[Propertalk] Proper 17 a

[robertpmorrison at charter.net]

This is unedited but here's what I have with which to start for this 
Sunday.

Hope you're having fun.

Bob

THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY              THE ELEVENTH 
SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST – A
EXODUS 3:1-15					           PROPER 17 A
ROMANS 12:9-21					           28st AUGUST, 2011
MATTHEW 16:21-28 					           PSALM 105:1-6, 23-26, 45c

	Every now and again something just cracks me up. I delight in media 
misprints and double-entendres and the like. I’m cheered especially when 
it seems that the author actually meant the remark or word play, and 
didn’t stumble into it through oversight or, worse, ignorance.

Such was the case a while ago when The New York Times had a marvellous 
Op-Ed titled “Stop using Chimps as Guinea Pigs”! 1

Words can give us such a wonderful way of looking at life and our 
relationships with God and with one another.
	
	“When (God) saw that (Moses) had turned aside to see (that bush), God 
called to him out of the bush, ‘Moses, Moses!’”
	
	If you don’t read things several times over, these days of nano-second 
sound-bites, you can miss out on nuances which may have been hidden in a 
text for years, yet never noticed. Sometimes I cringe at our reading and 
perception skills. I’m not talking about comprehension tests in schools. 
I’m talking genuine adults here, people who SHOULD know better, yet who 
massacre any given text, whether it’s being read out loud or silently. I 
place myself in this category, at least in terms of the verse from the 
first passage which I quoted a moment ago.

	If we gloss over any word in that sentence we may lose what I feel is 
one of the most important concepts of the Bible.

	Yes, God loves us. Yes, God forgives us. Yes, God wants us to be part 
of the creation party. All these might be taken as givens. Incredibly, 
wonderfully freeing givens, but givens nevertheless. However there’s 
something amazing that verse four reveals.

God never pushed Moses. God never hollered across the desert to try to 
get his attention. God was incredibly patient.

I can’t prove it by any reference, but I’m sure that God was leaving 
Moses signs at every step of his journey, both in Egypt and after he‘d 
fled from that country. Every day there would probably have been a fresh 
one. They may not have been as dramatic as that burning bush, but I’d be 
willing to bet that they’d be of fair significance. Somehow, though, 
Moses must have taken these signs for granted. He may have noticed but 
ignored them.

	I think about my behavior. I go to some event – for pleasure or 
business, it doesn’t really matter which. I sit down. I may or may not 
pay attention to who’s around me. But, if I don’t, I may miss what may 
turn out to be the most important meeting of my life. I need to pay 
attention, all the time, then, to those messengers whom God sends to me 
to talk about love, and about relating to others in the world, and about 
helping others deal with their issues.

	I HAVE to be willing to turn aside, to consider that I don’t have all 
the answers and shouldn’t be so self-absorbed. The reason for this is 
quite simple. God lets me goof up. God may not be too happy about it, 
but it’s really up to me to notice what’s going on, who are the most 
important people for me and what’s happening in my life.

	It was when Moses had actually turned aside, stopped to look and to 
listen, that God spoke to him and set the whole process in motion to 
bring freedom for the Hebrew people. And on that event hangs much of our 
theology. From that burning listening post out in the desert, comes the 
affirmation that God cares about what’s going on the lives of every 
single one of us.

	More than that, though. Yes, God cares, absolutely. But God cares 
THROUGH US. God didn’t say to Moses, “Stand back. Watch this. You’re 
going to love it!” God said, “You know, those folks are having a really 
tough time. All sorts of things are going on in their lives. I need you 
to take care of it.”

	That’s quite different. And it required Moses to make the first move. 
It required him to be alert to what was
happening around him, first so that he gave God an opening in which to 
reach him, then secondly so that he could actually hear what God wanted 
to say to him. Finally, he had to respond – to accept or refuse God’s 
request.

	Actually God sweetens the pot quite a bit. “Do this,” said I AM, “and 
see what you’ll get. The most fertile land imaginable; an unending 
supply of water with no debates between farmers and those concerned 
about fish and wildlife; and I’ll take care of those pesky Ducks – or 
Beavers, take your choice – you won’t ever have to worry about your 
neighbours. All you have to do is go back to Egypt – do I need to remind 
you that there’s still a warrant out for your arrest there? – talk to 
your friends and family members to convince them to pack up and leave 
what they’ve accumulated there. Oh, and play chicken with the Governor. 
Do that and you’re home free!”

	So what’s the big deal? Is this a no-brainer or what?

	What would YOU do? If someone told you that your insurance company 
would pick up the tab one hundred per cent; that you wouldn’t have to 
worry about mortgage, and home, and boat payments; and that you’d always 
have plenty of good food and drink as long as you liked. What WOULD you 
do? The only catch is that the next five years – maybe a few more – 
would be a bit of a roller coaster ride, one moment you’ll be smiling, 
the next moment you may be screaming and vomiting – but that’s OK, isn’t 
it? I mean, only a few years of uncertainty and then you’ll be home 
free. No problem.

	What WOULD I do? What would YOU do?

	What did Moses say?

	You see, the most difficult part of life is that the decisions are left 
to us. God talks – sometimes we listen. God drops a sign – occasionally 
we pick up on it. God puts some wonderful person in our path – if we’ve 
any sense at all, we engage that person in conversation. God has put all 
sorts of these at various places throughout MY life. I’m sure EACH of us 
has found that out. But we have to wrestle through whatever decisions 
these signs imply. We have to weigh what it means to run the risk of 
facing enormous change, maybe even hardship, a loss of one sort of 
another in order to gain what Jesus elsewhere called “The Pearl of Great 
Price”. Day after day we’ve to come sort of a response to the discovery 
that things DON’T always come tied up in neat wrapping paper with a 
pretty bow.

	Sometimes they come with an unwanted threat of having to face up to the 
Governor or a bunch of State legislators. Sometimes we have to live with 
the thought that maybe someone disturbing will knock on the door of our 
homes or the doors of our worship space.

	This is the choice we have to make.

	Of course, we can decide NOT to notice any of the signs that God 
scatters around.

	I remember, to my chagrin, an episode on the subway train in Glasgow 
when I was about five or six. Every Sunday, my sister, mother and I went 
to visit my grandmother, and it involved a regular train and then an 
underground train ride. On the subway, I loved to sit in the seat 
closest to the driver’s cab so that, when we reached a station and the 
driver opened the unwindowed door, I could look at the controls and the 
pitch black tunnel which was waiting to swallow us up the minute we 
started up from the platform.

	One time, in response to my gaze, the driver said, “Would you like to 
see what it’s like in the cab?”

	Of course I stuck my head through the door and took in all the levers 
and the dials. Then, slowly, I backed off to my seat. “No,” he said, 
“would you like to ride in the cab to the next station?”

	Something in me made me shyly turn him down.

For sixty some years I’ve been kicking myself. I was never offered 
another chance to fly through the dark, with only a little light on the 
front of the train by which to see the rails, listening to the whine and 
squeal of the wheels on the track as we raced around corners.

What would I give now to go back and change my mind? What did I miss? As 
a sixty-something I have an idea, but as a six-year-old I’ll never know 
the amazement of what I might have experienced. Even if the noise was 
deafening and the dark frightening, with the driver there, his hand on 
the brake switch if it became necessary, I’d have been perfectly safe. 
And, who knows, I may have become a subway engineer for Glasgow 
Corporation Transport! 	Maybe some here wish I HAD!
I can never turn back to that experience. For that matter, there are 
other things that I have and haven’t done. Some may have created only 
minor inconvenience. Others have altered my life radically – for both 
good and ill.

What about you?

	We ALL have things we wish we could take back, but can’t. Still, God 
never stops dropping hints, torching bushes, suggesting both easy and 
difficult things to take on. No matter what our lives are right now, no 
matter how old or young, no matter what our health or economic and 
physical condition, God STILL speaks and signs.

	Of course, stopping to pay attention to God’s sign; even listening to 
God, doesn’t commit us to anything. We can still say, “No!” We can try 
all sorts of ways to wriggle out of the vocation. God WILL try to 
persuade us, of course – but not force us. The point is that at every 
step we have choices. And, thank God, God has a wicked sense of humour, 
and we may find ourselves being teased. We can even learn from the 
things to which we’ve said, “No” in the past.

	There’s ALWAYS something which God would like us to do. It might be 
facing the Governor down. It might be challenging the legislators of the 
State and the nation. It might actually come to the point at which we 
have to stand up to those who could harm us, it might in reality come to 
the point at which we have to stand firm and say to ourselves – and to 
God – I don’t care what this might cost me, turning my back on 
injustice, on cruelty, on hunger, or homelessness is simply not an 
option for me, even if it means that I may have to endure some of these 
myself. I can’t leave others without help.

	The Rev’d. Ed Bacon, Rector of All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, 
California, put pretty bluntly the challenge to listen to the voice of 
God and to respond. He said, “Faith in action is called politics. 
Spirituality without action is fruitless and social action without 
spirituality is heartless. We are boldly political without being 
partisan. Having a partisan-free place to stand liberates the religious 
patriot to see clearly, speak courageously, and act daringly.” 2

	We HAVE to be willing to face the Governor and Legislature if and when 
we find people crying out for help and being ignored or abused. OR we 
CAN simply choose to by-pass anything that looks remotely like enflamed 
shrubbery.

	But I have one last thought. Twelve years ago I had a chance to visit 
my sister in New Zealand. We got a special fare on an unscheduled flight 
out of Portland, direct to New Zealand. Coming back, we took a regularly 
scheduled one.

	While with Pat, my sister, we met several of her good friends. Among 
them was a woman whose son is a pilot for Air New Zealand. She told us 
something really surprising. So when we boarded the plane to come home, 
after we were in the air for a bit and the cabin attendant came around 
to see if we needed anything, I did what I’d been told. I mentioned 
Pat’s friend’s name, and that of her son. Several hours later, when we 
were about an hour and a half away from L.A., my three daughters, 
Pauline and I were escorted up through the ritzy upper deck and right 
into the flight deck of the 747.

	It was flying smoothly across the western edge of the Pacific – not 
simply sitting on the runway at the terminal. It was incredible – and 
scary. I could see us hitting turbulence and me lunging forward on to 
the controls. But that didn’t happen.

	You and I never know what we can do until we try it.

	So, go on – take a chance – mention “I AM”’s Name. Maybe you’ll get to 
check out the flight deck of life too! And THAT would give you and me a 
tremendous boost to discover how we can free others – and ourselves – 
from anything that keeps us from the exhilarating life to which God is 
calling us.

NOTES:

1 	OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR  Stop Using Chimps as Guinea Pigs  By ROSCOE G. 
BARTLETT  Published: August 10, 2011  Washington 
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/11/opinion/stop-using-chimps-as-guinea-pigs.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha212

2	“The IRS Goes to Church” A sermon preached by the Rev. J. Edwin Bacon, 
Jr, Rector, All Saints church, Pasadena, California November 13, 2005, 
Pentecost Proper 28A




Robert P Morrison
Interim Vicar
The Episcopal Church of St Alban
PO Box 1556
Albany OR  97321   541-921-1076 (cell)