Bushes and Crosses

Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas

August 28, 2011; Proper 17, Year A, Track 1

Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary

(Exodus 3:1-15) – Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; he led his flock beyond the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed. Then 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." Then he said, "Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground." He said further, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.

Then the LORD said, "I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the country of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. The cry of the Israelites has now come to me; I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them. So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt." But Moses said to God, "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?" He said, "I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain."

But Moses said to God, "If I come to the Israelites and say to them, 'The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' what shall I say to them?" God said to Moses, "I AM Who I AM." He said further, "Thus you shall say to the Israelites, 'I AM has sent me to you.'" God also said to Moses, "Thus you shall say to the Israelites, 'The LORD, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you':

This is my name forever,

and this my title for all generations."

(Matthew 16:21-28) – Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, "God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you." But he turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things."

Then Jesus told his disciples, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?

"For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done. Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom."
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Some have said that the real miracle of Moses and the burning bush is that Moses stopped to look in the first place.  He might have been too busy to notice.  Or too much in a hurry to stop.  Instead, he turned aside from whatever he might have been preoccupied with so he could look more deeply at something odd – a bush that appeared to be on fire but not consumed.  Moses paused for a moment.  The scripture says, “When the LORD saw that (Moses) had turned aside, God called to him out of the bush…”

Poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning writes, “Earth's crammed with heaven, / And every common bush afire with God: / But only he who sees, takes off his shoes, / The rest sit round it, and pluck blackberries…” [i]

“Earth’s crammed with heaven.”  You never know when you might be surprised by revelation.  All of creation is infused with divine life.  God is trying to get our attention.  Can we be alert, awake enough to see?

I’ve started reading the newly published memoir written by our associate priest Lynne Spellman – it’s a great book, by the way – and she tells of a wonderfully odd burning-bush moment.  She was alone in her basement garage, lifting weights.  “Not the most likely time for an experience of God,” she says.  But it was a time of solitude.  She writes this:  “Suddenly it seemed to me that, beyond my seeing, something Holy was present.  That night I found myself unexpectedly, inexplicably, in the presence of love, intense love, and I was sure that it was not my love.” [ii]

Last weekend Fred Burnham was with us talking about the terrifying moment when he and a circle of friends were certain that they were going to die, surrounded by the dust and percussion of the World Trade Center falling just a few feet away from them.  Fred then experienced what he called a profound “circle of love,” casting out all fear, and bonding them together in an eternal sense of belongingness.  He sensed an overwhelming divine presence, infinitely loving, connecting him to all humanity, to all creation.  He says he is spending the rest of his life living to understand that experience and to live out of its reality.  That’s a burning bush experience, isn’t it?

I think all of us have burning bush experiences.  They are rarely as dramatic as what happened to Fred Burnham.  More often they are as common as blackberries and lifting weights.  There are times when Something More breaks through our consciousness, and if we are wise, we will stop, pay attention, and be changed.

After Moses paused to take off his shoes, he experienced a knowing and a call.  His “knowing” was an encounter with mystery.  He was given a partial understanding of God – God’s Name:  I AM Who I AM.  But that Name only points to an indefinable mystery of Being that we can never claim to define, and certainly can never control.  Beware of people who think they understand God. 

Then the knowable but indefinable God sent Moses on a mission.  Moses was to return to Egypt to help free God’s people.  In essence, he was told to organize a labor movement.  And he was to do that in the place from which he had fled earlier under an indictment for murder.

That’s a tough call.  At that point in his life, things were going well in the desert for Moses.  He worked for his wealthy father-in-law, had a loving wife and family.  Stable, secure, unthreatened.  After the burning-bush, Moses left all of that comfort and went on a wild, roller-coaster ride – challenging Pharaoh, negotiating the wilderness, leading a rebellious people, and facing his own temper.  If he were to experience peace after that day of the burning bush, it was to be a different kind of peace.  In Christian language, we would say Moses picked up his cross and carried it. 

I think this sort of thing happens a lot.  God catches our attention through something wonderful or glorious or mysterious, and our consciousness is opened.  Then God calls us to some form of service that has an aspect of carrying the cross in it.

Lynne’s book is about her cross-carrying journey of self-discovery that included opening a door which “stored a grief too great to grieve.” [iii]  Fred left an institution that he had built into international acclaim, letting it slip into something less, maybe even nothing, while he moved into a new place of reflection on the interconnectedness of being.

So often, our burning bushes and our crosses are related.

I think when we experience the burning-bush of the divine, we are often led into the wilderness, like Moses, or we find our cross to carry, like Christ.

I also think the relationship goes in the other direction.  I think that it is our crosses that often lead us into enlightenment.  I have known people who have been stuck in dark places who find that it is in the dark that they discover their deepest meaning and direction. 

Spiritual writer Thomas Moore is “convinced that depression is not a biological event but always a meaningful one.”  He says this about depression: 

The soul presents itself in a variety of colors, including all the shades of blue, gray, and black. To care for the soul, we must observe the full range of all its colorings, and resist the temptation to approve only of white, red, and orange – the brilliant colors….  Some feelings and thoughts seem to emerge only in a dark mood.  Suppress the mood, and you will suppress those ideas and reflection.…  Melancholy gives the soul an opportunity to express a side of its nature that is as valid as any other, but is hidden out of our distaste for its darkness and bitterness.” [iv]

When Jesus told the disciples of the path of suffering that lay ahead for him, Peter rebuked Jesus.  Peter and the other disciples wanted only the pretty colors of glory and of kingdoms.  “Get behind me, Satan,” Jesus replied.  Sometimes it is only through the dark night that we can get to a new dawn. 

A friend of mine quit his job to care for his father 24-7, living at home with Alzheimer’s.  I’ve seen the research.  I know that what he did is one of the most difficult and depressing things anyone can do.  After his dad’s death, my friend told me staying home and caring for his dad had been the most important action of his life.  He said to me, smiling radiantly, “I’ve learned two things.  (1) I’m not afraid to die anymore, and (2) I’m not afraid of Alzheimer’s.  By the time I know I have it, I won’t care.”  I can tell you, that was of utmost meaning to him.

Our attention can be grasped by either the burning bush or the cross – the brilliance or the darkness. 

Whenever we experience a burning bush – a sense of blessing or presence – we might ask ourselves how that might be connected with a calling to carry a cross.

Whenever we experience a cross – a burden or calling that costs us dearly – we might ask ourselves how that might be connected with God’s radiant, divine presence.

Both the cross and the bush do similar things.  They both take us out of ourselves, out of our self-centered tendencies toward narcissism.  Our burning bushes overwhelm us with the great I AM.  Our crosses overwhelm us with that which is greater than we can control.

Both the cross and the bush are encounters that take us outside of our narcissism into community.  The bush invites us into the mysterious community of the Holy Trinity, the mysterious interrelatedness of the community of God.  The cross calls us to give our life away to the mystery of our greater interrelationships with others.  Basically, both bush and cross are about loving and being loved.

At various times in our life we find ourselves at one end of this continuum or another.  When we are filled with light, with intimations of immortalities, we might look for a cross we are called to carry.  When we are suffering or stuck in a place of darkness or threat, we might look for the light of new birth that God is accomplishing in us and through us. 

I think our burning bushes and our crosses are related.  Where are you on that continuum?  What radiance or darkness does God invite you to encounter?  Your feet are on holy ground.  There are bushes burning everywhere.  There are crosses to be carried everywhere.  God and God’s love are in it all.

__________________

The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church is to explore and celebrate

God's infinite grace, acceptance and love.

For information about St. Paul's Episcopal Church and its life and mission, please contact us at

P.O. Box 1190, Fayetteville, AR 72702, or call 479/442-7373

More sermons are posted on our web site: www.stpaulsfay.org

Visit our web partners at www.explorefaith.org

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[i]  Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Book VII, l. 812-826

[ii] Lynne Spellman, Unbolting the Dark, A Memoir, Hamilton Books, 2011, p. 3

[iii] Ibid, p. 10

[iv] Thomas Moore, Care of the Soul, Harper Perennial, 1994, p. 137-8

Giving the Children's Bread to the Dogs

Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas

August 14, 2011; Proper 9, Year A

Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary

(Matthew 15:21-28) – Jesus left Gennesaret and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. Just then  a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, "Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon." But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, "Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us." He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the  house of Israel." But she came and knelt before him, saying, "Lord, help me." He answered, "It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs."  She said, "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table." Then Jesus answered her, "Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish." And her daughter was healed instantly.

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A few years ago I took a trip that followed the path of one of Paul’s missionary journeys.  An extra stop on the tour was a visit to Crete, where Paul and Titus founded a Christian community.

One day we went across the island of Crete along the main east-west highway on the northern side.  We had a delightful and informative guide, eager to tell us the stories of her country, in a dignified, yet fetching sing-song cadence.

In a city on the far end of the island, we visited a couple of museums housed in historic mosques from the days of the Ottoman Empire’s rule in Crete.  Almost half of Crete’s population was Muslim prior to the Greek War of Independence that ended in 1832. 

From the elevated highway, we could look into the cities and towns and see the minaret towers that are used to call the Muslim faithful to prayers five times a day.  It seemed to me that there were a lot of minarets, though we had not heard any calls to prayer yet.  All of the mosques that we had seen up close had been converted into museums or apartments and storefronts.  I asked our guide about the mosques that dotted the landscape.  Were any of them functioning?  “No,” she said sharply.  “There are no Muslims in Crete to this day.”

As we drove along the highway stretching most of the length of the island, our guide rehearsed for us a history of massacres and atrocities, with exact dates and numbers.  “Two hundred meters south from here, on such-and-such date, the Turks massacred 563 men, women and children.”  “Five kilometers down this road, on such-and-such date, the Turks burned and killed an entire village.”  Every few minutes along the way, we passed the memory of a genocide or another atrocity, covering hundreds of years of Crete’s history.  As I recall it, other than one or two references to the Nazi invasion in World War II, all of the outrages were committed by the Ottoman Turks. 

As we neared the city where we were staying, she rehearsed one final tragic story.  Then she looked at us to make her summary point:  “So now you know why we all hate the Turks to this day.”  No one had the stomach to ask if there had been any Greek massacres of the Turks, but I remained haunted by the statement, “There are no Muslims in Crete to this day.”  Complete ethnic purification.

In the Bible we read of Joshua’s invasion of the land of Canaan.  Starting with the battle of Jericho, the Hebrews fought the native-resident Canaanites and captured a number of cities and villages to claim a territory.  After some of the battles all of the Canaanite inhabitants were executed.  But the Canaanites remained, especially along the fertile plain adjacent to the Mediterranean Sea.  The Bible records various conflicts with their descendents, including the Philistines. 

There is a long history of conflict and violence between the Hebrew people and the Canaanite people.  By Jesus’ day, they had been enemies for more than a thousand years.  His people treasured memories of battles and victories, as well as painful memories of tragedies, outrages and genocides.

So we come to the story we have for today’s gospel.  Jesus has traveled outside of Israel, to the coastal cities of Tyre and Sidon.  His entourage is interrupted by a Canaanite woman who shouts at him, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.”  Jesus does not answer her.  The disciples want to send her away.  They would have regarded her as an enemy. 

Jesus speaks to her to make it clear.  He has boundaries.  His mission is “only to the lost sheep of Israel.”  Not to Canaanites.  But the woman is persistent.  She will not take “no” for an answer.  So Jesus speaks more plainly.  “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”  What Jesus says to her is not just street language; it is also Biblical language.  Foreign enemies were called “dogs.”  Everybody spoke that way.  It’s language Jesus would have absorbed from his culture, from his family in Nazareth and elsewhere in Israel.  She is a foreigner, a traditional enemy, unclean.  He has been called to serve the lost sheep of Israel.  That’s that.

But she says something surprising.  “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the master’s table.”  This was an unexpected response – a clever response; a humble response; a response with the sound of faith.  Jesus looks at her again.  This time he sees not just a Canaanite, not a dog – he sees a human being, a concerned mother.  “Woman, great is your faith!  Let it be done for you as you wish.”  And the child is healed.

Symbolically, a thousand years of enmity and strife is also healed.  Jesus accepted a Canaanite.  It is clear in Mark’s gospel that from this point on in Jesus’ mission, he performed the same healings and the same miraculous feedings among the Gentiles as he did among his own people.  His mission of compassion was no longer only for the lost sheep of Israel, it was for every human being.

Part of what this story tells me is that we all grow up with cultural messages from childhood.  We are born with our own people’s history.  It is only natural that we see the world from our family’s perspective.

But when we encounter something humane that challenges our family’s perspective, Jesus shows us the way to transcend the limits of our culture.  At the moment he recognized a common identity, Jesus instantly dropped a centuries-old inheritance and embraced an outsider in a spirit of compassion for our common humanity.  He is our model.  He invites us to join the divine work of healing centuries of enmity and strife.

We have our own history.  We live here along the Trail of Tears, a landmark in the story of our people’s conquest and genocide over the native residents of this land.  I remember signs that said “Whites Only” over waiting rooms and restrooms and water fountains.  I know of some Episcopal churches where large numbers of their members left fifty years ago when a priest or vestry welcomed blacks into worship.

Our culture today inherits complicated attitudes of judgment and separation.  In various ways we “dog” others.  For some the dogs are immigrants or Muslims.  For others, it’s fundamentalists or the Tea Partiers.  The words “liberal” and “conservative” are both used as epithets. 

Sometimes we don’t even know that we have a bias, until we face an anomaly.  A Canaanite with faith!  They’re not all dogs.  Who knew? 

I’ve got a friend who often finishes his sermons by giving his congregation some homework for the week.  He says that what’s important about a sermon is what people can do with it during the week, no what they hear sitting down on Sunday.

So I have some homework to give you.  Pay attention to your reactions this week.  Notice when someone annoys you.  If someone provokes a reaction in you, be alert – especially if they are demanding something or trying to goad you to attention. 

Who is it that you have issues with?  What kind of person pushes your buttons?

Then ask yourself, what do they really want?  What do they say they need?  What values might they affirm? 

Finally, examine yourself to consider – in what ways might your reactions to them be culturally conditioned?  How might your world view limit the scope of your compassion?  Or, the short version:  Who are the Canaanite women in your life? 

See if sometime this week you are given an opportunity to follow Jesus’ example.  Let that be a chance to renew your Baptismal Covenant promise to “strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being.”  It may be that you will get a chance to take some of the children’s food and throw it to the dogs. 

________________________

The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church is to explore and celebrate

God's infinite grace, acceptance and love.

For information about St. Paul's Episcopal Church and its life and mission, please contact us at

P.O. Box 1190, Fayetteville, AR 72702, or call 479/442-7373

More sermons are posted on our web site: www.stpaulsfay.org

Visit our web partners at www.explorefaith.org