Jarrett McLaughlin
Grounded: On Holy Ground
September 15, 2024
Exodus 3:1-14 (selections)
Cold Open:
In the Fall of 1996 I carried all my earthly belongings up the stairs of Ehringhaus dorm and settled in for my first semester at UNC. Later that first week, I wandered over here to UPC’s Henderson Street entrance to attend my first Campus Ministry gathering.
I was met at the door by this tall guy named Pen – he shook my hand and invited me to make a name tag and to come in for dinner. I imagine that similar scenes played out in the hallways of this Church over the past few weeks.
I don’t remember exactly what happened at my first PCM gathering but I remember it felt warm and hospitable – like I wanted to come back. So I did…and by the middle of September I found myself heading to Montreat with a whole pack of students for a weekend retreat. It was probably this same weekend 28 years ago.
On Saturday morning of that retreat I drove over with Pen to his parents’ house – they live right outside Montreat. For simplicity’s sake, let’s just say I was meeting a friend there – Kristen, we met at a youth conference, she lived in Asheville.
Meg will try to convince you there was more to it than that.
No comment.
At any rate, I’m in the kitchen being polite to the parents and Pen’s sister wanders up the stairs wearing hospital scrubs and coke-bottle-thick glasses and her hair is….vibrantly alive with the bounce of youth-ful….ness (whisper – “it was crazy and all over the place”).
For her part, she was none-too-pleased to see a strange boy in her kitchen and shot her brother the kind of withering gaze we reserve for our siblings. If I had to translate – her look was probably saying “Can you please give a girl a heads-up before you bring some rando over first thing in the morning.”
We exchanged some awkward pleasantries and then I was on my way.
That’s it – nothing special, nothing extraordinary.
Nobody tells you “this is the day you’re going to meet the love of your life.”
Nobody says “Hey – that girl with the coke bottle glasses and the wicked morning hair…you’re going to get married to her.”
And to be clear – that’s a good thing. I was 18 at the time…Meg was maybe a freshly minted 17-year old. If somebody wandered through the kitchen and said to us, “You two are going to have three babies,” that would be all kinds of weird…not to mention a VERY awkward ride back with her brother.
My point is…the pivotal moments in life – we never see them coming.
So it is with Moses and his unexpected encounter with God.
A reading from Exodus, chapter 3:
Scripture:
Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro; 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 out of that land to a good and broad land…flowing with milk and honey. I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them. So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people out of Egypt…’
…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….Thus you shall say to the Israelites, “’I am’ has sent me to you.”
This is the Word of the Lord
Thanks be to God.
Sermon:
It is good to be back with you, friends. I know that Meg already shared a bit about our Sabbatical – I will reiterate my deep gratitude for the gift of so much time. It permitted us to travel like we have not traveled in some time.
I saw many beautiful places – high altitude lakes that were perfect mirrors of the sky and mountains towering above;
lush, green rainforests teeming with all manner of life;
Craggy coastal breaks where the sea pounded against the stone.
In between all these trips and wonders, though, we’d return home to Chapel Hill where I couldn’t help but notice that the grass in our front yard was absolutely dead – brown and as brittle as straw. So much heat. So little rain. I may not have been here for every searing-hot day, but I saw the aftermath.
At some point this summer, Meg returned from the grocery store with one of those tiny basil plants – you know, the kind that have a small root ball with a few leafy shoots, but if you plant it you’ll have Basil for the rest of the season. Meg was going out for the day and she asked Naomi to plant it for her.
I don’t often override anything their mother asks them to do, but I looked at that Basil Plant and could practically hear it calling out to me “Please do not plant me in that scorching-hot soil.” I caught Naomi’s eye and shook my head – “Don’t plant that thing outside – it won’t last 2 days out there.” The ground was not hospitable at all. Dry. Barren. Lifeless.
In Exodus chapter 3 we find Moses leading his flock “beyond the wilderness” to Horeb. The jury is out on what ‘Horeb’ exactly means – some say it means “wasteland” while others say “glowing heat” – neither of them inspire much confidence in the quality of the soil.
The ground on which Moses stands is not even suitable for the task of feeding his flock – much less a promising site for divine revelation.
And yet this wasteland is what God will call Holy Ground – so holy that Moses must remove the sandals from his feet. This wasteland is where one of the most crucial moments in sacred history will unfold; the place where God discloses his very name and identity; the place where God will call Moses to deliver her people out of slavery. What I want to consider today is – what precisely makes the ground holy?
I can guarantee you that Moses did not wake up that morning thinking he would be standing on holy ground, face to face with God…but fortunately he is a curious kind of person.
It’s difficult to overstate the importance of curiosity in this story.
In a dry, barren and very hot place such as Horeb, I imagine brushfires to be fairly commonplace.
Of course there’s a bush on fire over yonder – you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all.
Nothing noteworthy about that sight.
But what Moses notices is that – this time – this particular bush is burning, but it is not consumed…it doesn’t slacken, blacken and then turn to ash like every other campfire you’ve ever seen. So he gets curious – “I must turn aside… and see why the bush is not burned up.”
His curiosity compels him.
I want to linger here for a moment – at this moment where there’s a burning bush behaving differently from every other bush out there; at this moment where somebody is curious enough to ask why that is so. I want to linger here because I wonder if that is what makes the ground holy in the first place.
It requires little imagination to jump from the parched, unpromising earth of Horeb to the moment we are inhabiting right now. Fresh off a Presidential debate this past week and all the parsing of our political divisions that follow, it sure can seem like there are factions of our nation that do not even inhabit the same reality.
And lift your gaze further to even more troubled corners of the world – to Israel and Gaza coming up on one full year of war.
Wasteland as far as the eye can see.
How is anything supposed to thrive in such a space?
Do you feel a bit like that Basil plant, begging God – “please do not plant me in such scorching-hot soil. I will not last two days out there.” It’s Dry. Barren. Lifeless.
If I understand this text, somewhere in the wisdom of God, the holiest ground of all is out there in the wasteland. That’s where you’ll find bushes that are burning but not consumed; places that don’t play out the same, tired old scripts, but chart bold new paths into the life of God.
And out in the wasteland you can also find people like Moses – you can be people like Moses – you can be curious enough to turn aside.
I wonder if both this surprising bushfire and this curious man can instruct us on how to be a Church that is steady and grounded in the midst of all that will come to pass in these coming months.
Consider the bush – blazing but not consumed.
Every year – at the start of a new Fall semester – I feel like something happens here at UPC in our Campus Ministry wing. Sure, there are the kids like me – the cradle Presbyterians who are already primed to show up at a Presbyterian Church because it’s familiar and feels like home.
But there are other students for whom that is not true at all.
Students who have a great deal of mistrust when it comes to the Church-
Mistrust born of painful experiences – rejection of who they are; condemnation of who they love.
In short, students who have been burned by the Church in some very harmful ways.
I think about the counter-narrative offered at PCM and how we as a church have this sacred opportunity to behave differently from all the other churches out there who have caused harm – how we can blaze and cast light and love, but not consume those who draw close to us.
Perhaps that burning bush has something to teach us about a holy grounded-ness.
And so, too, does Moses – because I sincerely believe there is nothing holy about that ground at Horeb until he gets curious enough to draw near. So, how can we practice curiosity in these coming days?
Last weekend at the congregational retreat, a sizable group of us hiked up Mt. Lookout. On the ascent, I found myself talking with High School senior Liam Drake.
This past summer, Liam spent a week in Washington DC participating in the Boy’s Nation program where they simulated governance and legislation. As you might imagine, the program draws a collection of young men who are quite varied in their political convictions. He told me about Abel and I was struck by how he described him.
“We could not be further apart on the ideological spectrum. We disagreed on whether Social Security should even exist, much less if it should be reformed; we argued whether or not the Southern border should be open at all; and we clashed on whether or not evolution is real. But his kindness, his North Carolina decency, and his deep desire to serve his country in uniform inspires me to this day, and we are both proud to call each other unlikely but fast friends.”
Can we listen more and talk less?
Can we be curious rather than dismissive?
Can we wonder how God is showing up in someone who votes differently from you…in Someone who seems to inhabit a different reality from you?
When we get curious about one another, perhaps we will find ourselves standing on a king of common ground so holy that we’ll have to remove the shoes from our feet.
When Moses heard that voice telling him to take his sandals off because he was standing on holy ground –
You’ve got to imagine he was thinking, “Really? This…is holy ground. This dry, barren, lifeless soil where practically nothing grows. If you’re telling me that this is holy, I’ve got a few stringy sheep who beg to differ.”
I can totally understand his skepticism.
Was that patch of ground always holy?
OR – did the ground become holy because of Moses’ curiosity and because God chooses to show up in unexpected, “bushy” ways? I say the latter.
I know that it can feel like a wasteland out there – like nothing good can grow with all the fighting and all the mean-spiritedness. The good news is that the wasteland is where you can find the holiest ground of all.
You’ll never see it coming – it will always be a surprise – but may we find our footing there always. Amen.