SERMON - August 28 , 2011
Rev. Kevin E. Johnston
"I Am...I Will Be "
The Message
The story Mona just read is “one of the key stories in the Hebrew Bible”. According to Ralph Milton, it’s “the central story in the Jewish tradition”. This long-ago tale, fr om an after-the-fact perspective, had been re-told and interpreted by many people a number of times over hundreds of years before it ever went to print by the storytellers who passed it on to us.
Whether he was a real, flesh-and-blood person, or a mythological “type”, according to the narrator, it was out there in the west end of the wilderness where Moshe was that day – just doing his thing, living life as he had been, looking after some sheep, just “takin’ care of business”.
Suddenly, from out of a bush – “in flames of fire blazing out” – of all places, he heard a Voice – something – that called out to him, and Moshe entered into conversation with that Voice. That day, Moshe experienced Mystery in a way he perhaps never had before. Right where he was – somewhere beyond the wilderness – in the midst of ordinary life.
There was likely no reason to suspect that he had anticipated anything more than another hot, energy-sapping day with the flock as he set out that morning. And when the Voice was identified as “the God of your ancestors”, Moshe still wanted – demanded even – to know who it really was that spoke to him from out of nowhere.
“Who are you?”, he inquired of Mystery, as he seemed to need proof of just whom it was he encountered.
“I AM WHO I AM” , the Voice replied. “I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE. I WILL BE THERE WITH YOU – BEFORE YOU – ALWAYS AHEAD – ALWAYS BESIDE – ALWAYS AROUND YOU –WHEREVER YOU ARE.”
Often in the scriptures, the wilderness isn’t necessarily a physical place. It can also be a metaphor for a state of being, when we find ourselves desolate, dried up, tired, lonely, and hopeless. It’s not a pleasant space to be in. All sorts of wild, unfriendly, and dangerous creatures can be found in the wilderness. We might find ourselves attacked, and utterly defenseless. And perhaps that’s what the Moshe story is about.
“Up to this point in the story, Mystery had been reveled [in] a particular people…or even…one particular family… But this God will not be easily named, compartmentalized, defined. Yes, the Hebrew is difficult to translate, because the ineffable God is not easy to define.
The name [YHWH, is solid confirmation that God (as well as God's story) will not come across as logical, rational, or with an easy-to-assemble set of directions and explanations.
'What's your name?' Moshe asks.
"Well," says … Mystery, 'most days, I-am-who-I-am; but on alternate Tuesdays, I like 'I-will-be-that-which-I-now-am; in months that have only 30 days, you might call me 'I-am-who-causes-to-exist.' But always, always, I-AM-who-gives-life."
And, like most of us, Moshe stands there, scratching his head and muttering, 'Thanks a lot. You certainly made it a lot simpler for me to explain to others.'
“”Moshe had already had a pretty full life”His journey had taken him from life as a nobody to a prince, back to a nobody once again. And for the last many years, he’d just scratched out an existence, at the lowest place on the totem pole. Perhaps, as our storyteller relates it, Moshe’s life had taken him beyond the wilderness of life, and he was more than desperate. And in the midst of this “place”, Mystery revealed Mystery’s self to Moshe. Mystery had been in the place Moshe was, all along.
I have a strong feeling that there is a “Moshe” here this morning who is in a place beyond the wilderness. Perhaps there is more than one Moshe listening in today who’s just going through the motions, taking care of business, trying to scratch out an existence of some sort. Life isn’t just bad – it’s beyond anything imaginable. You’re all alone, with your sheep – whatever it is you’re trying to look after.
Chances are, there’s no bush where you are. Let alone one aflame. At least, not what we might think of when we hear the word bush, or even a burning one. But there is something that’s always been there, from which Mystery is calling out to us – to me – to you – right where we are now. Perhaps we’ve never noticed before – have been too overwhelmed with many things. But that One is whispering – calling out – trying to get my – your – our attention, as with Moshe.
Then Voice said, “"I've taken a good, long look at the affliction of my people…. I've heard their cries for deliverance from their slave masters; I know all about their pain. And now I have come down to help them, pry them loose from the grip of [their] Egypt, get them out of that [place], and bring them to a good land with wide-open spaces, a land lush with milk and honey.”
It was the twenty-fourth of May weekend, 1977. An anonymous benefactor had paid my way to attend a youth conference for Baptist young people held in Hamilton, Ontario. The “theme” speaker for the weekend was a man named Ken Medema, a wonderfully musically gifted man, who just happens to live with blindness. The Sunday night session in particular became one of the most – if not THE most – pivotal experiences in my life.
That evening, Ken brought to life the story we find in Luke’s version of the Jesus story, where the storyteller places him in his hometown synagogue on the Sabbath, as guest preacher for the day. As the tale unfolds, Jesus unrolled the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, where he quotes the first two verses of chapter sixty one, and then, after sitting down to preach, had the audacity to say to the gathered community “Today, in your hearing, this scripture passage is fulfilled.”
As Ken’s presentation went on, I had what could be called a “burning bush” experience that made no sense to me at the time. However, once I returned to my parents the next day, my father interpreted the event as confirmation of a dream he’d had when I was young, and therefore I was, as he put it, “to go and become a preacher”.
Up until that day, I had planned to get my Ph.D. in child psychology. I guess Life had other ideas that changed the course of my life forever.
It’s said that “theology is always an ongoing activity of fresh, imaginative, and re-construction of our understanding of the world and of [Mystery], and of human life in the world and under [ Mystery] .
It’s that which baffles, and cannot be explained; a reality we cannot fully grasp, for which we have no reasonable explanation. Before Mystery, there is a sense of awe, and has a yearning to explore and comprehend, to figure it out. And it is only as Mystery is revealed to us – as we are consciously aware of Mystery – that I AM WHAT I AM, I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE becomes a reality.
Mystery – I AM – I WILL BE – is always present wherever we are. But we are not always aware of that any more than we think about the oxygen we inhale, the carbon dioxide we breathe out, regardless of who we are at any given time and point in our life.
You may have had the mystical, awing experience of hearing, or being part of Paul Winter’s work, Missa Gaia: Earth Mass . In one of the pieces within this work, songwriter Jeremy R. Geffen tries to capture and describe this Mystery:
It lives in the seed of a tree as it grows.
It lives in the waves as they crash upon the beach.
You can hear it if you listen to the wind as it blows.
I have seen it in the gods that [people try] to reach.
It’s there in a river as it flows into the sea,
and [we] feel it in the love…we need so much.
It’s the sound of the soul of [one] becoming free.
I know it in [a] smile…when…hearts do touch.
It lives in the laughter of children at play.
But when I listen deep inside, I feel [it] best of all.
And in the blazing sun that gives light to the day,
like a moon that’s glowing white, and I listen to [its] call.
It moves the planets and the stars in the sky.
And I know that[it] will guide me, I feel [it] like the tide,
It’s been the mover of mountains since the beginning of time,
rushing through the ocean of [a] heart that’s open wide.
O Mystery, You are alive. I feel you all around.
You are the fire in my heart, you are the holy sound.
You are all of life, and it is to you that I sing.
Oh grant that I may feel you, always, in everything.
It’s the life force, the creative energy that we proclaim in A New Creed “ that “has created and is creating”, is bringing new out of old, resurrection out of death. Within Mystery,
in the bulb there is a flower; in the seed, an apple tree;
in cocoons, a hidden promise: butterflies will soon be free!
In the cold and snow of winter there's a spring that waits to be,
unrevealed until its season…
There's a song in every silence, seeking word and melody;
there's a dawn in every darkness, bringing hope to you and me.
From the past will come the future; what it holds, a mystery unrevealed until its season…
In our end is our beginning; in our time, infinity;
in our doubt there is believing; in our life, eternity.
In our death, a resurrection; at the last, a victory unrevealed until its season,
[It’s] something God alone can see.
Back in the 1960’s, Mamma Cass Elliott belted out over the airways that
There's a New World Coming, and it's just around the bend
There's a new world coming. This one's coming to an end
There's a new voice calling – you can hear it if you try
And it's growing stronger with each day that passes by
There's a brand new morning rising clear and sweet and free
There's a new day dawning that belongs to you and me
Yes a new world's coming, the one we've had visions of
Coming in peace, coming in joy, coming in love
And then, a man we call Jesus told a congregation in Nazareth one Sabbath day, in Mystery, ‘good news comes to the poor, release is brought to the captive, sight is restored to those without, to bring good news to the poor, the oppressed find liberation – are freed – and the grace and favour of I AM is available to all’ .
“As [we] walk through [our] ordinary days, minding [our] own business, doing what you know well, be prepared to be surprised – for all around [us] the bushes are burning. [We] only have to take time to turn aside to look and listen for the Voice…In the dawn of the new day and in the warmth of sunshine,… in the beauty of the moonlight and the shining of the stars,… in the beauty of the season and of all created things,…in the people [we] meet and the work of [the] day,…in the peace of the evening and the stillness of the night, the bush is burning.
but [we] must turn aside to see. For only then will [we] hear the Voice calling [us] by name…and in the middle of [our] ordinary days, when [we] are minding your own business, [when we] turn aside to look, [we will indeed] know [that we] are standing on holy ground.”
One of my online ministry colleagues has created a more contemporary picture of Moshe’s “burning bush” experience, when she wrote:
Wandering the solitude of the morning – waiting for the holy to appear,
walking off the beaten path into the still dark woods,
down to the edge of the glass lake, She waits in the quiet.
She hears the geese land – their wings beating the water
as they fly down from a misty sky.
And she imagines touching their warm bodies, soft with feathers,
alive with hearts keeping time with their movements.
.She hears the forest behind her where occasional snapping twigs,
the sound of hooves beating the drum that is the earth,
and the tapping of a woodpecker early at his work,
make her turn and gaze into the shadows
where little is visible to her eye except the etchings of the trees
against the misty air.
Then, before her, slowly, that muted, peach colored sky
fills with a glowing fiery ball that rises above the treetops.
It's golden, orange rays sing to her eyes.
That is the sun's ancient gift of harmony with the sky,
with the earth, with every sun kissed stone,
with every tree branch outlined in its light,
with every solitary human walking off the beaten path upon her own,
to find the sacred, to gaze upon the burning bush
and stand upon the holy ground with humility,
knowing her place in this large silence of light.
And all of it, gives her the strength, the courage, the love
to do the things that must be done
I AM WHO I AM , I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE is, and will always be with us inviting, challenging, companioning, sometimes holding, and always supporting us, as we move from the reality we have known, into a new creation.
Blessed be! And may it be so!
Luke 4:18-21