Wednesday, July 28, 2021                             (today’s lectionary)
Get low, get down on God’s good footstool
 Moses did not know that the skin of his face had become radiant while he conversed with the Lord. Even Aaron was afraid to come near him, until Moses called for him and all the other rulers of their community to come to him.
Eventually all the people came up to Moses, and he spoke to them, but then he put a veil over his face.
Whenever Moses entered the presence of the Lord to converse with him, he removed the veil until he came out again.
As I’m writing this I hear Margaret’s “Find My” chime ringing. For the second time tonight, she has lost her phone in her bedroom. But her bedroom has become her “tent of meeting.” Should I interrupt her to help find it? Is God ringing her bell? Her face might very well be radiant.
Of course I’m not completely serious, asking that question, but I think it would be better if I were. God is not dead, and he isn’t missing. He rings our bells all the time, even if we just don’t quite get it. I forget to notice or I explain away the radiance. Even when I am surprised by joy, I often fail to fall on my face in wonder.
Extol the Lord, our God, and worship at his footstool; holy is he! Worship at his holy mountain; for holy is the Lord, our God.
At our centering prayer meeting last night we discussed a passage written by Henri Nouwen that led us into describing the earth’s balance between progress, growth, and evolutionary empathy on the one hand, and entropy, political paralysis, greed and blindness on the other. Leaders and followers alike live in the midst of this balance. It may seem like it sometimes, but I don’t believe that human beings are destined to eventually destroy everything they touch.
Nouwen caught us up when he wrote, “God’s love is stronger than any form of death and destruction.” Because our spiritual sight sees God, we need not despair, and neither do we have any business becoming Christian pollyannas. We might quickly fill a dumpster with thoughts and observations of either kind, but none of this changes our experience of God’s presence. Nouwen said, “He is the God of the living, so we can continually deepen our awareness that God is present in midst of all our chaos.”
Jesus said the Kingdom of heaven is like a treasure buried in a field, which a person finds and hides again, and out of joy goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.
And then, in the Kingdom of heaven, the new owner of the field shares the treasure with others in a way only God can show her.
And Jesus said the Kingdom of heaven is like a merchant searching for fine pearls. When he finds a pearl of great price, he goes and sells all that he has and buys it.
Jesus knows that in the Kingdom of heaven we have no more need for fields or pearls. We all possess all that already. Our eyes are opened; we see that God is everywhere around us and always has been. No longer are we masquerading as gods ourselves; we are not the center of anything. At last we have found our way to the sweet position of praise and worship at God’s good footstool.
(Exodus 34, Psalm 99, John 15, Matthew 13)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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