CONFRONTING GOD, CONFRONTING OURSELVES
Exodus 3:1-6; Isaiah 6:1-8; I John 4:9-12

Get real Moses!

Who in the world is going to believe that you confronted God in a bush talking back to you? In fact, I would be willing to guess that most of us have never encountered God in such dramatic and literal ways. Make’s you sometimes wonder about what God was thinking in these ancient stories: the hardly—if-at-all—believable appearances of God, and God’s messengers, in ways that often make little or no sense to the rational mind. Or do they?! Or, do they need to?

If what I’ve heard several times is to be believed—and some Marney stories are right on the edge of belief for sure—one Sunday morning in the almost unbearable heat of the ‘60s civil rights struggle, Carlyle Marney walked up into this pulpit, leaned over this desk, looked out on this congregation and confessed, “Last night I had a dream. I dreamed I saw God. And, she’s black!”
Mine wasn’t quite as pungent, but recently I dreamed that as soon as the acolytes lighted the trinity candles on the altar, God—not quite as vivid as in Marney’s dream—jumped down from that altar, soared through the chancel, and stopped right here in the crossing and stared at us. God stopped,/ and waited for us to respond. God waited,/ and waited,/ and waited,/ and for all I know is still waiting,/ because right after that I woke up.

Both of these dreams remind me of a line from the American beat-generation poet Lawrence  Ferlinghetti:

I am waiting
For them to prove
That God is really American
And I am waiting
To see God on television
Piped into church altars
If they can find
The right channel To tune it in on….

Like Marney’s dream and mine, the Biblical texts for today raise some very serious questions about confronting God, and, ultimately, confronting ourselves and the world in the midst of that encounter with God . And, the questions are not easy to digest either, if we take them seriously enough to begin to let our faith mature.

FIRST, one has to wonder—when God confronts us—why bushes don’t burn and temples don’t shake like they use to. Simply put, as in another familiar Hebrew Bible encounter, God doesn’t need fire, wind, thunder, earthquakes or bushes when confronting us; merely a quiet, small voice will do—sometimes one so quiet, and so small, we may miss God in the hearing if we are not careful. Some of you are looking at me and thinking, well I’ve never heard God, and really don’t expect to—literally, that is. No bushes in my life. Oh! But, is it that God has never spoken, or is it that our minds have been roaming so much that we haven’t recognized the signals for what they are?

Saying that God has not spoken to us (whether or not we’ve heard it) may suggest that we believe we have an “uncalled” life—a life devoid of God speaking—a life that is self-centered, a life that is empty. BUT, THAT IS JUST NOT THE WAY THIS GOD OF ABRAHAM AND JESUS WORKS. What we are really saying is that we have not had a burning bush episode; but that does not mean that God has not confronted us. It may well mean that we have not recognized the form of the bush or tone of the voice that is in our life and beside us more often that we may think. It may be that too often we have relegated God’s appearances to the edges of our existence,/ in some compartment not unlike a fantasy video game that you feel you can manipulate at will with a holy controller under your supervision. This God of convenience may make an occasional appearance on Sunday morning, or in a “get-me-out-of-this-hole” emergency, but rarely ever in the Monday-Saturday world of work, relationships, decisions, and the rabid individualism of American independence.
 

But, God does speak. And, not in the same ways as in the past of others, or with the same voice that others have heard, or at the most convenient of times for any of us. Even Martin Luther admitted so in his confession that his commentary on the book of Romans came to him while answering the call of nature. And that is certainly not either usual or convenient. Peculiarly speaking, this God whom we confess to believe in does not choose the most convenient or the most appropriate time to come crashing into our existence, trying to get our attention to see and involve ourselves in this world of God’s creation. That peculiarity may well be why we often either do not listen or fail to appreciate that it is God speaking—and because it is just not as dramatic as “build a boat” or “free my people” or “let yourself be put on a cross” for the sake of my creation. Maybe it’s not from a bush, or from a pulpit, or a fiery energy from an altar. It just may well be that when God speaks to us it is from a client, a patient, a student, a neighbor, a teacher, a friend, a child, a lover, a spouse, or any of a myriad of circumstances that we may think God would not normally touch with a ten-foot pole.

We need to believe—even if we do not recognize the nudging of God in the person or circumstance—that we are never alone, we are never autonomous. God is present and always speaking in both the brightest and the darkest, most desolate times and places. And, to survive and hope we need to confess that is so. God is likely speaking most of the time in peculiar ways that don’t seem like the conventional stories we have been told. But, if we take the infinite presence of God seriously, nobody ever said God was conventional. Moses was not eager to recognize God, neither was Isaiah, nor was Gideon or countless others—even Jesus finally had to cry out, “Not my will but yours,” when confronted by God in the garden. God does appear; God does speak; we do confront God; and sometimes in the most “God-awful ways imaginable”. Watch, wait, anticipate…but not for the conventional: I’d also be quite surprised if God appeared in the ways that popular religious literature suggests: raptures, Da Vinci codes, and alligator hides notwithstanding. Ordinarily—and the experience of most suggests—God is more of a sneaker than a crasher, so be careful that you do not dismiss God’s appearance in the simple times as well: while peeling a potato, or changing a diaper, or scouring the sink or gassing up the car.

SECOND, when God confronts us we may not always—in fact most of the time we probably do not—recognize just how sacred that moment and that confrontation is. We expect God to be in a building such as this—and it may be. Or it may not be. But, wherever it is, do not forget in that moment, in that place, that that place is for that time holy ground for you and for God. Seize it if you can recognize it. For, it is a place and time that is in the midst of transforming you. It may be no more than a sunrise, a sunset, a hug, a call from a friend, an intimate affirmation of who you are from someone: lover or spouse, friend or stranger. Maybe it’s an unlikely time or place, or even the refusal of someone to do what you want or think you need. But accept that place as your holy ground and wallow in it as long as you can when you do recognize it. Understand that God confronts us in some of the most unusual of circumstances—but the time and the place can be transforming and we ourselves can be transformed if we are willing to consider the possibility that confrontation is occurring and the possibilities of that confrontation for our lives beyond that moment, unlikely though it may seem at the time.

THIRD, never forget that everyone’s confrontation with God is not the same. While I may not always be eager to agree with Goethe that we create God in our own image, who God is for you is defined in terms of your past, your present and your future. Never let anyone define for you the “who” and “how” and “why” of your relationship with God. That is your time, your place, your experience. The God who confronted Moses did so in terms of Moses own personal memory of ancient patriarchs whose names meant something to him. Your confrontation with God is in terms of your experience, your memory, not someone else’s. You may share similarities with someone else’s memory, someone else’s time and space of God, and that is what makes religious communities possible—the shared experiences, the shared memory, the shared understanding. But, you confront God most intimately in terms of who you are, not in terms of who somebody else is. Confront yourself and discover the ways that God is being present for you in distinctly individual ways. And, be very careful that you do not let anyone—and I mean anyone—tell you the “what” and “how” of your confrontation with God, or what you must or must not believe about God. Not even me in my pontificating this morning. Maybe, especially that! And, if anyone objects to the particular telling of your confrontation with God and denigrates your belief or your path, then simply turn your mind from them. Religion has too many “belief fascists” who insist you believe as they do about confronting God or your own self-understanding of God. If God created you in God’s image, then by golly, God gave you the freedom—and the responsibility—to encounter God in terms that God has set out for you individually: not in imitation of someone else’s encounter, but instead in the midst of the reality of how you see and appreciate God and this world. That’s what Baptists mean by soul competency and you need to seize it and your own understanding of God as your free gift as God’s creation. One of the most frightening characteristics of contemporary Christianity (and of Christianity’s history) is that some individual or some group establishes themselves as the moderator of correct belief—those “belief fascists”—and do not give you the chance to make your own discoveries. Whether it is in the demands of the creationists, or the 10-commandment pushers, or advocates of prayer in school, or WHATEVER, remember you are the one who seizes for yourself the moment of God’s confrontation with you.

This leads us to the FOURTH point I want to make about confronting God and ourselves:
Whatever God is, is not necessarily limited to what any one person or community believes. Faith communities arise because of accepted common understandings, but the most honest and freest of faith communities will not insist that you toe a rigid line regarding your confrontation with God. Taken seriously, and listen carefully that you do not misunderstand me, this means, at least in part, that God does not necessarily need to be perceived as either male, or female, straight, or bi, or gay, or red, or yellow, or black or white, or rich or poor, or uptown or redneck, or a host of other limiting understandings of God. God may well be all of these, but to insist that one must accept God as any one of these alone, or all of these, or even somewhere in between, is to manipulate another’s own confrontation with God. It is an arrogance that limits God’s ways of confronting us.

To be quite candid, when you do discover God in your confrontation you may discover that God is what you expected, and more besides: If God was in Christ reconciling the world to God, and if Luther was right that we must be Christs—that is, the presence of God—to our neighbors, then our confrontations with God take on a new and hitherto unexplored dimension. God is certainly in the saints of the Church, but just possibly God also may confronts us in a flaming drag queen as much as in a poor, desperate child in the slums of India or Charlotte; God may confront us as much in the words of a wise lawyer as in a wealthy financier, in a IT tekki as much as in a caring medical professional; in someone who can neither draw a straight line or carry a tune in a bucket as much as in a gifted artist with talent exuding from fingers and voice. God is this, yes, and more, much, much more. Whoever you are, look into yourself and discover who you are and who God is for you.

In a recent sermon a visiting minister said he advised someone that she should come into the church and begin to repeat what that church believes about God—even if she did not believe it. And, eventually she would come to believe it from saying it again and again. If I may be so bold as to disagree: DON’T FOR ONE MINUTE TAKE THAT ADVICE WHEN LOOKING AROUND FOR YOUR CONFRONTATION WITH GOD AND WITH YOURSELF. We have enough hypocrisy in the world, in society, and in the church, without forcing ourselves to say about God what we do not believe. I’m going to let you in on a secret about myself this morning: If in worship, I come to words in the litany or in a hymn and I do not believe them, I just shut up. And I recommend the same for you. God already knows my understanding of who God is, and that it does not encompass what is being said or what is being sung at that particular moment. So, the only person I am fooling in saying it or singing it are those around me. God knows otherwise.

When you confront God, do so honestly. Say, pray, and sing what you believe about your confrontation with God and with yourself, and let the rest lie fallow until such time as you can believe—or not. Hold onto what you can believe, consider what you cannot believe, and let your confrontation with God continue to grow in the process. In fact, it may not be so much “what you believe” or “how you believe” but that what and how you believe is with a mind open to the possibilities that God may confront you and that in doing so you may thereby confront yourself and God’s world with an honesty and integrity you are beginning to discover in yourself through this freedom. After all, that may well be what’s most important about citizenship in the Kingdom of God: the freedom to say to God: “I believe; help my unbelief.”

In the movie, Chicken Run, one of the barnyard animals reminds the other chickens: “It’s not the fences around the farm that keep us here; it’s the fences around your brains.” When you confront God, you have the right—no, the responsibility and the integrity—to tear down the fences around your brain and your heart and let God in to be as intimate with you as you are willing to allow: with God as responsible parent, as loving child, as male, as female, as lover, as friend, as master, as servant, as sibling, as whatever ways you can encounter God and let God encounter you. God is here, next to you, and within you, wherever you are. My advice to you, for what it’s worth, is for you to grab hold of God and let God grab hold of you, regardless.

AMEN

BLESSING AND BENEDICTION.
Go with God this morning and this week. And, as you go believe that wherever you are, whoever is around you, in what ever circumstance you find yourself, that God is there. Grab hold of God and let God grab hold of you, even where it hurts! AMEN.