Here I Am (Exodus 3:1-15)

 “Here I Am”

Exodus 3:1-15

Saint Catherine’s monastery is the oldest continuously inhabited monastery in the world. It was built in the sixth century, and contains the world’s oldest continually operating library. It was built around the location of what is traditionally considered to be the place of the burning bush seen by Moses.

There was no monastery here when Moses led the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, through this wilderness, searching, perhaps, for food or water for them. There were, as you can see, lots of rocks. But I imagine Moses knew how to find those few spots where a spring or underground water source made it possible for grass and other vegetation to grow.

Like any good shepherd, Moses was intent on his task, but I imagine that he was also able to soak in the beauty of his surroundings. 

Even though it is mostly barren, it looks beautiful; it reminds me of the mountains near Joshua Tree National Park. And early in the morning, or late in the day—as the sun rises or sets, or as clouds pass by and sometimes cover and then reveal the mountaintops—the rocks glow in the golden light, and the shadows move slowly across them. That’s what I remember most about camping at Joshua Tree, how the rocky peaks are constantly changing as light and shadow dance across them.

Maybe it was as his sheep were quietly feeding on some grass or drinking from a spring that something other than moving shadows caught Moses’ attention this day. For there, off to the side, Moses saw a bush on fire.

Perhaps, when he saw it, Moses thought: “Huh. Someone else is out here, and they left without putting out their fire, and now it’s spread to this bush.” 

Or, maybe if there had been storms in the area, Moses may have thought that it was lightning that set this bush on fire.

…And maybe Moses would have continued focusing on his flock, keeping them together, leading them to food or water, because this fire wasn’t going anywhere, it wasn’t a threat, because there was so little up here that could burn…

But wait; there was something different about the way this fire was burning. The bush wasn’t being consumed by the flame. It wasn’t turning to ash. The leaves weren’t even getting singed.

Moses paused what he was doing, and turned to take a closer look. He said, “I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burning up.”

Now, what if Moses hadn’t taken that pause?  What if he hadn’t turned aside? What if he was so intent on leading and guiding his sheep, that he didn’t even notice anything unusual about this bush? What if he was so determined to get to his destination, that he just didn’t have time for this distraction?

It’s kind of hard to imagine this happening; we think, of course Moses paused to investigate this burning bush! 

But people don’t always pay attention to what’s going on around them. People aren’t always very good at observing things. I think it would actually be quite easy for any of us to walk right past that burning bush, and not see what was really happening, how it was engulfed in flame, and yet, was not being consumed.

We often miss many important, even dramatic events, in our lives, simply because we aren’t paying attention. We aren’t paying attention to the present. Our minds are always so focused on things that aren’t actually right in front of us, so we miss what is right in front of us.

For example: have you ever been served a well-prepared meal, but your mind was so distracted that, a few minutes later, you look down at your plate, and realize you’ve eaten it all, yet you don’t even really remember doing so? …and you really don’t remember how the food actually tasted?

And you want to go back in time, have a “do-over,” because you wanted to savor your meal, but now your stomach is full, your plate is empty, and you don’t even remember how it tasted…

Our minds are often somewhere other than where our bodies are. Our minds are stuck in the past, or in the future. Or, we let the TV or the internet take us away from where we’re at, so that we can escape to some fantasy world, or focus our attention on what’s happening somewhere many miles away. 

With all the ways our minds are distracted, I honestly don’t know if a flame coming out of a bush would attract that much attention from us.

Or maybe it would, but, this story isn’t really about a bush that’s on fire. This story is about God. It’s about noticing God’s presence in our lives. It’s about being aware of the Spirit that is as close to us as our own breath.

When was the last time you actually noticed that you were breathing? I know that when I do yoga, I’m supposed to breathe; yoga is as much about the mind as it is about the body. It’s about being mindful, and mindfulness is helped by breathing.

And in my feeble, not-very-frequent attempts at yoga, I’ll think, “I’m breathing…I’m breathing… I’m…I’m wondering what time it is…Did I move the car for street sweeping? I can’t afford another ticket. I’m not even sure I can’t afford this month’s rent. Oh, rent! Is that due today?...”

Now, I’m still breathing. But I’m no longer aware that I’m breathing. I’m no longer aware of anything that’s happening right now, right here, in this present moment.

The story of the burning bush is about noticing how God is present; how God is present now, reaching out to us.

Unfortunately, sometimes, I read the same way I practice yoga. My eyes will start moving across the page, and the first sentence or two will register in my brain, but then an outside thought intrudes, and my attention turns elsewhere; and the strange thing is that my eyes keep moving across the page…

And sometimes I’ll get halfway down the page, and realize I have no clue what I just read. And I have to go back and start the passage all over again.

Sometimes I’ll go over a passage two or three times before I actually pay attention enough to comprehend what it is I’m reading. Sometimes I need to read it out loud to myself, because that helps me focus, but it’s kind of weird if there are other people around.

And then there are the times when I know God is trying to reach out to me through the story I’m reading, whether it’s a section of scripture, or some other book. Sometimes God is present in the act of reading. 

For example, we read about God speaking to Moses through the burning bush, but we forget to ask: How is God speaking to us, through this Bible story?

Because even if we are paying attention to the story, and afterward we remember everything that happened, we still might not be paying attention to how God is present and speaking to us, through this story.

The Bible is a living text, and one of the ways God speaks to us is through our reading and our pondering the stories of scripture. 

Sometimes, I approach a scripture—a familiar scripture, like this one—and think, I’ve heard this story so many times, and I’ve heard so many sermons about it; what more could God possibly have to say to me through this story?

Or, I’ll come to a Bible story with my mind already made up about what it means. Maybe it’s a story I’ve known since childhood, a story that I read and studied in seminary, a story that has been interpreted by the church to mean a certain thing, or to give a certain lesson, that there can’t possibly be anything new to learn or understand about this story…

But sometimes…

Sometimes something in the story catches my attention… something I hadn’t noticed before… something that was brought up by someone whose book I read or whose sermon I heard…

And I think, “Woah! I never noticed that before!” Or, “I never thought of things that way before!”

And those are the moments when I get excited, and I say to myself, “I must stop and turn aside and look at this great sight…”

And in that moment, I notice, for the first time in a long time, that I’m breathing. I notice the shadows moving across the rocks; I notice the way the rocks themselves change color as the sun moves across the sky. 

I notice… God…

…who has always been there, always been present…

And I realize that, now, I’m praying, because, often, the best way to pray is to just be aware of God’s presence… to just notice God, right here, right now.

When Moses noticed that God was present, Moses said, “Here I am.”

This sounds like a response to God, as if God was looking for Moses but couldn’t quite find him.

“Moses? Moses? Where are you?”

“Here I am.”

But what if Moses’ statement is a reminder to himself, to be present? …to notice what is happening in this moment? …to give his full attention?

“Here I am…

“Here I am…

It doesn’t sound all that different from me when I’m trying to do yoga, reminding myself to be present, reminding myself to breathe.

“Here I am… right here… Come on, mind, stay focused, stay present…Notice what is going on here and now…because here, I am.”

And for us, we have so many more distractions than Moses had. We’re always looking for distractions. We turn the TV on, we turn the radio on, we grab our phones and start scrolling through memes and cat videos…

We do anything just to get away from our own thoughts; …anything to distract us from the present moment.

Yet even someone like Moses, I think, could be distracted. (Maybe that’s why God had to call his name twice: “Moses! Moses!”)

And maybe that’s why God told Moses to take off his shoes… feeling the earth beneath his feet, engaging that sense of touch, would help Moses be aware of his position, right here, right now…

And maybe that’s why so many other Bible passages—especially writings of the psalmists and prophets—begin with the word, “Behold!”

Behold!

A more modern translation would be: “Yo! Check this out! And pay attention!”

Because all too often, our minds are not where our bodies are. 

And if our minds are not where our bodies are, then we will miss God’s presence. And not even a burning bush will help us take notice.

"Who Am I" (Exodus 3:9-12 & Exodus 4:10-13)

 For the past several weeks, I’ve been preaching from this same Bible story, the story of Moses at the burning bush. Today I’m going to preach on this story one more time; and today’s focus is on Moses’ response, after God says he’s sending Moses to Pharaoh. 

Moses’ response is to ask God, “Who am I? Who am I to go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”

Who am I... Could it be that Moses doesn’t know who he is? Could it be that he just can’t see himself the way God sees him?

How many of us really know who we are? How many of us can really see ourselves the way God sees us?

Maybe we know who we are in the eyes of society…. Or in the eyes of our coworkers.... Or in the eyes of our classmates… Or in the eyes of our neighbors, or our friends, or our family.

But how well do we really know who we are in the eyes of God who created us?

Moses didn’t see himself the way God saw him.

Moses saw in himself someone who was torn apart. A Hebrew by birth, but an Egyptian by upbringing. This made Moses feel like he only half-belonged in either world. It made him feel that he didn’t really fully belong anywhere. 

And maybe that’s how others viewed him. To the Egyptians, he wasn’t really an Egyptian, because he was born a Hebrew. But to the Hebrews, he wasn’t really a Hebrew, because he had been raised in the royal palace.

And by being torn in two in this way, Moses wasn’t whole. He was broken. Split apart, into pieces.

A class I took in seminary - I’ll tell you the name of the class in a moment - helped me understand how Jesus, also, grew up among people who felt torn apart, in a similar way. Jesus was a Galilean Jew. The Galilean Jews weren’t considered to be real Jews by the Jews in Jerusalem, because they were Galilean. 

But because they were Jews, Galilean Jews were also looked down upon by their Roman oppressors.

So there wasn’t really a place where they could feel that they truly belonged. They weren’t welcome here, and they weren’t welcome there.

Maybe this feeling is why Moses ran away to Midian. He didn’t feel that he truly belonged among the Hebrews, and he also didn’t feel that he truly belonged among the Egyptians. In neither place was he fully accepted for who he was.

So he fled to Midian, where he ended up caring for sheep “beyond the wilderness.”

That class I took in seminary was actually titled, “Hispanic Theology in the United States.” Now, what does “Hispanic Theology in the United States” have to do with Moses and the Galileans feeling torn apart?

In class, we learned that the situation faced by Galileans like Jesus is similar to the situation faced by immigrants in the United States, especially those from Latin America. They also find no welcome - neither here nor there. Even 2nd and 3rd generation immigrants - they’re made to feel that they don’t really belong … they aren’t fully accepted by society here, and they aren’t fully accepted by people in the lands of their parents and grandparents. 

But because Jesus experienced something similar, Jesus gets it. Jesus knows what that’s like. Jesus knows what it’s like to be caught between two cultures. And Jesus knows how difficult it can be to figure out who you really are in the midst of all that.

And Moses was in a similar situation. Moses could not see who he really was, because he had been so torn apart, but God was trying very hard to let Moses know that God did know who Moses was, because God was the one who created Moses, the one who creates all people, giving them the ability to speak, the ability to hear, the ability to see…

It’s like Moses is saying to God, “I’m not who you think I am,” and God responds, “No - I know exactly who you are. It’s you who don’t know who you are.”

It’s like Simba and Rafiki in the Lion King, right?

Simba meets Rafiki and says: “Who are you?

Rafiki: “The question is, Who are you?”

Simba: “I thought I knew. Now I’m not so sure.”

Rafiki: “Well, I know who you are!”

Simba: “I think you’re a little confused.”

Rafiki: “Wrong! I’m not the one who’s confused. You don’t even know who you are.”

And then Rafiki shows Simba the vision of Mufasa, and Mufasa says to Simba: “You have forgotten who you are. Look inside yourself. You are more than what you have become. Remember who you are…”

God tells Moses: “Look inside yourself. See what I see. There’s a lot more there than you realize. And all that you are - just as you are - is exactly who and what I need… You want to know who you are? You are the one I created, the one I love, the one I have chosen…”  That’s who you are.

Moses heard those words, but it was just so hard to believe. And many today find those words hard to believe. Because we’ve been told otherwise. Because we’ve been torn apart.

And, sadly, sometimes it’s been the church that has torn people apart, and made God’s words hard to believe.

The church has said far too often: “You don’t belong here, because you are gay. You can’t be a leader here, because you’re a woman. We’re going to place limits on you, because of your disability.”

And the church has torn people apart. The church has excluded people. The church has failed to see people the way God sees them, the way God has created them.

A fellow Disciples pastor and author, Brandan Robertson, leads Missiongathering Church in San Diego. At one point, he really struggled to understand who he was - something he talks about in his book, Nomad.

But Brandan has learned to see himself as God sees him. Brandan understands who he truly is in God’s eyes… and now Brandan is helping others do the same. In a recent speech shared on social media, he said:

“LGBT people are already the church. You don’t have the power to exclude us from participating in Christ. The table, the kingdom, and the power is God’s and God’s alone, and God has welcomed us in... To my LGBT siblings in the church, let me say this: We are already the church. You do not need to wait to be included. You already are just as you are.”

Who are you? You are the one whom God loves. That’s who you are. You are the one whom God welcomes, the one whom God has created, just as you are.

Who are you? You are the one whom God has chosen. Chosen for what? Well, that’s what you need to figure out. But God didn’t create you for no reason. You aren’t an afterthought. You aren’t a mistake. There is a purpose to your life. 

In last week’s sermon I shared a few verses from Isaiah 43, and I want to share them again.

“Thus says the Lord, the one who created you, the one who formed you: ‘I have called you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior… and you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you.”

The one who created you considers you precious… and honored… and worthy of love.

If you want to know who you are, start by remembering that.

It may not be easy. Like I said, these words may be hard for you to believe. We’ve been taught that love is conditional, that love depends on how righteous we are. 

That’s what Moses thought. Moses kept objecting to God’s call. “Who am I, Lord?” Moses said. “My Lord, I’m just not good enough… My Lord, just send someone else!”

If we had kept reading in this story, we’d hear that, at this point God actually gets angry. God gets angry with Moses, because even after all these assurances God has given him, Moses still doubts his own ability, still doubts his own worth.

Now, of course Moses isn’t perfect. Of course I’m not perfect, and you’re not perfect. I know that. You know that and God knows that.

But that does not mean you aren’t worthy of being loved.

And that does not mean you were created without a purpose.

You are worthy of being loved. And you have been created with a purpose - a purpose only you can fulfill.

Eventually, Moses figured this out.

There is a purpose only you can fulfill, because no one else has your exact combination of skills and talents and abilities. The body of Christ has many parts, and your uniqueness has made you uniquely suited to the calling God has placed upon your life.

So, remember that. When you wonder, “Who am I,” remember that you are loved by God, cared for by God, welcomed by God; and chosen by God. 

Because that’s who you are.

"You Are Not Alone" (Exodus 3)

 I’ve been following closely the news about the wildfires. Loch Leven - our camp and retreat center - was evacuated last week because of the El Dorado fire, and the fire has come right up to the very edge of camp; but the camp itself - so far (as of Friday) - is OK. 

Up in the Sierras, the Creek Fire is currently raging out of control in an area where I have spent many summers, counseling boy scout camp, and going on backpacking trips.

In fact, just one year ago, on Labor Day weekend, I was up there backpacking, and if I had done that again this year, I could very well have been one of those who were stranded and had to be rescued by helicopter.

The Creek Fire is a monster. I think those camps where I once taught boy scouts how to identify red fir trees and mountain lupine and how to sit quietly and observe nature - I think they’re gone. The Creek Fire, and the other fires currently burning, are unprecedented in their destructive power and the speed at which they’ve grown.

And people on social media are arguing about why this is so, but as someone who has studied and taught nature and forest ecology, I can tell you that the forests were already in bad shape. Not too many years ago we experienced a terrible, multi-year drought, which left many of the trees in the forest weak and vulnerable. An infestation of bark beetles took advantage of these drought-weakened trees, and finished them off. 

In the Sierra National Forest where the Creek Fire is burning, it is estimated that 80 percent of the trees died due to drought and bark beetles, and forests full of dead trees are very dangerous places when it comes to wildfire.

Some say that we should have more aggressively removed those dead trees - just gone in and, through logging or controlled burns, taken them out. However, removing dead trees allows grasses (many of them non-native) and other ground plants to quickly take over, and within a year or two, things become just as dangerous, if not more so, when it comes to wildfire potential. In fact, many areas where the Creek Fire is burning have been thinned out in recent years, but that did not stop or even slow down this fire. 

So… years of drought, and bark beetles, and now, the record high temperatures we had last week - all the result of a changing climate - have made these wildfires worse than any we’ve ever seen. And I know you join me in praying for the firefighters, for those who lost homes in the fires, and for the earth itself. The earth itself is suffering. The earth itself is crying out.

And we would weep for the land, for the earth, and for those who suffer, but I’m afraid we’ve become just a little too numb to all that’s going on in our world. It’s just so very difficult, when each day brings new news of new horrors.

The COVID-19 pandemic has now killed almost 200,000 people in the United States, and 900,000 worldwide. Those are terrible numbers. And it’s made even worse knowing that there are some who think it’s all a big hoax, and even some of our leaders continue to ignore the scientists and health experts, and are even making statements and modeling behavior that is contributing to people not taking this seriously, which in turn leads to more deaths. Their callous disregard for human life and human suffering is sinful. It is evil.

Also - this week - the Department of Homeland Security said that white supremacy is the most lethal threat to the U.S., and will remain so through at least the first part of next year. TAs we commemorated the 9/11 attack and the lives lost, it turns out that, today, white supremacists in the United States are a greater threat than foreign terrorist organizations. And don’t forget, just one week ago, the Trump administration ordered that public schools stop teaching about racism and white privilege. Imagine if the schools were ordered to stop teaching about 9/11 - but this is worse.

This is sinful. This is evil.

Especially while African Americans continue to get unfair treatment in the courts and on the streets, and while voting rights - particularly for African Americans - continue to be taken away. During the primaries in Georgia last month, the average wait time to vote in predominantly white neighborhoods was 6 minutes while the average wait time in predominantly non-white neighborhoods was 51 minutes.

The rights of African-Americans to vote is being taken away.

And the attack on poor people continues. Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk and all the other super-rich in this country have greatly increased their wealth since this pandemic started, thanks to tax cuts and stimulus efforts that benefit the wealthy. Meanwhile millions of poor and even working class people are losing their jobs, losing their health insurance, and losing their homes.

This is sinful. This is evil.

And now we have these wildfires that get bigger, faster, becoming more destructive and more deadly; and we’ve also seen hurricanes, and storms like the one that hit Iowa last month, getting bigger, faster, and more destructive and more deadly; and we know that climate change is the reason.

Yet too many people who have a callous disregard for human life and human suffering continue to ignore the science and insist that we keep burning coal and oil and gas, and that we keep subsidizing the burning of coal and oil and gas, even though clean, sustainable forms of energy are becoming increasingly available and cheap. There are jobs for people in clean energy, and there is life for people in clean energy - but we’re still stuck on fossil fuels, and fossil fuels are literally killing people.

This is sinful. This is evil.

And it’s easy to become numb in the face of all this oppression, all this suffering, all this death. What can one person do? What can a small church do? What difference can we possibly even make? 

Is there even any point in trying?

-------------

I wonder…

I wonder… if Moses felt this way.

Moses saw the horrible suffering and the oppression of his people in Egypt. 

Exodus chapter one says the Egyptians harassed and oppressed the Hebrews, and looked upon the Hebrews with disgust. The Egyptians made their lives miserable, and were cruel to them.

In Exodus 2 it says that the Israelites were groaning because of their forced labor, and that they cried out to God. 

Moses saw their suffering; Moses heard their cries; and Moses tried to intervene, when he killed that Egyptian. 

But it only made things worse. 

So Moses fled to Midian. He didn’t see the point of even trying anymore. After all, what can one man do in the face of such. great. evil...?

But then we come to the part in the story where God appears to Moses at the burning bush; and one of the things we learn from this story is that God, also, has seen the suffering of the people; and that God, also, has heard their cries.

And as we hear other stories from scripture, we discover that this is actually a key component of God’s very identity: Our God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob - the God we worship - is a God who sees the suffering that takes place under oppression, and a God who hears the cries of people who suffer under injustice.

The very first time God is named in the Bible, God is called El Roi, “The God who sees.” It is Hagar who names God this way. Hagar was a slave who belonged to Abraham and who was mistreated by Abraham and his wife Sarah, especially after Hagar had given birth to her son Ishmael. God saw how Hagar was mistreated, and God heard her cries, and God responded.

And we know from Luke, chapter one, how God saw the suffering of the people under Roman rule - saw their oppression, and heard their cries. 

The oppression of the people is personified in Mary, the mother of Jesus. She, like her people, was poor and oppressed, yet God took notice of her and blessed her, to bear the one who would confront the oppression and suffering of the world by “pulling the powerful down from their thrones and lifting up the lowly; by filling the hungry with good things and sending the rich away empty-handed.”

This is the God who comforts you in difficult times. God sees what you’re going through; God hears your cries of lament. God is especially aware of the injustices committed against you and against your neighbors. 

Which means God sees and God is aware of all that’s going on in the world today. 

God sees the effects of climate change, God hears the cries of those who have watched their homes and their lives burn in the fires or be swept away by wind and floods; and God is aware of the evil committed by those who do not act to prevent this suffering when it is in their power to do so.

And God sees the effects of racial injustice, and God hears the cries of those who suffer under racism; and God is aware of the evil committed by those who commit racist acts and pass racist policies while denying that racism even exists.

And God sees the effects of economic oppression, and God hears the cries of those who have lost jobs, lost insurance, lost homes; and God is aware of the evil committed by those who continue to commit class warfare against the poor and vulnerable in our society.

And God sees the effects of the ongoing pandemic, and God hears the cries of those who have lost loved ones; and God is aware of the evil committed by those who prioritize their own desires and their own power over the health and wellbeing of others.

God sees. God hears. God comforts. 

“Do not fear,” God says to those who suffer, “for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; when you pass through the rivers, they won’t sweep over you.

“When you walk through the fire, you won’t be scorched, and flame won’t burn you. I am the Lord your God, the holy one of Israel, your savior...Because you are precious in my eyes, you are honored, and I love you.”

Isaiah 43.

And just as God did with Moses, God calls up people and prophets today, to proclaim a word of freedom, to proclaim a word of hope, to proclaim a word of liberation - to say to the oppressor, “Let God’s people go” - to demand justice, and insist on what is right. And even now, God works through God’s church, to let the world know that God sees, and that God hears, and that you are not alone.

God is with you.

To comfort you when you need comforting.

To strengthen you when you need strength.

To give you hope when hope seems lost.

God is with you. You are not alone.