Church on Morgan
Brent Levy
[MUSIC PLAYING] From Church on Morgan, a United Methodist congregation whose desire is to be a reminder of the beauty of God and each other. This podcast is a collection of Sunday teachings inspired by the revised Common Lectionary and recorded weekly in Raleigh, North Carolina. And now a moment of silence before this episode begins. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] So as Sam said, my name is Brent. And I serve a church called the local church, which is a United Methodist faith community in Chatham County, North Carolina. Chapel Hill, Pittsburgh area. Anybody who's been to Pittsburgh, it's a great place. Next time you're there, look me up. Come see me. I've been connected with Church on Morgan in the past, as Sam said, before the pandemic. I preached a couple of times here, but never in the round, except for an hour ago was my first time. And the good news was that at every point, somebody had a good view of my good side. And I'll let you decide what side that is for yourself. But I've known Justin for going on a decade now and have admired so much what you all do here at Church on Morgan, and it is a real blessing and gift to be here. So thanks for having me this morning. The scripture for today is from Exodus in the Old Testament, chapter 3, verses 1 through 15. One of the things we do at our church is as you're listening, inviting you to listen for a word or a phrase that shimmers for you, that lights up, that resonates, it stirs within you. And so that's my invitation to you as you listen, as you hear these words. What shimmers to you? Here it is. Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian. He let his flock beyond the wilderness and came to Mount Horeb, the mountain of God. There in the angel of the Lord appeared to him at a flame of fire out of a bush. He looked and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed. When Moses said, I must turn aside and look at this great sight and see why the bush is not burned up. And the Lord saw that he had turned aside to see God called him out of the bush. Moses, Moses said, here I am. And then he said, come no closer, remove the sandals from your feet for the place on which you are standing is holy ground. He 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 at God. Then the Lord said, I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt. I've heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings. And I've come down to deliver them from the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey to the country of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Parazites, the Hivites and the Jebusites. The cry of the Israelites has now come to me. I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them. Now go, I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites out of Egypt. But Moses said to God, who am I? Then 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 serve 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, what is his name? What shall I say to them? God said to Moses, I am who I am. He 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, the Lord, 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 is my title for all generations. This is the word of God for all of God's creation. Thanks be to God. Let's just be quiet for a moment. YouTube, YouTube, YouTube, YouTube, YouTube. Holy God, wild one. We don't need to invite you into the space. We don't need to beckon you here because you already are. But we ask this morning that you would make us aware of your presence, that you would awaken us, enliven us, expand our hearts, quicken our spirits, help us to see you, encounter you in new and fresh and wild ways of this day. In the name of Jesus. Amen. So here is Moses. Here is Moses tending the flock of his father-in-law's sheep. That's a job for you, huh? It's a joke. And he finds himself walking the edge, finds himself pushing against a boundary. He finds himself at a threshold where the wilderness meets the foot of Mount Horeb, also called Mount Sinai. And now what you need to know is that in the ancient world, it was on top of the mountain where the divine was most often found, up there, distant, apart from in the ancient world. And yet it's here at the foot of the Mount, at the base, here at the edge of the wilderness, where there's a bush. It's not just any bush, it's a bush that is on fire, burning, blazing, and yet not consumed. The bush doesn't turn to ash, instead it just keeps blazing. The first evidence of renewable energy in the Bible, perhaps, also a joke. And when he sees it there, when Moses sees it there, walking the edge at this threshold place, Moses does what any of us might do. Maybe not all of us, some of us might turn and run in the complete opposite direction, as if just they ain't no way, ain't no way. But not Moses, he says, I've got to get a closer look. And so he does, he gets closer, he leans in, he approaches this burning bush. And that's when a voice comes from the bush, the voice Moses knows to be that of God here at the foot of the mountain, not on top, but here at the base at this threshold place, this thin space, with the wilderness edge, a voice cries from the bush. Moses, Moses, and Moses says, what, here I am. Here I am, and the bush talks back. The voice says, come no closer, remove the sandals from your feet for the place on which you are standing is holy ground. Take off your shoes, God says. It's interesting, isn't it, that God from this bush doesn't ask Moses to recite a creed, God doesn't ask Moses to welcome him into his heart. God doesn't say, pop quiz, tell me everything you believe about me right now, I'm gonna tell you if you're right or not. God simply says what, take off your shoes. How many of you spend as much time as you can without shoes, who's team barefoot here? Put 'em up, put 'em up, yeah, don't be ashamed, don't be ashamed, yeah, grossing out your neighbor. How many of you all then are like me, big fans of shoes? Yeah, yeah, I'll be honest, I have the feet of a baby. They're soft, they're tender, well moisturized. If I'm gonna go outside, even to get the mail or take off the trash, I'm grabbing my flip flops because there's no telling what's out there, right? And yet, when I pick up my eight year old from school every day, what's the first thing she does when she gets in the car, takes off her shoes, all right? We have to roll the windows down a little bit to let it air out, eight year old feet, no joke. But it feels like freedom for her when she does, you know? Her feet that have been constricted all day, confined and closed off. I was talking to a friend recently named Neil. He is a retired pastor. He has this amazing wife. He lives right on the Gulf Coast in Florida. And he's team barefoot all the way. He said that every once in a while, even he and his wife will get in the car and start driving somewhere and then get to their destination to realize that neither one of them brought shoes, you know? Isn't that great? And so it was with this in mind a few weeks ago thinking about Neil and thinking about Moses and thinking about my Emma, my eight year old that I tried something. I went on a walk in my neighborhood with no shoes. And it was the cool of the morning, thankfully, but I walked barefoot. People driving past were doing double takes. Those running by were not so subtly giving me strange looks. It was an odd experience. My poor baby feet with nothing to separate them from the sidewalk and the ground beneath. But as I strolled barefoot, I realized how much slower I had to walk. How much more attentive I had to be. I considered the ways that shoes have a tendency to create a barrier between us, us embodied creatures that we are in the natural world below. The stuff from which were made holy ground. I'm not trying to romanticize things. Let me be clear. I'm in no way suggesting that we go completely anti shoe. God made them for a reason. They protect our feet, they support our journeys, our sojourns, but I do wonder, I do wonder what might happen where we to heed God's instruction to Moses a little more often and take off our shoes. What might we discover? So let's just do that with the story of Moses. This is a pivotal moment for Moses when he meets this bush and we'll get into that. Maybe you know something about where it all leads to, especially if you've seen the seminal 1998 classic, the Prince of Egypt. Yeah, yeah, yes, right? Yeah, so good, so good. But before Moses goes back to Pharaoh and says what, let my people go, right? Before God sends the plagues, before Moses parts the Red Sea and leads the Israelites through the wilderness, before he receives the law and has his own mountaintop moment overlooking the Promised Land before all of that, Moses was a Hebrew baby. He was a baby born at a time of Hebrew oppression and amidst a decree from the Egyptian Pharaoh that all Hebrew male babies were to be killed and you may know then that he was hidden in a basket and rescued by Pharaoh's daughter, raised as an Egyptian in the Pharaoh's courts. And then there's this moment later on in his life upon witnessing the murder of a Hebrew slave at the hands of an Egyptian taskmaster. But Moses takes things into his own hands. He retaliates and ends up murdering the Egyptian and hiding the body, thinking that no one saw him. The next day, Moses sees two Hebrew people fighting with each other and he tries to break it up. But one of them calls Moses out and says, "Hey, who are you to judge? "Who do you think you are? "Didn't we see you kill a guy?" It's a realizing that his cover was blown and that he might not be safe. Moses flees Egypt. Turns out to be the right move because Pharaoh catches wind of the murder and wants Moses dead himself as a result. Moses ultimately lands in a place called Midian and comes to the aid of a priest named Jethro, his father-in-law, and Jethro's daughters who mistake him for an Egyptian, read a foreigner. And he marries one of these daughters, Zapora, and they have a son whose name means stranger or exile. They name him this because Moses says, "I have been an alien in a foreign land. "I've been a stranger in a strange land." It's a heck of a life to this point. And so just to recap, Moses has been rejected by his own people. He's on the run from Pharaoh who wants him dead. He's got a past of which he's not proud. He's viewed as an Egyptian foreigner in Midian and refers to himself as a stranger in a strange land. But it's only getting started because this is where, this is where that voice from a bush finds him as he's tending his father-in-law's flock. So when Moses takes off his shoes, the bush keeps talking. The Lord says to Moses, "I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt. "I've heard their cry and I've come down. "I've come near. "I've come near top from the top to the bottom. "I've come near to deliver them, to save them, "to rescue them, to bring them to the promised land," God says. And I'm sure this all sounds great to Moses. Yeah, that sounds good, do it. And then God says, and it's you. It's you, Moses, who's gonna lead this charge? It's you. You're the one who's gonna go to Pharaoh and bring my people out of Egypt. There's this little back and forth then until finally Moses says, okay, sure. Let's say I go to the Israelites and say, "God has sent me to you." They're gonna ask, "Who sent me? "What's their name? "What should I say?" God says, "What, I am who I am. "I am who I am." What you need to know also is that this name can also be translated from Hebrew, "I will be who I will be. "I am who I am. "I will be who I will be." This is the divine name. I stumbled on a new word, a new idea recently. It's called rewilding. Anybody heard of rewilding? Anybody know? Yeah, Jimmy, is that right? Yeah, hi Bridget, good to see you. I don't think I've ever met you in person, Jimmy. Only on Instagram. But I won't make you explain. Rewilding, this got awkward real fast. Rewilding is a method of conservation in ecological terms. It's a method of conservation in which man-made efforts in human intervention is limited or removed altogether in favor of letting natural forces take the driver's seat. In other words, the land is allowed to be wild again. It's rewilding. And through this process of rewilding, lost species may be reintroduced, biodiversity increases, and the land ultimately experiences greater healing and resilience. It's a win-win. And the more I thought about it, this idea of rewilding, the more I began to sense that this concept could have significant implications if we applied it to how we think about God, how we relate to the land, how we view and understand ourselves, how we live and move in our communities and in the world. In other words, as creatures longing for redemption and healing and wholeness, is that anybody in here? As creatures longing for redemption and healing and wholeness ourselves, perhaps we need to be rewilded to. Perhaps we need to let the wild have its way with us as well. Author and pastor and theologian Brian McLaren seems to agree. I ran across this great quotation of his that names so well what's at stake here and why this idea matters. I love it so much. He writes this, you ready? Most theology in recent centuries, especially white Christian theology, has been the work of avid endorsemen. Yeah. Scholars who typically work in square boxes called offices or classrooms or sanctuaries surrounded by square books and more recently, square screens under square roofs in square buildings. And there's nothing inherently wrong, he says, about civilized indoor theology except this, theology that arises in human-made, human-controlled architecture of walls and mirrors, of doors and locks, will surely reflect the prejudices and limitations of its makers. Avid endorsemen, isn't that great? I've never heard of a more apt description for somebody like me, avid endorsemen. But Brian McLaren is helping us to ask an important question, what if there's more? What if there's more? And maybe you feel this too, maybe it's felt like what has been passed down to you as faith has been much too narrow, much too confined. Maybe the idea of church in its recent form has felt constricting or stagnant, lifeless even. Or maybe you're like so many who feel a deep connection with the earth. And have wondered how to reconcile that love with a faith that too often seems to stay disembodied and heady and disconnected from the natural world that privileges the spiritual over the material. So I guess what I'm asking is what might it look like for us to walk the edges of the creeds and the containers that we've been given that have been handed down to us? What might it look like to explore the boundaries of our own faith? To find the thresholds of these human-made, human-controlled architectures and step into the wild places ourselves. Take off our shoes for a little while and plant our feet on this holy ground. Moses might show us how. So let's get back to that story because here Moses finds himself walking all kinds of edges. Remember, exploring all kinds of boundaries. And the thing is that this wilderness for Moses isn't just a location. It's not just a nice backdrop for the story. This is his life. Remember, it's not neat and tidy. It's not marked by achievement and success. It's not picture perfect. It's messy. It's rough around the edges. It's wild. And perhaps with as wild a life as his has turned out to be and as wild a place as he finds himself, this is the last place one might expect God to show up. I wonder how many of us might relate. I wonder how many of us have walked edges of our own, explored boundaries of our own. I wonder how many of us have been to those wilderness places. I have the privilege of talking with people often who start to question the faith that they've been handed down. They start to ask questions and express doubts and they feel guilt and shame about doing so. They wonder if they're even allowed to ask these questions because if they do, they could lose their community. They could be shunned or silenced. A few weeks ago, our church, the local church in Pittsburgh hosted a special Sunday service for our pride celebration in Pittsburgh. And I talked with a number of people that day. It was a beautiful day, but I talked with a number of people whose stories just wrecked me. People who had like Moses been sent away from the communities in which they grew up. Kicked out, told that they no longer belonged because their faith was evolving. They were outgrowing particular beliefs or taking steps toward a more expansive, liberated faith. One of the things that I've long appreciated about you, a church on Morgan, is that it's a place for those who I like to call spiritual refugees. Folks who no longer feel like they have a home where they came from and are seeking a new home, walking edges, exploring boundaries like Moses, seeking a safe space to ask big questions and express doubts about what they've been taught and about wonder and wondering about all of the things. Maybe for you, your wilderness looks different altogether. Maybe it's a relationship that's in need of care, of tending. It feels like it's crumbling. Maybe it's a past of which you're not proud or a future that feels uncertain. But the truth remains that it's here. It's here in this wilderness place where God shows up here in the wild. And I want us to also notice how God shows up, the particular way in which God shows up. Not in any way you'd expect, not with a booming voice from the heavens, right? Not with trumpets blaring, not with an internal stirring or a human messenger sent to proceed the Lord's arrival with a mighty proclamation. And also not in any way that's the least bit believable were someone to recount this story to you. God shows up in a bush. Like just let yourself go there for a second. A bush, a bush, a shrub, a bush. God shows up in a bush. Here it's a bush. But later, as Moses is leading the Israelites to their deliverance across the Red Sea, God shows up in a cloud. And then later, in a pillar of fire. And then later, when Elijah is exhausted from battle and fleeing for his life, God shows up in a still small voice. And then later still, maybe you've heard this one about God fully breaking into our time and space and the person of Jesus, the Christ who discloses the deepest truth of our being. The one through whom all things have come into being and in whom all things hold together. It's wild. Which brings me back to God's name. I am who I am. I will be who I will be. You can almost hear, can't you? God declaring a wildness for God's self. I will be who I will be as if to say, I can't be domesticated. I refuse to be tamed. Try as they might. I can't be contained in books or locked inside. Sanctuaries are controlled by empire or theologians or academics or politicians or even Methodists. There's a dynamism to this God, a wildness. And what happens if we rewild our understanding of who God is? What happens if we let God surprise us and show up in all kinds of unexpected places and all kinds of unexpected ways? What happens if we throw off man-made constraints and move beyond the square boxes and square books and square screens perhaps? We would find ourselves in good company with people like Pildegard of Bingen, a 12th century mystic who saw God's animating force present all over the natural world and its beauty and its vitality, something she described as God's veraditas or greening power, giving life to all things. Or maybe we see through the eyes of the 19th century scientist and Jesuit priest Pierre Teard de Chardin, who has his own burning bush moment hearing a voice from within the earth saying do not be afraid to see matter is sacred, it is I. Or maybe your faith, your own faith begins to feel a bit more alive, a bit more expansive, brimming with a new energy, with a new way of describing what you experience. God present to you in a peace that surpasses all understanding over a meal and a challenging conversation and a sunset and a stirring and a gut feeling and the first cry of a child in a moment of awe and wonder in an evolution in some other way that defies explanation. A moment in which you have sensed that the distance between heaven and earth is collapsed, what our Celtic Christian siblings would call thin space, thin space, a threshold where all you can do is take off your shoes, all of which brings me back to Moses taking off his shoes before this wild, untamed God. And if you want to do that this morning, feel free. Feel free. I know I don't know about you, but one other place that I do take off my shoes is when I enter somebody else's house. Anybody else do that? And for someone like Moses who's on the run, who's been rejected by his own people, who identifies as a stranger in a strange land, maybe God telling Moses to take off his shoes. There's another way of saying, hey, you're home here. You're home here here with me here on this land here in this world. Maybe it's an invitation to return home to who he was made to be, which is after all what the whole process of rewilding is all about. And if we follow a wild God, I will be who I will be. It means that as those made in God's image, there's a wildness in us inherent to a freedom in us too to walk the edges, to explore the thresholds, to be set free from a tame, domesticated, stagnant faith and instead be surprised by the call of the wild inviting us to follow the way of Jesus and move beyond, move beyond barriers that divide and isolate, walk the edges of human-made systems that oppress and push against those boundaries, feel the holy ground beneath our feet, every bush, a fire with God as the poet, Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote. And reclaim anew the sacredness that imbues every living thing in every person. It's been there all along. So take off your shoes. This is holy ground and go be wild. In the name of Jesus, Amen. - Thank you for joining today. If this episode has been meaningful to you, would you take a moment to share it with a friend? To support this ministry or learn more about our community, visit us at churchonmorgan.org. (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) [BLANK_AUDIO]