Community Church Sermons
Year A
August 28, 2011
Pentecost 11
Who Will You Be?
Exodus
3:1-15
Rev. Martin
C. Singley, III
I must confess that it was difficult coming home from vacation this year. At Camp Singley, on the shores of Highland Lake in New Hampshire, the daytime temperatures were in the high 70’s/low 80’s, and nighttime temps were in the high 40’s/low 50’s. We had all three grandchildren to enjoy and spoil –and lots of other joyful experiences up there at the lake. It was TOUGH to think about leaving!
But then God started sending signs - clues that it was time to pack up the car, get back on the road, and head home to Tellico Village. First, God sent an earthquake! Can you imagine that? Then a hurricane! And, remembering that in the Bible the progression is usually “earthquake, wind and…FIRE”, we figured it was time to get out of Dodge.
So here we are, back in beautiful East Tennessee, reminded once again that faith is a journey, not a destination!
Now there’s a reason for faith being a journey, not a destination! Like any good parent, God understands the importance of teaching His children life-skills that will enable us to deal with life effectively as we contend with a world that is constantly changing. Life is a moving target!
Just in the three weeks Sandy and I were away, the world has changed here in our own church with the passing of Carl Burke, our founding pastor. He is already sorely missed. Church member Ron Elliott is starting a challenging new chapter in his life after the death of his beautiful wife, Judy. On the happier side of the coin, some have just recently moved to these parts and are entering an exciting new phase of their life journey. Someone has probably recently made a hole-in-one! The kids have started back to school. How has your world changed in the last several weeks?
Life is a moving target.
When our almost one year-old granddaughter Avery arrived at camp a few weeks ago, she was not quite crawling. By the time she left, Avery was a world-class crawler! And now that she is home in Lexington, KY, Avery’s new crawling skill is presenting unforeseen challenges to Bethany and Keith, her parents. Just the other day, they took their eyes off Avery for just a few moments and by the time they turned back, she was gone from the living room! They caught up to her – in the kitchen – sitting on the floor, chowing down on a mouthful of cat food!
Life is a moving target!
So God – because God loves us - has given us a wonderful gift – a faith that can keep up with the changeability of life – a faith that can adapt to shifting paradigms and the new challenges of the 21st century and beyond – a faith that is a journey, not a destination.
And some of the keys to this fantastic gift of faith-that-is-a-journey are revealed in the story of Moses that was just read for us.
Now remember that Moses was born to a Hebrew woman who had to float him away in a basket on the Nile River because of a king who put out a death edict on all Hebrew baby boys. Miraculously, the basket was found by the king’s own daughter who fell in love with the baby, and then – just as miraculously – hired the baby’s own mother to nurse him for her. Eventually, the king’s daughter adopts him as her own son and Moses grows up and enjoys a life of privilege, luxury and comfort in the halls of Egyptian power. But one day he comes across an Egyptian beating up a Hebrew slave. Moses intervenes and kills the Egyptian. That’s a capital offense. So Moses goes on the lam, eventually ending up in the country of Midian where he marries a local woman, starts a family, and goes to work tending the flocks of his father-in-law, Jethro.
That’s where today’s passage begins – Moses is out tending the sheep and goats when he comes upon an amazing sight…
…a bush that is on fire, but is not consumed!
The famous burning bush.
And from that burning bush, God speaks to Moses. And the three things God says are well worth listening to and bringing into your own life. They can literally set you free, just as Moses was set free.
First, God says, “Take off your shoes, for the place you are standing is holy ground.”
Please DON’T take off YOUR shoes, but would you take a moment to look down at them? Go ahead. Look at your shoes – and see the ground upon which they are standing.
Holy ground.
You see, God is not talking here about the burning bush where He is standing. He’s talking about the ground where Moses is standing. “…the place YOU are standing is holy ground.”
Now what do you suppose the ground is like where a shepherd has been tending his flocks? I dare say that when you are knee deep in sheep you are also knee deep in stuff that’s not very holy-looking. The ground upon which Moses is standing is simply the ground where Moses is standing. There is probably scrub grass there, and rocky soil, and ant hills, and snake holes, and tarantula nests…not to mention the stuff out-put by the sheep and goats. The ground upon which Moses is standing is the ground upon which Moses is standing in all its imperfect glory, and it is HOLY GROUND!
Look at where your shoes are standing here in the sanctuary today. Holy ground! Look at your shoes tomorrow out on the golf course – in the doctor’s office – at the funeral home – in your school – at the treatment center – or at Wal-Mart. Wherever it is you are standing, you are standing on holy ground!
Some people don’t like the fact that we are now living in the 21st century. They wish they could go back to another time, another place. They spend their lives trying to hold on to something that isn’t there anymore. And they lose sight of the fact that even Moses had to leave his mother’s house, he had to leave the basket floating on the Nile River, he had to leave the courts of Pharaoh, he had to leave his life of privilege and comfort. And now, here he is – a fugitive living on foreign soil living a life that’s knee-deep in sheep and goats and though he might well think he’d rather be someplace else, other than where he is, the fact of the matter is that where he is standing right now is holy ground.
Where are you standing right now? What’s the lay of the land in your life right now on the 28th day of August, 2011?
Sandy and I – like everyone else in these parts – were so saddened to hear the news about Pat Summit. The legendary basketball coach of the University of Tennessee Lady Vols has been diagnosed with early onset dementia. Some of you here today know personally what that’s all about. Please keep Pat and her family in your prayers.
Don’t you sometimes wish we could rewind our lives to the time before the diagnosis and hold onto that time forever?
But we can’t. Life is a moving target.
And because life IS a moving target, our loving heavenly Father has given us the gift of a faith that will journey with us into the unfolding experiences – whatever they may be - that life brings. Faith is a journey, not a destination. And the first word God speaks to us about the new ground upon which we are standing is that – despite what it looks like – it is holy ground.
In other words, where you are right now – no matter how good, no matter how bad – is filled with the presence of the God who made you and loves you. So today, wherever it is you are standing, God is with you. You are standing on holy ground. May that knowledge give you strength and hope!
Then God speaks again to Moses.
“I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.” And then God continues, “I have seen the suffering of my people in Egypt, and I’ve come to rescue them. And I’m sending you to set them free.”
One of the great problems in the Christian Church today is the problem of vocation. We have become detached from our calling, our mission. Churches have turned in on themselves and away from the world. People often join churches, or simply come to church these days to find something for themselves. We fill our churches with self-pleasing and self-fulfilling activities as though the sole reason for coming to the burning bush is to warm ourselves up in the face of a cold world.
Seldom do people come to church today because the world is suffering and they hear God calling to them out of that burning bush to go and do something about it.
But every once in a while…a Roberta Burwell comes along with her husband Gene and they have an idea about helping people through a Good Neighbors shop…or a Terry Boyes and Ed Conte show up with a passionate concern for abused children and a possibility for starting a Child Advocacy Center…or a Judy Stiles and Ken Ray make a commitment to start a Friendship Kitchen, bringing meals to frail, isolated people…or a Terry Blevins organizes our youth into something he calls Following the Cross and they spend all day yesterday working with Habitat for Humanity fixing up and painting houses in Hope Haven.
Every once in a while people show up for church not for themselves, but for others – not so much for self-fulfillment, but because people are suffering and they want to do something about it. And when this happens, a church becomes the Church.
This is what we hope and pray a Community Church is. This is what we hope and pray OUR church will always be.
Frederick Buechner puts it well when he says, "The place God calls you to is where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet.”
This faith that is a journey, not a destination, is not all about you and me. It is about the world out there, whose suffering God sees, and to whom God sends people like us.
And then God speaks again. Moses wants to know the name of this God in the burning bush. So God tells him his name. Let me spell it for you. YHWH. That’s the problem with biblical Hebrew. There are no vowels. YHWH.
The best guess of bible translators is that the name is YAHWEH which in many bibles is translated, “I am who I am.” But the Jewish bible scholar Martin Buber says the more accurate translation of YAHWEH should be, “I will be who I will be.”
That name is the ultimate statement of freedom. To be WHO YOU WILL BE is to be finally free! Freedom to be who He will be is the essence of God, and it is the essence of what it means for you and me to be created in the image of God.
Let me get back to Pat Summit for a moment. If you’ve been reading the newspapers, the Tweets, the online postings that people who know Pat have been making, you’ve probably been struck by a common theme. When responding to questions about why Coach Summit has been so up-front about her illness and her readiness to tackle it head-on, and her resolve to live life as fully as she can all these people who know Pat say, “Because that’s who she is!” Even though other teams may try to exploit the truth, Pat refuses to keep it a secret and not engage it because, “That’s who she is.”
You know, you cannot control what comes your way in life. You really can’t! But you CAN control WHO YOU WILL BE when it does.
This is the highest gift that God can give to his children.
The power to BE WHO WE WILL BE!
So facing what you face in life, and understanding that all around us is a world whose people suffer, the question that confronts us from the burning bush is this: “Who will you be?”
For Moses, the answer to that question became his life-long journey of faith.
He chose to be God’s person.
Who will you be?
And trust me on this: when you choose to be God’s person as you face the realities of your own life, and as you engage the suffering of the world around you, your faith will truly become an exciting journey, and not a destination.