SUNDAY SERMON
A Sermon by the Rev. Dr.
Jack E. Skiles
August 31, 2008
GO AHEAD! SAY "NO"
TO GOD!
Exodus
3:1-15; Matthew 16:21-28
Labor
Day 2008. This weekend is the unofficial end of summer, like Memorial
Day is the unofficial first day of summer. I find as I get older
I am flooded with memories around certain days. I actually enjoy
sitting still for a moment or two remembering the depth of memories that
surround Labor Day in my life including getting married nineteen years
ago tomorrow.
Back
home on the farm where I grew up they knew about Labor Day, but they were
confused by it. Labor Day is really a union holiday used historically
to highlight labor verses management issues with a bent toward the positive
attributes for hourly workers as the result of unionizing efforts.
My father, the farmer, the manager of a large family, just thought it
was a day when you labored twice as hard. That's Labor Day!
Tomorrow,
Labor Day Monday, was in my childhood through my 18 th year the day when
we were forced by the manager of my family to pick not just one 8 ton
load of red ripe tomatoes for Del Monte, but two loads, sixteen tons and
what did we get, another year older and deeper in debt.
I
love this time of year. Out on the farm there is not a lot of activity
and everything is getting ripe. Really for the most part the growing
season is complete. When you walk across your farmland what you
smell is green becoming brown, the finishing touch of the summer season.
The harvest for farmers with corn and soybeans is still a few weeks away.
So
if you visit a farm not much is happening. Those Hoosier farmers
are just beginning to awaken from their late summer siestas. There
is no more planting, cultivating, weeding or making hay. They're
giving some serious thought to starting their harvesters, their combines,
to begin to cut through row after row, acre after acre of golden ripe
kernels.
But,
if you listen carefully, you can occasionally hear where farmers are….
From across the fields of seven-foot-high corn stalks, over in the woods
comes the crack of a 22 caliber rifle, maybe two cracks…; this is the
beginning of squirrel season.
Farmers
sit all alone out in the woods; they sit on the ground or up against a
big old sycamore tree. They bring nothing with them to eat, nothing
to read, they will sit or stand leaning absolutely still for hours, waiting
to blend into the tree, to become one with the tree in the squirrel's
eyes.
You
can blend too much sometimes. My farmer neighbor, Glen Royer, a
German immigrant's son, had leaned against his tree for nearly an hour,
looking out toward an old grove of apple trees, an orchard from a previous
era, just waiting for the squirrels to come hunting an apple for dinner.
What
occurred happened in seconds, though it will take a minute or two to describe.
In the warm last summer sun, Glen had done a Vulcan mind meld with a hickory
tree that he was leaning against. That was probably why the squirrel
that came running up behind him, chased by another squirrel, did not even
think twice before running up his Carhartt bib overalls.
Now
Glenn's wife and kids were back at the house across the creek working
out in the garden picking tomatoes. What they heard was a strange
combination—first, there was this scream, then a gunshot followed by another
scream, and two minutes later they saw Glenn running across the creek
out of the woods toward the house.
They
had never heard a squirrel scream before and usually the hunter doesn't
scream before he shoots. Maybe afterwards, but not normally.
Such shows of emotion are generally frowned upon down on the farm.
Well
what happened was this: the squirrels were chasing each other behind
Glenn, running after each other as squirrels are prone to do. Glenn
was nearly asleep so he didn't hear them coming. Granted, the shock
of an unknown animal climbing up your bib overalls is significant, but
in addition, you have to remember that squirrels don't have soft little
padded feet but claws that help them grip the tree as they go up and down.
Now
there were two squirrels. The first one climbed all the way up Glenn's
backside before Glen could hardly even react. By the time he did
react, he did so by turning around, which meant the other squirrel, before
it could turn on the brakes, was already committed to climbing up Glenn's
front side, and it stopped literally in front of his nose with the other
squirrel perched on top on his Sedalia Feed Store Cap with his bushy tail
hanging off the rear like an old Daniel Boone raccoon-skin hat.
Glenn
screamed a wide-open-mouthed holler. Luckily, the front squirrel
didn't see that big cavernous hole as a home to be explored. Glenn fired
off his gun just because he had his finger on the trigger.
Now
this is a true story. The shot went off and struck an old dead limb up
above him. Glenn fell over, shaking his body to free it from the
squirrels, which by this time had jumped to safety. Now on this
limb over Glenn's head had been perched an old mother raccoon who out
of fear had not moved, thinking Glenn was hunting her. The shot
caused the old mother raccoon to move out on this dead limb, which broke
off, and both limb and raccoon landed right next to Glenn's head.
When he was able to focus he was looking into the bandit face of mother
raccoon and both she and he screamed, for what was now the second time,
this wide mouth scream of terror. He rolled over and commenced running
away just in case anything larger and meaner was yet to come in his direction.
Hoosier
farmers would never let these stories become public if at all possible.
They practice damage control over their treasured stoic Hoosier farmer
nature at nearly all costs. No farmer wants stories of his being
out of control around squirrels and raccoons to become part of the public
record. But, not only had his wife and kids seen this happen, but
farmers three fields away heard the scream, shot, scream scenario.
Glenn knew it was better to tell the story than try to cover it up.
Now
Moses, who had grown up in Egypt as a powerful man, who then killed an
Egyptian, fled to the desert and connected himself to a well-to-do Jewish
sheep farmer. Moses was out walking to work one day as a shepherd
and a bush burst into flames and the flaming bush called out his name
and the voice of God's first request was for Moses to take off his shoes
for Moses was walking on holy ground.
How
many times in all the years of walking in that territory do you figure
Moses walked by that bush and never paid any attention to it at all?
Was it burning every time and Moses just noticed it this time? This story
of Moses and the very presence of God in this burning bush is called a
theophany or a divine encounter that not only serves to call Moses to
the vocation of the rest of his life but it also serves to tell us a great
deal about the nature of God.
I
cringe whenever I hear people say that the God of the OLD TESTAMENT is
a mean God of legal requirements calling regularly for the death of women,
children and anybody that is not on Israel's side, while the New Testament
is about how God is now in love with God's creation because God's anger
has been soothed in the redemptive death of Jesus on a cross.
First
it is not an old testament. It is a testament of folks who were
trying to make sense of God and the world. It is old, very
old in fact. But, the Bible is to be taken, both testaments, as a whole.
It is safe to say and to insist the recognition that God is given some
very bad PR in the Hebrew Scriptures. The people, who wrote, like
all historians, get to slant the story from the position of the winners
who write the history.
God
never called or calls for the destruction of anyone. Kings and Queens
, Generals and Presidents call for war. God does not believe in
war. It is safe to assume that Jesus spoke the nature of God most
clearly and unambiguously when Jesus said we are to love our enemies.
Now that is a faith statement from the very heart of God that is not easy
to live.
You
know that is true. Had we reached out in love rather than in revenge
seven years ago, we would be a great light unto the nations. When
one walks as if we are on holy ground, ground sacred to God, and offer
lovingly to listen and share what we have with integrity; some folks who
walk in love may have been killed before our enemies knew that we were
coming in peace. But the death toll would have been 99.9% less and
the resources we are using to destroy Afghanistan and Iraq could have
been used to reinforce and build up in loving concern toward those who
felt threatened by us. Like Gandhi, I think Western Civilization
is a great idea that we should try sometime.
Let's
go back to that crazy story of a burning bush. What does it take
for God to get your attention? How many people here are wondering
what you should be doing with your life, when you grow up? We live
in a college town. Thousands of people, amongst the sharpest and
brightest in the world come to Bloomington, feel called to Bloomington
and are hunting, seeking to determine while they are here in Bloomington,
Indiana, of all places, they're wondering and hoping that God will make
known to them what their purpose in life is.
Bloomington
, Indiana
, no less than the Vatican in Rome or the Ganges River in India or a sacred
mountaintop in South America: Bloomington is a burning bush place.
God is alive in this town, in this place, this is holy ground and many
of us, if not all of us, are called upon to be aspects of the flame of
God, the burning presence of God that is calling each one of us to vocation
and service in the ways of God.
The
story of Moses and the burning bush is not a mere children's tale.
It is not a story of a once in many lifetimes. It is one particular
story of a person who was running away from their vocation, their purpose
and when they turned from running because of their encounter with God,
their movement in faith saved a people, led a people, and lured a people
to become a people of God.
Now
the story is written with the bias that they become God's chosen people.
Gag me with a spoon. Such an interpretation is abhorrent to God.
God chooses everyone and everything in all of creation, human and non-human
and the very earth itself. All are chosen; everything is chosen
and valued and loved and are in a deep and intimate relationship with
God. You know that is true. I love a lot of people that don't
actively, consciously love me back. That doesn't stop me for a second
from fully loving them, wishing for them the very best; being ready to
pick them up if they fall, if they let me. You're the same way.
Loving people who have yet to respond back is part of the very nature
of God.
This
story from the second book in the First Testament tells us so much about
the nature of God. The next time someone suggests that the God of
the Old Testament is one mean dude, be ready to point them to the 3 rd
chapter of Exodus. This God experiences the suffering of the world.
This God feels the suffering and the hurts of the creation and is moved
by it, changed by it. This God hears the cries of the oppressed
and organizes a creative response of caring.
This
God of the First Testament, in contrast to apathetic, unfeeling deities
who have chosen the course of the world without our input, the God that
Moses encounters in the bush, is touched by pain and moved to action.
John Cobb and David Griffin describe this as “creative-responsive love.”
The God that Moses encounters is changed by what God experiences.
God so loves the people of Israel and, I believe, all people, and seeks
a solution by calling on a most unexpected leader, Moses, raised in Egyptian
royalty, on the run for murder and plagued as he was by a speech impediment.
This
God reveals breath and fire, gentleness and wildness, serenity and adventure
and calls us to be both contemplative and active in response to the God
we follow. Moses' encounter is an inspiration to seek God in the
ordinary moments, recognizing that such moments are always God-filled
and that in the midst of the ordinary, we, like Moses, may be called to
do extraordinarily ordinary things.
Everyone
here has a vocation and a calling that is particular and peculiar to us.
God is fully in and invested in each person here in this room and no matter
if we are in our nineties or if we are merely nine, God is calling and
expecting much out of us. There are folks who are retired from their
jobs, but I don't believe for a second that we can ever be retired from
serving God fully and completely. God is calling you this morning.
Go
ahead and say, “No,” to God. God understands our reluctance to be
our true selves, to give ourselves completely and fully. God will
not stop asking, not to worry. God will follow you out into the
desert, if need be, and ignite bush after bush, story after story, intellectual
pursuit and contemplative quiet time and say, “I am God and I have a deal
for you, but it will cost you. No matter if you don't think you
can or feel that you should. Moses had a very distinct speaking
problem, he stammered and was not quick on his feet and still he stood
before the greatest power in the world and said, “Let my people go!”
My
old neighbor Glenn Royer's experience was pivotal for him. He has
never gone squirrel hunting again. He believes that it was God running
up his backside, front side, and dropping down from above to get his attention.
He thinks that he was living life too quietly, just melding in, doing
a good job…, but, he believes today that God calls us to be like a lamp
shining in the darkness, bold, bright, believable and enticing others
with lives lived full of as much integrity as we can pack into them.
He tells me that there is not a profession or lifestyle or mindset or
song or design or computer program or administrative procedure that is
not calling forth from us the presence of God.
We
are called to serve God, to bring common sense and joy and hope and intellectual
freedom and professional expertise and management of resources and people
so that this world might fully express the lure of God.
Leave
this place knowing that God is right there ready to run up your backside
or front side or drop down from above and that even the ground we walk
on is God's holy ground, and feel and know and think the reality of God
in the choices that are ours alone to make. God cares deeply and
is surrounding each of us with loving concern and creative license to
be the unique folks we are. Light up your life, our world with the
brightness and hope of God.
God
chooses you. Now, choose God.
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