R E L A T I O N S H I P S :     L E A R N I N G   T O   F L Y

A SERMON FOR THE 24^TH SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME—A

October 19, 2014

by William F. Thomas II

Exodus 33:12-23

            ¹²Moses said to the Lord, “Look, you keep telling me, ‘Bring this people up,’ and you haven’t let me know whom you will send with me; and you keep saying, ‘I know you by name, and you have found favor in my eyes.’

            ¹³“Now, if I really have found favor in your eyes, teach me your ways so that I can know that I really have found favor in your eyes, and show your people, this great nation.”

            ¹⁴He said, “You will go before me and I will give you rest.”

            ¹⁵He said to him, “If you won’t go with us, don’t bring us up from this place.  ¹⁶How can anyone tell that I have found favor in your eyes, I and your people, unless you walk with us?  Isn’t that what makes us different, I and your people from every other people all over the world?”

            ¹⁷The Lord said to Moses, “I will do this thing also, the thing you have asked, because you have found favor in my eyes, and I know you by name.”

            ¹⁸Moses said to him, “Show me your glory.”

            ¹⁹He said, “I will cause all my greatness to cross over before you, and I will proclaim before you my name, ‘The Lord who is gracious to whomever he is gracious and who has compassion on whomever he has compassion.’  ²⁰But you cannot see my faces.  No human being can see my face and live.”

            ²¹The Lord said, “See, there is a place with me, and I will set you on a rock.  ²²When my glory passes before you, I will put you in a crevice in the rock, and you will stand on that rock.  ²³I will place my hand on you, and you will see my back, but my face cannot be seen.”

            Moses and God had a fight.

            Moses and God disagreed more than once.  But this was their first fight.  God had called Moses out of town for a few days.  Well, forty.  But it had been only forty days since God had told them, pretty specifically, “No other gods but me, no graven images.”  And they threw a bunch of golden jewelry into a fire and formed it into a golden calf to worship.

            Have you ever had a conversation with your spouse that begins, “Did you see what THAT SON OF YOURS did?”  “Did you hear what THAT DAUGHTER OF YOURS said?”  God said to Moses, “Hey, Moses, those people YOU BROUGHT UP OUT OF EGYPT…”  To his credit, Moses didn’t respond, “HEY!  I didn’t bring ‘em out by myself, okay?”

            God wanted to wipe ‘em all out.  And after a while their argument started to sound like a ‘60’s sitcom:

            “YOU SAID YOU LOVE ME!  IF YOU DID LOVE ME YOU WOULD…”

            That’s what Moses!  “You said I have found favor in your sight!  You said you know me by name!”

            “You said you love me!”

            God said, “That’s right, I do.”

            Moses said, “Well, if you really love me, you won’t give up on YOUR people.”

            God said, “Okay, okay, you got it. 

            “But I won’t walk with them!  If I’m with them for more than five minutes I’m liable to lose my temper and somebody’s going to die!”

            “IF YOU REALLY LOVE ME you’d go with us!  If you don’t, just leave us here to die!  If you won’t take them, don’t take me either!”

            Like many a long-suffering spouse (I don’t say long-suffering husband, ladies.  It works both ways, right?)  Like many a long-suffering spouse, God finally said, “Okay, you win.”

            Is this making anyone uncomfortable?  I have paraphrased a thing or two, but I have actually told it pretty much the way the Bible tells it.  Look it up.  Exodus 32 and 33.

            Moses and God, believe it or not, were in a RELATIONSHIP.  And every relationship is a relationship.  If you’re in close proximity with anyone for long enough, there is going to be friction.  Even if that person is God.  And that’s not a bad thing, necessarily.  One of the most influential Christians in my life was fond of saying, “If you and I agree on everything, one of us in unnecessary.”

            When I was in seminary, the mother of a friend gave me a book called Notes on Love and Courage by Hugh Prather.  Some of it I found wonderful, one or two places I found blasphemous.  Some of it made no sense to me at all, but, to my credit, I considered his age (in his 40’s) and mine (mid-20’s), and I decided those parts might make a lot more sense a dozen or so years down the road.

            He talked about his marriage.  He told the story of getting his lovely fiancée into a car, driving across the state line into Oklahoma, and getting married before a justice of the peace.  Then he said if he hadn’t made it expensive, difficult, and publicly humiliating to leave her, he wouldn’t have stayed.  And if he hadn’t stayed, he would have missed out not only on the love of his life (Isn’t it amazing how long it takes you to figure out how well you married!), he would have missed out on some of the most valuable growth experiences of his life.

            Did you ever wake up and realize your spouse has changed overnight?  That, suddenly, things she used to hate she now wants, things he adored yesterday he finds boring today?

            Mr. Prather said at those times, usually he was pretty satisfied with himself.  He didn’t see that he NEEDED to change.

            But she wanted him to.

            And he wanted not just to stay married, but to have the happiest marriage possible.

            And, a little way down the road, he realized that the change he never wanted or even considered had made him a better man, a better husband, a better Christian.

            And it began with CONFLICT.

            I tell you, Christianity is all about RELATIONSHIP!  Your relationship with God, your relationship with others, and your relationship with yourself.  Sin is best defined as anything which hurts any of those three relationships.  Righteousness, God’s will, ultimately maximizes all three of these!

            Do you know what’s the worst thing about being in relationship with God?  Two things:  He never lets you quit growing.  And, worst of all, HE’S ALWAYS RIGHT!  MAN, that’s hard to take!

            There are days when I don’t want to pick up my Bible.  Am I the only one?  Do you ever want a vacation from your diet, from your exercise regimen, from your self-improvement program?  (Well, God commands rest too.)

            That influential preacher I was quoting earlier used to tell the story of how mama eagles teach eaglets to fly.  He said when it’s time for the eaglets to fly, first mama eagle removes all the soft, comfortable padding from the nest so the little birds are on hard, sharp branches and thorns, and they’re uncomfortable and scared.  If they spoke English (Maybe they speak Eaglish!  Sorry about that)  Anyway, if they spoke English, they’d be crying, “Mommy!  Did I do something wrong?  Mommy!  Are you mad at me?”

            When they’ve come to realize the soft parts of the nest are NEVER coming back, she shows them how long and strong her wings are, and puts her wings down at talon-level, until the first one gets the idea, and climbs on.  She takes off, and shows the little guy how beautiful it is up there, the exhilaration of flying, the wonder.  She brings it back to the nest.  Then she takes it up again.  And again.  Until, finally, one time, she shakes the little guy off and lets it fall.  She catches it.  Then she shakes it off again.  And catches it.  And again, and again, and again until it figures out what its wings are for.

            She does this for each eaglet until it can fly.

            But its career as a flier begins with discomfort.

            From all my experience, from all my study in the Bible and theology and Christian history, I can assure God has never picked anybody up, taken them 20,000 feet into the air, and dropped them.  I frankly don’t believe God plans all our discomforts, pains, and losses.  They just happen naturally in our world.  But I do believe God whispers in our ears (and it takes a lot of practice to hear it), “I wish you didn’t have to hurt, but since this has happened, may I teach you something?  May I help you grow stronger?  May I show you how to be more like me?”

            The greatest laboratory for growing Christian character is marriage and family.  The second best is Church.  And the growing edge is where we disagree.  When you cut and run, you short-circuit the process.  When you backbite and gossip, you throw a hand grenade into the machine.

            But when you sit down, one-on-one, with the person with whom you disagree, when you have THAT level of courage, THAT kind of love, THAT commitment to your own growth, to your Church, to your God, miracles can happen.

            Moses and God calmed down a while.  And when the fight was over, what followed is what often follows at the end of, shall we say, a lovers’ quarrel. 

            Moses said, “Show me your glory.”

            That means, “I love you.”

            That means, “I missed you.”

            That means, “Draw me closer.”

            What would happen in Watkinsville United Methodist Church if we talked TO each other instead of ABOUT each other?  What would happen if our relationships meant more to us than our egos?

            Scary thought, right?  Hard!

            But what in life that is easy is worth anything?