Holy Ground
Exodus 3:1-8
I must make a confession--I can't stand Cecil B. DeMille's "Ten Commandments." I always find it to be a comedy. One scene always gets me--this scene wherein Moses heads up the mountain to see the burning bush. Mr. DeMille must have thought Moses had binoculars for eyes because it takes Charleton Heston thirty minutes to get to the gol-darned bush--he even has time to get his hair done along the way, for by the time he reaches the bush, ol' Moses got ahold of a whole bottle of mousse! His hair looks FABULOUS!
Reading the actual Bible story, though, is a matter of simplicity itself.
God veils himself for Moses, meeting him in a wondrous sign rather than face to face. God's holiness would overwhelm Moses. God's holiness overwhelms us. God is the Holy Other who is wholly other. Throughout the Old Testament, God protects the human beings with whom God meets. He hides Elijah in a cleft in a rock. He only shows Isaiah the hem of his robe. God dwells within the Tabernacle behind a great curtain. God mediates himself for us. In this grace, we are able to find God comprehensible. That is the power and intent of Christ--God meets us as one of us. God meets us on our terms because we could never hope of meeting God on God's terms.
But that is also a call to humility. We can never know all there is to know of God. We can never declare any human statement of God or on God or about God as infallible. All theology is speculative.
Some may stop reading right there, offended, hurt, and sure I am on my way to hell.
What we within the Christian fellowship can know of God we know only through God's self-revelation in Christ and through the witnesses like Moses from the time before Christ's advent. All we say in response to Christ is our own interpretation of what we think Christ means for us and for the way in which we live. There is no other way this can be.
One of my great sorrows as a pastor is when someone, in the name of Christ, rejects another human being because that human being falls outside the confines of their carefully wrought structures of faith. Jesus dealt with such people--they were the Pharisees. The Pharisees were good people and exceptionally adept churchmen. They sought to live by the total commitment to following the commandments in the Torah to the last semicolon. But as Paul, a Pharisee himself, discovered--his great work of faith led not to a spiritual communion with God, deep and profound, but instead to him holding the robes of those who murdered St. Stephen, the first martyr. We repeat the same mistake when we reject another human being because they don't fit our rules, guidelines, and dictums of our theology. No, God made every human being who ever breathed in a work of wondrous love--God did not create simply to destroy. Every human being is a unique act of God's creative will--Christ's umbrella of grace is wide enough for everybody.
So, begin with Paul--"...for now we see in a mirror dimly..."
That done, take off the shoes.
Don't bring the mess of the world into God's house. We live in a contentious time, a time when being right trumps all else, a time when we wear our feelings on our sleeves, and when we are more than ready to take offense at someone. Don't bring that into God's house. Take off those shoes. Come naked into the presence of the Lord--washed, cleansed, and, yes, vulnerable. Leave all the clothing and baggage of supposition, presumption, assumption, and predilection at the door. Allow God to wash over you. Allow God to free you from all that stuff, purifying heart, mind, and soul.
Be free.
Yes, Lord!
I must make a confession--I can't stand Cecil B. DeMille's "Ten Commandments." I always find it to be a comedy. One scene always gets me--this scene wherein Moses heads up the mountain to see the burning bush. Mr. DeMille must have thought Moses had binoculars for eyes because it takes Charleton Heston thirty minutes to get to the gol-darned bush--he even has time to get his hair done along the way, for by the time he reaches the bush, ol' Moses got ahold of a whole bottle of mousse! His hair looks FABULOUS!
Reading the actual Bible story, though, is a matter of simplicity itself.
God veils himself for Moses, meeting him in a wondrous sign rather than face to face. God's holiness would overwhelm Moses. God's holiness overwhelms us. God is the Holy Other who is wholly other. Throughout the Old Testament, God protects the human beings with whom God meets. He hides Elijah in a cleft in a rock. He only shows Isaiah the hem of his robe. God dwells within the Tabernacle behind a great curtain. God mediates himself for us. In this grace, we are able to find God comprehensible. That is the power and intent of Christ--God meets us as one of us. God meets us on our terms because we could never hope of meeting God on God's terms.
But that is also a call to humility. We can never know all there is to know of God. We can never declare any human statement of God or on God or about God as infallible. All theology is speculative.
Some may stop reading right there, offended, hurt, and sure I am on my way to hell.
What we within the Christian fellowship can know of God we know only through God's self-revelation in Christ and through the witnesses like Moses from the time before Christ's advent. All we say in response to Christ is our own interpretation of what we think Christ means for us and for the way in which we live. There is no other way this can be.
One of my great sorrows as a pastor is when someone, in the name of Christ, rejects another human being because that human being falls outside the confines of their carefully wrought structures of faith. Jesus dealt with such people--they were the Pharisees. The Pharisees were good people and exceptionally adept churchmen. They sought to live by the total commitment to following the commandments in the Torah to the last semicolon. But as Paul, a Pharisee himself, discovered--his great work of faith led not to a spiritual communion with God, deep and profound, but instead to him holding the robes of those who murdered St. Stephen, the first martyr. We repeat the same mistake when we reject another human being because they don't fit our rules, guidelines, and dictums of our theology. No, God made every human being who ever breathed in a work of wondrous love--God did not create simply to destroy. Every human being is a unique act of God's creative will--Christ's umbrella of grace is wide enough for everybody.
So, begin with Paul--"...for now we see in a mirror dimly..."
That done, take off the shoes.
Don't bring the mess of the world into God's house. We live in a contentious time, a time when being right trumps all else, a time when we wear our feelings on our sleeves, and when we are more than ready to take offense at someone. Don't bring that into God's house. Take off those shoes. Come naked into the presence of the Lord--washed, cleansed, and, yes, vulnerable. Leave all the clothing and baggage of supposition, presumption, assumption, and predilection at the door. Allow God to wash over you. Allow God to free you from all that stuff, purifying heart, mind, and soul.
Be free.
Yes, Lord!
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