Holy Ground: take off your shoes and make yourself comfortable
“Moshe, Moshe! You’ve come at last, Hallelujah! Every day I waited for you! I’m DELIGHTED to see you! But, hey! this is Holy Ground, take off ya’ shoes and make ya’self comfortable! We have lots to talk about!”
You may be seated.
In my life, I have failed to understand and appreciate many things in their Time, when they seem to challenge tradition as I've known it, perhaps especially in the church. That New Hampshire bishop, for instance. Bishop Spong of Newark, prayer book revision. And today's Moses and the Burning Bush always brings to mind the Reimagining God movement I encountered in the late 1980s and early 1990s as an element of feminist theology.
Thirty-five or so years ago, a new member of my parish, an earnest young woman in her early twenties, she and her mother had just moved to Apalachicola, I don’t remember why (everyone has reasons for settling in Apalach, for me it was childhood memories, church, oysters, mullet and ultimately the lovingkindness of the people who invited me to be their priest); and this young woman enthusiastically took up in the church as a lector and other ministries. She made an appointment, came and met with me, seeking endorsement and financial aid to attend a Reimagining Conference in Brazil. And the deal was that on her return I would give her pulpit time one Sunday so she could brief the congregation on the Reimagining conference.
It was a disaster, I was blind at the time, both blind and blindsided, but looking back, it was a good thing, active imagination like The Emerging Church and Progressive Christianity, Inclusive Language Bibles, new prayerbooks and hymnals. But as I say, I failed to understand and appreciate at the time, and I nearly let it get me run out of town by old time Episcopalians, including myself, whose imaginations were not so vivid, and whose God was too small.
Thirty-five years and I will not say my imagination has grown, but at least I’ve come to see, perceive, realize, understand that God’s freedom for us is boundless, as is God’s delight in human imagination. And that, coming as the Holy Spirit’s fire into the hearts and minds of those who are baptized in Jesus, human potential as creatures of God is unshackled: “My chains fell off, my heart was free, I rose, went forth, and followed thee”, a line in Charles Wesley’s powerful hymn “And can it be that I should gain an interest in the Saviour’s blood?”
Just so with Reimagining God where we do not bind ourselves to “We’ve always done it this way, believed it this way.” I know it’s Lent, but Reimagining God is Epiphany.
Just so, from ABRAM the wanderer to Abraham father of many. Just so Jacob to Yis-ra-El because he struggled with God and never gave up. Just so, Jesus on Easter, returning from death simply because he loves us no matter how we treat him. Just so Moses at the Burning Bush with the One God, eh-YEH, y’VAH, Adonai, haSHEM the Name - - I AM, reimagined lovingly from a feminine side without bloody sacrificial violence in Sophia, Wisdom, and reclaiming the early church tradition of sipping milk and honey at baptism - - because at Baptism we enter the Promised Land of milk and honey foretold by God in our Exodus reading.
Sophia, Wisdom, as the Reimagining God movement reimagines y’VAH with enthusiasm, which means “filled with God”, for God’s work in the world.
I am 83, soon 84, and I sometimes have to fight with myself to admit imagination and change. But the second half of my life has been priest in the Episcopal branch of the Jesus Movement. And of five parishes I have served, every single one has been enthusiastic, filled with the same Holy Spirit who captivated Moses from the Burning Bush, and who inspired Jesus at baptism, all five of my churches — Holy Nativity the most powerfully, I’d say, we are larger with our witness in the world, but all five. Each one I came in riding a wave, and there were cycles to ride out, including here, but this Church is so Spirit-filled with love that we keep on growing. People like to say mainline Christian churches, including the Episcopal Church, are declining, but that’s only so in the mind of those whose God is too small. God is not dying, one-third of Episcopal churches are growing, growing, growing. And not only in numbers, but in taking to heart our baptismal covenant; the promises that identify Episcopalians as Christians:
Will you persevere in resisting evil and whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord? I will, with God’s help. God’s help just now is the self-examining Season of Lent if you feel the need of it. And priests if you need us to listen, counsel & declare God’s absolution to set you free.
Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ? How so? The fact you are here in church this morning, with church family and friends, is proclamation itself.
Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself? I will, with God’s help; and God’s help comes as new strength, self-awareness and encouragement every time we stand and renew our baptismal vows together, remembering and affirming our promises, to keep them fresh in mind.
Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being? We live in a divided nation, world and age of division by hate, hatred of anyone different from us because every political agenda stirs hatred of “outsiders” as a means to segregate the crowd and build their own numbers. Do not over identify with your own group, or participate in its hysteria of mass hatred for people on the other side: God loves them too; and as a Christian you dare not hate anyone God loves.
Reimagine: get out of the box. Think for yourself. Don’t let a bunch of old men do your imagining. Reimagining God helps God help us. God is not isolated as I AM/yhVAH with Moses and Logos/Word with Jesus, God is Wisdom, Sophia. Wisdom, Reason: we do not believe we save ourselves into heaven by standing up to say ‘I believe’. Our destination is not the grave and future life, but the Way of the Cross here and now, where a prayer in our marriage rite says, “the Way of the Cross is the Way of Life”. That’s our theology.
Bishop Russell had it right last Sunday when he said we are not trying to get into heaven. We are NOT trying to get into heaven. We are trying to live the life of Jesus, a life of love, the life and love of God who loves us; of God in Christ who loves us. Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so; and the call of Baptism is to pass that love along and around.
Last Sunday the bishop invited everyone to the Altar for Communion, saying it’s not OUR Altar, it’s God’s Altar where, no rules, everyone is invited and welcome. Likewise, it’s not our church, it’s God’s church, we are not meant to control it with rules, we must let it go and see WHAT, in Sophia, Wisdom, the Holy Spirit DOES with it; WHERE, in Sophia, Wisdom, the Holy Spirit TAKES it, out of our clutching control and into the KINGDOM OF GOD, where wild imagining is ON THE MOVE. It’s Lent: praise God, Hallelujah!
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Sermon in Holy Nativity Episcopal Church, Panama City, Florida on the Third Sunday in Lent, March 24, 2019. The Rev Tom Weller. Basis: Exodus 3, God and Moses.
Burning Bush by UK artist Mark Wiggin
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Sermon in Holy Nativity Episcopal Church, Panama City, Florida on the Third Sunday in Lent, March 24, 2019. The Rev Tom Weller. Basis: Exodus 3, God and Moses.
Burning Bush by UK artist Mark Wiggin