MCCBR-SVE

See Sunday's Readings

For me, the most meaningful part of Lent is self-examination. It is a
time to intentionally take a good look at myself, and how i am
connected with others, the world, and my faith. In essence, it is
when i begin asking myself, once more, all over again: "Who are you?"

I went to the Revised Standard Lectionary, and found the Episcopal
Reading for this Sunday (Exodus 3:1-15) to be very meaningful, and
perfectly apropos of the musical question posed by Roger, Pete, Ox,
and Keith (otherwise known as The Who): "Who are you?"

Imagine hiking the Appalachian Trail on the Skyline Drive, and suddenly, out of the corner of your eye, you see a shrub blazing-- burning but not being consumed.

That would be odd enough, and it would certainly get your attention. You would experience a sense of awe and wonder, and perhaps a sense of mystery over something you don’t quite understand. And then, only when you have stopped, turned, and begun to really look at this burning mystery, does this flaming bush do something REALLY queer. It begins to TALK. And not only that, it talks TO YOU. AND… it knows your name!
And suddenly, because you are so aware of amazing things, the place around you that once was simply the Appalachian Trail becomes holy ground.

This is what happened to Moses. God speaks to Moses by way of a burning bush, and through flames that burn but do not consume.
By using very ordinary items that Moses probably encountered every day- the flame, and the bush -and by bringing them together in an extraordinary way, God calls to Moses by name.

I believe God still speaks to us. I believe God still gets our attention, and also, in the process, our awareness, and stirs within us our sense of wonder. As a wise teacher once said, “Look with wonder at that which is before you.” With eyes of wonder, the world before us becomes a new and amazing place, and God speaks to us … by name, and in a way that is wondrous, mysterious, and not easily explained.

I don’t think God is a burning bush. I don’t think that’s what we need to look for in our lives in order to connect with the presence of God. No, I think God used a burning bush to poke into world of Moses, the world of a sheep herder. And during this time of Lent, a good question to ask yourself is what might God use to poke into your world? How would God interrupt your daily life? What might get your attention, cause you to look twice, and renew your sense of wonder and mystery in the world? I believe that a sense of wonder, curiosity, and mystery is important in connecting with the presence of God. And the nature of questions themselves. As Moses paused to wonder… "It burns? But it is not consumed? Why? So strange. Why is the bush not burned up? This is not possible."

In the dialogue that follows in Exodus 3:1-15, Moses is asked to do an extraordinary thing, an unbelievable thing, a wondrous thing, a seemingly impossible thing-- to free the oppressed, to free his own people, the Israelites from Egyptian bondage.

And the reply of Moses? Who am I, that I should do this thing?
Who am i?

Sometimes the most simple questions are the most mysterious of all.
Who are you? Are you your accomplishments? Your job? Your money? Your titles? Are you what you do for a living? Your identity? A label? Your name?
Who are you?

And in the beauty and the wonder of the moment, Moses manages to actually kind of turn the question around, saying to God, "If I go to the Israelites, and tell them the God of their ancestors sends me, they will wonder… they will ask, ‘What is this God’s name?’"
Who are you?

And undoubtedly, one of the greatest and most mysterious names of all, through time and all generations: I AM WHO I AM. What a beautiful name. What a wonderful sense of presence. What an awesome mystery.

Whenever I begin to think that I am a person of faith because my faith has all the answers, I remind myself that I follow a God named simply I AM. A God who self-identifies as I AM. A religious and spiritual path is NOT a way of absolutes, exact facts, definite conclusions, certainties, or even clarity… no, it is all too often the way of wonder…. the way of mystery... and the way of questions.

Who are you?

I don’t think seeking certainty is what life is all about. How boring would that be… to know it all… to know everything… all the answers… although I know several people who believe that they do. I also know people who are quick to remind me when I have said something that takes issue with myself… as if I can’t contain a bit of mystery… as if I am unable to have a thought or an opinion that can’t be easily explained. As if I can’t contradict my own self, for goodness sake. I think Walt Whitman said it best, in his poem, Song of Myself:

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

Who are you?

Who am i? Indeed, sometimes the best I can do is look into myself with that same sense of wonder as Moses experienced when he gazed into the heart of the burning bush. I don’t have any answers, but it is a beautiful mystery to behold. Quite simply, I am made in the image of God, and....
I am who i am.

God speaks to us in unexpected ways, and from very unexpected sources. Don’t look for a burning bush. Instead, stop, turn, and look at the entire world around you with a sense of wonder-- and you may hear God calling you by name. And suddenly, the space around you, space that just a moment ago was so plain and commonplace, becomes holy ground.

As we continue on this Lenten journey toward the inevitable conclusion, take time to stop, turn aside-- to examine yourself, to look within yourself, not so much for answers, but perhaps for the simple joy of the question, the excitement of a mystery, the pleasure of wonder, or simply just to enjoy and marvel at the beauty of something wonderful and amazing burning within you.

Who are you?

First Reading Exodus 3 : 1-15

Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; he led his flock beyond the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of GOD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed. Then Moses said, “I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up.” When God saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” Then God said, “Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” God said further, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look.

Then God said, “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the country of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. The cry of the Israelites has now come to me; I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them. So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.”

But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” He said, “I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain.” But Moses said to God, “If I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” God said further, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’“ God also said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘GOD, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you’: This is my name forever, and this my title for all generations.



Second Reading
~from “Utterly Humbled by Mystery” by Fr. Richard Rohr

Religious belief has made me comfortable with ambiguity. "Hints and guesses," as T.S. Eliot would say. I often spend the season of Lent in a hermitage, where I live alone for the whole 40 days. The more I am alone with the Alone, the more I surrender to ambivalence, to happy contradictions and seeming inconsistencies in myself and almost everything else, including God. Paradoxes don't scare me anymore.

When I was young, I couldn't tolerate such ambiguity. My education had trained me to have a lust for answers and explanations. Now, at age 63, it's all quite different. I no longer believe this is a quid pro quo universe -- I've counseled too many prisoners, worked with too many failed marriages, faced my own dilemmas too many times and been loved gratuitously after too many failures.

Whenever I think there's a perfect pattern, further reading and study reveal an exception. Whenever I want to say "only" or "always," someone or something proves me wrong. My scientist friends have come up with things like "principles of uncertainty" and dark holes. They're willing to live inside imagined hypotheses and theories. But many religious folks insist on answers that are always true. We love closure, resolution and clarity, while thinking that we are people of "faith"! How strange that the very word "faith" has come to mean its exact opposite.

People who have really met the Holy are always humble. It's the people who don't know who usually pretend that they do. People who've had any genuine spiritual experience always know they don't know. They are utterly humbled before mystery. They are in awe before the abyss of it all, in wonder at eternity and depth, and a Love, which is incomprehensible to the mind. It is a litmus test for authentic God experience, and is -- quite sadly -- absent from much of our religious conversation today. My belief and comfort is in the depths of Mystery, which should be the very task of religion.

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