Moses, Layton and a Call to Love

Scripture Readings for this week: Exodus 3:1-15, Romans 12:9-21, Matthew 16:21-28

Moses was the man who would become the greatest symbol of liberation, the giver of the law and the leader of the Hebrews who in many ways goes unrivaled in the history of Israel.  And it is at this moment, which we read in scripture today, standing before a fire, a flame, a burning bush, when he begins to follow that path.

Before he encounters God in the midst of the burning bush, Moses was raised in the lap of luxury.  A palace brat, he was incredibly disconnected from the lives of his people.  He might have known he was not an Egyptian.  With his birth mother as his wet nurse, it is hard to believe she would not have told him where he came from, if only in whispers and songs.  But still as an adopted grandchild of the Pharaoh, Moses was Egyptian royalty.

Yet he must have felt some attachment to his people.  When he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, he killed the perpetrator and hid the body.  One might think this would have made him a hero to the Hebrews.  But the very next day, when he tried to break up a fight, you can almost hear the mocking in his own peoples’ voice, “What?  Are you going to kill us too?”  He’s an outsider.  His people will not accept him, and soon even Pharaoh begins to hunt him for the original murder.  And so he runs away, runs into the desert, hoping to escape his own history, his own identity.

And it is there that he encounters God.  Tending a flock of sheep for his father-in-law, Moses comes upon the burning bush.  And his own fire is lit, a fire deep within his heart.  This is Moses’ moment of conversion.  This is where Moses discovers something beyond himself and within himself.  The voice of God echoes within his soul, telling him who he truly is, telling him that he is one of God’s own, that he is beloved, telling him that he has a place within the world, that he has a place within history.

It is hard to describe a conversion.  For some people it does strike like a burning bush within their hearts, and for others, faith has been with them their whole lives.  Whether it feels like lightning or whether it feels like a warm blanket faith resonates within the heart.  It is that sense that there is something beyond ourselves as individuals, that sense that we are beloved, that we have a place in the world, a place within history.  As Christians that place is expressed in the Gospels.  It is the understanding that we are loved.  It is the understanding that we are not alone, that God, that the universe is on our side, and that we have experienced this love in Jesus Christ.

But it cannot end there.  It does not end there for Moses.  He does not see a burning bush, smile politely and walk away.  The voice of God goes on.  “Ok Moses, you know me!  You have met me!  You have met me within your heart! But you will no longer encounter me in a burning bush, no longer will you encounter me just as a flame inside you!  From now on you will meet me with my people!  You will meet me where my sons and daughters cry out for justice, where my people long for liberation and freedom.  I have touched your very soul Moses, now that you know me, how can you do anything but go?!”

Moses’ conversion did not end at the burning bush.  In our Gospel reading for today, Jesus reminds us that our conversion, our faith cannot end in our hearts. Jesus does not say to his disciples, “Hey hang out for a little while, and think of me fondly.” He says, “Pick up your cross and follow me!” 

In Paul’s letter to the Romans, this path for Christians is quite clearly defined as the path of love, the path of hope, the path of generosity.  It is the path of caring for the poor, of supporting those who are mourning, of seeking peace.  Does any of this sound familiar?

This past week the whole nation has been trying to understand how it feels about the death of the Leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition, Jack Layton.  People are writing on walls, they are tweeting, they are writing in newspapers, they are crying out that now famous phrase, “Love is better than anger, hope is better than fear, and optimism is better than despair.  So let us be loving, hopeful, and optimistic, and we’ll change the world.”  These words echoed for people because, people long for them.  Regardless of political stripe you would be hard pressed to find someone who doesn’t within their hearts want a world of love, hope, and optimism.  But all too often we cynically advocate for something else.

If these words rang true, if these words resonated, if these words sounded familiar, it is because they are incredibly grounded in the Christian faith.  This is Paul through and through. But since the church in many ways has forgotten to preach and to live those words, Canada has turned to someone else for that fundamental Gospel truth.  People long for that message grounded in love, grounded in hope, grounded in generosity.  Jack Layton, a lifelong United Church member who continued to be active within the church through his adult life is offering up his faith to the world.  Trying to live it in the world around him.

This is what it means to be Christian.  It is not just a matter of believing in Jesus and then washing our hands of the world.  To quote Richard Rohr, if this were the case “One could be warlike, greedy, a racist, selfish and vain, and still believe that Jesus is their “personal Lord and Saviour.” The world has no time for such silliness anymore.  The suffering on earth is too great.”  To be Christian we cannot separate our faith from the world.  We cannot withhold that same love which has been so freely given to us from the world around us.  We cannot say Christianity is only about our hearts, when every prophet, every saint, and Jesus Christ has not only held love, but lived it in the world.

We are Christians, we are part of a holy community, stretching back through history to that greatest act of love on the cross.  With a fire burning in our hearts, a fire, like the burning bush that doesn’t consume but enlightens; it is not our duty, it is our opportunity to embody love in the world.  To not hoard that fire, that understanding of grace, that awareness that we are the beloved children of God, but rather to share it with all we meet.  It is our privilege to join with Christ in offering that self-giving love to the world.  It is our privilege to answer Paul’s call to embody faith, hope, and above all love.  It is our privilege, to walk with Moses with that fire within us, going to places where there is only anger, only fear, only despair, to those places where there is injustice, where there is slavery and oppression, and to shine that light in the darkness.  Thanks be to God, Amen.