Notes from a Sojourn
August 30, 2020
What If This Is Our Burning Bush?
A Sermon for the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Exodus 2.11-3.15
Last week we heard the harrowing tale of Moses’ infancy. Under the threat of genocide, Moses is preserved through the daring of his Hebrew mother, the watchful eye of his older sister, and the compassion of an Egyptian princess.
Moses becomes the fortunate son of Pharaoh’s daughter, sheltered and protected by privileges he could never have earned. As a child of the Pharaoh’s household, he moves in and out of the places he chooses, unchallenged and free from discrimination. He lives a privileged life of wealth and ease.
But at a critical point in his life, Moses faces a crisis of identity. When he murders an Egyptian taskmaster beating a Hebrew slave, he becomes a fugitive not only from the law, but from himself. He is disoriented, torn between two identities. With whom does he stand – with the oppressed Hebrew, or the privileged Egyptian? He can’t decide, and so he runs away.
Moses runs away to the relative obscurity of Midian. He falls in love, settles down, raises a family, and goes about his anonymous life, detached from the privilege of his Egyptian upbringing and indifferent to his Hebrew heritage. He ignores the plight of his oppressed kinsmen.
But one day, while shepherding, he turns aside to investigate a flickering light, a burning heat: it is a burning bush, aflame but unconsumed. It is an encounter with God.
Moses is confronted by the God of his Hebrew forbears. God calls him by name. And God discloses more of himself to Moses than to anyone before him. God discloses his name: “I AM WHO I AM.”
And, finally, in this encounter, God reminds Moses of who he truly is and, rooted in that identity, sends Moses back to the place he ran away from when he could not decide what or whom he stood for:
“I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob…I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry…I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them…[So] I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people…out of Egypt.” (Exodus 3.6-10)
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In the early days of the pandemic closures in our parish, back in March and April, the biblical motif of the wilderness was an important theme for me personally [you can see this reflected in the blog posts I authored for Notes from a Sojourn on March 23 (“Desert”), April 3 (“Stillness”), and April 23 (“Forty Days”)]. For my spirit, the motif of the wilderness helped me to grapple with the sudden loss of physical closeness to everyone and the new risks of viral infection that we were all learning to cope with. Like Elijah, I was running into the unknown.
This week, upon reading the story of Moses’ encounter with God in the burning bush, I was struck by a new thought – a different motif that I’m finding helpful to guide my prayers and actions as we prepare to return to reopened church buildings:
What if these past five months have been a "burning bush"?
What if these past 23 weeks have been a great “turning aside” like Moses to the “miracle of the lit bush”[1]?
What if these past 161 days have been “holy ground” upon which we’ve seen the mysterious presence of God and heard the sound of God calling our names?
What if these past five months have disclosed the heart of God’s compassion for our neighbours to us and prepared us to bring the message of God’s deliverance back home with us?
What if?
And what might it mean if, as a collection of Anglican churches in Eastern Ontario in the 21st century, we re-read our story alongside the story of Moses, and located the past five months as the encounter with the burning bush? Would we find any similarities?
Perhaps.
We are a mainline Canadian church, once protected under the shelter of a dominant anglo-Canadian political and social class with all its attendant privileges, wealth, and entitlements. But we are also a church that is facing an identity crisis, torn between two identities: the fortunate child of inherited privilege and the self-professed hope of the oppressed. Well, which are we? Well, we are both. But the more important question is, when push comes to shove, with whom will we stand?
Perhaps we’ve been loitering anonymously in Midian for longer than we’d like to admit, paralyzed by this crisis of identity. Maybe we’ve assumed a “Midian way of being” that is neither hot nor cold; we dodge the issue, we avoid making the choice.
Yet, as our communities change around us, we are increasingly detached from the privileges we once assumed were ours by birthright; and perhaps we are a little too reluctant to abandon our comfort for the causes of the oppressed?
I’m open to disagreement – but if any of that makes sense to you, then let me tell you why I think the Spring and Summer of 2020 are our “burning bush.”
Since March 15, I have seen “the miracle of the lit bush” – the mysterious presence of God appearing in unforeseen ways – in so many different experiences I’ve shared with you apart from our previous day-to-day experience of ministry.
I am thankful for unity I’ve felt among our congregations in the Area Parish in common prayer, fellowship, and learning these 5 months:
Weekly Parish Coffee Hour via Zoom. We’ve shared stories, joy, heartbreak, jokes laughter. We’ve noticed the beauty of the mundane and ordinary things in our lives, week in and week out.
Easter Season Bible Study: for 5 weeks, 18 parishioners read the Acts of the Apostles and learned about the Spirit’s leading of the church.
Weekly Service of the Word and Holy Week liturgies we celebrated in an interactive way through Facebook Live
I am so thankful for the real presence of Jesus Christ I have known in the proclamation scriptures – read, heard, and interpreted every Sunday through our Service of the Word. I have deeper appreciation for the dignity of this service presided by anyone – lay or clergy – as an act of worship on any Lord’s Day.
I am thankful for the way music has lifted my spirit to respond to God’s Spirit with the help of Penny Bedard, Steve Ellam, the musicians of Christ Church Seaway’s Choir, and other singers in our parish.
I am thankful for the ministry and presence of Jesus to our neighbours through the ingenuity and dedication of Taylor, Katherine, Lorraine, and the all the volunteer board members and donors of Centre 105. Because of this diocesan ministry, the grounds of Trinity Church in downtown Cornwall have continued to be a home, kitchen table, and family reunion for dozens and dozens of our neighbours.
I am thankful for the mind of Christ and the wisdom of the Church so evident in our parish wardens, treasurers, staff, and volunteers. Together, we have steered prayerfully through a major capital project at Christ Church including a Special Vestry and the creation of a Parish Reopening Team to implement the new practices we need to adopt for the safe reopening of our church buildings.
I am grateful for compassion and solidarity of Jesus played out in a thousand-and-one acts of prayer, kindness, and care in your households and on your telephone calls to one another.
I give thanks for the Lord of the Sabbath who has given me some rest during these months through less time on the road and some vacation time away – Jesus who reminds me that the world is not held together through my efforts but sustained by his life-giving Word.
I am thankful for the relationships of care and friendship that have deepened for me in this parish – for the phone calls people have made to me simply to ask how I am and how Keltie is.
I am thankful for the gift of working with Patrick, and saw the love of Christ in him, Mallory, Esther, and Rupert, and us, as we blessed each other in our continuing shared ministry.
And, I am thankful for the gifts of God’s Spirit that will strengthen me and all of us with the arrival of Peter Crosby. And I am glad I will not be alone in my pastoral work for much longer!
Friends, these last five months have indeed been Holy Ground. They have burned brightly with the light and life of God’s presence made known to me in the gift of each and every one of you.
And I believe, at this truly historical moment, we are being called out of “Midians” we’ve called home – the holding patterns of detachment and indifference – by the God who knows our names and the purposes for which we've been saved.
And we are being sent by the God who hears the cries of all who are oppressed and knows the sufferings of all who suffer – sent into the very places we once moved in as privileged as insiders, to take the side of the outsider and proclaim the message of God’s deliverance to the oppressed, the broken-hearted, the captives, and all who are unfree – and that includes us too!
We are not returning to what was before.
We are not going back lukewarm.
We know with whom God stands,
and so now we know where we must stand too.
[1] The Bright Field by R.S. Thomas (poet)
