The Hidden God

Exodus 33: 12-23

Moses said to the Lord, “See, you have said to me, ‘Bring up this people’; but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.’ ¹³Now if I have found favor in your sight, show me your ways, so that I may know you and find favor in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people.” He said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”  And he said to him, “If your presence will not go, do not carry us up from here. ¹⁶For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people, unless you go with us? In this way, we shall be distinct, I and your people, from every people on the face of the earth.” ¹⁷The Lord said to Moses, “I will do the very thing that you have asked; for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.” ¹⁸Moses said, “Show me your glory, I pray.” ¹⁹And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim before you the name, ‘The Lord’; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. ²⁰But,” he said, “you cannot see my face; for no one shall see me and live.” ²¹And the Lord continued, “See, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock; ²²and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by; ²³then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back; but my face shall not be seen.”

This feminine image of the Spirit is taken from artist Doris Klein's website: http://www.dorisklein.com/feminine.html.  Ruah, the title of the painting, is a feminine Hebrew word meaning breath, wind, inspiration or spirit. This image portrays God as an older, wise woman who breathes spirit and life into a figure gently supported in her hands.

What kind of God do you need?

The reading from Exodus tells us what kind of God Moses thought HE needed.

Although in some respects the Moses story is a narrative about Moses and the people he is leading, at its essence, the Moses story is about Moses and the God who leads him, even as that God remains somewhat hidden from him.  You’ll recall that, according to the biblical story, the Moses-and-God relationship began when God spoke to Moses in a burning bush and Moses responded by asking for God’s name.  God replied evasively:  “I Am Who I AM.”  As the Moses story nears its conclusion and Moses nears the end of his life, Moses asks, according to today’s reading, to SEE the one whom he has never been able to name.  Again, God slips from Moses’s grasp.  “I’ll be present to you,” God assures him (verse 13).  “And my goodness will pass before you” (verse 19).  “But,” he says, “you will never see my face.”  Moses wants to name God and to see God.  Instead, God promises to be present with Moses and to give him evidence of God’s goodness.  But Moses’ God will never be definitively namable or fully visible.  Moses’ God is bigger than a single name or image.  In fact, in the Ten Commandments God had given Moses, near the top of the list, are restrictions on the use of God’s name and the creation of God’s image. 

Like Moses, we often want to summon and relate to God on our terms.  We often think the part of God we have been shown is the totality of God.  But over and over again, God says, “You cannot reduce me to your words and images.  What you DO experience of me is only a small part of the Divine Mystery.”  Yet we keep forgetting that God—the “I Am Who I Am”—is always more than what we imagine God to be.  We freeze God into familiar poses and lock God into little boxes of our creation.  And whenever we convince ourselves that ONE name for God captures God’s totality, we construct a false idol rather than experience the presence and goodness of God that can never be contained.  We worship the Father-God, believing that one image IS God.  When we rely on one or a few names for God, we commit idolatry and prevent ourselves from a fuller experience of the Sacred.  In God’s basic ground rules, conferred from Mt. Sinai, God is saying, “To fully experience my presence and goodness, you can’t reduce me to your culture’s idea of who I am.”

And yet we verbal, visual creatures need words and images to process our experiences.  Perhaps what we can try to do is simply remember that our God Talk and God Pictures are incomplete.  So we keep reaching for more expansive and inclusive ways of expressing who God is—and who God’s people are.

God’s people, I believe, come from all ages, races, cultures, physical abilities, socio-economic levels, sexual orientations . . . and genders.  The United Church of Christ (www.ucc.org) considers it a matter of justice to speak about people in inclusive ways, and since gender inclusion has presented a particular challenge for reforming Christian discourse, let me specifically lobby for gender-inclusive language.  Until 30-40 years ago, masculine pronouns were the default pronouns in the English language.  That practice is no longer considered grammatical--or just.  The word “men” at one time was used to represent men and women; the word “mankind” was used to mean “all people."  But those terms sometimes did just refer to men, leaving it up to women to try to figure out through the context if they were really included in a statement.  Using gender-inclusive language is a way to make God’s welcome explicit.  Besides, gender-inclusive language is often more true to the original Hebrew and Greek words of the Bible.  For instance, in the original Greek the angel greeted the shepherds with the Christmas message of “peace on earth, good will to all people”—rather than “good will to men”—as the KJV later translated those originally inclusive words.  We’re sometimes more biblical in using words that explicitly include both genders.

The fact that grammar handbooks for the last 30 years have prescribed gender-inclusive language shows how mainstream is this expectation—in the academy, in commerce, in law.  To say “people" rather than “mankind“ is not a matter of political correctness; it is a matter of simple justice.  Because words matter.  Language not only reflects our world—it shapes our world.  If the children of Open Table grow up believing that male is the norm—they will understand their place in the world differently than if they hear in the words and images around them an equality between men and women—not a sameness, but an equality.  We can use language that does not privilege one gender over another.  We can create a culture that supports women and men equally in their spiritual growth and access to church leadership.  We don’t have to anxiously police one another’s speech any more than we need to police other ways we try to act with justice in an imperfect world.  But we can become more aware of ways our word choices affect our relationships and roles.

As society became increasingly aware of the way harmful attitudes about race or physical difference or sexuality or other differences are forged and perpetuated through language, theologians have been showing us that our language about God has also been in need of expansion. 

Did you recognize the chorus from an old hymn we sang after the Hebrew Bible reading?  How did you feel about altering the words “He hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock” to "SHE hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock”?  Did you find it irreverent to change the pronouns from male to female?  If so, why?  Is God a particular gender for you?  Does God have male anatomy—or any anatomy?  (time for silence)

Radical feminist Mary Daly came to believe that Christianity was irredeemably patriarchal.  She did not see how women could remain Christian and so she exited the Christian camp with this shocking explanation: “If God is male, then male is God. The divine patriarch castrates women as long as he is allowed to live on in the human imagination.”

But other feminist theologians acknowledge that while women have often been excluded and limited by the Church, Christian theology is inherently inclusive and loving—even if it hasn’t always been practiced so inclusively and lovingly.  Like these feminist Christians, I find myself hopeful that the Church is reforming.  And one way to do so is through an awareness of our worship words and images for God and humanity.

In 1995 the United Church of Christ published the most thoroughly inclusive hymnal to date.  It has been lauded for the addition of many new and beautiful lyrics to expand our images for God—such as the hymn “Bring Many Names” we sang at the start of our service.  The New Century Hymnal also altered many traditional hymns to eliminate “any suggestion that God is king, father, or lord”—images of God that are not only exclusively male but also, for some, troubling with their connotations of domination over others.[i]   The responses to this hymnal have varied.  As important as inclusive language is to me, I agree with some critics that some of the revisions are “clunky”.  But the songs we sing and the words we say are important—maybe more important than the cozy feeling we have when we sing a familiar hymn.  Maybe we are learning new songs now so that the ones who follow us will have familiar and inspiring words that include all people and that let God out of the box we’ve kept “him” in.

I may be the poorest of preachers, but one thing the children of Open Table will know is that God’s earthly representatives can come in female form.  Our little girls and boys will understand God and themselves differently because they have seen women and men serving God equally.  Christians have hidden the fullness of god behind masculine nouns and pronouns for God, but scholars are now rediscovering “rich feminine imagery for God and God’s people in scripture”[ii].  There are rich resources we have yet to mine.

Wittgenstein said that “the limits of our language are the limits of our world”[iii] .  Perhaps it is also true that the limits of our language are the limits of our God. 

If you have never imaged God as mother, I would encourage you to try that for just a moment.  And if that feels uncomfortable, then all the more reason to sit with that image for awhile.  Picture in your mind’s eye not your mother, but Mother God-- who blesses, who cares, who feeds, who nurtures and guides, who holds you and heals you.  (time for silence)

Moses thought he needed a God he could name and hold and see and control. 

I don’t want a God I can put in my pocket.  I don’t need a God I can call like a dog on command.

I need a God who holds me.  I need a God who summons me. 

God told Moses that he would never see God’s face.  I suppose you and I will never know if that divine face is feminine or masculine.  But I doubt that God is a physical being.  What we can see is OF God, not God.  What we see is what God leaves in God’s wake: goodness and glory.  We see God’s back, according to this story, as God slips on ahead of us, trailing behind goodness.  That’s how we experience God, says the Moses story.  If you try to pour concrete around God, you’ll realize you’ve built a garden variety idol.  For God is on the move: a force for good, an energy of life and love.  We feel God’s presence.  And wherever goodness is found, we catch the faintest glimpse of God.  For me that glimpse is sometimes aglow in shades of palest pink.

Benediction:  May the blessing of God go before you.  May her grace and peace abound.  May her spirit live within you.  May her love wrap you round.  May her blessing remain with you always.  May you walk on holy ground.  (Miriam Therese Winter)

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[i] Sokolove, Deborah.  “More Than Words” in New Feminist Christianity: Many Voices, Many Views.  Eds. Mary Hunt and Diann L. New.  Woodstock: Skylights Path, 2010, pp. 186-187.

[ii] http://www.ucc.org/worship/inclusive-language/

[iii] Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Qtd. by Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza.  “Critical Feminist Biblical Studies” in New Feminist Christianity: Many Voices, Many Views.  Eds. Mary Hunt and Diann L. New.  Woodstock: Skylights Path, 2010, p. 89.

Miriam's Ministry of Presence

for Open Table

Sermon text:  Exodus 1:8-2:10 
(Note: I'm deviating from the Revised Common Lectionary for a 3-part sermon series on the Hebrew Bible character, Miriam.)

            The Bible’s first story about Miriam may seem to place her in a merely supporting role.  Her name is not even disclosed until chapters later.  But Miriam will become the first person, male or female, the Bible identifies as a prophet (Bellis 102).  Because the cultures that produced the Bible were patriarchal, it is no wonder there are fewer stories about the mothers of our faith than the fathers of our faith, though women of extraordinary faith certainly existed in the past as they do today.  Yet careful Bible study reveals quite a number of women whose stories did manage to survive that bias.  The sister of Moses and Aaron is one of my favorite models for ministry.  In each of the three sermons in this series on Miriam, I hope to use parts of her story to engage us as a congregation in thinking about our own ministry.  As a young congregation, we’ve not yet had time to talk intentionally about many aspects of congregational life.  Miriam’s stories give us a chance to do that.  Specifically, Miriam can teach us about 1) how we care for one another, 2) how we worship and pray together, and 3) and how we strengthen our sense of community. 

            Moses, of course, is clearly the hero of Exodus who frees his people from Egyptian bondage.  But the book of Exodus begins by focusing on women, without whom the exodus event could not have been accomplished.  The women are the first liberators of the Hebrew people.  You don’t believe me?  Look back at the first chapter of Exodus.  Here are mentioned two midwives, Puah and Shiphrah, cleverly defying Pharaoh’s order to kill all male Hebrew babies at birth.  Instead, they devise a ruse to protect the newborns.  In chapter 2 we are introduced to a Levite mother, later identified as Jochebed, who realizes she can no longer hide her 3-month-old son and saves him by letting another woman raise him.  Then there’s that other woman, Pharaoh’s daughter, who raises the eventual liberator of the Hebrews.  Could the Hebrew people have been liberated without these loving, courageous, clever women?  The people’s freedom began in THEIR hearts.

            But the fifth woman in the Moses story is our focus today and the next 2 Sundays.  Our attention this evening is on young Miriam.  She seems to do very little in this story; she speaks only once.  At first glance the tale hardly foreshadows Miriam’s eventual power as a prophet—which I’ll get to next week when it will become clear that this female’s role was neither silent nor marginal.  But even in today’s simple story, the few words Miriam speaks proved critical.  The Egyptian princess, curious about the floating basket, had merely observed that the child was Hebrew.  “This must be one of the Hebrew’s children” could have meant, in light of her father’s edict, that someone needed to “dispose” of him.  But Miriam perhaps read a glimmer of pity in this woman’s face.  Without directly appealing for the child’s life—an act of treason—Miriam took a clever tack:  she offered this woman in moral crisis an easy way to do the right thing.  No ethical debate was necessary.  God had softened the woman’s heart; Miriam provided a practical way to obey that tug of conscience.  Neither had to speak an explicit word of treason in the presence of the others.  “Let me get a nurse,” Miriam said, and the implication was: “You can save this child and can love him as your own.”

            We, too, can use God-given ingenuity to make it easier for others to do the right thing.  Our job may be as simple as finding practical ways to educate our community about a new unjust state law that separates immigrant families and turns good Samaritans into criminals.  “Here," our own Jenni Currie said yesterday to those at the Immigration Awareness Gathering, "let me offer you some information.” “Here,” Miriam said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “let me find you a nurse.”  We can be a conduit of freedom, justice, life. (See this link for an article on an event many in our congregation attended Saturday out of concern for Alabama's recent anti-immigrant law:  http://blog.al.com/live/201/08/group_protests_alabamas_new_im.html.)

            Miriam’s active assistance, however, is not her only role.  When we first meet Miriam, she is a quiet, unseen presence, wading along that reed-lined river bank, not taking her eye off the baby in the basket.  The gaps in this story make me wonder what exactly were Miriam’s instructions from Jochebed, her mom.   “I don’t know what to tell you, Honey,” Jochebed might have begun. “Just stay near your little brother, and for heaven’s sake, watch out for the crocodiles!” Our scripture reports with sparse detail that Moses’ sister “stood at a distance, to see what would happen to him” (Gen. 2:4).   Not much of a plan! Her job was to watch and wait.  Not much of a role.  Miriam must have wondered what good her quiet presence could possibly accomplish. 

            We, too, are called sometimes simply to be present with another who is as alone and vulnerable as a baby floating in a basket.  Some of you have stood vigil with friends and family in a hospital waiting room, just being there, not necessarily doing.  You have held the hand of a friend in trouble.  You have comforted a child who has experienced failure.  You have stood by and listened, just listened, to the outpouring of some anguish.  You have judged the right time to say something—but not much. 

            Now is the time, Open Table, early in our history, for us to consider ways we can be present to one another in those eventual times of tragedy or sorrow.  When one of us is hurting, physically or emotionally, what we may need from one another is simple, quiet, sensitive presence.  No platitudes that everything’s going to turn out just fine.  No advice when none has been requested.  No forced cheeriness that denies someone else’s honest feelings.  Sure, there are times when we need others to help us solve problems.  But most of the time we need to feel we have been heard.  Young Miriam stands at some distance from the child, possibly for a very long time, and speaks only once at just the right moment.  Notice she speaks in the form of a question: “Shall I go and get you a nurse from the Hebrew women?” At times it is appropriate to connect another to our ultimate source of help.  But often we simply stand alongside those in need or ask good questions that the other uses to reach her own conclusions.

            Thankfully, the ministry of presence is not a specialized gift for the few.  Some churches “deputize” and train certain lay leaders to care for the sick and bereaved in their midst.  Some churches have staff members hired for those purposes.  At least for now, each of us is charged with noticing others’ needs and reaching out to them.  All it takes is for us to be aware of another’s pain, and be willing not to run from that pain.  In our anesthetized culture we are not very practiced in being present with those who are hurting.  Our culture dispenses alcohol, food, entertainment, shopping, even sheer busyness as numbing agents that distract us from the hard work of facing life.  We can’t handle our own pain, and we certainly don’t want to be around the pain of others.  The most difficult aspect of my training as a hospital chaplain involved remembering that it was not my job to cheer up the patients I attended.  That training in listening went against my inclination to offer advice or cheer.  My instinct is to run from someone’s pain or anger.  But in ministry we sometimes are called just to BE with someone in pain.  Each of us is called, at times, into this kind of ministry.

            One woman tells the story of having to make a necessary trip to a dentist during the weeks she was spending at the hospital as her newborn child was slowly dying in the neonatal intensive care unit.  The only time this young mother had left the hospital in those weeks was for this emergency visit to the dentist.  Probably noting the woman’s exhaustion but not knowing her situation, the dentist asked her, “Are you okay?  Are you ill” to which the mother replied, “I’m not sick.  I’ve given birth to a child who has only days to live.”  And then her tears started to flow, unbidden.  Without a word, the dentist turned and walked out of the room.  At first the woman thought he’d gone to get some implement and would return.  Clearly he had not finished because she was left pinioned to the elevated chair with the dental tray in her lap.  But the dentist never came back.  She was left stranded in a dental chair because this decent man could not bear to be in the presence of that kind of pain. 

            When we minister to others in Christ’s name we sometimes have the very simple, very challenging responsibility of representing Christ’s abiding, unflinching presence. These are times to put aside our own needs to fix someone or to take care of our own discomfort.  These are times to watch, wait, listen with our whole heart, and perhaps speak at just the right time, in just a few words.  These can be sacred moments.

            A former seminary professor of mine illustrates the ministry of presence by telling about an unlikely exemplar of that gift.  Dr. Diane Lobody was raised in the Bronx.  Several family members worked in or near the World Trade Center.  On the day after 9/11, she was teaching a class at the seminary in Ohio, still waiting to hear if friends and family in New York had perished in the previous day's tragedy.  She tried to begin the class seated at the front of the room, but soon she was overcome with emotion.  Now in that particular class was a blind student whose seeing eye dog spent each class session beneath his master’s desk, as still and unobtrusive as the back packs that littered the classroom floor.  But as Diane began to cry, the dog left his master and approached the professor, placing his paw in her hand.  Instinctively, Diane began to pet the dog.  Gradually, Diane regained her composure and was able to continue the lesson.  And for the remainder of the class, the dog sat with her, his paw in her hand.  This service dog had sensed who really needed his presence that difficult day. 

            As disciples of Jesus ministering to a hurting world, you and I are sometimes called to simply bear witness to God’s loving presence beside a vulnerable soul among the dangerous river reeds.  We don’t need to offer simplistic solutions.  Sometimes, like Miriam, we can speak up at just the right moment.  We might recommend a spiritual book, invite a friend to Open Table, share a story from our own spiritual journey. Sometimes we suggest a creative solution so that a morally conflicted person can do the right thing.  But mostly Miriam shows me that we may simply need to be with one who is alone and vulnerable, be there when words fail, be there as a human manifestation of God’s loving presence. As Frederick Buechner has said, "It is no wonder that just the touch of another human being at a dark time can be enough to save the day."

            One reason we practice moments of silence together here is to resist our culture’s expectation that we fill every human encounter with words and noise.  The spiritually mature can appreciate the pregnant pause, can mine the silence for meaning, can draw strength and comfort from a gentle touch, a steady gaze.  The spiritually mature can feel deeply another’s heartbreak and yet remain bravely committed to standing alongside the heartbroken.

            This soul-satisfying solidarity is possible because we are not alone.  The Comforting Spirit that unites us is with us even as we are standing with others.  The Spirit of Jesus the Compassionate is with us “to the end of the age”—as he promised.  We are not alone among the river reeds.  We are not alone in illness, in loss, in financial distress, in emotional despair.  We are not alone.  Thanks to be to God!

PRAYER

Ever present God,

Teach us to wait and watch.

Grant us the loving patience to bear with those who are hurting, to be fully present with another in sorrow or pain.

May we be as Christ to all whom we meet. 

We pray in the name of Jesus and his enduring Spirit of compassion.   Amen.

Bellis, Alice Ogden.  Helpmates, Harlots, Heroes: Women’s Stories in the Hebrew Bible.  Louisville:  Westminster/John Knox Press,  1994.

Buechner, Frederick.  Whistling in the Dark: An ABC Theologized.  HarperCollins,  1988.