"Holy ground"-Sermon for Proper 17, Exodus 3:1-15:
So, I have recently rejoined the Board of Trustees at Trinity Episcopal School, which is a pre-school through eighth grade Independent Episcopal School in west Austin with about 600 students. I say rejoined because I served on their board for seven years from 2006-2013. Serving on boards of trustees or directors of Episcopal Institutions and non-profits has become sort of an avocation for me. Over the two and a half decades I have been ordained, I have served on the boards of about 12 different organizations, like Trinity, the Great Commission Foundation, the Southwestern Association of Episcopal Schools, El Buen Samritano, and Camp Allen, to name a few. And, these leadership opportunities in the broader community have provided me with rich learning about governance, fund-raising, financial sustainability and institution building that have deeply informed my chief work and primary vocation of building up this institution, this parish, this family of faith…St. Julian’s. Further, my board work has allowed me to share our story…to introduce St. Julian’s broadly to many hundreds of people across the larger community and Episcopal world. And, to this end, I have considered this part of my ministry to be a form of evangelism…sharing the Good News of God’s kingdom building work in and through us…this family of faith...and invite them to join us, literally…to join our church…or as partners who pray for us and support us from a step away. And, as an aside, I will say, I still dream that our ministry, that our church, may include a school one day, and I invite you to pray about that with me as well…to help discover if this indeed is a ministry to which God is calling us.
And, though I think it is good for you to know the extent of your Rector’s ministry, that’s me, beyond our own walls and hope you find it encouraging, I really began my sermon with these musings to talk about an experience I have had over the years at Trinity Episcopal School in particular. You see if Trinity has a theme song…a song that is beloved by students and faculty alike…a song that is inspirational and that all the kids know by heart and love to sing loudly and with great enthusiasm in chapel each week…I would say it is “Holy Ground”. I am sure many of you are familiar with it. It is a standard in the praise and worship canon of contemporary Christian music.
"This is holy ground
We are standing on holy ground
For the Lord is here and where he is…is holy."
And, I will say, as I have experienced this over the years at Trinity, a chapel or gym full of hundreds of children signing this song from the heart…with all their heart…is a powerful reminder…and more so for me an actual moment of conviction…of belief…that we are…at all times and in all places…standing on holy ground…standing in the very midst of the divine…in the very presence of love incarnate in human life. For, God is with us…not a distant reality unconcerned with the world’s great suffering…including our own…but God is with us…here and now…deeply concerned with our daily trials, temptations and tribulations…the challenge of making meaning and making a difference with the lives we live…seeking the light of hope when shrouded by the darkness of grief and despair. God is with us in the very midst of the great injustices that plague our society rooted in money and power and class and bigotry. God is with us when that unwanted diagnosis arrives. God is with us when we need just enough strength to get dinner on the table for our loved ones…before collapsing…after a totally exhausting day of care-giving, carpool, traffic, unrelenting heat, and demanding work that never seems to end. And, friends, in the midst of all of that, we need reminders…so that we may remember…that wherever we are and with whomever we are among…that we are standing on holy ground…for God hears the cries of God’s people…including our own…and God is with us…right now and at every right now that follows. For, God has acted in Jesus’ resurrection trampling down death…which holds no power over us…and God continues to act on the ground…in the darkness and in the light…God’s Holy Spirit is on the move on the ground floor of our lives bringing power and hope and healing and wisdom to meet each moment and overcome each obstacle in our very present…like a bush on fire with love alone, which burns eternally for it cannot be consumed…and once seen…cannot be turned away from. For the fire of God’s love will be all in all. It will be all that is left for us and for all to revel in, when God has set us all free from every power and principality of darkness, every illness and compulsion, every fear and grief…till we are fully on fire ourselves with the love of God and never consumed.
And, I share this, in a sense, to try to provide some context for Moses’ story from our Old Testament lesson today. For his own story mirrors our own…for both the fears and challenges that he faced…we face. And, his hope that God will set him and those he loves free from all that seeks to hold them in bondage…is also our hope. You see, though once a prince of Egypt, when we encounter Moses today, he has fled for his life from the home in which he was raised under the charge of murder. He is living in hiding with an assumed identity…living with the fear of being found out and caught…or worse. He is struggling with the shame of leaving the people of his birth behind, the people of Israel, when he runs for his life from Egypt. For, though he is safe, at least for the moment, they continue a life of slavery…a life of despair, pain and struggle under the unrelenting whips of their harsh taskmasters. Now, Moses has done his best to create some solace in the life he has made in Midian…in exile, outside the borders of Egypt, but still…I believe the weight of his past and the uncertainty of his future remains steadfastly heaped upon his shoulders. And, in the midst of the trials, temptations and tribulations of just another day of hard work in his life…in the midst of all of his fear and uncertainty, God shows up…like a choir of children singing from the heart…with all their heart…maybe even one better…for the very voice of God emanates from a burning bush that is not consumed, reminding him that he is standing on holy ground. God is with him in the present. God has not abandoned him to his shame and fear, and God has not abandoned his loved ones, his people, still suffering under the whips of their taskmasters. He has heard their cries. He is present with them. And, he will act to set them free.
Friends, I really think this is one of the most moving scenes in all of scripture. For, with the ears of my heart, I can hear the compassion in God’s words…not spoken on God’s behalf by some well-intentioned prophet or preacher like this one standing before you today…but, God, in God’s own words, speaks with deep knowing…like the pain suffered by his beloved is his own…like the whips are scourging his own shoulders…like a parent watching their own child mightily struggle…like his own heart beating outside his own body is being crushed under an unrelenting weight. God speaks and God says, “I have heard their cry…. I know their suffering…. I have come…to deliver them…. To bring them…to a good and broad land.” And, as I noted, Moses’ story mirrors our own. Thus, these words, God’s own words, first shared with Moses and for his people, are for us as well. Miles…but please insert your own name in my name’s place…or the name of a loved one who is suffering…or a whole people in our community or world who are suffering, “Miles, my beloved, you are standing on holy ground…for I, the Holy One, am with you. I have heard your cry. I know your suffering. I have come to deliver you.”
Now, I will note that schools like Trinity, for there are others, maybe even one called St. Julian’s someday, might be unique in that they are full of hundreds of children who get to sing together in a worship service five days a week…and further that getting to hear them sing from their hearts of God’s love on fire in our lives in the present…is inspiring and convicting. But, the people and place that remind me most, the very most, that I am, at all times and in all places, standing on holy ground…that God is with me in each present moment…that God will deliver me and all of us from everything that seeks to keep us small, hold us back and keep us in bondage…is you and is right here, as we gather, to sing and pray each week.
And, just as Moses is sent by God from the burning bush back to Egypt…though not alone…for God is indeed with him…just as Moses is sent to set the people of Israel free from their bondage…we too are sent by God…sent into each other’s lives…sent into the lives of those in our families, schools, work places, and communities like a voice in an angelic choir to help them remember…to help the see with the eyes of their hearts…through our love and witness…that they stand on holy ground…made holy because God, the Holy One, is always present. God is with them at all times and in all places, especially when the ground they are standing on feels hard, unfamiliar and unwelcoming. For we all, those to whom we are sent and we ourselves, need reminding that God continues to act on the ground…in the darkness and in the light. God’s Holy Spirit is on the move on the ground floor of our lives bringing power and hope and healing and wisdom to meet each moment and overcome each obstacle in our very present…like a bush on fire with love alone, which burns eternally for it cannot be consumed…and once seen…cannot be turned away from. Amen.