Just over a week ago, I preached for the Beyond the Walls online ministry up in Toronto. I wanted to post the text of my sermon (I’ll also link to the video recording just before that text begins). I was excited about this particular topic, since it fit nicely with some thinking I’ve been doing in recent years, includingwhile reading Cédric Lagandré’s book Dieu n’existe pas encore and writing up some subsequent thoughts. I imagine I’ll continue to think on these kinds of themes, but I was pleased with how much the burning bush story—and Jesus’s riffing off of it in the Gospel of John—contributed to my thinking at this particular time.

introduction

Tony Chvala-Smith’s book Exploring Community of Christ Basic Beliefs describes theology as “the attempt to explain both how we have come to entrust ourselves to God… and what our faith in this God entails.” We often associate theology with professional theologians, who have formal training and write lengthy books exploring these ideas. However, many more people than professional theologians do the work of theology.

In fact, all believers practice theology. Each of us draws on scripture, our own experience, and other sources to explain what brings us to God and what we believe about God. Perhaps less obviously, the people who wrote the Gospel of John were also doing theology. This gospel as we know it wasn’t completed until decades after Jesus’s ministry, and it was written in a language that Jesus himself likely didn’t speak.

As a result, even if the “I Am” sayings that we will be considering over the next several weeks are based on actual things that Jesus said, we also need to recognize them as the gospel authors’ efforts to describe what brought them to Jesus, and what they believe about Jesus. Of course, that doesn’t make these sayings less important; instead, understanding the “I Am” sayings in this way turns them into invitations to answer these questions ourselves.

These “I Am” sayings are especially useful for the second task of theology, explaining what we believe about God and Jesus. What does it mean for God (as revealed in Jesus) to be the bread of life? The light of the world? The true vine? I am looking forward to hearing the next seven sermons, which will help me as I continue to practice theology.

Today, in preparation for that work, I would like to speak some about the first task of theology. I feel that today’s passage can help us reflect on what brings us to God—and to God as revealed in Jesus.

This passage focuses on an argument between Jesus and some of his critics. Jesus defends himself by saying “Your ancestor Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day” (John 8:56). His critics remind Jesus that he is young and that Abraham had lived thousands of years earlier; how could Abraham possibly know about him? Jesus concludes the argument with a statement that is so startling that his critics pick up stones to throw at him. “Very truly,” he says, “before Abraham was, I am.” (John 8:58).

This statement does two things: First, it references God’s self-revelation to Moses at the burning bush, which can help us reflect on what draws us to God. Second, and most controversially for Jesus’s listeners, it suggests that God can self-reveal to us through human beings, which can help us reflect on who draws us to God.

what draws us to God?

Exploring Community of Christ Basic Beliefs suggests that: “We believe in God because, to use the imagery of twentieth-century theologian Paul Tillich, we have been grasped by that which is Ultimate.” To understand what this means, let’s explore the story that Jesus is referencing when he uses the phrase “I am.”

In the Book of Exodus, Moses didn’t really go out looking for God. Instead, God reached out and caught Moses’s attention. Moses was simply leading his father-in-law’s sheep when he was grasped by an unusual sight. A “bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed” (Exodus 3:3). This is the sort of thing that is “ultimate”—an experience bigger than our everyday experience and beyond our usual understanding.

The ultimate grabs our attention, and so Moses paused and stepped away from the sheep to see what was going on.

The ultimate changes us, and so Moses learned that his career as a shepherd was over. He had been called to challenge the Pharoah and liberate his people.

Perhaps some of you have been grasped by the ultimate in big ways, just like the burning bush called out to Moses. Many people describe grand, powerful experiences as what brought them to God. In fact, there have been times in my life where I have relied on memorable, majestic encounters with the ultimate as the foundation of my faith. If I can be honest, though, it’s been a while since I’ve had any kind of burning bush experience. These days, I sometimes struggle to believe in God in the same way that other Christians do.

being open to the Ultimate in the ordinary

The good news for me, and for anyone else who feels this same way, is that Moses’s experience with the ultimate isn’t over yet. In fact, we haven’t even gotten to the part of this story that Jesus was interested in. If the burning bush teaches us that the ultimate draws us to God, the next parts of the story ask us when and where we are open to encountering the ultimate.

The ultimate can be a lot to take in, so after God changed Moses’s life, it’s natural that Moses would have a question: “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 [this God’s] name?’ what shall I say to them?” (Exodus 3:13).

Moses got an answer to this question, and it’s that answer that Jesus was referencing when he responded to his critics in the Gospel of John: “God said to Moses, ‘I am who I am… you shall say to the Israelites, “I am has sent me to you”’” (Exodus 3:14). This is the point in scripture where Moses learns the divine name, and the authors of the Bible understood the divine name as a form of the Hebrew verb “to be.”

So, God’s self-revelation to Moses was in the form of a burning bush, showing Moses the ultimate through an experience clearly bigger than his everyday experience, and clearly beyond his usual understanding. Yet, God’s self-introduction to Moses revealed a name that was not about fire, or even about miracles, but simply about being—something that all of us are doing all the time.

Perhaps we can learn from God’s name, as presented in this story, that we don’t need to seek out burning bushes to be grasped by the ultimate. Maybe there are small experiences of being that can still be bigger than our everyday experience and still be beyond our usual understanding.

In a recent book, the philosopher Cédric Lagandré suggested that perhaps God is “that opening in the fence of knowledge that allows the mysterious reality of the world to surge forth.” Some of these openings may be large, but others can be small, too.

Here are some small experiences in my life that could have just been part of being—just part of everyday life—but have, in those moments, made me feel grasped by the ultimate: Hearing a friend give a heartfelt prayer in a language I don’t speak. Tasting a small piece of bread and a small cup of juice. Watching someone on roller skates dance to the music they are listening to. Learning the story of a goofy statue of a sea monster in a town where I’ve never been. Tasting a new kind of food. Finding a new lesson in a Bible story I’ve heard dozens of times before.

None of these are as amazing as a burning bush, but if God is who God is, if God is associated with being, I am comfortable saying that I encountered God in these moments. However, to be grasped by the ultimate hiding within the ordinary, it helps to be open to that possibility. In fact, in the book I just mentioned, Lagandré defined faith as “an amazed openness to that which is not oneself, to that which is beyond all knowing.”

being open to the Ultimate in others’ experiences

If faith is about being open to God’s presence in all of being, it may also be about being open to how other people experience God. There are far too many people who use their burning bush experiences not as an encounter with the ultimate but as a source of fire—as a weapon to impose their experience on others. Yet, this story of God’s self-revelation to Moses contains a hidden warning against this kind of attitude.

Remember that the burning bush called out to Moses while he was taking care of his father-in-law’s sheep. Moses’s father-in-law was not an Israelite but a Midianite, and as the Bible scholar Thomas Römer notes, the scriptures are sometimes dismissive of the Midianites. In the Book of Numbers, for example, the Midianites are violently blamed for distracting the children of Israel from God.

Yet, Römer points out that we find a very different story here. God appears to Moses in Midianite territory. In a very strange story while Moses is making his way back to Egypt, God becomes angry with Moses, and it is Moses’s Midianite wife who knows how to resolve the situation. After the Exodus, Moses’s Midianite father-in-law offers sacrifices to God before the Israelites themselves are taught how to do so.

Just as the Israelite Moses was grasped by the ultimate in Midianite territory, it is possible for us to encounter God in the beliefs and practices of religious traditions that are not our own. As we do so, I hope we will also learn not to later make those other traditions our enemies, as tragically and violently happens with Midianites later in the story of Moses.

what draws us to Jesus?

Of course, this shouldn’t prevent us from cherishing specific and special parts of our own faith tradition. In fact, I’ve spoken for too long without touching on what is the key part for Christians in this story from the Gospel of John. Yes, we can be grasped by the ultimate in many everyday experiences, even those outside our faith tradition, but as described in Exploring Community of Christ Basic Beliefs, “Christian faith is born in us as we find ourselves grasped by the message about Jesus Christ in such a way that we ‘believe into’ this story and ‘into him.’”

Remembering Moses’s experience at the burning bush helps us understand the reference Jesus was making when he proclaimed “Before Abraham was, I am.” To fully appreciate this story, though, we must also understand the controversy this proclamation created. Jesus’s critics believed in the same god that Moses encountered at the burning bush, and we can assume that they had been grasped by the ultimate in their own lives. But Jesus was also suggesting that the ultimate was present in him, and this was a step too far for his critics.

being open to the Ultimate in others

This central Christian belief, that an uneducated, unemployed peasant could be both fully human and yet, somehow, fully divine is more radical than we might think about on most Sunday mornings. If we as Christians believe that the ultimate was present in someone who seemed ordinary to most of the people who ever met him, we are forced to ask ourselves if the ultimate is also present in those who seem ordinary to us today. In her book A Rocking-Horse Catholic, English mystic Caryll Houselander shared an experience where she was grasped by the ultimate on a London subway:

“I was in an underground train, a crowded train in which all sorts of people jostled together, sitting and strap-hanging—workers of every description going home at the end of the day. Quite suddenly I saw with my mind, but as vividly as a wonderful picture, Christ in them all.”

In this way, being grasped by the ultimate in Christ is, in fact, another invitation to be grasped by the ultimate present in all being—this time, in all the human beings around us.

Furthermore, another central part of the Christian story is that the Roman Empire did not recognize the ultimate in Jesus but declared him a criminal and put him to death. If we as Christians believe that the ultimate was present in someone who was rejected by society and put to death, we are forced to ask ourselves if we are failing to recognize the ultimate present in those who are dying today. During this last Holy Week, the Catholic priest Thomas Reese wrote that today, “All over the world, Christ is again being crucified” and gave the examples of human rights lawyers targeted by governments, doctors and nurses risking their lives in war zones, refugees who are distrusted rather than welcomed, those dying of diseases that could easily be prevented, workers exploited by their employers, and the addicted who are harassed rather than healed.

conclusion

As we use the Gospel of John—and other sources—to do our own theology, let us remember to ask ourselves what and who we allow to draw us to God. Let us remember that in today’s passage, Jesus did not describe himself as the burning bush but as the divine name that reminds us that God is present in all of being. Are we open to ordinary experiences being bigger than our everyday experience and beyond our usual understanding? More importantly, are we open to being grasped by the ultimate in our interactions with ordinary people? Thank you.

• Beyond the Walls
• Community of Christ
• Cédric Lagandré
• Paul Tillich
• Tony Chvala-Smith
• Dieu n'existe pas encore
• Thomas Römer
• burning bush
• Thomas Reese
• Caryll Houselander