Holy Spaces - "Gathering & Gospelling" Week 2

Exodus 3:1-6

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.

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[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

Transfiguration Sunday

Mark 9:2-9

I remember, when I was in seminary, reading the instructions that God gave Moses for the construction of the tabernacle and the ark of the covenant in Exodus and being awed by the precision and detail included. Listen now to just a few verses from Exodus 26:

31 You shall make a curtain of blue, purple, and crimson yarns, and of fine twisted linen; it shall be made with cherubim skillfully worked into it. 32 You shall hang it on four pillars of acacia overlaid with gold, which have hooks of gold and rest on four bases of silver. (Exodus 26:31-32)

And later in Exodus, the author describes how the workers followed each instruction according to what God had said. I just marveled at the discipline and commitment they demonstrated.

Even so, it can be hard to see why twenty-first century Christians should care today about how many cubits, loops, clasps and pegs were included in these holy spaces. Just like it can be hard to understand why we hear the story of the Transfiguration every year on the last Sunday before Ash Wednesday.

And yet, every year when we are on the cusp of Lent, we hear this story from the gospels where Jesus takes three of his disciples up on a mountaintop and there they witness his transformation and the appearance of Moses and Elijah with him and they hear God speak, declaring, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” (Mark 9:7)

And we are meant to recall the words spoken to Jesus at the beginning of his ministry, at his baptism in the river Jordan by his cousin John, when the Spirit descended like a dove on Jesus, and a voice came from heaven, saying "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased." (Mark 1:10-11)

But more than a way to connect us back to the events at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, that we heard on the first Sunday after Epiphany, the Transfiguration texts help us connect how our faith is grounded in the tradition of ancient Israel.

Contrary to the Marcion heresy espoused in the mid second century AD that argued the teachings of Christ were incompatible with the Old Testament or even the criticism we sometimes hear today the Old Testament portrays a different God than the one we know in Jesus Christ, the God of Moses and Elijah is also the God we know in Jesus.

I hadn’t thought much about that common ancestry before seminary, but my Hebrew professor emphasized that the Old Testament is not something to hold separate and apart from the New Testament. The stories of Moses and Elijah and Jesus are all parts of one story of redemption.

And knowing those stories helps us understand the significance of the mountaintop experience Mark tells us about in today’s gospel.

If you know any Bible stories, you probably know about Moses. We hear his story in the book of Exodus. He was the baby found in a reed basket by Pharaoh’s daughter and raised in his palace. He was the shepherd whom God called from a burning bush while he was tending his flock. (Exodus 3) God told Moses to go to Egypt and bring the Israelites out of slavery under Pharaoh and to deliver them to Canaan. During their escape, Moses separated the Red Sea and the Israelites passed through to safety, but the waters returned and drowned Pharaoh’s army who are in pursuit. (Exodus 14) The Israelites grumbled while they were in the wilderness, complaining to Moses and even forgetting about Moses when God summoned him to go up Mount Sinai and he was gone longer than they like. But Moses didn’t stay on the mountaintop; he returned to the people and after forty years of wandering, Moses and the Israelites reached the Jordan. Moses died on Mount Pisgah in Moab, and God gave Joshua the mantle of prophetic leadership and commanded him to lead the Israelites into Canaan.

Elijah’s story may not be as familiar. He was a prophet who lived during the ninth century BCE, who was called by God and sent to lead Israel back to God after their kings promoted idolatry. In First Kings we hear how Elijah went to Zarephath and met a widow and her son whom he healed, and we see the assembly of prophets at Mt. Carmel where the God of Israel prevailed over Baal and Asherah. And then we hear how Elijah escaped from Jezebel’s armies who were pursuing him to kill him and how God then appeared to Elijah, not in the wind, the earthquake or the fire, but in the silence. And after God spoke to Elijah, God commanded him to go back through the wilderness of Damascus to God’s people. And, according to God’s word he has anointed Elisha to be a prophet after him.

Today’s reading from Second Kings tells us the story of the end of Elijah’s life. Maybe you remember that a chariot of fire and horses of fire appeared, and Elijah was taken in a whirlwind into heaven. (2 Kings 2:11)

Here the writer of Second Kings is telling his audience what happened just before that spectacle took place, when the Lord was about to take Elijah. (2 Kings 2:1) Just as knowing the stories of Moses and Elijah help us understand Jesus, hearing this story helped the Israelites make meaning from Elijah’s story.

In this part of the story, Elijah and his disciple Elisha traveled to Gilgal, to Bethel, to Jericho and to the Jordan - sacred and storied places in Israel’s history. Gilgal was where the Israelites camped after they crossed into Canaan, Bethel was where Jacob met God in a dream; Jericho was where the Israelites were victorious over the Canaanites and the Jordan is that place where they crossed over from the wilderness into the promised land.  

In this story, at each place, a company of prophets questioned Elisha, telling him that Elijah would be taken away from him but Elisha didn’t run away. He stayed.

And, at the Jordan, Elijah separated the waters so that they could cross on dry land out of Canaan back to the wilderness. After they crossed over, Elijah was taken up in the whirlwind, and the text says that Elisha “picked up the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him, and went back.”  (2 Kings 2:13) Elisha is like Joshua, the inheritor, receiving the prophetic mantle.

So when we hear today’s gospel and see Moses and Elijah on the mountaintop with Jesus, we are witnessing what the others disciples saw on that day: Jesus being revealed as the fulfillment of the law and prophets who came before him.

In Epiphany, Jesus has discovered who he is; the disciples have learned what it means to follow him; and now the through Jesus and his disciples, the world is learning what it means to have a Messiah.[i]

Throughout the biblical narrative, the people of God are never left without a voice.[ii]

The God of Abraham and Jacob, the God of Moses and Elijah is the same God who we know in the person of Jesus, whose life, death and resurrection restores us to life with God, who loves us and forgives us and draws us to God. And it is this same loving God who sends us out into the world to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ, to do the work of calling people to God, and accompanying each other in the wilderness places we experience. As Peter says, “It is good for us to be here” (Mark 9:5) but we cannot stay on the mountaintops. We have to go into the valleys and towns and be with people to love and serve one another.

Amen.

[i] Lectionary Lab Live podcast

[ii] Pulpit Fiction podcast

Fourth Sunday in Lent

Numbers 21:4-9; Ephesians 2:1-10; John 3:14-21

Have you ever overheard part of a conversation, and realized you didn’t know what people were talking about or what had already been said?

Today’s gospel text is like that. The lectionary reading begins in the middle of a conversation. If you didn’t read the preceding verses in chapter 3, you don’t know who’s speaking. And if you haven’t read Numbers recently – and that probably describes most of us here today – you may not remember what was happening when “Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness.”

So, let’s begin with the story in Numbers. “The [fourth] book [in the Torah, or Pentateuch] tells the story of how Israel's exodus generation entered the desert where most of them died away in faithlessness and disobedience, and how the next generation emerged, prepared to claim the promise of a new land.”[i]

After Moses led the people of Israel out of Egypt and across the Red Sea, they wandered in the wilderness for many years. The story that is referenced in John’s gospel happened after the deaths of both Miriam and Aaron, Moses’ sister and brother who had accompanied him out of Egypt.

Remember how the people of Israel began grumbling and complaining, and God answered their complaint by giving them manna to eat?

Well, now here they are, grumbling and complaining again.
The text says they “became impatient” and “spoke against God and against Moses.”  Old Testament scholar Dennis Olson describes them as “drag[ging] out the same laundry list of complaints about dying in the wilderness, yearning to go back to Egypt, the lack of food and water, and the monotony of the manna.” It’s like a video clip that gets caught buffering and cannot play to the end, or an audio track that plays endlessly on repeat.
Nothing could satisfy them.

What happens next is surprising. The text says, “The LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many…died.”

It’s surprising because what is described is God’s judgment falling upon a people.

We like to think of judgment as something that happens to “other people” but in Numbers, it’s clear God delivers judgment upon God’s own people.

Facing the reality of God’s judgment, the people offer a confession, but simultaneously, they ask Moses to pray that God would remove the serpents from their midst.

Instead, God tells Moses to make a serpent and place it on a pole and instructs him that anyone who gets bitten will be able to look up at the serpent on the pole and live.  From that time forward until King Hezekiah destroyed it during his temple reform in the eighth century BCE because it had become a false idol, the serpent on the stick was called Nehushtan and the people of Israel kept it with them as a sign of God’s life-giving covenant.

When we hear the story referenced in the gospel text, it turns out that Jesus is the one speaking. The Pharisee Nicodemus has come to Jesus at night time and is asking him questions about what he is teaching and the signs that he has performed.

Recalling the sign of salvation that God had provided to the people of Israel all those centuries before, Jesus tells Nicodemus “so must the Son of Man must be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” (v. 14-15)

And then, just as God’s people suffered judgment in the Numbers passage, Jesus says in v. 19, “This is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people have loved darkness more than light because their deeds were evil.”

Both the author of Numbers and the evangelist John are speaking to the community.

Remember how Jesus answered the scribe who asked which of the commandments was greatest?

Jesus said, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ (Mark 12:29-31)

For the Israelites wandering in the desert, their sin wasn’t that they complained; their sin was failing to believe the God of Israel, the Lord our God, was going to deliver them. And, they were so curved in on themselves and coiled tightly like snakes themselves that they couldn’t even recognize their own sin!

In Jerusalem, Nicodemus and the other religious leaders and temple priests, likewise, didn’t believe that Jesus was the Son of God. They studied and followed the Levitical laws meticulously, believing they could achieve righteousness by their good works if they could remain ritually pure and blameless. Their sin was failing to believe God alone was their redeemer and deliverer. (Ps. 107)

God can handle our complaints and our fears and doubts; the Psalms are full of complaints and laments, anger and fear, but the psalmists always return to what they know about who God is and what God’s character and past promises and actions tell us.

What is sinful is the certitude that the Israelites and the Pharisees display and their disregard for what God has done.

In his Lectures on Romans, Martin Luther writes about our natural impulse to “deeply curve in on [ourselves].” That is the very definition of sin: bending everything, even God’s best gifts, toward ourselves for our own elevation, enjoyment and pleasure.[ii]

And, when we are looking inward toward our bellies, we cannot look up.

We cannot look up at the life-giving sign that heals,
and we cannot look up at the cross that triumphs over death.

And when we cannot look up, we die.


It is that simple and that startling.

God breathes life into us and commands us to live, and instead, as Eugene Peterson writes in his paraphrase of today’s passage from Ephesians, we “[fill our] lungs with polluted unbelief, and then [exhale] disobedience.”

Thankfully God doesn’t leave us there. God who knows us and loves us, and has established a life-giving covenant with us, equips us to live an abundant life in the fullness of relationship in faith in Christ.

It’s ours, if only we will stop navel-gazing and look up.

Let us pray.
Lord our God,
heal our brokenness that we would see your gift of life;
God of judgment,
lift up our eyes that we would recognize Your presence in our lives in all circumstances;
Redeeming God,
Strengthen us to live as Your faithful people in a world that loves darkness.
We pray in the name of your crucified and risen Son, Jesus Christ,
Amen.

[i] “Numbers.” Luther Seminary, EnterTheBible.org.
[ii] Lectures on Romans. Luther’s Works, Vol. 25.