August 28, 2011, "DISTRACTED BY MANY THINGS"

Exodus 3: 1-15
Matthew 16:21-28
There is fighting in Libya. Hurricane Irene made landfall and is working the way up the East-coast. An earthquake struck Washington DC. All the things that technology was supposed to do for us, and thus far, we have access to many bits of in formation and we become distracted by many things. I am never certain if when something happens, I am supposed to TWEET first, or FACEBOOK, to send a TEXT or LINK-IN, or EMAIL, and wonder why we cannot simply TALK TOGETHER FACE TO FACE? We now are developing APPS for anything we could want to do, but HOW this affects us, and who we are becoming, we have not yet come to know.

Yesterday afternoon, I had a wedding, and as the guests were entering I heard a voice from decades ago a man we had known in college in the Midwest 35 years ago was walking up the steps. In that lull after the wedding and before the reception begins, we visited together with quick and deep summaries of the important events and circumstances in our lives. He described his partner and how they had met a dozen years ago. As a very gentle and soft-spoken man, I was not surprised nor concerned that he described having come to the awareness that of knowing himself, and that he was gay. And the way he described it, the process of coming to know who he is and claiming who he is, I responded: “I have never thought of it this way before, nor heard it described as such, but I think most of us, speaking for myself, I also have spent most my life searching for who we are, at 53 still questioning what I want to be when I grow up. That has been punctuated over the years with marriage and children, education and experiences, but for you it has seemed to have been focused on your most intimate commitment.” With all the distractions of life, jobs and careers, the economy, worries about children and pets, we lose sight of what we hold most dear, what we believe and who we think we are.

The story of Moses begins here, not in a palace, not in the Temple, not while doing the most grand of things, but rather the most mundane. While this orphaned Hebrew child may think he knows who he is, raised in the household of the Pharaoh of Egypt, who recently witnessed the racism and prejudice of an Egyptian beating a slave, and instinctively struck and killed the abuser, tried to get away from his past, tried to go to a new place, marrying and herding sheep for his father in law Jethro a priest and leader of Midian. STILL, God knows who he is, where he is, what he has done, and God cares.

We often become distracted reading this passage, by the burning bush. After all, it's FIRE, and yet the bush is unharmed, not consumed by burning. Listening to the story in context, it is as if, the whole point of the burning bush is to DISTRACT MOSES FROM DISTRACTIONS. Seeing the bush out of the corner of his eye, he could no longer look down at his feet. Seeing the bush burnt but not consumed he had to take his eye off the sheep, off the path, off his worries and doubts and regrets, and look up. Moses had to pause his TEXT MESSAGING about what he saw and GO SEE rather than TWEETING about it as an observer he was Called to participate. From that moment of DISTRACTION, there is no longer concern about the burning bush, but GOD who speaks and is present with Moses here on Holy Ground. What a perfect metaphor for the CHURCH, WORSHIP, being the COUMMINTY OF FAITH to one another, we were never supposed to be an Institution, Perfect, we were never to be the IDEAL. As brilliant as the sermon may be, as much as we may rehearse and practice, despite the brilliance of the windows, the majesty of these gold pipes and the music created, all of worship is to DISTRACT US from OUR DISTRACTIONS to consider what is of value, who we are and where we are going. This is a passage about a Calling, a vocation, the seriousness of what we believe to how we live.

Like many of you, I had a mentor growing up, going to school, the early years of my career, who has now gone. Whenever I returned, he would ask the same Biblical question, “What's the latest theory about the TETRAGAMMANON?” When first he asked I was not certain what TETRAGAMMANON even was, but quickly came to know he was referencing Moses' 4 letter name for God.

In that this mentor had also gone to seminary and been a preacher, I thought of all the things that have not changed since you went to seminary probably at the top of the list of what has not changed is the meaning of this 6000 year old name for God. But deferring to his wisdom and experience and concern, I thought it a teaching exercise, so attempting to prove my knowledge recited “YHWH is so holy, we never speak it, but seeing the letters instead choose to speak ADONAI. The Word YHWH is the Verb TO Be, so anything that has being God is in it. Literally, “I AM WHO I AM, I AM WHAT I AM and WHAT I HAVE DONE and WHAT I WILL BE.” He smirked replying that “I AM WHAT I AM” is the catch phrase for POPEYE the Sailor, not the God of all Creation, Lord and Redeemer.
Over the years, I had struggled to understand and come to explain what I thought this mentor was asking. Now that he has died, listening to the text again, We hear the VERBS of what is said from the bush: “I HAVE SEEN,” “I HAVE HEARD,” “I HAVE KNOWN” are part of a recurrent identification from God, the fourth verb of which is “AND I HAVE REMEMBERED” the promise.

The point of the name for God, is not which is the prettiest name, or only as an explanation of identity, but that of all places, in this most common, most mundane, while taking sheep to pasture, Moses sees the BUSH that is a Reality, it is on fire and it is not burned. If Moses had simply heard a voice, while doing his task, the words would have been intangible, invisible, like theory, idea or philosophy, Abstract WORDS only something to know; but this bush is real and the burning is real, and it not being burned by the burning is also real, so the words that are said, that this is Holy Ground, that God IS, and God SEES, and GOD HEARS, and GOD KNOWS and GOD REMEMBERS, and that no matter how far away we may run, God is with us, all that is the REALITY. The Winds and rain and flooding of Irene have been the story of the last 72 hours, the tremors of Washington have already ceased, be those the ones of politics or those deeper in the earth, the fall of a dictatorship, even the intrinsic worth of our homes and land, and the problems of this week, all is distraction, all will pass. What Moses discovers is real, is that as much as he tried to run away from who he was, to hide what he had done, God sees, God hears, God knows and God remembers the promise. That is the FOUR PART IDENTIFICATION OF GOD, the Tetragammanon.

As much as we try to “Create” ourselves, as much as we try to hide our secrets and what bothers us most, the Burning Bush is physical evidence God knows and is not distracted by who we are. God accepts us, and stays with us through all our arguments, until finally we are left without distractions.

We recall the question of Jesus to the Disciples “Who do People Believe is the Messiah, and Who do you think I Am?” to which Simon replies with the Confession “You are the Christ, son of the living God.” Yet, the meat of the revelation comes here afterward. For just like Moses having found the Bush, Simon found the right response, each now have the resources to know who and God is, Christ is, but each is also very human, responding to adversity, to obstacles and threats with “NO, God forbid.” The core of the Confession in response to Jesus is the Christ, the Redeemer, Son of the Living God, is to cut through all distractions to say “Yes, AND he suffered and died, that nothing, not suffering, not death, not anything which may frighten us CAN EVER separate us from the love of God.” That is the meaning of Salvation.

Amazing, when we see and hear and know and remember the Promise that nothing can ever separate us from the Love of God, suddenly all the storms and distractions, the TWEETS and POKES and PINGS, the FRIENDING and UNFRIENDING, the Crises of the Day, even the anxieties about who we really are, all seem to fall into place.