February 28, 2016: May God’s words alone be spoken, may God’s words alone be heard. Amen.
There was a pastor of another congregation that decided to have a more interactive sermon the Sunday that the story of Moses and the burning bush was read as a lesson, and so he “selected a middle-aged couple to act out the [… scene from Exodus 3 that we heard this morning.] The husband was asked to supply the voice for God and his wife would read Moses’ lines. So, they were rehearsing beforehand, and all went well until they got to verse 15. The wife, as Moses, mistook her husband’s lines for her own, and she read: “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, “The God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to— “The pastor interrupted her. “Wait a minute. You’re not God.” Without missing a beat, her husband deadpanned, “I’ve been trying to tell her that for 18 years”[1]
I think I’ll just stick to a regular sermon, but it is stories like this one that are the reason I love the Hebrew Testament, and love when I feel called by the Holy Spirit to preach on a text from it. God was always showing up in the most dramatic ways, engaging directly with people. These are rich and powerful narratives that, quite literally this time, spark our imaginations, and light a fire within us – if we pay attention.
And it’s that last part that is crucial to this story, and ours.
Now, here’s Moses, out shepherding his flock – probably had a lot on his mind because he goes way beyond where he should be, “beyond the wilderness” it says, and he ends up on Mount Horeb… the mountain of God, and the scripture says “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. Then Moses said, “I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up.”
Moses stepped out of what was consuming him to notice a bush that was on fire without being consumed.
Now, to understand why Moses might have had a lot on his mind, we need to remember a bit about this guy, because for many of us, we have this Charlton Heston image going on, like he had everything going for him – strong, charismatic, good looking. And, he may have been some or all of those things. We don’t know. But what we do know is that he had an unusual life, and at this point in it, was likely in the midst of an identity crisis.
He was born to a Hebrew woman at a time when the male children of Hebrews were ordered to be killed by the King of Egypt. She hides him, and finally puts him in a basket, where he is found by one of Pharaoh’s daughters, and his Hebrew mother is paid to nurse and raise him. Then he lives as an Egyptian until he sees an Egyptian beating a Hebrew laborer (really a slave), and Moses intervenes killing him. So, he flees to Midian to escape the Pharaoh’s wrath where he ends up marrying Zepporah the daughter of a Kenite priest and shepherd. He even calls his first son “Gershom; for he said, ‘I have been an alien residing in a foreign land.’”
So, he’s a Hebrew. He’s an Egyptian. And really he is both and neither. And he’s married to the daughter of Jethro, who is considered the spiritual founder of the Druze religion, a group persecuted even to this day in areas such as Aleppo in Syria, and which like all cultures do, influenced the people residing in that region at the time of Moses, including the Hebrews and vice-versa. So, Kenite/Hebrew/Egyptian? He goes from living in the palace of the Pharaoh to being a shepherd? Talk about an identity crisis. I think maybe some of that could have been on his mind, which is how he probably ended up so far past where one ought to be herding sheep, when he encountered this fiery bush. Hasn’t that ever happened to you? I know it happens to me all the time. I am driving along, miss an exit…or maybe walk right past the store I meant to go into – that’s happened to you too, right? So Moses is a bit distracted, and yet…he notices this burning bush, and turns aside.
God, having heard of the cries of the Hebrew people coming out of their oppression in Egypt, meets Moses where he is, and tells him that he is to liberate the Hebrew people. God wants Moses to go to the Pharaoh – tell them to let God’s people go – and then lead them out of Egypt. You can almost hear Moses go… “yeah, sure God, I’ll get right on that – right after I go have a CAT scan…or better yet, after YOU have one.” Okay, what Moses, the man with an identity crisis, replies as one might expect, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”
“Who am I?”
I think sometimes we all ask that question at some point in our lives – am I my job? Am I my family – mom, dad, son, daughter? Am I what I see in the mirror – and what do I see? I think questions of identity are central to who we are as a people of faith too. It is what makes us seek answers. It is what makes us “turn aside” as Moses did that day – to be open to seeing God in our midst. Anyone who thinks a person of faith never questions anything obviously never read the bible, because it is chock full of people of faith asking questions – some arguing with God profusely. Questions are a part of our faith journey, because I think we are most open to hearing and seeing God, when we run out of our own answers to the central questions of our life.
And so here we have Moses, encountering God in this wild way, and God has an answer for Moses about who he is, and what he is called to do. And Moses is not all that crazy about what he hears. I remember something the comedian Lily Tomlin once said, “I’ve always wanted to be somebody, but I see now I should have been more specific.”[2] I think Moses is thinking the same thing. Because Moses sees himself as this imperfect lost soul – not at home anywhere, with an inability to really speak well, he had a speech impediment (you didn’t see THAT in any Hollywood movie, did you). But that’s the thing about God – God calls the most imperfect of people, which is a good thing, because if God only chose perfect people, God would have to do the work alone. So, this imperfect Moses is understandably resistant.
But Moses also has another burning question (sorry, couldn’t resist) – Who are you? Moses wants to know what to call God. What is God’s name? And God says “I am who I am.” Or more precisely from the Hebrew “I will be what I will be.” I don’t know about you, but does anybody else want to break out into a rendition of the show stopper from La Cage aux Folles?” Yeah, I know, that was “I am what I am,” but I think God’s answer is actually a better lyric, don’t you? “I’ll be what I’ll be, and what I’ll be….is none of your business!” God – the original star of stage, screen, and all of existence.
God is always trying to help us with our identity questions – because it is so important for us to remember who we really are. And the interesting thing is, Moses’ identity, and ours, is found in God, whose identity cannot ever be fully known. Sometimes it is in the strangest of ways that we come to really know ourselves, isn’t it.
I am reminded of the Disney movie “The Lion King.” In the movie, the spirit of Mufasa, the dead Lion king, speaks one night to his son, Simba. Simba has been hiding out in the deepest, darkest jungle, singing Hakuna Matata – doing…whatever and nothing at all. He’s forgotten that he was born to be king. The ghost of his father challenges him: “You have become less than you are.”
That is what God is doing with Moses. And it is what God is always speaking to us too, if we only take a moment to turn aside and listen. We often suffer an identity crisis as people of faith, even if we don’t realize it. And that is because we too often box our identity as Christians into something we do on Sundays. But it can never be only about that, but about what we do with our lives.
There’s a story about “the renowned [19th century] artist, Paul Gustave Dore, [who] lost his passport while traveling in Europe. When he came to a border crossing, he explained his predicament to one of the guards. Giving his name to the official, Dore hoped he would be recognized and allowed to pass. The guard, however, said that many people attempted to cross the border by claiming to be persons they were not. Dore insisted that he was the man he claimed to be. “All right,” said the official, “we’ll give you a test, and if you pass it we’ll allow you to go through.” Handing him a pencil and a sheet of paper, he told the artist to sketch several peasants standing nearby. Dore did it so quickly and skillfully that the guard was convinced he was indeed who he claimed to be. His work confirmed his word!”
And so it is true for us. Our work confirms our faith.
God is telling us several things about ourselves in this story:
That God will meet us where we are – even beyond the wilderness.
That God will answer our questions – if only we ask them and turn aside from our day to day life to listen.
That we shouldn’t try to box God into some limited understanding of who God is – nor should we do this to other people, other children of God.
That God calls us to “be what we will be” – a people made in the image of God, not perfect, but perfectly loved. A people called to partner with God in the work God is already doing in the world.
The famous American author and mythologist Joseph Campbell once said, “The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.”
And God wants for us to experience that privilege – to be who we are. Paul Gustave Dore was identified as being who he was by the work he created. God is known through God’s actions in the world, and our actions too. The question for each of us is – what work do we do that identifies us as a Christian, as a people of God?
The answer to that is crucial to our sense of identity. God will always love us and grace is free to all whether we do this work or not. God would not have loved Moses any less if Moses had not listened to his call. Mufasa still loved his son Simba, and always would do his best to guide him from the heavens. But both needed to live the life they were called to live. And so do we.
God calls us now to stand up for the voiceless, to free the oppressed from the hands of Pharaohs, to be the people of God we were born to be. As Lady Gaga said in the song that calls for LGBT equality “I was born this way!” We were born this way! And before we get shaking in our sandals like Moses at the prospect of trying to do this work, remember what God said to him “I will be with you.”
“I will be with you.”
God is with us. We don’t do this work alone.
If we can stop for a moment to turn aside and hear God calling to us, we will come to know – really know – who we are – and that, my friends, will awaken us and transform the world.
We were born this way.
We are who we are.
And through it all God is with us.
All over this world – filled with oppressed people –filled with people who hunger and thirst for love – the Holy Spirit is at work, and calling us to her side. God is calling us to be who we are.
Every day for everyone there’s a burning bush waiting to be seen. Will you turn aside and take notice?
Will you be what you will be?
Amen.
For the audio from the 10:30am service, click here:
[1] Laura Allen in Christian Reader.
[2] Lily Tomlin in Jane Wagner, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe
The Rev. Diana L. Wilcox
Christ Church in Bloomfield & Glen Ridge
February 28, 2016
Third Sunday of Lent – Year C
1st Reading – Exodus 3:1-15
Psalm 63:1-8
2nd Reading – 1 Corinthians 10:1-13
Gospel – Luke 13:1-9
