Conversation - First and Last

Someone once said that home is the place where they have to take you in. Not a very flattering image but one that rings true for those of us who have raised teenagers. But here we are at homecoming, for some of us it is truly that: a return to and a celebration in the place where we feel the most comfortable, where we have served God and others. To some of us, it doesn’t feel like home at all. It feels like a strange and foreign place where the natives speak a form of the language we know but we aren’t sure of our place, where we fit in, where we belong or what is going to happen next.

The word home in this context also brings up images of heaven, that place where we will go when we die, that place of rest and peace where the suffering and the conflict of this world will be ended and there will be no more crying, no more tears, no more night. We think of Jesus’ words in John 14 where he tells the disciples and us that He has gone to prepare a place for us in that land where his Father has prepared many mansions. The songs we sing here, like the one we just sang, “Sweet Beulah Land”, abound with such imagery. We can spend a lot of time imagining what heaven will be like and that is a valuable exercise but it brings up a pressing question. What are we to be about here in the light of the reality of God and the reality of salvation? If we only concentrate on going to heaven when we die, it is easy to ignore or mis-use the gifts we have been given here. So what are we to be about and where is God in this?

For that, I think we can go back to the Exodus text. Let’s place it in he context of where it is in the book of Exodus and where it is in the overarching meta-narrative of Scripture. These words are some of Moses’ last words to the God with whom he has journeyed from the beginning of the narrative until now. Moses has lead the people out of Egypt, through the Red Sea, across the wilderness and now they are facing entering the Promised Land. One more time, Moses and God talk together on the top of a mountain. If you can see and hear the echoes of the conversation Moses and God had originally, back in the light of the burning bush you are on the right track. That was the first of these conversations and this is one of the last. At that first conversation, Moses asked God “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh?” and God replied: “I will be with you.” And in that conversation, back and forth, Moses said what about this and this and this? And God replied “I will be with you and I am who I am.” Honestly, to us that doesn’t seem like a very good answer does it? We want to know what God is going to do and He replies to us, as He did to Moses: This is what I am like. This is who I am.

In our text today, in chapter 33, verse 19 Moses says to God: “Show me your glory.” And God responds: “I will make my goodness pass before you.” Hear the difference. Moses is asking God to do a mighty act, some glorious something that will keep these rag-tag Isreailtes in line, something that will keep them from another ‘golden-calf’-type incident. Moses wants God to do the work. Amaze them, scare them to death so that they will fall in line.

Some scholars say that Moses is asking to really see God’s face, to really be sure who God is. Moses wants God’s assurance that God will not just go with him but do what needs to be done. Yet, God assures Moses of God’s goodness, his nature and that God will work his power through Moses.

This has to be because if God just takes over and makes everything perfect for us, then we necessarily become robots and can’t love him freely. So because God loves us, He can’t take over and be fully present but His nature of love means that He works through us to accomplish His will in the world.

Moses says “I want to see you.” GLORY
God says “I want you to know me.” GOODNESS

Because of the golden calf incident, because of the people’s sin in the wilderness, their relationship with God has necessarily changed. God can’t come and dwell among them in the fullness of Himself, anymore than Adam and Eve could walk with God in the cool of the day in the Garden of Eden because of their sin. But the Bible is the story of God at work in the world, constantly reaching out to us in relationship and in love. And again and again we as flawed humans sin and distance ourselves from the one who created us and loved us the most.

But brothers and sisters, hear the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ:

In the coming of Jesus to earth to live and love as a human, the sins of Eden and Sinai are superceded, we can see God face to face, Moses’ request is fulfilled and we see both God’s glory and his goodness. The God whose face is unveiled at last in self-giving love (NTW).

Does the fact that Jesus has come into the world mean that we throw out the Old Testament? No, we see and hear in Moses’ the foreshadowing of our own questions, our own needs. If God is so great, the world asks, if He os so great and so powerful, why doesn’t he just set the world to rights? Why doesn’t he get this over with? That is Moses’ request: Show us your glory. The theologian Henri Nouwen wrote about it this way: “What makes the temptation for power so seemingly irresistible? Maybe it is that power offers an easy substitute for the hard task of love. It seems easier to be God rthan to love God, easier to control people than to love people, easier to own life than to love life. The long painful history of the church is the history of people ever and again tempted to choose power over love, control over the cross, being a leader over being led. Those who resisted this temptation to the end and thereby give us hope are true saints.” – In the Name of Jesus.

And hear God’s response to Moses, to us through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit: I will show you my goodness, I want you to know me. The Christian life isn’t about signs and wonders, it’s about the difficult and messy work of relationship. It’s about pain and suffering, it’s about grace and forgiveness received, offered and received again, over and over and over. It’s about sinking into the quiet intimate times of communication where words themselves are unnecessary and living through the painstaking work of being heard and understood, of hearing and understanding. And all those things are true both in our horizontal relationships, the ones we have with other people as well as being true in the relationship with have with God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.

Where are you this morning? Are you tired and worn out and fed up? Good, you are in exactly the right place to receive the refreshing grace of the living God. Are you living your life expectantly waiting for what God has for you next? Here among this family, you are at home for we wait also, to see where God is already at work and to join him there. L.L. Nash who was the pastor of this church from 1872-1874 tells this story of his call to this church:



We are not Christians to simply see the phenomenon of God’s glory but to receive and to give, to do the work of loving God and loving others in this world. Brothers and sisters in the light of the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ, it is time to get to work.