Our reading
today takes place in Midian, which was to the east of the Sinai peninsula, in
modern-day Saudi Arabia.
And more particularly, it takes place at Mt. Horeb, a place whose name means “parched place” or “wasteland”.
Moses is
there tending his father-in-law’s flock. There’s a strip of land closer to the
Red Sea that is fertile but as you move east, it becomes hotter and more arid,
and I’d guess that in that mountain pasture you could hear the ground crunch
beneath your feet.
What you don’t hear in today’s reading is how Moses wound up at Mt. Horeb.
Moses, a Hebrew, had been raised by Pharaoh's daughter in Egypt but when he had grown up, he saw an Egyptian man abusing another man and he killed the Egyptian. And then he fled Egypt and went to Midian, and there he met and married Zipporah, one of the daughters of Jethro, the priest of Midian. (Exodus 2)
So now we’re caught up.
In today’s
reading we hear how God speaks to the exiled son-in-law, a murderer, while he
is hanging out in a wasteland.
That’s
probably not how you heard Moses described in Sunday School, but it’s really
important
to
understand that Moses didn’t do anything to earn God’s favor or promises;
and
to recognize that God knew exactly who God was speaking to, and God chose Moses anyway.
Imagine how Moses felt wandering that mountain pasture. This was his everyday routine; he probably knew every tree or bush in that pasture, every hill and valley. So, of course, at first, he is curious when he sees the flaming bush and the bush is not consumed. But then he hears God speaking to him, and the writer tells us Moses was afraid.
Well, of course he was afraid! He knew the wrongs he had done. And he probably imagined that the fire was going to be his destruction.
But instead, God visibly speaks to Moses, calls the ground on which he is standing holy and goes on, in the verses that follow ours, to tell Moses that he will deliver Israel from slavery into freedom. (Exodus 3:10)
God invites Moses into an in-between time or a liminal space. Moses is in this in-between space of knowing both what happened in the past and that God has said God will be with him in whatever comes next.
Liminal spaces or in-between times often occur in the midst of major transitions or times. Catholic author and teacher Richard Rohr writes, “It is a graced time, but often does not feel “graced” in any way. In such space, we are not certain or in control.”[i] He continues:
The very vulnerability and openness of liminal space allows room for something genuinely new to happen. We are empty and receptive—erased tablets waiting for new words. Liminal space is where we are most teachable, often because we are most humbled.[ii]
I have two powerful memories of God’s presence in in-between times.
In 2006, I left my nonprofit job
in Washington, DC to be the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation’s first director of
development, but before I started my new job, I went to Biloxi, Mississippi
with a team from my congregation in Winston-Salem. It was a little more than
one year after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita had swept through the Gulf Coast. We
visited a church that opened a crisis center the day after Katrina hit. That
was the first time I encountered shower trailers as a ministry opportunity; the
congregation had transformed its sanctuary and kitchen and was providing
temporary shelter, laundry, showers and sack lunches to their community. And we
spent a lot of the week working at Miz Ola’s house. It had been almost entirely
gutted and one day, we bleached the bones of the house to get rid of any mold
that was still in it. Another day we rebuilt doorways and prepared studs to
hold sheetrock. We met some of her family including her sister and mother,
celebrated her mother’s birthday over lunch at a local place and went to a high
school football game together. In that liminal space, we knew the destruction
that had come to the Gulf Coast but we could see God’s fingerprints everywhere.
Six years later, in 2012, a few weeks after I stopped working in Christ School’s advancement office but before I began my pastoral internship at St. Mark’s in Asheville, I returned to the Gulf Coast. This time, I was there as one of the adult leaders who took our youth from our congregation in Asheville to the Youth Gathering that was held, for the second time, in New Orleans. More than thirty thousand youth and leaders descended on the city’s neighborhoods, replanting wetlands, wielding paint brushes to brighten up school hallways and cleaning the grounds and equipment at children’s playgrounds. We worshiped in the coliseum and toured the city where we heard more stories about the destruction wrought by the storms. In that liminal space, we witnessed the slow pace of rebuilding but we also saw God working through the Gathering to build relationships, deepen our faith, and challenge us to serve our neighbors when we returned home.
In these liminal places, we see God speaking, just as Moses saw God speaking in the burning bush.
Mt. Horeb was a wasteland, but God makes it holy by God’s presence and design. God used Moses to bring freedom to Israel, and the mountain where God found Moses will become Mt. Sinai, where Moses receives the gift of the Torah from God during the exodus journey.
The storm battered Gulf Coast had its share of places that were ruined but God used the people who lived there, who had known destruction and loss, to create new ministries and new relationships.
At the beginning of worship, you were invited to pick up a rock and place a silent prayer into it, as a way of marking this as a holy place and time. You may think it’s easy to know we are in a holy space here in the sanctuary because here we can see the pews and altar and we are surrounded by stained glass windows. But the Exodus text reminds us that God is the One who makes places holy.
This sanctuary, as beautiful as it is, is just a building, unless we enter into the activity God calls us to. Unless we embody God’s promises in the world. So I invite you to recognize the holy ground where we gather and hear God speak, and then listen for what God is inviting you to do next.
Let us pray…
Holy God,
Thank you for choosing us as your
children and speaking to us. Thank you for your abundant mercy that you do not
give us what we deserve but instead grace us with your mercy and forgiveness.
By your Spirit show us the holy places in our world, make us humble and give us
courage to share your love with our neighbors.
Amen.
[i] “Between Two Worlds.” Center for
Contemplation and Action. April 26, 2020. https://cac.org/between-two-worlds-2020-04-26/,
accessed 7/17/2021.
[ii] ibid
