Sermon preached at Church of the Crossroads
August 28, 1999
Texts: Exodus 3:1-15
Psalm 105:1-6; 23-26
Matthew 16:21-28
Some friends of mine shared a letter they recently received from their daughter who is on the mainland attending college. Some of you may have received a similar letter at some time and you'll know how they felt.
Dear Mom and Dad,
Before you read this, please sit down. I know I haven't written in a few months. Many things have been happening in my life and I want to fill you in.
First there was a fire in the dormitory. Luckily, I escaped with only a broken arm. Unfortunately, half of the dorm burned to the ground...my half!
Luckily, the fire was reported by the gas station attendant across the street. He was also kind enough to invite me to spend the night with him, as I had no place to sleep after getting out of the hospital. His room is kind of cute even though it's not in the best part of town. Since he list his job and I became less and less interested in school, we have become quite attached to each other. In fact, we are planning to get married. Even though he is of another race and religion, I'm sure you will accept him. He has had a difficult time with his two previous sets of in-laws.
I hope we can get married before the baby begins to show. Yes, Mom and Dad, you are about to become grandparents. I know how pleased this will make you.
Now, Mom and Dad, there has been no fire. I do not have a broken arm. There is no man in my life. I am not pregnant. I am not dropping out of school. But...I am getting a "D" in history and an "F" in English this semester. I just wanted you to put this in its proper perspective!
Perspective!! Perspective is everything. This story is perhaps a frivolous way to make the serious point of our scripture reading from Exodus. When God calls us our perspective changes radically.
In recent weeks we have been privileged at Crossroads to hear the four women out of this congregation who have been called to the ordained ministry. For each of them God spoke in their lives in some contemporary form of a burning bush and their perspective on themselves, their present and their future changed. They left their homes and friends and comfort to respond to what God is asking of them. I know I even felt a little envious of the new adventures they're having! It's both exciting and scary to be doing something new.
Meanwhile the rest of us go on about our lives and our daily activities, many of us doing what we've done for a long time. But then, that's what Moses was doing that day in Midian when God spoke to him. It was an ordinary day and Moses was minding his own business, tending the flock of sheep for his father-in-law, just as he did every day when he saw that odd bush with flames which didn't burn it. To fully understand the story, however, we have to back up a bit. At the beginning of this story, Moses is hiding out, a fugitive from justice. He had murdered an Egyptian who was beating a Hebrew slave and had fled from Pharaoh's wrath -- 200 miles across the Sinai peninsula to the land of Midian. There he established a comfortable life for himself, married, had a son, went into business with his father-in-law, Jethro, who was a priest, well to do with land and livestock. We presume he meant to live comfortably there for the rest of his life.
So this was an ordinary day, he was going about his business as we go about ours each day. Get up, go to work or school or do our volunteer activities, tend our gardens, care for our children. We have good lives, basically, though we're often a tad too busy! But something caught Moses' eye and he stopped, left the sheep to go and investigate this bush which was burning in front of him. Maybe he was bored with the sheep, probably he was curious, like when we show tourists the waterfalls where the water runs up instead of down. He stands pondering the bush, speculating on how this could happen, and only then does God speak, calling him by name and telling him to take off his shoes, he is on holy ground.
Now, if Moses had known what was coming next, that God was about to ask him to do the one thing he most surely would not want to do, he would have kept going. In fact, he might have broken into a run to get away from God's call, if he had known what was ahead. But he stopped the story tells and paid attention and that is how it happened that God asked him to do this difficult thing--go back to Egypt, where he might face arrest and death, to save his fellow Israelites who were suffering. Moses did not see this as a good idea. He was full of misgivings about his own abilities, leaving the comfortable life he had established. But a call is a call and God ws not about to let Moses alone until he said "I will go."
Oh, for the days of burning bushes and partings of the sea and pillars of salt--for the clear and unmistakable voice of God speaking in our lives. We often feel we are listening in the dark, looking for something distinct that doesn't often come to tell us what God wants of us. But wait! Poet Gerard Manley Hopkins says, "The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining shook foil." Hopkins saw the world so clearly and for him God was everywhere in it. Elizabeth Barrett Browning knew this also: "Earth's crammed with heaven," she wrote, "each common bush aflame with God. Yet only he who sees takes off his shoes. The rest sit around and pluck blackberries."
Only they who see take off their shoes. What are the signs in our lives, that, perhaps, we must turn aside to see if we are to hear God's voice? How is God trying to get your attention? What might God be calling you to do? Dare to look, dare to stop and pay attention. Turn aside and look--into every face, every conversation, each sunrise or full moon, at your longings and those things you desire to do but never have, look into the dreams that wake you early in the morning, look in the events of your life and believe that God is there, in the happy and the sad, the hoped for and the feared. Look there for God's presence and call. You are on holy ground. Take off your shoes.
This summer my godsons visited me from Japan. I have fun being godmother, spoiling them with little gifts and surprises, and doing new things with them. This summer was a little hard for Kai because my dog had died of old age just before Kai and his family came. It was the first Kai had been at my home without my dog Sophie and Kai loved Sophie very much. So I took Kai fishing with an old bamboo pole and string. He loved fishing so much that I decided to buy him a real fishing pole. One day we were driving to the store and I told him I had a surprise for him. He was guessing what it was. "Pokemon cards!" he exclaimed, as though he didn't already have 200 of them. "Maybe," I said noncommitally. "A fishing pole? he asked. "Maybe," I said. "Something better than a fishing pole?" he asked. I was curious what he thought might be better than that so I asked, "what would be better than a fishing pole?" What came next surprised me. "If Sophie came back to life and went fishing with us that would be better," he said. It was one of those moments that stops you in your tracks. Here was a seven year old reminding me that the most imporrtant gift in life, better than anything we can buy, is the bond of love that we share with each other. "You're right, Kai," I said, "that would be the best gift." It was a holy moment. I slipped off my shoes and hugged him.
God is present in the moments of our lives. Turn aside and look. Take off your shoes for your life is holy.
Ah, take off your shoes. Now that's something we who live in Hawaii know how to do. We take off our shoes all the time. We even choose the shoes we buy as to whether they will be easy to slip off and on. So what is the big deal about taking off your shoes?
Have you ever noticed how your perspective changes when you take off your shoes? Entering a temple, a sanctuary, we take them off out of awe and respect. At Kawaiahao Church no shoes are worn in the altar area, signifying holy ground. Conversing with a friend of loved one, we kick off our shoes, establishing a comfortable intimacy. When I used to see my therapist I noticed that I always slipped off my shoes in his office, signaling, I think, a removing of my defenses, a preparing to be more open, more revealing that I would normally be. I have noticed the same thing with some of the people who come to see me. Children especially know the delight of taking off their shoes--to feel the mud squish between their toes, the feel of the hot, rough sand and cool water, the softness of the grass on their feet. To take off one's shoes is to be humble to be more open, more vulnerable, to feel the sharpness of the rocks of life as well as the soothing cool earth. Take off your shoes and strip away all that separates you from the holy, from the sacred ground of your life.
Whatever it is in your life that keeps you from responding to God's call, take it off, clear it out, give it up--the clutter, the unnecessary busyness, the aimless meetings and activities we fill our lives with. Stop, turn aside, and listen.
Our reading from Matthew warns us that, as Moses discovered, God's call may not be easy. Moses took off his shoes and started a journey that took him back to Egypt to face the pain of his past, the sufferings of the Hebrew people, the joy of the Exodus, and the frustrations of wandering in the wilderness for all those years with a recalcitrant bunch of people. Jesus' words on discipleship were uttered as he was on his way to Jerusalem to face the cross. They are not easy words to hear. "For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it."
Turn aside and see the God who is present in your life. Your perspective, your life, will never be the same again. Take off your shoes, give up whatever stands between you and holy ground, and follow him. The way is not always easy, but we can trust that whatever is happening God is in it and goes with us.
God who speaks to us from the events and spaces of our lives also gives us the courage to respond to a suffering world which needs us.
In closing, I share these words from Marcina Wiederkehr:
The Moses in my hear trembles
not quite willing
to accept the prophet hidden in my being
wondering
how much it will cost
to allow that prophet to emerge.
O child of unnecessary shoes
cast them off
and stand in readiness
on this awfully holy ground
For the Egypt in people's hearts
demands that you see the burning bushes
all around you
aflame
and burning wildly
Calling you forth
away from the comfort
of well-protected feet.
the ground you stand on is holy
take off your shoes
Believe in your Moses
and go.
(from Seasons of the Heart)