18 June2000sermon.htm

Sermon for Trinity Sunday, Year B, 18 June 2000

Trinity Church, Princeton

Reading: Exodus 3:1-6

Moses and the burning bush
is one of those stories
that stirs up vivid memories from my when I was a little kid:
the floury smell of child-safe paste,
the satisfying crackle of red cellophane,
and stickiness of fingers against rag-rough paper.
Sunday school pictures
place this story
firmly
in the
secure faith of childhood.

But I wonder. Does this story really
belong
to childhood? Is it truly safe
for our children's
innocent
ears?

Moses
is herding
his father-in-law's sheep. He's headed out into the wilderness,
far beyond
the lines of private property
and the mores of social grace.
Sunburn and grime in equal parts
tan his face,
rough woven clothes
form a second skin,
a knife pricks sharp
against his thigh.
Hours stretch into
days stretch into
weeks,
and only the insistent bleating of sheep
and the threatening night sounds - is it the cry of a wolf?
or just the wailing of the wind? -
break the sinuous silence.

Through the wilderness he travels,
in valleys scoured by flash flooding,
on wind-lashed slopes dotted
with stunted trees.
Until one day,

out of the corner
of his eye
he sees something
which doesn't belong, something strange
something inexplicable.

It all begins with a bush,
a bush like any other
- he has seen thousands of them,
especially up here on the top of the mountain,
where the wind
bends branches double
and lightening cracks anything
that dares to stand tall -
but as he looks at the bush
there is a flicker of flame.

His stomach clots. Fire
is about death
as much as life
here in the wilderness,
and with one small flame
this silent wilderness
can become a blazing desert.

But this flame looks small, small enough even
to smother with a blanket, and so he
turns, as if to beat it out.
And sees
that while there is a flame
there is no burning,
no smoke in the air
no ash on his breath,
just the strange steady burning
of a fiery bush.

And a voice whispers out , "Moshe, Moshe!"
Just a rustle of wind?

But it is his name which is called,
"Moses, Moses!"

"Here I am" he says.

"Do not come closer. Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on
which you are standing
is holy ground. I am," he said, "the God of your father, the God of
Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob."

And Moses hides his face
for he is afraid
to look
at God.

*****

When you really begin to think about the story,
of Moses and the burning bush
it's not
a story
for three-year-olds. It doesn't belong
in the Sunday School room.
There's far too much danger, far too much fear
far too much
of an unpredictable God
who would just as soon destroy us
as bless us.

Moses hid his face
and was afraid to look at God.
Because what he recognized - recognized in an instant,
because as far as we know
from the book of Exodus
Moses had never
seen God before,
Moses had never
been the recipient of divine visions -
what he recognized
was the incredible
holiness
and fearfulness
of God.

Holiness, so that he had to take off his shoes, because this wasn't just any
place
to risk trampling across; fearfulness
because he knew in that instant
that God was a whole lot bigger
and a whole lot more dangerous
and a whole lot less predictable
than any wildfire.

God hadn't stayed
back in the world of private property and social grace
and carefully ordered religion
of the towns,
but was here in the wilderness.
it was in the strange juxtaposition
of the ordinariness
of the sheep-herder,
unremarkable except for its isolation,
and the extraordinariness of the burning bush,
that Moses
unexpectedly
met God.

And that makes me wonder
who it is, this God
who Moses met.
What
was God
doing
out there in the wilderness?
What
kind of God
is this?

Today is Trinity Sunday,
and we could spend
a whole lot of time
talking about how it can be
that God is one
and God is three.
Water ice steam, three leafed clovers, the corners of a triangle; all of
these are ways we have of trying to tie God down, trying to bring God
within
the confines
of our everyday worlds.
We want a God
we can explain to our three year olds;
we want a God
who is as safe and nice
as a beloved old teddy bear.

But this is not
the God of Moses,
this is not
the God of the Christian faith.

Out there
in the wilderness
there was one thing
that Moses knew for sure:
God
cannot
be domesticated.

We,
on the other hand,
expect to find God in certain places
we expect God
to play by the rules.
And so we build churches
so there is a special place
for meeting God
and we set aside special times
to do this religious stuff.
We draw clear lines
between the world of religion
and the world of our everyday lives.
Because we want our God
to fit
within the lines of private property
and the mores of social grace.

But God
can not
be domesticated.
God can not
be corralled within these walls.

And so what the Trinity is all about
is a God
who bursts the boundaries,
who is active
in our world,
who is holy, wild, and free.

In a way
that's the paradox
of Trinity Church.
Our forebears in the faith,
the people who gave us the beautiful legacy of this place,
built us this church
so that here
we can worship God, here
we have the chance
of encountering God.
But in calling it Trinity Church
every time we speak it
we are reminded
of the God we worship,
the God who can never
be contained
in this place;
the God
who cannot
but
break out
into the rest of the world
and the rest of our lives.

God
cannot
be domesticated.

*****

But an undomesticated God
is not the end of the story.
For while God is not confined
to the places
we construct,
while God is not constrained
by the bounds of our imaginations,
nor is God limited
to the spectacular and the mystical.

A rabbi was once asked
"Why did God choose a bush
from which to appear?" The rabbi answered
"Had he appeared from a carob tree or a sycamore,
you would have asked the same question. However
it would be wrong to let you go
without a reply,
so I will tell you why it was a bush:
to teach you that no place is devoid
of God's presence,
not even a lowly bush." (Midrash [26])

God met Moses,
when Moses was out herding sheep.
God can meet us in the middle
of our ordinary lives, whether its
doing the grocery shopping,
picking the kids up from school
or sitting in an office.
The holiness of God
comes in many guises;
the presence of God
in any place,
whether we expect it
or not.
And that means
that every place, and every time
has the potential
to be filled with the holiness
of God...
whether it's a scrawny little bush
out in the wilderness somewhere,
or the places we live
the details of our lives
or even
this place,
and if we have our eyes open
we might just see
out of the corner of our eyes
a flicker
of the wild and holy
fire of God
come to meet us
and catch us up into
the all embracing presence
of God's love.

Raewynne J. Whiteley
18 June 2000