ENCOUNTERING GOD SHOULD CHANGE YOU
Exodus 3:1-15
Several years ago, I attended a youth conference entitled, "On Holy Ground." The theme was based on the scripture passage from Exodus 3:5, "Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground." It was a good conference but what I remember was how one of the youth in my church group interpreted the theme.
It was a tradition at this conference that each small group could participate in the variety show by singing a song, presenting a skit or writing a poem or something like that. The variety show was the last evening of the conference. Each small group consisted of about fifteen youth and three adults--all from different churches so they usually didn't know each other. So by the time the variety show rolled around they had spent five days getting acquainted.
What struck me about this youth was when her group was called onto the stage for their presentation. I have no recollection of what they did. What I remember was that before she jumped up on the stage, she kicked off her shoes, as did all the members of her small group. There they stood, arm-in-arm, barefoot on holy ground.
When I talked about the Israelites two weeks ago in the sermon, they were in pretty good standing with Pharaoh in Egypt. Joseph had gathered all his family in Egypt to provide for them during the famine. They had been given land and special treatment when they first entered Egypt.
But now things are not good for the Israelites in Egypt. They were slaves of Pharaoh, not invited guests. Moses had escaped from Egypt after killing one of the guards. Remember Moses had once been considered part of the Egyptian court after he was found by Pharaoh's daughter floating in a basket in the Nile. But that isn't the case anymore.
Here was Moses taking care of his father's-in-law sheep. He had led them out to the wilderness, to the mountain of God, to Mount Horeb, also known as Mount Sinai. This mountain was probably a sacred place for the people of that region. Moses was out there in the hot and remote desert tending the flock. Perhaps Moses thought that he was seeing a mirage when he suddenly came upon an angel of the Lord and a burning bush. He might not have trusted what he was seeing and drew closer to this astonishing sight of a bush burning and not being consumed. Then he heard the voice of God and life would never be the same for Moses or the Israelites.
In this transcendent moment in the presence of God, Moses is warned not only to keep his distance, but also to take off his shoes. For this was holy ground, high up on that mountain, far beyond the wilderness, far away from home. But it was also someplace where God could talk to Moses in such a way that his life, and the life of the Israelites, would never be the same.
Now, this is a story about hearing God's call in your life. But before you get too comfortable with the idea that I am going to preach about how we hear God's call in your life, let me make it perfectly clear that I think most of us spend our whole lives trying to avoid hearing Godís voice. If God dropped a burning bush right in front of us, most of us would ignore what was going happening. I truly believe encountering God should change your life but we really donít want that to happen.
So here on this holy mountain, Moses encounters God. When God instructs Moses to take off his shoes, it is a familiar idea. You take off your shoes when you are on holy ground. But taking off or "kicking off your shoes" also helps you get comfortable. In Old Testament days, inviting someone to take off their sandals was a sign of hospitality. Moses finds himself in the unmistakable holy presence of God and with a God that invites him to be at home. Moses had always felt himself to be "an alien residing in a foreign land" and now finds himself a guest of God.
I believe God wanted Moses to be comfortable in God's presence. Comfortable enough that Moses would listen and take the message to heart. When Moses hears the voice of God, he hides his face, but God reassures Moses that there is a purpose to this encounter; this is the God of his own ancestors, the God who makes promises and keeps them. This is a God who has a plan. God has observed the pain and suffering of the people, heard the cries for justice. God will come down and deliver the people and will send Moses to fulfill God's will.
We hear the promise in those words, but I bet Moses probably wanted to run and hide from God. We hear this story, as a reassuring moment in the faith life of Moses but for Moses is was a frightening encounter. I am sure he would have found it good news that God had heard his people's cry and was going to respond but did Moses really have to be involved in all of this?
And the answer is yes--God does have the expectation that Moses will be involved in this. Obviously, Moses does have some concerns about this huge undertaking and questions God about the situation. Moses and God talk to one another and end up having a continuous conversation throughout Moses' life and sometimes that conversation is pretty contentious. (That might be a familiar form of conversation that we sometimes have with God, especially when we are trying to ignore God).
God does call us to do seemingly impossible things. For Moses to get over the wall of impossible, he must be reminded of who is calling him. It is God, the God of your father, the God of Abraham, Sarah and Hagar, the God of Isaac, Rebekah and Esau, the God of Jacob, Rachel and Leah. In Godís name is the freedom and power to deal with every situation, for God is free to be whomever and whatever God chooses to be, in whatever situation or circumstance.
Moses can instill hope in the Israelites and defeat Pharaoh because of how God responds to those concerns of Moses. God simply says, "I will be with you." Moses doesn't need to worry about who he is, about his inadequacies, the task ahead, or the obstacles in his way. This call from God really isn't about who Moses is. It is about "Who" is with Moses. God plays the most important role; it's God who's at the center of the story and the presence and power of God will make all of Moses' work possible.
This great drama between Moses and God plays out on the mountaintop. It is a story of a personal call between God and Moses but also a communal call between God and the people of Israel. We see in Moses, a man who traveled into the wilderness, where many of us fear to go and there he encounters God and comes face-to-face with the fact that God has a larger purpose for his life than Moses could ever have imagined. God has taken hold of his life and through extraordinary events; it will never be the same.
Moses could have ignored the burning bush or turned and run away but he didn't. He let his encounter with God change his life. I quote from Walter Brueggemann, who I think wrote the definitive commentary on the Old Testament books of Genesis and Exodus. Brueggemann wonders if "we may have experienced this (encounter with God) already or perhaps we're still waiting for it to happen, still hoping to hear the call that will transform our life, that will break it open. Our lives today are lived far away from the mountaintop; yet, we hold this story because we know there is more to our life than the ordinariness of life without the holiness of God. Deep down, we hunger for the holiness of God and a larger purpose for our lives, to discover our lives, like Moses, saturated with the reality of God....What could be different about the purpose of my life because of the reality of this God?"
The "what could be different about our lives" is the key to our call. This story about Moses and the burning bush isn't a story trying to explain "why" Moses is called. The story is about the "what" of the calling.
Do you ever listen and wonder about God's call in your life? Or do you only expect to hear God's voice when you have had a mountaintop experience, an epiphany or are you waiting to be confronted by the burning bush? And even if you do allow yourself to see that God is confronting you, do you take that encounter seriously?
When we encounter God, we should listen for God's voice, and seek God's presence. If we do, we might find ourselves drawn into an adventure much larger than we could ever imagine. Like Moses, we might consider ourselves inadequate. We might waste time debating "why" we were called, instead of getting to work on the "what" of the larger purpose our lives have been given.
Encountering God should change our lives. If we don't let it, we might what to consider the alternative--living a life that is not called. We could refuse to listen, close ourselves off from the holiness that pursues us and calls out our name. Life is certainly simpler that way, and we are certainly free to say "no." Brueggemann describes the uncalled life as "an autonomous existence in which there is no intrusion, disruption, or redefinition, no appearance or utterance of the Holy."
Moses responded to the utterance of the Holy, the One who knows us and calls us by name. Do we have the courage to listen and respond to the utterance of the Holy? Trusting that wherever we go, to Egypt, to Pharaoh, to the ends of the earth, we will never be alone.
Don't ignore the burning bush, take your shoes off, be comfortable on holy ground and encounter God and be changed. Be like Moses coming down from that mountain and responding to the call of God: soaked in grace, never alone, and never again the same. Amen.
August 31, 2008
Mary Alice Lyman
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