Moses said, ‘I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up.’ When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, ‘Moses, Moses!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ Exodus 3:3-4

What do you do to get someone’s attention? You call their name, you wave at them, you tap them on the shoulder. These days in the Parish Hall - now that our bell has been put back up - we ring the bell, teachers clap their hands in the classroom. My mother had the trick when we were out in public and she wanted to reprimand us, of very pointedly clearing her throat and giving us The Look. If you are at a distance maybe you put up a sign or wave a flag or flash lights.

The first reading today – from Exodus – is all about God trying to catch Moses’ attention. And how does he do it? God appears to Moses as a bush that is on fire, but is not burnt up. Well, that’s pretty eye-catching! This is a story that many of us know, or at least we have a nodding familiarity with: Moses and the Burning Bush – right – check.

But for us to really make any sense of this occurrence, we have to back up a little. So often these figures in the Bible have a hard and dingy veneer over them, and we forget that they were real people, who had a real story, and who put their pants on – as they say – one leg at a time. With Moses, especially, we tend to think of him as the little baby in the basket on the Nile River or as the Law-Giver, receiving the Ten Commandments from God – looking suspiciously like Charlton Heston!

So by way of reminding ourselves….. Moses was born into a Hebrew family in Egypt. Jacob and his family had gone to Egypt at least four hundred years earlier, to escape a famine in Israel. They settled there – at the invitation of Pharoah’s right-hand man Joseph, who happened to be their long lost bother (but that’s another story) and they prospered. Eventually the Hebrew community grew to the point where they threatened the balance of power in the wider population, and they were enslaved by Pharoah’s command. When hard labor did not diminish their numbers, the order was given that all the male children were to be killed. When Moses was born, his mother managed to keep him hidden until he was three months old. After that, she decided to see if she could do the ancient equivalent of leaving a newborn anonymously at a police station: she put him in water-tight basket and set him on the river’s edge.

We know, of course, that Pharoah’s daughter went to the river, found the baby, decided to adopt him. She knew he was a Hebrew child because he had been circumcised – a ritual the Egyptians did not practice. But Moses was taken to live in the royal palace, presumably raised and educated as an Egyptian.

Fast forward to Moses as a young man. Somewhere along the line he realized or discovered or was told that he was a Hebrew. He went out of the palace and saw a Hebrew slave being beaten by an Egyptian overseer. Moses was overcome with a righteous anger and furious sense of justice, and he killed the overseer and buried his body. The next day he went out again, saw two Hebrew men fighting and tried to reason with them, but they blew him off, and even asked if he was going to kill them as he had killed the Egyptian. News travels fast! Moses got scared, Pharoah put out a warrant for his arrest and execution, and Moses ran away – east into the Sinai desert. Eventually he got to a place where there was a well, and a settlement; he met a nice young woman who took him home and introduced him to her father. Moses needed a place to hide out, so getting married to Zipporah, and going to work for his father-in-law seemed as good a plan as any.

Meanwhile, back in Egypt, the plight of the Hebrew slaves had continued to deepen: “Out of the slavery their cry for help rose up to God. God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God looked upon the Israelites, and God took notice of them,” the end of Exodus chapter two says. And that brings us to Moses working as a shepherd, following the sheep and goats up the mountain that is called both Horeb and Sinai. And God decided to get Moses’ attention.

We don’t know what Moses knew or believed about God. As a member of the royal household he would have been raised with the Egyptian pantheon of gods and goddesses. Had he heard and remembered something about the Lord God Almighty from the stories told him by his Hebrew nursemaid (who also happened to be his mother)? Once he understood and embraced his identity as a Hebrew did he ask questions, go to the library to do some reading, do a Google search on Hebrew religious beliefs? Or did he get some grounding from his father-in-law Jethro, a priest of Midian; the Midianites were distant relatives, also descendants of Abraham. Maybe some sense of a single Creator God had been passed down to him. We don’t know.
Nevertheless, God had a job for Moses. He was going to be sent back to Egypt, to confront Pharoah, to lead the Hebrew slaves out of Egypt and into freedom. God was going to answer the cries and prayers of the people, and he was going to do it through a murderer and a fugitive who had no intention of ever going back to Egypt. Knowing all that, it’s no wonder God needed to get Moses’ attention in a pretty dramatic way.

God says the same thing to us. God will be with us. God will be with us, because God has work for each one of us to do, and for us to do together. God, indeed, hears the cry of those who are hurting, broken, isolated, sick, down-trodden, outcast, lonely, oppressed by forces beyond their control. And God calls and invites us to respond in some way - to be God’s agents of healing, and connection, and prayerful love with those to whom the Spirit sends us. But we can’t do it on our own strength; we need to be awake to the way God is trying to get our attention, and aware of the direction in which he is leading, guiding, pushing us.
So how do I know when God is trying to get my attention, you may say to yourself; how do I know what God is trying to tell me? Each one of us is different, and God will speak to us to whatever ways we can best hear and understand. But having said that, there are some basic things to think about:
• Don’t expect to hear actual voices, or see a banner with your name on it being pulled by an airplane across the sky.
• Do look for coincidences, for things that seem surprising or bring you up short. If you find yourself being moved to tears over something you hear or read, or there is an “ah-hah” moment that makes you incredibly glad, most likely that is God speaking to you.
• Other people just knows things in there gut – go with that.
• If the words of a Bible reading seem to jump off the page at you, pay attention!
• If you have been praying for guidance, and an hour later someone randomly has a conversation with you about the very subject you have been puzzling over, God is showing up.

In short, go through your day with your eyes and ears and mind and heart open. Don’t overlook the unusual. Be curious. Ask yourself what’s going on; ask other people what they are doing – on the train platform, in the deli line at Shop-Rite, at the Saturday sports games, across the driveway or the backyard fence. Take a deep breath, and tell God that you are ready and available to be of service – you may only mean it half-way, but that’s OK; God will more than make up the other half.

Our purpose, as Jesus’ followers, is not to have our theology all figured out, or to thoroughly understand the Bible, or to lead an exemplary life – although those are all good things and I hope you strive for them – but our purpose is to love and serve God in a way that will be part of bringing healing and hope to God’s world – whether we are ready or not.

Let us pray.
Dear Lord, you call us each day to attend with open hearts to your Spirit alive in us and at work among us. Lead us to the places you have need for us to go. Prepare the way ahead of us, and help us to remember that you are our companion in the way. We ask this all in Jesus’ Name. Amen.

Victoria Geer McGrath
All Saints’ Church, Millington, NJ
Third Sunday in Lent
February 28, 2016

Jesus said: Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!
Luke 13:24
Some days you wake up and you just know that this is the day – this is the day you are going to face a confrontation. It may be that you’ve known this was coming for a while, and you are sensing that whatever it is needs to get sorted out now…today. Perhaps you have to confront a family member with some tough love. Or you know that you can’t put off any longer taking a long, clear look at your finances. Or maybe you have an appointment with someone to deliver news that they don’t want to hear.

Or you might be on the receiving end of that kind of appointment – asked at the close of the workday to meet with your supervisor first thing next morning, and you have a sinking feeling that you are not going to like what you hear. Some days we just know these things in our gut.

That’s probably what Jesus was feeling when he responded to the Pharisees’ warning that he was in danger from King Herod - who had already beheaded John the Baptist for his public condemnation of the king’s immoral marital arrangements. Just prior to the warning some Pharisees’ gave, Jesus had been preaching that not everyone who heard his offer of salvation would be willing to receive it. In fact, some of those who rejected Jesus would be those who were the religious and political leaders of the people. The Pharisees were right to warn that Herod’s anger would be inflamed at such words.

But Jesus would not be deterred. He announces very clearly that his work of healing and deliverance will continue – today, tomorrow, the next day….and will not be finished until the Resurrection, which he refers to as “the third day.” Not only will Jesus not be deterred, but he’ll be headed straight into the line of fire, the lion’s den: Jerusalem. This is Jesus speaking and acting as Messiah, as the archetype of the hero who will not rest until his mission is completed – think Star Wars and the Jedi Knights; or The Lord of the Rings and Frodo and Aragorn; or Katniss Everdeen in the Hunger Games; or Joan of Arc; or Harry Potter. Jesus has a strong sense of what is awaiting him in Jerusalem, and he does not turn away. He knows he goes to face not only human power and aggression, but also the spiritual powers and principalities that stand behind them – as St. Paul puts it.

But in the very next breath after identifying Jerusalem as the arena, Jesus laments over the city whose name means “Dwelling of Peace” or “Foundation of Peace”: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” Jesus longs for peace and wholeness and well-being and justice for Jerusalem’s people, for all God’s people, and yet time and again God’s messengers and agents were rejected and killed. Jesus is not denouncing Jerusalem as much as he is weeping for them, giving voice to his sadness like a hen gathers her brood under her wings.

In the service of baptism in the older versions of the Prayer Book the prayer that the priest said when he made the sign of the Cross on the forehead of the newly baptized went like this: “We receive this Person into the congregation of Christ's flock; and do sign him with the sign of the Cross, in token that hereafter he shall not be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified, and manfully to fight under his banner, against sin, the world, and the devil; and to continue Christ's faithful soldier and servant unto his life's end.” It made very clear and specific that we who are baptized are to take our place in Jesus’ mission, to soldier on against the forces of darkness, evil, and injustice.

Our current Prayer Book puts it less sharply: “Heavenly Father, we thank you that by water and the Holy Spirit you have bestowed upon this your servant the forgiveness of sin, and have raised her to the new life of grace. Sustain her, O Lord, in your Holy Spirit. Give her an inquiring and discerning heart, the courage to will and to persevere, a spirit to know and to love you, and the gift of joy and wonder in all your works”….and then: “You are sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and marked as Christ's own for ever”… after which the congregation says: “We receive you into the household of God. Confess the faith of Christ crucified, proclaim his resurrection, and share with us in his eternal priesthood.”

But whichever prayer is used, we understand that in baptism we are becoming like Christ. The concerns of Jesus are to become our concerns. The qualities and character of Jesus are to be our model – and we are always a work in progress. So this holy boldness with which we hear Christ speaking is to become our holy boldness when we need to confront the sinful and de-humanizing forces of our own day – forces like fear, poverty, greed, hunger, racism, divisiveness, ignorance, environmental degradation – all of which hurt and corrupt and destroy the creatures of God, and which we have promised to renounce at our baptism.
If all that sounds kind of scary, and you are saying to yourself – “Woah! I did not sign up for that!” I don’t blame you. There are days and times when being a Christian is not easy at all. If it were, there would be no martyrs, no witnesses, no heroes in the faith. Christianity has a cost to it. If we are following Jesus, then there are times that we will be called on to put ourselves out there with both strength and vulnerability, and there may well be consequences.

But it’s also important to remember that God doesn’t want us to be perpetually at war with the world, full of suspicion and trepidation. God has made a good and beautiful Creation, and made us human-beings in his own image, and loves us with a generous and self-sacrificing love; and he calls us, with him, to build the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven for the good of all that God has made. As much as we are to confront the evils of this world, we are also to be like Jesus the Mother Hen, gathering her brood under her wings – protecting, comforting, nurturing – to make a Dwelling of Peace in our own time and place.
Jesus’ work of healing, saving, redeeming, delivering, and blessing this world goes on: today, tomorrow, and the next day, and every day after that until his return. And we are the foot-soldiers, the fellow-workers, the messengers of hope, the bringers of peace – called by Christ to be, with him, the Light of the World.

Let us pray.
Almighty God, we give thanks that you have received us into the congregation of Christ's flock; and have been signed with the sign of the Cross, in token that hereafter we shall not be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified, and bravely to fight under his banner, against sin, the world, and the devil; and to continue Christ's faithful soldier and servant unto our life's end. Amen.

Victoria Geer McGrath
All Saints’ Church, Millington, NJ
Second Sunday in Lent
February 21, 2016
 

The devil said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread." Jesus answered him, "It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone.'” Luke 4:3-4
 
Today is Valentine’s Day what a very incongruous beginning to Lent…or so it may seem. Valentine’s Day is all about romantic gifts, and dinners, and flowers, and hearts filled with chocolates; and here in church we have no flowers for the season, some of you may have sworn off chocolates and sweets as fast of your Lenten discipline, and the mood of our worship certainly doesn’t have much sense of the romantic about it.
 
But let’s be clear about St. Valentine – or as clear as we can be. His stories are a bit murky, but we know this much: he was a Christian priest in the third century in the Roman Empire. It was a time when the Emperor Claudius was trying to strengthen the Roman army and he felt that soldiers were distracted from their duty by their wives and sweethearts, and so attempted to outlaw marriage. Valentine, however, would marry couples secretly. He also gave aid to Christians in Rome during times of persecution and disenfranchisement. Eventually, Valentine was beheaded for his Christian faith and action on February 14. At some point later, he was canonized. Then, during the Middle Ages, he became the patron saint of marriage and sweethearts. According to legend in France and England birds began mating in the middle of February, so St. Valentine’s Day came to be celebrated as a day honoring courtship; maybe that’s where the term “love birds” came from.
 
So Valentine was a real person, a Christian martyr, someone devoted to Christ and his faith, and he cared about love. And Lent is all about love. Think about it – when you love someone you want them to be their best, their true selves. We see this as friends, as parents, as spouses. It can be painful to watch someone we care about struggle to be the person we know they are inside, to be the person that God created them to be. There are so many things that call us away from who we are as people made in God’s image, redeemed by Christ – so many temptations. Temptations of fear, of weakness, of desire for acceptance; temptations of power and control; temptations of grandiosity and being the center of attention; temptations of silence in the face of injustice or harsh words in the face of cruelty and suffering; temptations to take the easy way out, the comfortable answer, myopia towards the hardship of others. So many temptations. What are yours? What calls you away from God’s love and your true self?
 
Jesus knew about temptations. We heard Luke’s version of the story of Jesus being tempted when he went into the wilderness on retreat after his baptism – forty days. And even after all those struggles, he didn’t get a break. The devil had some final, very important temptations in store – misuse of power, desire for glory and fame, proof of Jesus’ divine identity.
 
Sometimes when we’ve been through something that’s really hard, that we’ve intentionally prepared and braced ourselves for, we get through it – only to find ourselves on the edge of falling apart, taken by surprise. We’ve gotten worn down, buffeted, feeling vulnerable, perhaps feeling alone – and the temptations that come to us then seem so much greater than they would have otherwise.
 
I said earlier that Lent is all about love. Lent calls us back from the place of temptation and fragility, calls us to be once more who we really are: beloved – beloved by God and very much in need of God. We need God’s wisdom, knowledge, insight, correction, and guidance if we are going to be the people God knows us to be. We need to remove the roadblocks and the hindrances – or allow the Holy Spirit to do it. That’s part of love. And one of the tools we have for doing that is praying the Great Litany as we did this morning. It’s kind of like what’s known in Twelve Step groups as the Fourth Step – making a “searching and fearless moral inventory” of our short-comings and character defects, and how we act when we are presented with choices and challenge in our lives and the world around us, and what we do when we meet circumstances beyond our control. There are some of you who don’t like the Great Litany – that’s OK; it’s not important to like it, but it is important to do it, just as it is important to say the Confession, and even, where and when appropriate, to make a private Confession.
 
The Great Litany, and self-examination, and the Fourth Step are necessary because being a Christian, being a disciple of Jesus, is both about what we think/believe and what we do/how we act/what decisions we make. In order to gain strength and confidence in acting and living as disciples, we practice – both at church and at home – so that we can make our faith real and active out in the world. We practice remembering we are beloved. We practice speaking the truth in love. We practice asking for, offering, and receiving forgiveness from God and one another. We practice gathering for food and spiritual nourishment around our family table, the table of the Lord, so that we can go out and feed, love, strengthen, heal, and forgive other members of the human family.
 
One of the practices in which Jesus was so deeply rooted and grounded was reading and meditating on Scripture. When the devil tried to tempt him, in every instance he had a word of Scripture to stand on that reminded him why the devil’s invitations were not to be accepted: One does not live by bread alone; Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him; Do not put the Lord your God to the test. Scripture was, for Jesus, a touchstone, a resource, a reminder of the faithful and powerful loving-kindness of God.
 
If we are Jesus’ disciples, it is good for us to practice in the same way he did. So I have a challenge for you during this Lent. Find, choose, and memorize a passage of Scripture that speaks deeply to you. You can flip through the Bible – the Gospels and Psalms are always good places to look, or use a concordance, or an on-line search to find a passage of about eight to ten verses that speaks to where you are in your life right now. This is not to be about proof-texting or cherry-picking, but words that speak to your soul…and memorize them.
 
You may already have one or more verses of the Bible memorized. Many people know the Twenty-third Psalm by heart, or Matthew 11:28 which is stitched into the kneelers at the altar rail, or even – if you’ve spent any time with Joyce Kulzer – Philippians 4:13 ~ I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. All of those are great, but I want you to choose something new, something that you feel the Spirit is speaking through to you about what God is calling you to do, to be, to remember.
 
To help you out with this, I’ll be sending an e-mail with the directions about how to do this – how to look for a passage, how to work on memorizing it, how to learn it in your heart and bones so that it becomes prayer. And then on the Fifth Sunday of Lent I’ll ask you to bring in your passage. We’ll collect them in the offering plate, anonymously if you like, offer them to God, and then get them all written down in a single document, available for inspiration and encouragement for one another. But the most important thing is for each one of us to practice being grounded in Scripture, just as Jesus did. That way we can know in those times of stress and trial and temptation, that we are very much beloved of God, hidden under the shelter of his wings, guided and directed by his eye as we live life in the Way of Christ.
 
Let us pray.
Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for
our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn,
and inwardly digest them, that we may embrace and ever
hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have
given us in our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with
you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. ~ BCP

Victoria Geer McGrath
All Saints’ Church, Millington, NJ
First Sunday in Lent
February 14, 2016