The Rev. Noah Van Niel
The Chapel of the Cross
October 18th, 2020
Proper 24 (A)—Exodus 33:12-23; Psalm 99; 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10; Matthew 22:15-22
Moses is mad. He’s annoyed; frustrated; exasperated. And not without good reason. He oversaw his people’s great escape from Pharaoh, only to have their rejoicing quickly turn to complaining. “We’re hungry!” so he works with God to get them bread. “We’re thirsty!” so he works with God to get them water. Then he leaves them alone for a little while to go up the mountain and figure out with God how they’re all supposed to live together, and when he comes back down, with the ten commandments, what does he see? A golden calf. A huge bacchanal. The first two commandments already broken. So, Moses smashes the tablets in a rage. Moses isn’t the only one who’s upset though. God’s angry too. This golden calf business is about enough for Him. He says, “Okay, that’s it. I’m done with these people. Get them out of here.” And that really sets Moses off. “Whoa, hold on a second!” he says. “You’re leaving me with this mess? You want me to take them to the promised land by myself? You’re not even saying you’ll come with us anymore? What about all that talk about ‘I know you by name’ and ‘you have found favor in my sight’? Did that not mean anything? This is your people!” “Okay, okay,” God says, “I will come with you.” But Moses is still on about it. “Because, if you’re not going to come, we might as well not even go. Because if you don’t go with us, then what do we have? Nothing. We’re just like everybody else. Not chosen, not favored, not anything.” “You’re right,” God says. “I’ll do what you ask.” But Moses is still heated. You can almost see his cheeks getting red with rage. “No. Enough of these words and promises. Show me, don’t tell me. I want to see your glory. I want to see the whole thing. I want to see you.”
I wonder how many of us have had something approximating this conversation with God at some point in our lives, especially when we’re mad. When life has dealt us a rotten hand and we’re frustrated, angry, and upset. When we are tired of following this amorphous shadow we call God; when things are going off the rails and we’re at a loss as to how we should fix it. It’s then we want something more, we need something more from God. I must confess, I have found myself increasingly mad of late as life continues to be so exasperating in so many ways. So, I identify with Moses in this passage. I want a little more from God, right now. I want to know God is there and will act. I want the full picture; the answers in the back of the book. When life gets rocky, when life gets real, and when we get fed up, it’s then that we want a God who will get real too.
Now, God agrees to show up for Moses. But conditionally. In answer to Moses’ demand to see God face to face, God says, “Okay, but you will see my back, not my face. You will see my goodness, not my glory. Because you would die if you saw the fullness of my being. So, come over here, settle into the protection of this rock. I’ll shield you with my hand and then let you see me after I have passed by.” It’s a tender gesture, but is it enough? Are glimpses and glimmers of God enough to satisfy us when we are raging against the unfairness of life? Do they give us something solid enough to cling to when we are drowning in life’s stormy seas? When life is going along comfortably, I’m glad to luxuriate in the mystery of the divine; contemplate the wonders beyond our knowing and spend time steeping in the sheer magnitude of it all. But when I’m floundering and flailing, I want a little more than that. And yet, the whole story, the fullness of God will always remain a mystery to us. We see a part, not the whole because, the argument goes, the whole would be too much. Our mortal beings cannot handle it. So perhaps a better question than “is it enough?” would be, “can it be enough?” Given that pieces of God are all we are only ever going to get, is it possible for those pieces to sustain us through our darkest and most difficult days?
I had the privilege, recently, of having a conversation with a woman I know who just received some very difficult medical news. Her life can now be measured in months. She’s not young, but she is too young to be glimpsing the other shore so fast approaching. And in my mind, she has every right to rage and rant at the injustice, the unfairness, the supreme indignity of the whole situation. I’d be livid, if I were her. So I was expecting for her to be mad when I picked up the phone to give her a call. But that’s not what I heard. To be sure, she was not happy about her situation, she wished things were different. But she wasn’t angry with God or anyone else. She knew she would never know the “why?” and that was…okay. She knew she would never see the whole picture in this life, but what she did report was noticing all sorts of new, little pieces of God she had not noticed before. Instead of anger and answers, she talked about gratitude and grace; beauty and blessing; forgiveness and faith. These things were now no longer empty churchy terms. They were no longer a mystery hidden behind the veil. They were specific stories and people and moments. They were real. As she nears the end of her life a clarity, a vision of all the ways God is there, even if only in part, is coming not focus. And these pieces of God that she could now see, were coalescing like a mosaic into a partial, but still substantial picture of God’s abiding presence, that it was enough. Enough to fill her heart to the point that she could face her death with a measure of peace and assurance because she knew God was there and would be there through it all. And instead of lamenting that her answers were only partial, that her picture was incomplete, the opposite proved true. If a piece of God was this good, this glorious, imagine what the whole picture might be like! Her partial vision became a source of comfort, and courage, and dare I say, even excitement because, while we may not be able to look at God face to face, that doesn’t mean we don’t know what God looks like.
There is a lot to be mad about right now. And we’d be justified in shaking our fists at God and asking for a little more than a mystery as we stare down everything we are dealing with in the world, individually and corporately. But I’d venture that most of us don’t have as much to be mad about as my friend does. But what she taught me in our few minutes on the phone, is that while, rage, anger, getting mad at God is always an option – and one we all react with at times—so too is the chance to look around and notice the pieces of God’s presence always and already around us, to celebrate them for the gifts they are rather than bemoan them for not being the whole thing. Because they are enough. And they are real and true and just waiting to be discovered. Indulging our anger can blind us. Blind us to the beauty that is available to us right now; keep us from glimpsing the parts of God we do get to see. And as such it can be very hard to find hope when we’re angry. If we want a way beyond our anger, we need to take the pieces we do have, and cobble together a picture of God that can comfort and encourage us in our difficulty, even if it does not completely dispel the mystery. This may not change our situation or solve our problem, but it will reframe how we experience it. We need to look upon this brutal, broken world and see the good in it; something kind, something funny, something loving, these are the pieces of God we do get to see, and taken together they can be more than enough.
When Moses comes down from the mountain after his encounter with God something has changed. Instead of red with rage, his face is resplendent, shining. Even though it was just God’s back, it was enough to reassure him of God’s presence with him. And not just him, but the people of Israel as well. For with the afterglow of the divine shining like a beacon for all to see Moses becomes the conduit of revelation and reassurance himself. This is exactly what happened on my phone call with my friend. In her demeanor, her approach to an awful situation, she became her own glimmer of God, another piece reassuring me of God’s presence with us in this world. So, if she’s out there watching this, I want to say thank you. You may not realize what you did for me, and I hope for others who hear your story. But thank you. And you might want to check your face in the mirror, because even though I can’t see it, I’m pretty sure it’s shining.