Lent 3C, March 23, 2025, The Rev. Colin Brown
- Back when Christie and I were members here at St. Dunstan’s the first time, there was another young couple, Andy and Jana Delfino, who joined a couple of years after we did. Christie and I lived in Mableton at the time, and Andy and Jana lived just down the road in Smyrna, and we were all, at the time, a fair bit younger than the average St. Dunstan’s parishioner, so naturally, we gravitated towards each other. We went from hanging out at coffee hour after church to hanging out at each other’s houses on the weekends. Andy served a term on the vestry, and I can’t remember which committee was his, but it involved trying to publicize St. Dunstan’s, so he and I spent one Saturday driving around in my pickup truck, drinking beer and putting up those “The Episcopal Church Welcomes You” signs around the neighborhood. I think one or two of them might actually still be up. What I’m trying to say is that there was a season of life when Andy and Jana and Christie and I were good friends. The Delfinos moved away to Maryland several years ago and we drifted apart like people do, but one thing I will always remember about being friends with them was the first time Christie and I went to their house for dinner. We showed up, side dish and bottle of wine in hand, rang the doorbell, and when Jana opened the door, she said, “Welcome! Take off your shoes and leave them here on this shelf as you come in.” Immediately a sort of low-grade panic began to set in. Maybe you’ve felt it too in similar situations. I thought, “Oh, man, did I wear socks that are suitable for public viewing? How recently did I shower? Could I maybe just refuse to remove my shoes?” There’s sort of a vulnerability in walking around someone’s house in your sock feet, and I wasn’t sure I was ready to go there yet with these people that I really didn’t know very well. But ultimately I did the polite thing and took off my shoes, and the rest of the evening passed uneventfully and without too much distracting foot odor. The funny thing is, the more we got together with the Delfinos, the less awkward the shoe removal ritual became. Taking off our shoes when we went to their house stopped being annoying and started being comfortable. It started to feel right. It started to make us feel like we were at home.
- Moses, you might remember, never really had a home. His mother put him in a basket in the river shortly after he was born in order to keep him safe from Pharaoh’s order that all baby boys born to Hebrew women should be killed. He ended up being found by Pharaoh’s daughter and raised in Pharaoh’s palace. But Moses never fit in with the royal set. Seeing the way that they treated his people infuriated him, and by the end of Exodus 2, Moses was on the run, fleeing prosecution for having killed an Egyptian who was abusing a Hebrew slave. This is where we catch up to Moses in today’s reading from Exodus 3 – a man who has never lived as anything other than a stranger in a strange land, tending his father-in-law’s sheep in the wilderness and trying to keep a low profile.
- But then one day, a moment of curiosity changes everything. Moses is out following the sheep around in the wilderness like he does every day, when he sees a bush that’s blazing with fire, but is not being burned up. He steps off the trail to take a look, and as he approaches he hears the voice of God coming out of the bush, and it says, “Moses, Moses, stop where you are and take off your shoes, because the ground on which you are standing is holy ground.” Now, I used to think that God asks Moses to remove his shoes as an act of reverence, and I would imagine that the vast majority of Biblical commentators, all of whom are much more learned than I, would say that that is the case. But as I was reflecting on this passage this week, I started to wonder if maybe God asks Moses to take off his shoes, not as an act of reverence, but to let Moses know that, after all these years, he is finally home. After all the years of running, after all the years of living as a stranger, of having to suppress his true identity, here on this patch of holy ground in the presence of God in the middle of the wilderness, Moses has at last found himself at home. He’s found himself in a place where he is welcome, a place where he is known, a place where he can take off his shoes and stay awhile. I don’t think God asks Moses to remove his shoes as a means of forcing him into reverent submission. I think God does it to welcome Moses home.
- But no sooner has Moses started to relax into the idea that he’s finally made it home here in the presence of God than God says to him, “Moses, don’t get too comfortable.” “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt, I have seen the way they suffer in captivity. And I need for you to go and bring them home.” God is not going to allow Moses to relax here in God’s presence all by himself. Not when there are others who are enslaved. Not when there are others who live as strangers in a cruel, strange land. Not when there are others who need to be brought home. But Moses, in spite of his past actions in defense of the Hebrew people, does not think that he is the man for the job. “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring these people out of Egypt?” he says. But God responds, “It doesn’t matter who you are, what matters is who I am, and I will be with you.” But Moses is still not convinced. He says, “Well if they ask who you are, what should I say?” And it’s at that point that God utters the words that are meant to convince Moses beyond a shadow of doubt that he is and always will be fully home in the presence of God – God tells Moses God’s name. “Tell them I AM sent you.” The unseeable, unknowable, unpredictable, inscrutable God has drawn near to Moses, has welcomed him home, and has shared with him the divine name. “Tell them I AM sent you.” God sends Moses back to the land where he was raised, back to the land of his people’s captivity, bearing the knowledge of what it feels like to be truly home and bearing the name of the only one in whose presence true home can be found. So Moses puts his shoes back on and he sets out to lead God’s people home.
- I would imagine that most of us can think of a place in our lives that we consider to be holy ground. A place where we feel welcome and known, a place where we feel safe and free enough to take off our shoes and stick around awhile. A place where we have known and experienced the presence of God in a way that leaves little room for doubt. For me, that place is the top of Lookout Mountain in Montreat, North Carolina. It’s the place where I became convinced, after years of avoiding it, that I was indeed called to be a priest in God’s church. If you are fortunate enough to have stood on holy ground, you know what a blessing it is to have done so. You know what it’s like to rest, even if just for a few moments, in the presence of God. Unfortunately, though, there are those among us for whom the ground on which they stand is anything but holy because it is not a place where they feel welcome or known or safe or free. It’s not a place that feels anything like home. A couple of weeks ago I had the privilege of attending a meeting of PRISM, which is the LGBTQ+ affinity group in Lovett’s Upper School. I was heartbroken to hear these children’s stories of what it’s like to try to navigate school and family life in a world that somehow still sees them as sinful and defective. Yesterday, Mary Grace and I volunteered with a group of Lovett students at the Latin American Association Food Pantry over on Buford Highway. I was appalled when the operations director there told us about people who have had to calculate which was riskier – going without food, or risking deportation by showing up at the Latin American Association on food distribution days. These are people who are trying desperately to make a home in a place that insists on treating them as unwelcome strangers. A place that likes to pretend that its ground is too holy for the likes of them and will do everything possible to make sure they keep their shoes on. But the story of Moses reminds us that God wants all of God’s people home. God wants all of God’s people free. And it reminds us that it is the job of those of us who have stood on holy ground to go out and help others get there too. Like Moses, we are called to put our shoes back on and to go and to seek out those who have never had the privilege of removing theirs. We are called to do so knowing that God will be with us, guiding us, leading us, equipping us until all of God’s children are welcome, all of God’s children are free, all of God’s children are safe at home. Amen.