary of acting in what feels more like a television commercial than a life. The practice of paying attention offers no quick fix for such weariness, with guaranteed results printed on the side. Instead, it is one way into a different way of life, full of treasure for those who are willing to pay attention to exactly where they are.    (Taylor, An Altar in the World, pg. 33)

Think of all the things in nature that can evoke a sense of reverence and awe - thunderstorms, ocean, bears.  Pay attention each day and develop a sense of awe. 

We were in Cumberland, Maryland last weekend.  The land there is full of rolling hills. You can’t see what is around the next curve.  That gives me a different sense of land and space and type of quiet reverence.  We went to an outdoor running track with a one mile loop.  We have gone there for over 20 years and remembered taking the boys there at different ages.  There is a usual kind of awe coming back.  On the way home, I negotiated with Jeffrey and the boys to stop at the Kutztown Festival near Allentown.  I had never been before but had read about it. It is an annual festival of all things Pennsylvania Dutch - crafts, music, food... and quilts. 2500 of them in the quilt barn.  Many of you know I love quilts and fabric.  When I walked into the quilt barn I started tearing up.   So much beauty and creativity in that space.  I was truly in awe.

What are some of your memories of reverence and awe in the world?  How do we help children and young people develop that?  Camping... trips to the shore.... mountains... architecture... museums.

Close with an experience of awe.  When I was in high school, I went backpacking in the Sierras with my church youth group. My family did not camp but the youth group did.  I recently found some pictures of the 1976 hike to Florence Lake on West side.  Each year we hiked on different trails, reading topo maps and hiking at 5000 feet to lakes and peaks and meadows on switch back trails.  So many awe inspiring vistas.  As we hiked I felt a calling there as a community of brothers and sisters in Christ.  Together we woke up God’s beauty and mysteries.  One year we wrote poems.  The following anonymous poem was at the front to the book:

You cannot stay on the summit forever.
You have to come down again.
So why bother in the first place?
Just this -
What is above knows what is below -
But what is below does not know what is above.
One climbs,
One sees,
One descends,
One sees no longer.
But, One has Seen.
There is an art of conducting oneself
in the lower regions by the memory
of what One saw higher up.
When One can no longer see,
One can at least still Know.                                                  

So this week practice reverence. Paying attention.  In Christ we can see and know and experience awe. Amen.

An Altar in the World:  A Geography of Faith by Barbara Brown Taylor, Harper Collins, 2009