Saturday 30 August 2008

Moses and the Burning Bush (Kids' Talk)


Pentecost 16(A)

What would God have to do to get your attention?...
How about making the lights go off, now! (Have this organised)
They'll see through it. If they don't go with the whole miraculous thing as getting their attention.

Then into the story. Last week we left Moses growing up in the palace of the king, called Pharaoh. Moses fought with the Pharaoh, and so he had to leave and go and live in the desert as a shepherd. For a long time. But God came to Moses becasue God has a special task for him. And to get his attention God made a bush burn without burning away.

Can anyone think of other ways in the Bible God gets people's attention?...

The most important way was the cross of Jesus. That gets our attention because it shows us how much God loved us.

The Great 'I AM' of Exodus 3


Sunday August 31, 2008; Pentecost 16(A) Exodus 3, the burning bush and the great 'I AM'.

Strange name: I AM. This is partly God's way of avoiding ancient paganism's method of controlling a god by knowing the god's name. But there is more than this at work here. We are being asked to stretch our theological imaginations.

'I AM' is incomplete. I might say of myself, 'I am a human,' or 'I am Warren Huffa'. 'I am' needs further explanation and definition. In this way I am who I am over-and-against that which I am not. I am human, not a rock. But not so God. God needs no further definition than 'I AM'. God is already complete, and in no need to be defined over-against anything else. God just is.

This is stretching the theological imagination. God is complete, and is so without reference to me or you. (Or anything at all, for that matter.) Nothing more can be added to God, or God's life. God is already full and complete. An absolute fullness.

Sounds remote, self-sufficient and transcendent. Nothing could be further from the truth! In fact exactly the opposite is the truth. For example, God is love, a complete fullness of love already; loving us does not add anything to God. And rather than this making God cold and distant it ensures that God's love is a free gift, with no ulterior motive (no matter how laudable) for God's benefit (not even a win-win for God and us). And because there is no ulterior benefit God's love is entirely trustworthy, because God won't arbitrarily change for the sake of God's changing needs. (This is the point Rowan Williams makes in chapter 1 of Tokens of Trust.)

Let's stretch our imaginations a little more. Jesus claims this great 'I AM' in the Gospels. Especially in John in those "I am ...": the bread of life, the good shepherd, the light of the world. And most especially John 8: "Before Abraham was, I am." But not only in John. In Matthew's version of the miracle of Jesus walking on water, Jesus calms the disciples with the "I am". So Jesus is claiming that God, who is complete and full, who is not defined over and against anthing else but just 'is', this Goid, has taken flesh in Jesus. Jesus, who is defined as himself by not being someone else, or not being a rock. How very un-Godlike. The Jesus who becomes tired, who thirsts, who weeps, and, most especially, who dies a failure on the cross. How very un-Godlike. That stretches the theological imagination.

Let's stretch it a little bit more. We hear in the Gospel today that the evidence of this claim is to be found in this most un-Godlike aspect of Jesus: his death on the cross. Not just a temporary aberration from which we should avert our eyes in embarrassment, but the evidence we need to know th claim is true. Now that stretches the imagination to breaking point - or the reformulation of who God is.

Indeed, and this is the point. The God who is absolute fullness is the fullness of love because of the cross of Jesus. There is no interruption between God and Jesus, and because of this what we say of Jesus can be predicated of God. The cross of Jesus becomes the cross of God, and God becomes the God who is for us. (Rom 8:31)

Where Are You?

St John's Chapel address, weeks 5 & 6 Term 3, 2008.

[Adam and Eve, the two figures representative of all human beings, have disobeyed God, eating the fruit that they were deceived into believing would make them into gods. They are scared and disoriented, and God comes to find them.]

A reading from the Book of Genesis.

"Adam and Eve heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and they hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the them, and said to them, ‘Where are you?’ Adam said, ‘I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.’ "

For the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.


Think of ... (I used an example of a cruel and violent act perpetrated by one person on someone trying to help them)

And the person who did it? What would you say to them? Perhaps, 'Why did you do that?' or 'Who are you, this is so below our common humanity, you have transgressed some of the most basic behaviours that we take for granted to be human community.'

In the language of Genesis, God says, Where are you? The idea is that we have wandered far off (we’re lost). In Genesis the evidence that we have wandered far off is human arrogance, hubris is the word, the arrogance to think we can be like God, and this arrogance shows itself in murder and vengeance and increasing violence. As basic as that. Not far off really. Genesis might use strange stories (like today’s) to communicate it. But if you were to read the first 11 chapters of Genesis, that is the point. Humanity – remember I have said previously that Genesis thinks that we are Adam and Eve – has wandered far off.

Alexander Solzenhitsyn, who died recently, wrote The Gulag Archipelago, which was the book that help alert the world to the horror of the Soviet gulag. He had been there himself and experienced and seen the depravity and deprivation. He tells part of the story of the millions who were arrested, their interrogation and torture, and eventual deportation into the Siberian work camps. He says the reason the NKVD (KGB) agents could be so cruel and lethal, was because they no longer believed in God; they thought they were God. In the language of the Bible, hubris. In terms of Genesis 3: "Where are you?"

But that is not us. True. We are not the NKVD. But let’s think about that a little more. Maybe we are implicated somehow. Our society has structured the economy around utterly unsustainable practices, and become so dependent on those practices, that we are struggling to make the necessary changes to prevent ecological breakdown. In the language of Genesis, ‘Where are you?”

Or anyone who has used illicit drugs. Using drugs might seem cool but it kills someone else over in a third world country who gets caught up in the violence that surrounds the manfacture and distribution of drugs. And remember, the same gangs producing and selling the drugs operate the modern slave trade around the world. In the language of Genesis, 'Where are you?'

The signs are everywhere. We can all see it around us. Even here at the school; exclusion ridicule at times. Does this ever happen? Bullying? And do we stand up against it? Not the gulag I agree, far from it, but multiply these small acts millions of times around the world and …

Today, let us hear the question God asks of each of us: where are you? In the Bible Adam and eve need to find their way back to God. And we are Adam and Eve.

And the Biblical answer to the open ended question of our lostness is Jesus. A new Adam, and a new humanity.