March 7, 2010 - Lent 3, Year C (RCL)
Sheep, bushes, dust, more sheep. It was a day like any other for Moses, out minding
his father-in-law’s sheep.
It wasn’t really the job he would have chosen,
certainly not the job he had been prepared for in the years since he was rescued in his basket of papyrus
from the reeds beside the river,
the years when he had been raised alongside
Pharaoh’s own grandchildren.
He had been expected to land
a senior position
in the Egyptian hierarchy;
but that was before
his temper got the better of him
and he killed a man
and hid the body,
and then fled into the wilderness
in fear.
And there in the wilderness
he had met Zipporah, and her father,
and soon he married Zipporah and took on the job
of minding his father-in-law’s sheep. It wasn’t what he had been prepared for, but it was better than prison
or death.
So there Moses was, minding the sheep and minding his own business. He’d gone up the mountain, hoping that in the cracks and gullies
there might be good pasture for the sheep.
He didn’t expect
to see a scraggly bush
suddenly erupt into flame.
He didn’t expect, as he was looking around for something
to put it out,
to see the bush
continue to burn
but without being burned up.
And he definitely didn’t expect
to hear a voice
coming out of that bush,
“Moses, Moses!" Take your sandals off. The place you are standing, it’s holy ground.”
And as we know,
the conversation between Moses and God
continued,
and ended up
with Moses being commissioned
to go back to Egypt,
back to Pharaoh,
and rescue his people
and lead them out from Egypt to the promised land,
from slavery
to freedom.
But back to Mount Horeb.
It’s not entirely clear in scripture,
but it seems
that it might be this same mountain
where, when the people of Israel were wandering in the wilderness,
and afraid of running out of water,
this place
was where Moses struck a rock
and fresh water
came out.
And it seems that it might be this same mountain
that was also known
as Mount Sinai,
and was the place where God appeared to Moses again
and gave the ten commandments.
Horeb
was holy ground,
a place where Moses
met God.
I have a suspicion
that if you asked Moses
whether he ever expected to meet God
the answer
would be no.
There’s no evidence
from scripture
that he was particularly religious.
From the time he was rescued from the river as a child
to the time he sees the burning bush,
faith hasn’t been a real strong focus in his life.
Moses isn’t like Samuel
who grew up in the temple,
or John the Baptist,
whose mother raised him to be
a holy man.
I imagine he knew the stories about God,
probably even believed in God,
but I doubt he actually expected God
to appear
in the middle
of his life.
God and him, they belonged to two
different
worlds.
But when God suddenly started talking
from the middle of that burning bush
Moses had to do a quick re-think.
Here’s God
right in the middle of his life!
Different.
Holy.
But here.
In our Lenten study, we’re reading a book by the great twentieth century Christian writer, C.S. Lewis, called, “Mere Christianity.”
Recently I’ve been reading another similar book, this one written by the bishop of Durham in England, NT Wright. It’s called “Simply Christian.”
And one of the things that Wright does
is try to explain
how it is
that God and our world
are related.
And he talks about two overlapping spheres.
Heaven and earth
aren’t two totally separate places,
heaven over here
and earth over there.
Instead, they overlap.
And so there are times and places
where God is particularly evident, particularly close to us.
Mount Horeb
was one of those places.
It was holy ground.
And that raises the question,
what is holy ground for us?
Where is the place
where we might expect
to meet God?
I suspect that most of us assume
that church is holy ground.
We come here to pray,
to worship,
and to meet God
in the Eucharist.
Churches are holy ground,
in part I suspect,
because of the decades, sometimes even centuries, of prayers
that have surrounded them and seem to have seeped into the walls themselves.
The altar is holy ground,
because there we meet Christ in the Eucharist.
And there’s a tradition of being respectful when you’re in church.
And I think it’s not so much
because otherwise
God is going to zap us,
or even
because otherwise
God might be offended.
I suspect it’s more about
making a quiet space for God,
acting in a way
that means that when God speaks to you,
you’ll be able to hear.
And that means
not just not shouting
or jumping around,
but also not letting our minds get distracted
by finding fault with others
or drifting off
into thinking about the things that annoy us.
Those things will always be there,
but they are deafening us,
stopping us hearing
the voice of God.
So here on this holy ground
listen, listen
for the voice
of God.
But church is not the only sort of holy ground.
Many people talk about what they call “thin places,”
places where heaven and earth seem particularly close,
where we are more likely
to meet God. Holy ground.
Last year I went on a pilgrimage across holy ground.
It began in the town of Melrose in the borders of Scotland, site of a ruined abbey from the twelfth century.
But long before that abbey was built, there was another religious foundation tucked into a bend in the river,
probably just a group of stone huts surrounded by a circular wall,
the monastery where in the seventh century
St Cuthbert began
his religious life.
From there,
I climbed the Eildon Hills,
walked across the borderlands,
up into the Cheviots,
and finally down to the sea and the welcoming Holy Island of Lindisfarne, where Cuthbert eventually became bishop.
Melrose and Holy Island are thin places,
set apart for hundreds of years for worshipping and serving God,
and when you touch the stone of the walls
and join in morning and evening prayer with other pilgrims,
you have a sense of the centuries of prayers that have soaked those places,
and the presence of the God who hears them.
And yet, it was the wild moors of the Cheviot Hills
that were the places where God was most evident.
thousands of acres of burnt-brown heather and grasses and marsh
with only the occasional tree
tucked into a hollow,
stone walls
and the outline of iron age forts
still visible on the hillsides,
steep cliff-like drops
and wild goats,
and tiny jewel-like green valleys
with cows and sheep,
hidden in the folds of the hills.
And Cuthbert as bishop,
walked across those hills, which have likely barely changed
in the intervening sixteen centuries,
spending his days traveling
and his nights visiting the isolated families
who made their homes there.
And you can feel the presence of God there.
There are many other thin places, particularly
places where, like churches, people have prayed.
Places like the island of Iona in Scotland,
or Glendalough in Ireland,
or, of course, the Holy Land.
But for many of us, it’s not just places where people pray
that invite us to hear the voice of GOd.
Sometimes
it’s in nature itself.
Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poem describes it in his poem, “God’s Grandeur”:
THE WORLD is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
God has created this world, and continues to keep it in view.
No wonder we meet God
in the world of creation.
And no wonder Jesus
went out into the wilderness
to pray
and to prepare
for his ministry.
Wild places
can be holy ground.
But again,
holy ground
is not confined
to places of wildness and beauty.
Because holy ground
is anywhere
that we meet God.
It could be church.
It could be out in the woods.
It could be at the beach.
And it could just as easily be McDonalds, having a conversation about God with a child.
Or sitting with a friend or family member who is sick or dying.
But wherever it is,
we have to be ready to listen.
to stop what we’re doing, to take time
and hear what God is saying.
And if we listen,
who knows
where God will lead us.
© Raewynne J. Whiteley 2010