“On Holy Ground”

In the reading we just heard we had about Moses’ encounter with God (Exodus 3) – the same Moses that would go on to challenge Pharaoh and his army, the same Moses that would lead the Israelites through the parted Red Sea waters, the same Moses that would accompany them on their 40 year trek through the wilderness on the way to the Promised Land.

            It reminds of that story about President Bush’s trip to the Holy Land. Israel Prime Minster Ehud Olmert and President Bush had a scheduled meeting. Olmert arrived late, and Bush let him know in no uncertain terms that he did not like to be kept waiting.

            Olmert replied, “I am sorry Mr. President, I was meeting with someone more important than you are.”

“Who is more important than the President of the United States?” Bush demanded.

            Olmert replied: “Moses; I was meeting with Moses.”

            “You know Moses?!”, Bush exclaimed. “Get him on the phone. I want to talk to him.”

            Olmert picked up the phone, dialed, listened, and then hung up. “He doesn’t want to talk to you,” he told Bush. “He said the last time he talked to a bush it cost him forty years in the wilderness.”

You gotta love this account of Moses and the way in which God comes to him. Moses, who was raised in Pharaoh’s court and knew just how oppressive the Egyptians were to the Israelites they had enslaved, is going about his business as a shepherd when one day he is walking up a mountain and saw something amazing – a bush. A bush on fire. A bush on fire with a flame that did not consume it. And then he hears a voice calling him, saying “Moses! Moses!” And when Moses answers, “Here I am”, that voice tells Moses that he is in a very special place, a holy place, and so he should take off his shoes.

            We aren’t shepherds, and we don’t often find ourselves on mountainsides surrounded by bushes which might catch on fire, so maybe we should not expect God to speak to us through a burning bush on Mt. Sinai. But still, we might well ask, what are the common things in our lives through which God’s message might come to us?

Maybe in the text messages and tweets and Facebook postings that fly across our digital world;

maybe in a conversation with a troubled co-worker over break;

maybe in the car pool to soccer practice,

or in a walk on the beach, or on the morning news,

or even in a wooden building some almost 300 years old.

Maybe holy ground is not just over there, in what is often called “The Holy Land”, maybe holy ground is everywhere and anywhere that God might speak to us, if we had ears to listen and eyes to see.

            But if we were on holy ground, if God were indeed calling to us, what might we expect to hear? I think we can take three clues from the account of Moses and the burning bush.

            First, just as Moses’ call was linked to the cries of his people crying in captivity, so too our call will likely be linked to the cries of those in need in our time and place – the suffering of the unemployed, the homeless, the bereaved, the ill.  Those televised purveyors of the Prosperity Gospel will tell you that God’s call to you is all about you, you, you – about making you richer, you more successful, you increasingly insulated from the pain of the world. God’s call to Moses reminds us that we are called to be a servant people, to partner with God in caring for our neighbor.

            Second, we can expect that God’s call to us will not be a welcome one! Like Moses, we will have plenty of reasons that we just don’t want to belly up to the task placed in front of us. I am not faithful enough. I am already over-committed. I don’t have the training. The job is too big for me. It’s all rather vague – I think I’ll wait until I get more of the details. It’s too hard.

            And finally, we can expect that when God calls us to a task, God will equip us for it as well. The same God who gives Moses what surely must have seemed to him to be an insurmountable task, also promises to be with him, with power, every step of the way.  It may look to the casual onlooker that Moses stands naked before Pharaoh, on his own, unaided and powerless. But the person of faith knows that this is far from the truth, that when Moses stands before Pharaoh, God is with him, fully engaged in the struggle.

            It is the same with us. When God calls us to a task, that call comes with the assurance that we will never be left alone or unaided. It is not for nothing we have that adage, “One plus God makes a majority.”

Who was Moses to lead his people up out of slavery to the Promised Land? Only a man called by God to do so and gifted with the resources to make it happen.

Who was Nelson Mandela to lead South Africa into a post-apartheid era of racial harmony and reconciliation? Only a man called by God and then gifted with the patience and wisdom and ability to embody extravagant forgiveness  so as to transform a nation and inspire the world.           

                       

Who were Lauren Abraham, Sharon Minehart, Dianna Henson, and Bobbie Jordan,  to do something new in a 400 year-old church, worshipping in an almost 300 year-old Meetinghouse, to start up a new worship service on Saturday afternoons? Only regular folk called by God and then gifted with the inspiration and enthusiasm and will to do the work to make that new thing a reality.

Friends, we stand on holy ground. So let’s roll up our sleeves, get to work, and rejoice!