St. Lukes United Church

Sermons:
Sermon preached by Rev. John Lawson on Sunday, August 29, 1999 at St. Luke’s United
"The Claims of Love" -based on Exodus 3:1-15

Moses at the Burning Bush

Exodus 3 Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; he led his flock beyond the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.² 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.³ Then Moses said, "I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up." ⁴ When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, "Moses, Moses!" And he said, "Here I am." ⁵ Then he said, "Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground." ⁶ He said further, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.

⁷ Then the Lord said, "I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings,⁸ and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the country of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. ⁹ The cry of the Israelites has now come to me; I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them. ¹⁰ So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt." ¹¹ But Moses said to God, "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?" ¹² He said, "I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain."

¹³ But Moses said to God, "If I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?" ¹⁴ God said to Moses, "I Am Who I Am." He said further, "Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I Am has sent me to you.’ " ¹⁵ God also said to Moses, "Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you’:

This is my name forever,
and this my title for all generations.

This morning our scripture takes us to the desert. There we join Moses as he watches the sheep of his father-in-law, Jethro. You will recall that some years ago he fled Egypt after he killed an Egyptian. It was an act of passion and anger as he saw the man beating a Hebrew slave. It was his personal and futile rebellion at the oppression of his fellow Hebrew people. He had to flee and he has left all that pain and difficulty behind him. He has now made a new life for himself in the land of Midian in what is today the Sinai peninsula. He became a shepherd and a family man with a child. He made a new start. We don’t even know if he was very religious.

Then it happened. One day, on a day like any other, he is pasturing his sheep at the base of Mount Horeb or, as it is better known, Mount Sinai. He sees a bush burning, but it is not consumed. And the scripture says that he "turns aside" to see this curious sight.

And so Moses takes the first step in a long journey of faith. The first step is the step of Wonder. There is something different, strange, a disturbance of the normal. And he stops, pauses and wonders.

This first step of faith is often more difficult for us today. We’re driving on the 401 Expressway at 120 km/hour. And something catches our attention out of the corner of our eye. "Hey, isn’t that a burning bush? That’s weird. Maybe we should call the fire department on the cell phone . . . but I’m sure someone else already has. Maybe I should stop and check it out? But it’s too far back now anyways."

Pausing to wonder. Stopping to wonder. Turning aside.

The great Jewish Rabbi, Abraham Heschel, says this of religious experiences:

"Each of us has at least once in this life experienced the momentous reality of God. Each of us has once caught a glimpse of the beauty, peace and power that flow through the souls of those who are devoted to Him. But such experiences are rare events. To some people they are like shooting stars, passing and unremembered. To others they kindle a light that is never quenched. The remembrance of that experience and the loyalty to the response of that moment are the forces that sustain our faith. In this sense, faith is faithfulness, loyalty to an event, loyalty to our response." (I Asked for Wonder: A Spiritual Anthology of Abraham Joshua Heschel edited by Samuel H. Dresner, p. 17)

For Moses, this turning aside changed his life. As he approaches this strange sight of the burning bush that is not consumed, there is voice, calling out from the bush, calling him by name. He is commanded to take off his sandals for he is standing on holy ground. At this point Moses does not know the name of the One who addresses him, even though the One who burns and is not consumed knows his name.

The English critic and scholar George Steiner, writing in a kind of autobiography, reflects on Moses’ Jewish identity and states that this encounter with God at Sinai was one of the encounters that shaped Jewish identity and changed the world:

The Mosaic God is inconceivable, incomprehensible, invisible, unattainable, in-human in the root sense of the word. He is blank as the desert air. If there is a Jewish theology it is negative. Where polytheism . . . crowds every leaf and branch and rock with divine neighbours, prodigally immanent, human - all too human in their vanities, tricks, lubricities - Sinai empties of any discernible divine proximity the habitat of natural man. . . . To Moses, God’s presence and command, which are identical, burn out of the Bush. The sole self-disclosure is that of a tautology . . . ‘I Am, I Am’. Paradoxically, however, the distance to the imageless, unthinkable, unsayable God is also that of an unbearable nearness. Unseen, He sees all, He chastises to the third generation and beyond."

And Steiner goes on to say that the commands to be moral, to be a holy people are also uncompromising. He reflects, "We are to discipline our soul and flesh into perfection. We are to outgrow our own shadow. . . . the Sinai-imperative [is] ‘Cease being what you are, what biology and circumstance have made you. Become, at a fearful price of abnegation, what you could be.’" (George Steiner, Errata: An Examined Life, 1997, p. 58-59.)

In other words, God puts a claim on us. Our life is not our own . . . to do with it only what we want to do. The moment Moses takes off his sandals, acknowledges the Holy One, he has taken the second step of faith and acknowledges that God has a claim on his life.

Perhaps it is this second step that is hardest for us today. After all everything in our society tells us that we are the authors of our own destiny. At the command of God to take of our shoes because we are standing on Holy Ground many ask, "Who says so? Why should I take off my shoes? No one has a claim on me, I’m my own boss. I’m going to live on my terms."

Some might say that God would strike them down for such a response. But that is not God’s way. God’s claim on us doesn’t work like that. It is rather, the claim of love. It means that God has not forgotten Moses or the Hebrew people in Egypt. God says, "I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them". God has the claim of love like a Mother who can never forget her children, who loves them all, who can never let go. And who loves them all so passionately that she wants justice for all of them, so all can be free. She is not like Moses who has put Egypt and his people behind him. God does not forget.

But the claim of love always demands a response from us, and this is the third step in the journey of faith. If we are invited and accept the love of God, we are also invited into the realm of love. It is for all people. Jesus calls it the Kingdom of God. It is the place where God is working and we are called and invited to that work of love; into the justice-making and the freeing work of God.

"Moses, I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt". Big stuff. Moses naturally objects. "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?"

But Moses already has had an experience at the burning bush to pass the first hurdle of this seemingly impossible task. To the average Egyptian, Pharaoh is a god. But now, for Moses, with God at the center as the only God, Pharaoh is only a human being. And like the Wizard of Oz, the building, the great hall, the pyramids, the terror, the Pharaoh is only a human artifice concealing an ordinary human being. There is a radical democracy at work when we suddenly realize that there is only one God. It allows Moses to stand tall in front of Pharaoh and speak the word from God, "Let my people go!".

Today there are a host of challenges to God’s love and justice for all people. They are so big and we seem so small in the face of them that we want to go back to our old job of looking after sheep and shout at God, "But who am I that I should go to Pharaoh!" "Who am I in the face of globalism?" "Who am I in the face of environmental destruction?" "Who am I in the face of faceless militarism?"

But God says, "I will be with you!" God says that we will not be alone. God’s claims of love will never let us go. And when we take the first tentative steps back into the work of God, wherever that may be, we are assured that God is already at work there. Are we ready to join and claim that love? We are not alone! Thanks be to God!

Sermon preached by Rev. John Lawson on Sunday, Sept 5,1999 at St. Luke’s United
The Gift Of Each Other" -based on Matthew 18:15-20

Matthew 18: ¹⁵ "If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one.¹⁶ But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses.¹⁷ If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.¹⁸ Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.¹⁹ Again, truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. ²⁰ For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them."

I think we could read and hear the words of Jesus on church community two ways. It sounds, at least to my ears on first reading, to be Law.

"If another member of the church sins against you . . ."

Then step one: point it out to him or her one on one.
Step two, if that doesn’t work: Bring two other reliable people along to help and to witness your attempt at reconciliation.
Step three, if step two doesn’t work: gather the whole congregation, and try to get them to listen. But then if that too doesn’t work and they are still unrepentant, "let such a one be to you as a Gentile or tax collector".

Sounds pretty heavy doesn’t it? They only conciliation for the outcast person and warning to the church seems to be that Jesus throughout his ministry was still welcoming of tax collectors and Gentiles.

I have some friends who have come from very conservative Christian backgrounds which follow this instruction to the letter. If reconciliation does not happen the church ends up shunning the person, to the point that, in some cases, even family members do not acknowledge their existence. May you have heard of such practice that is the last and final step of a broken relationship.

But is there another way to read this text? How can we see it as Gospel, as Good News and a helpful gift?

What I think it points to is the gift we can be to each other as brothers and sisters in faith, not only when we agree and things are good. . . but how we can be a gift to each other when things go wrong and we hurt each other.

There is a definition of friendship that I heard quite a few years ago that has stuck with me. "A friend is someone who warns you." One, in other words, who is there not only to pat you on the back and to have a good time with, but someone who will take you aside and say:

"You know, I’m worried about you."

"You know, I think your wrong about _______."

"You know, I was really hurt me when you did X and I would like an apology."

Who is a real friend? One you can have it out with, trusting them to be able to work it out; trusting, in short, their love? Or someone who you tip-toe around and never really move to any depth of relationship? What is your experience?

If I look back on my ministry, I think I have grown the most when I have been challenged in a spirit of love and care. (and by God’s Grace, I was able to hear it and not get too defensive!) Or likewise, when I have been able to call another brother or sister Christian to account and have been given the grace to say it with love and care.

This Gospel reading, I think, is trying to tell us that for our salvation, yes salvation, we need others. This is more than just hints for getting along or for person growth. Our salvation, Jesus is saying, is at stake. We need the encouragement, guidance, and also the challenge and correction of others in the faith. Maybe that is what Jesus is saying a little later in this passage when he says, "Truly, I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven."

And can we in any way doubt that today salvation can only be a community issue? If we cannot live with our brother or sister in Christ in the church, what hope is there when we encounter our neighbour on the street? If we cannot live out our forgiveness and reconciliation in the church, how can we possibly hope for reconciliation in our communities? Can there be any hope for the world, for the Northern Ireland’s and the Kosovo’s and the Rwanda’s if the Church of Jesus Christ cannot risk reconciliation, honesty and challenging each other in love? The Church is supposed to show the Way because Christ has shown us the Way.

I will confess that nothing in my ministry causes me such despair as when I see conflict tear apart church congregations. Yes, Christian love and patience are important, but I feel often that if these simple helpful steps outlined in this passage were followed, many congregations would not get themselves into such predicaments.

In one of the sermon resource materials I receive, the author tell this story about one such conflict in a church. Maybe you know the same story with different characters.

Alice was asked to draw up the list of leaders for the church’s annual mission fund drive. She thought that a new direction and new leadership was needed and so she left Anne off the list--Anne, who had been a tireless worker for the fund for 20 years. When queried on her omission of Anne she defended it by saying, "Everyone is sick and tired of being ordered around by Anne. Her high-handed ways are getting on people’s nerves. So I took it upon myself to let her sit this one out."

Anne was hurt. And she responded in the way many do when they get hurt. She quietly withdrew from many of the fall activities of the church. But she also started grumbling and complaining about Alice and her high-handed ways. She gathered around her allies to support her point of view that Alice was out of control and had to be stopped. By spring there was a serious split developing in the church and two distinct camps forming. Things were going from bad to worse. They festered during the summer with no sign of improvement.

Then, in early September, the reader for the Sunday read this lesson. "If another member of the church sins against you . . ." Anne sat bolt upright in her pew. And she listened intently to each word. It was as if they had been addressed straight at her. She looked around at the congregation uneasily. Did they sense too the import of these words? She flushed.

Anne had been wronged by Alice, this she truly believed. But what had she done? Silently seethed, then gathered her supporters around her. She had never spoken directly to Alice, told her of her hurt and the consequences of her action. So Anne prayed. Then she sat down and wrote a letter to Alice so she could carefully consider her words. She told Alice that this had been one of the most painful years of her life in the church. She told Alice that, while she had probably not intended to hurt her, she had. For the good of the church, for their own good, she asked if Alice would be willing to meet to talk.

Well, the short of it is, Alice was willing. The two met over lunch. There were tears. Alice apologised for the way she had handled things, and for the things she had said. Anne took responsibility for what she had done, and they were reconciled.

Now we all know that not all such stories have such happy ending. But what is important here is not so much the success or failure of the process, but that they were faithful to it.

There is a relatively new expression (to me at least) that maybe you have heard or even used, "Don’t go there!".

It goes something like this:

"I remember hearing that you were having some problems at work? How’s it going?

"Don’t go there!"

or

"I know we have talked a lot about this, but I think this Property Committee should re-visit our decision to carpet the sanctuary."

And what does the chairperson say silently or out loud?

"Don’t go there!"

It seems to me to be the motto of many church communities where they are many serious areas of spoken or unspoken disagreement. People seem to be saying: "Don’t go there!".

In this passage of scripture Jesus has hung out a sign for the church, "Don’t fear to go there!" Why? Because Jesus is there in the in-between. Jesus said, "For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them". In other words it is in the midst of things where we will find Jesus. It is in the joy, and yes also the challenge, where we will find Jesus and grow in faith and grace. That is the locale of salvation. And we can dare go there because of who is there, in our midst.

Jesus is with us in our life and in the life of this church. Thanks be to God!

Made with Jesus Inside!

Last updated September 21st, 1999