Earth’s crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God; but only he who sees, takes off his shoes…
     - Elizabeth Barrett Browning


READING:
Moses was taking care of the flock for his father-in-law Jethro, Midian’s priest. He led his flock out to the edge of the desert, and he came to God’s mountain called Horeb. The Lord’s messenger appeared to him in a flame of fire in the middle of a bush. Moses saw that the bush was in flames, but it didn’t burn up. Then Moses said to himself, Let me check out this amazing sight and find out why the bush isn’t burning up. When the Lord saw that he was coming to look, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” Moses said, “I’m here.” Then the Lord said, “Don’t come any closer! Take off your sandals, because you are standing on holy ground.”
                                                    - Exodus 3.1-5    


REFLECTION: 
I’m sure you have heard the old saw about kids in the Deep South going barefoot in the summer; or as any son of the South worth his salt would say, “barefooted.” Well, I am a card carrying southern boy born and bred (though I don’t pull the card out very often), and I’m here to put an end to this misconception. I would say the notion is a myth, but I have too much respect for mythology to defame it in this way as simply something that is false.

There is some truth to the falsehood claim; but while close, it misses the mark by a country mile… and then some. Indigenous religions get it; take, for example the introduction a clan elder once gave to his storytelling. “I’m going to tell you a story,” he began. “It’s a lie, but not everything about it is false.” Sometimes, even philosophers get it, like the philosopher who referred to myth as “a lie designed to tell the truth.”

Myth and symbol - the language of wonder and awe in the ancients’ stories, the language of poetry - ain’t simple, as these statements indicate; but is sho’ ain’t false. It sho’ aint a statement of fact gone awry.

Take the story of the burning bush. If it were merely factual, one could ostensibly verify its actuality, measure the temperature of the flames, and eventually explain how a bush could burn without being tormented in the flames (as the rich man in another story would say). Such an experience might be many things – a hallucination, an exception to the laws of nature, even an exceptional act of power – but it wouldn’t be God. It wouldn’t be capable of inspiring Moses with the very real sense of God’s presence. It wouldn’t inspire awe, fear, and just about every emotion in between.

It wouldn’t be God, because the closest we mortals come to recognizing God’s presence is through symbols, metaphors, myths; language that starts out in the world as we know it; but which opens out to that which lies beyond; beyond the reach of factuality, limitation, or cause-and-effect. It’s no wonder one Christian thinker would refer to symbolic language as the house of God.

Moses was right to take off his shoes, because the ground he stood on was holy. He was right to take off his shoes, not as a gesture of respect, but as acknowledgement that he was in a mysterious place between earth and heaven – call it epiphany, call it a thin place, call it vision, call it living on the border of the sacred – Moses was in the presence of God.

Moses was in the presence of God, and needed to learn to walk barefoot. Walking barefoot symbolizes need, to be sure, that something important is lacking; but Moses, walking barefoot, was ready to accept help when it was offered (like the disciples accepting foot washing from Jesus). Walking barefoot symbolizes that Moses was vulnerable, as anyone knows who has stepped barefoot on a sharp rock, but it can lead to the recognition that one needs the God revealed in mystery and flame to be healed. And walking barefoot symbolizes an intimate connectedness that Moses surely felt. Walk barefoot in the park and you will feel a closer connection to the earth and to all of nature. Walk barefoot in the spirit, and you will feel an intimate connectedness to God.

Moses was right to take off his shoes, because walking barefoot offers so many analogies (again with the symbols!) to a life spiritually engaged. On Sunday we will explore what it might mean for us to learn to walk barefoot. I hope to see you then and, by the way, it’s okay to come “barefooted.”

In the early Negro Spiritual tradition, African Americans met in camp meetings and sang without any hymnbook. Songs were composed on the spot, inspired by their immediate circumstances. These early songs were called sperichil – spiritual songs – the spontaneous response of faith to life’s challenges and mysteries.

In comparison to this musical tradition, it occurs to me that we preachers got it plum easy. We have the luxury of extensive preparation before delivering a sermon: hours of research on the exegesis of the biblical passage; consideration of what others have said about the text, and the sermon topic; time to rehearse the delivery of the sermon; and so on and so forth. It also occurs to me, however, that it is easy for this process of sermon crafting to become mechanical and impersonal, and lose the possibility of a spontaneous and heartfelt response of faith to the topic at hand.

And this can be huge. If you are a fan of Jazz music, you know how powerful, penetrating, and inspiring improvisation can be. And one can readily imagine how moving were the songs in the sperichil tradition. Who knows? Maybe it’s the lack of improvisation and spontaneity that dooms many sermons to be dry, detached, impersonal, and – let’s face it – boring… Did I forget to mention boring?

This Sunday @ OPCC, we will make a concerted effort to give spontaneity and improvisation free reign in the sermon, in the hope that unfettered faith might just have something significant to share with us. So please peruse the gospel reading below, meditate on its meaning, and come Sunday prepared to pose questions about its nature and significance. You will have the opportunity to submit your question, and the sermon will consist of faith’s response to these questions. This will not be an occasion to stump the preacher, to show her or him up by posing really difficult questions; rather, this will be an opportunity to let the sincere voice of faith speak. It may not be polished, it may not be eloquent, but we can hope it will be authentic.

Oh, and by the way, if you can please get your questions to me by Saturday afternoon…


READING:
Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say that the Son of Man is?’ And they said, ‘Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.’ He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Simon Peter answered, ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.’ And Jesus answered him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.’ Then he sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.    
                                            - Matthew 16.13-20    

God help the outcasts hungry from birth; show them the mercy they don't find on earth. The lost and forgotten they look to You still, God help the outcasts or nobody will. I ask for nothing, I can get by; but I know so many less lucky than I. God help the outcasts the poor and down trod, I thought we all were the children of God.
                                  - Alan Menken & Stephen Schwartz    



Reading: 
Thus says the LORD: Maintain justice, and do what is right, for soon my salvation will come, and my deliverance be revealed. And the foreigners who join themselves to the LORD, to minister to him, to love the name of the LORD, and to be his servants, all who keep the sabbath, and do not profane it, and hold fast my covenant-- these I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples. Thus says the Lord GOD, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, I will gather others to them besides those already gathered.
                                              - Isaiah 56.1, 6-8    


Reflection:
Some two years after I defended my doctoral dissertation – just when I had begun to forget the agony of the experience and recover from the intellectual aches and pains inevitably identified with graduate study – some two years after I defended my dissertation, I learned that I had gone about it the wrong way! Oh brother! I learned that I had martyred myself beneath a heavy weight of research and writing, when the central question I posed comes with a ready made, simple answer. Jeez! Say it ain’t so.

Long story short, in my dissertation I compared the notion of salvation in the Bhagavad Gita and the Gospel of John. When I presented a paper at a professional conference two years later, a prim and proper New Testament professor informed me that the entire edifice of my work was bogus, because the Greek notion of salvation that underlies John is absent from the Gita, as is the reality of salvation itself. Wow! I explained that I had used the word salvation in my title in a general sense; as shorthand for the ultimate fulfillment of life, but since the title was already too long (you don’t even wanna know), I used the word salvation.

Upon reflection, however, I realized that my colleague had gone way beyond semantics (she probably knew the Gita is in Sanskrit) and had submitted the Gita and the faith tradition it represents to a litmus test determined by Christian doctrine… and found it wanting. I realized that she had oversimplified a complex and nuanced notion – life’s fulfillment – and managed to dismiss one of the great spiritual traditions of human history at the same time.

I share this story because it occurs to me that we are all in the habit of seeking the simplest possible answers to life’s questions – a habit illustrated so very well by my colleague - and inevitably finding that the correct answer is simple… and it’s my answer. For example, ask most any Christian what salvation means, and she or he is likely to say something like, “Going to heaven when I die.” Now, I won’t argue with that; shoot, I am really looking forward to the fulfillment of my life in union with God. I would quickly add, however, that salvation is so much more than ultimate destiny, and that it refers to God in the present tense at least as much as in the future sense; God as present reality, not just future savior. I would contend that God has our back, and this frees us to explore and enjoy the present reality of that which we call salvation.

And it ain’t just about me and Jesus either. Salvation is given expression – I would say reality – in compassion; in reaching out to others in need; to other children of God who could use a little salvation. Otherwise stated, God is saving us (present progressive tense) through the very act of reaching out to and accepting others. I’m not advocating some form of salvation through works, but I am saying in no uncertain terms that we are all in this together; that salvation is lived out in compassionate relationships.

Isaiah glimpsed something of this. Notice how the notion of deliverance, of God’s salvation, is revealed in this passage as embracing others – the foreigner (read non-Christian) and outcasts - accepting and affirming them as God’s other children. All of these will be invited to God’s holy mountain, and to God’s house of joy that shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.

Wow! What a wonderfully rich and nuanced notion is this thing we call salvation. And we haven’t even gotten to the Gita. Don’t worry; I’m not going there. But I will go so far as to propose that we share the prayer of Esmeralda in the Disney animated version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, that God will help the outcasts, the lost and forgotten who look to God for compassion. Because if God doesn’t help them, she says, nobody will. To which I respond, “Is nobody home?” 

It is impossible for others to help you come to terms with the past, if for you the past is a pile of wounded memories and angry humiliations, and the future is just a nursery of revenge.
            - Eric Lomax 


READINGS:
“God’s kingdom is like a treasure hidden in a field for years and then accidentally found by a trespasser. The finder is ecstatic—what a find!—and proceeds to sell everything he owns to raise money and buy that field.
                        - Matthew 13.44 (The Message)

“Or, God’s kingdom is like a jewel merchant on the hunt for excellent pearls. Finding one that is flawless, he immediately sells everything and buys it.
                         - Matthew 13.45 f. (The Message)

If you grasp and cling to life on your terms, you’ll lose it, but if you let that life go, you’ll get life on God’s terms.
                         - Luke 17.33 (The Message)   



REFLECTION:
The more I have reflected on The Railway Man by Eric Lomax, or reviewed in my mind’s eye scenes from the movie of the same name (with Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman), I come back to the same question; the one question that refuses an easy response; how in God’s name is reconciliation ever possible? When one has been wronged in egregious ways (say, for example, tortured repeatedly as a prisoner of war); when one’s humanity has been mocked, assailed, and ultimately stripped away by the cruel acts of another (say, for example, being forced to watch and listen to the preparation for the next session of torture), how is it ever possible to forgive? How is it ever possible to reconcile with that devil in human guise?  How is it ever possible to look up to the heavens, like Jesus on the cross, and ask God to forgive his enemies?

So it was for Eric Lomax (The Railway Man is autobiographical) for years after he managed to survive his tortures and make his way home from the Second World War. I say make his way home; he made it to England, but you couldn’t confirm the home thing by him. He was tormented; his torture extended by his continued anguish, so wracked was he by fear, anger, bitterness, and a void where any sense of a just world had once resided. He was unable to make his way back into normal life, or find a place for himself in his own home; and he was unable to come to terms with his own history.

Then comes the news that the man he remembers as responsible for his torture not only survived the war, but also was working as a tour guide at the very POW camp in which he had tortured Eric and others.

Something had to give. Confrontation was inevitable. But what would it – what should it - accomplish? Revenge? Reconciliation? He knew that reconciliation would require something more powerful than his seemingly limitless hatred; he knew that it would take a treasure, a pearl of great value, to overcome his pain. Identifying this treasure is our task for Sunday. We get enigmatic hints about this treasure from one and another, but nothing that clarifies or soothes; nothing painless, no turn-key solution, nothing truly plug-and-play. Madeleine L’Engle, for example, insists that reconciliation requires healing grief… that forgiving someone is painful. It involves what she calls fellow-feeling; which I take to mean empathizing with the one we seek to forgive, being willing to see things from his or her point of view. Again, St. Francis observed that none of us can ever be truly compassionate until we recognize that we are capable of any act; even despicable acts like the torture to which Eric was subjected.

The treasure we seek will not be easily or painlessly identified. But we will search, for we, too, may be in need of reconciliation, and to find the treasure that can unlock forgiveness and reconciliation… now that would be priceless.

We hope to see you on Sunday!