Exodus 33:12-23
What are the pictures of God we have? We tend to be very concrete with these and these images in our minds develop over time. This is what the Hebrew people are going through. Look at all we've been through in the biblical story so far. From Adam and Eve walking in the garden with God to Noah, then to Abraham and Sarah and a wandering God through the land. At last we have Jacob who has so many children and grandchildren they move to Egypt in order not to starve during the famine and they go from wandering to standing still and oppression comes upon them because they are foreigners, immigrants.
Now in Exodus we have the God of the burning bush, a God who calls out particular people for a particular role with a whole body of people. "I am" is God's revealing name, no more and no less. So Moses and the people have this new relationship which is being discovered. I am the God who brought you out of Egypt, I am the freeing God. I am the one you should remember on a certain day and rest, I am the God of rest. I am the God who will go with you while you are in the wilderness, I am the companion God.
How many different images or experiences of God have you had in your life? For me God has gone through some changes since I first started this walk. God was the friend God, the one I wanted to read about and know and become acquainted with. Then in my teen years God became the angry God, the one who you were in trouble with if you stepped out of line. You might as well call it the black and white God, the God who knew right and wrong. Then in college that God didn't fit me anymore and I lost God. If God was the God of vengeance I didn't need that God so I decided there couldn't be a God. Then things changed in me and I began to see a God who loves us deeply. Who doesn't stand there waiting to punish us and stands waiting for us to realize Gods arms are wide open waiting for us to fall in.
How many faces of God have you known in your life? Has God always remained the same to you or does your relationship and image change as you grow and mature? This is why we have the question of image with the Pharisees go to Jesus with this question about who to pay tribute to. They ask because their image is so clouded by empire and staying safe. Jesus brings attention to this by saying pay to the one in charge what is due and give God what belongs to God. Jesus keeps trying to help the Pharisees see it is their own visions which are getting in the way of truly seeing God. This is a hard lesson to learn. Sometimes we like to hold onto the current image we have of God. We don't want it opened any wider than the one we currently have. The thing is this isn't where the story ends today.
Moses asks to see God and God agrees to pass by and the only restriction is that Moses will not see Gods face. We tend to take the bible too literally sometimes. When it says Moses is not allowed we tend to look at it as though Moses would die if he saw Gods face. How about this though? Maybe the writer is instead leaving this up to the changing mystery of God. Since we are finite and deal in finite terms we like to put an end to who God is. God will not change again. Yet we see time and again in story how this is just not true because God is infinite and we can't even begin to wrap our heads around this in this life.
The mystery of God opens for us never ending possibilities for our relationship with God. For these Hebrew people to keep growing and encountering God in new ways. Ways in which, well maybe are put better in song, or art, or poems because we just can't contain it. The mystery of God whirls in pictures of stars colliding and echoes through the universe from billions of years ago. The mystery of God is encountered in our most troubling questions when three teens die tragically and we can't wrap our heads around the why. The mystery of God reaches out to us in songs that touch our inner being and don't stop once the music has. The mystery of God keeps being revealed in so many ways and all we have to do is open our minds to it, embracing the uncertainty of truly knowing and to keep journeying forward. Just like these people do today.
Don't forget to leave the door open for the divine mystery. God does not stay static, instead God is present to us in more ways than we can imagine. Embrace the mystery with faith.
What are the pictures of God we have? We tend to be very concrete with these and these images in our minds develop over time. This is what the Hebrew people are going through. Look at all we've been through in the biblical story so far. From Adam and Eve walking in the garden with God to Noah, then to Abraham and Sarah and a wandering God through the land. At last we have Jacob who has so many children and grandchildren they move to Egypt in order not to starve during the famine and they go from wandering to standing still and oppression comes upon them because they are foreigners, immigrants.
Now in Exodus we have the God of the burning bush, a God who calls out particular people for a particular role with a whole body of people. "I am" is God's revealing name, no more and no less. So Moses and the people have this new relationship which is being discovered. I am the God who brought you out of Egypt, I am the freeing God. I am the one you should remember on a certain day and rest, I am the God of rest. I am the God who will go with you while you are in the wilderness, I am the companion God.
How many different images or experiences of God have you had in your life? For me God has gone through some changes since I first started this walk. God was the friend God, the one I wanted to read about and know and become acquainted with. Then in my teen years God became the angry God, the one who you were in trouble with if you stepped out of line. You might as well call it the black and white God, the God who knew right and wrong. Then in college that God didn't fit me anymore and I lost God. If God was the God of vengeance I didn't need that God so I decided there couldn't be a God. Then things changed in me and I began to see a God who loves us deeply. Who doesn't stand there waiting to punish us and stands waiting for us to realize Gods arms are wide open waiting for us to fall in.
How many faces of God have you known in your life? Has God always remained the same to you or does your relationship and image change as you grow and mature? This is why we have the question of image with the Pharisees go to Jesus with this question about who to pay tribute to. They ask because their image is so clouded by empire and staying safe. Jesus brings attention to this by saying pay to the one in charge what is due and give God what belongs to God. Jesus keeps trying to help the Pharisees see it is their own visions which are getting in the way of truly seeing God. This is a hard lesson to learn. Sometimes we like to hold onto the current image we have of God. We don't want it opened any wider than the one we currently have. The thing is this isn't where the story ends today.
Moses asks to see God and God agrees to pass by and the only restriction is that Moses will not see Gods face. We tend to take the bible too literally sometimes. When it says Moses is not allowed we tend to look at it as though Moses would die if he saw Gods face. How about this though? Maybe the writer is instead leaving this up to the changing mystery of God. Since we are finite and deal in finite terms we like to put an end to who God is. God will not change again. Yet we see time and again in story how this is just not true because God is infinite and we can't even begin to wrap our heads around this in this life.
The mystery of God opens for us never ending possibilities for our relationship with God. For these Hebrew people to keep growing and encountering God in new ways. Ways in which, well maybe are put better in song, or art, or poems because we just can't contain it. The mystery of God whirls in pictures of stars colliding and echoes through the universe from billions of years ago. The mystery of God is encountered in our most troubling questions when three teens die tragically and we can't wrap our heads around the why. The mystery of God reaches out to us in songs that touch our inner being and don't stop once the music has. The mystery of God keeps being revealed in so many ways and all we have to do is open our minds to it, embracing the uncertainty of truly knowing and to keep journeying forward. Just like these people do today.
Don't forget to leave the door open for the divine mystery. God does not stay static, instead God is present to us in more ways than we can imagine. Embrace the mystery with faith.
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