Close Enough to Be Dangerous

Exodus 33:12-23
Moses said to YHWH, "Look, you have said to me, 'Bring up these people,' but you have not made known to me whom you will send with me. You have said to me, 'I know you by name and you have found favor in my eyes.'

Now, I pray, if I have found favor in your eyes, please make known your ways so that I may know you and find favor in your sight. Consider, too, that your people are these people."
YHWH said, "My presence will go with you and I will give you rest."

He said to him, "If your presence will not go, don't carry us up from here. For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your eyes, I and your people, unless you go with us? In this way we shall be distinct, I and your people, from all the nations which are over the face of the earth."

Then YHWH said to Moses, "This very thing which you ask I promise to do, for you have found favor in my sight and I know you by name."

He said, "Show me, I pray, your glory."

He said, "I will make all my goodness pass by and will recite my name, YHWH, before you and I will show favor to whom I will show favor. I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion." He said, "But you have not the strength to see my face because human beings cannot see me and live." YHWH also said, "Look, there is a place by me and you shall station yourself on the rock. When my glory passes by, I will put you in a crevice in the rock. I will shelter you with the hollow of my hand until my glory passes by. Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back, but my face you will not see."

Back when I was in campus ministry we used to take an annual trip to New York City in January to attend a seminar on international issues with our church staff at the United Nations. Since we had to do everything on a shoestring we had to find really cheap lodging in Manhattan and the place we found was a church on the Upper West Side that let us bunk out on the floor for five days. The accommodations weren’t four-star, but one of the things that made the neighborhood attractive was that it was Seinfeld’s neighborhood.

Do you remember Jerry Seinfeld? His television sitcom was the most popular show of the 1990s and it had a huge influence on the students I worked with at the University of Virginia. So when we were on the Upper West Side we always pointed out the diner at 110th and Amsterdam where Jerry and George would get together and dissect the situations they were going through. Down Broadway was the shop where the soup nazi intimidated his customers, another Seinfeld moment. We did the Seinfeld tour.

Now here’s my thesis I want to explore with you. This is why I want to preach about Seinfeld. Seinfeld is an important figure because of what he reveals about who we are in this 21st century world we live in. He’s important because he shows how fearful we are of commitment, how suspicious we are of motives, including our own, and how shallow our public conversations are in a world that has lost its idealism.

Hmm…that’s a lot for one sermon. And somehow we’ve got to get to Moses, too. Let’s see if we can live up that thesis.

The TV show Seinfeld had four main characters: Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer. What made them stand out as TV characters is that they weren’t very likeable. All of them had major flaws and they were very willing to acknowledge that they had major flaws. They were very self-absorbed and their main occupation was to point out and laugh at the outrageous flaws they could detect in other people. Their favorite targets were people who took themselves too seriously, people who were passionate about a cause or anything. Passion was a sign of delusion. Obviously these people aren’t being honest with themselves. If they could see themselves they would know that they’re really covering up for some deficiency. Nobody should believe that strongly. Deep down, they suspected, everyone is really just thinking about herself or himself.

In one typical scene, Elaine was at a movie theater waiting for her boyfriend to show up when she finds out that he’s in the hospital. Instead of rushing out to find out how he’s doing, she first stops at the concession stand to buy some Jujubes. When her boyfriend finds out he’s horrified that she would do that. It was a small moment but classic Seinfeld. The show seems to be saying, “Yes, Elaine should have rushed to the hospital, but you know that you would have been tempted to do the same thing. As noble as we think we are, we all would rather go get some Jujubes first.” That’s the message – we all have distorted priorities and isn’t that funny? And it was an incredibly funny show.

But that suspicion of people who take themselves too seriously has a corrosive effect. If we can’t trust people to be who they say they are, if we can’t trust commitments other people make, if we can’t trust ourselves to be who we say we are, we can be paralyzed by self-doubt, we can be isolated from others, and we can give up on any greater hopes we have for our nation and ourselves. That is the situation in which we find ourselves. We are living in a land where we don’t trust our political leaders – do any of you believe anything you hear in a political advertisement? – because of the effects of divorce and family stresses like alcoholism and abuse, we don’t trust our spouses to live up the vows we have taken or our parents to be able to provide the support and love for us they have promised – because we know ourselves and how conflicted and messed up we feel, we don’t trust ourselves to live up to our highest values, much less God’s intentions for us. Isn’t that where we find ourselves? It’s where I felt so many of the young people I worked with were.

So to shield ourselves from disappointment in this world where we live, we become like Seinfeld. We stop talking about the things we hold closest to our hearts. We stop talking about grand dreams and visions for where we could go and who we could be. Our politicians stop telling us their hopes for the future and resort to boasting matches about whom they would execute if they were elected or what they can do for us as individuals rather than for our state or nation as a whole.

Jedidiah Purdy says we have become a nation of Seinfelds because we are protecting ourselves from disappointment. Purdy is a twentysomething author of the book For Common Things. Part of me wants to hate him because he’s only in his 20s and he’s written a great little book. Who does he think he is doing that at his age? But he hits the nail right on the head when describing where we are headed as a nation. Purdy says that since we can’t trust the grand language we used to use to talk about our hopes, since there is always another side ready to take apart our rhetoric and expose our base motives, we detach ourselves from any firm commitments. “We surely mistrust our own capacity to bear disappointment,” he says. College freshmen show a greater commitment to making money than any previous generation, not because they are greedy but because, Purdy says, they have “a suspicion that nothing else is quite worth the risk” (pp. 14-15, For Common Things).

Which brings me to God. In a society that takes no chances on being disappointed and is suspicious of anyone who believes in anything beyond themselves, what in the world are you doing here worshipping God? You certainly aren’t compelled to be here. Somewhere in the last two centuries we’ve constructed a world that makes it perfectly possible not to believe in God. To bring yourself to this place on a Sunday morning…to be a part of a community that takes the risk of being different, of believing in community and connection, of believing it can make a difference, of believing that God is not only present in the world but that God is transforming the world, of publicly proclaiming that Jesus Christ is not just a good man whose example ought to be followed but a savior whose resurrection changes the universe, of believing that the Holy Spirit is still doing miraculous things like redeeming the world…you’ve come to be a part of a place like this…some of you are even members of this church…have been baptized into this body…what were you thinking? Don’t you know how counter-cultural you are? Don’t you know that this culture doesn’t value hope and trust and commitment?

But we have to be here, don’t we? We have to be in this place. We have to put ourselves in God’s presence. We have to seek after God because even though we know it is a risky thing to give our lives to Christ, the alternative is death and despair and disappointment and we can’t live like that.

So then there’s Moses. What an amazing story we have about Moses this morning. I mean, this is late in the game. When we get to this story in the 33rd chapter of Exodus Moses has seen it all. This is after the burning bush when God calls Moses to leadership and promises to be with him. This is after the plagues, after the miracles, after the miraculous journey through the Red Sea when God saved the people. This is after the manna from heaven and the water from the rock that God gave to help the people survive in the wilderness. After the Ten Commandments and the law. After all that, something is still broken between God and the people.

The golden calf episode didn’t help. You remember that while Moses was up on the mountain getting the tablets of the law, the people were down below creating an idol. Aaron, Moses’ brother, helped them do it. They pulled that pitiful little image out of the fire and said, “Here is the God that brought you out of Egypt.”

God was ready to wipe the people out. God said to Moses, “I’m just going to start over. I’m just going to wipe them out and make a new nation with your descendents, Moses.” This is a passionate God, you see, who is disturbing to those of us who are suspicious of passion. Doesn’t God know who God is dealing with? These are human beings. They forget. They’re sinful. They’ve got deep issues with their parents that they just can’t get over and it’s affecting their behavior or some excuse like that. Are you expecting more out of them, God, just because they’ve come into contact with a wild and holy god? Are you expecting them to be a holy people? My goodness, I think you are.

But Moses is passionate at well and he knows that if he is going to follow God he must be able to trust that God is faithful to the promises God makes. So he intercedes for the people. He says to God, “Look, don’t let the Egyptians have the last laugh. They will laugh when they see that the God who brought the people up from slavery only led them into the desert to kill them. Be faithful to your people even if they are not faithful to you.

So God relents, but it’s not all roses and kisses. A plague comes into the camp because of the people’s forgetfulness and idolatry. God allows them to go on to the land that was promised but God refuses to go with them. Israel’s God is not going to accompany Israel any longer.
That’s the setting for this meeting of Moses and God. Something has been broken. The relationship has turned sour. There is a lot of pain.

Moses goes to talk with God and the tone is very subdued. Moses says to God, “Look, you said to me, ‘Bring these people to the new land of promise,’ but you didn’t let me know who you would send with me.”

Moses doesn’t do things alone. We know this. Remember that he wouldn’t leave the burning bush until God gave him his brother Aaron as a helper. But Moses is not asking for Aaron this time. Moses won’t settle for anything less than God. And he goes on to make his case: “You said, Lord, ‘I know you by name and you, Moses, have found favor in my eyes.’ Well, if I have found favor in your eyes, then let me know you. Let me know what you are up to in the world. Let me know you like you know me.”

God responds to Moses, “My presence will go with you and I will give you rest.” It’s a calm, reassuring thing to say. God is relenting. God is promising to go with the people. God is leaving aside the abandonment plan.

But Moses is not reassured. In fact he seems to get more animated as he reminds God what’s at stake: “If you don’t go with us, God, then don’t even let us go up from here. Don’t even let us pretend that we can do it alone. How will the world know that we have found favor in your eyes unless you go with us? You want us to look different from the rest of the nations, Lord, well, then you have to make us different. The only thing that makes us different from all the other nations on earth is our relationship with you. We are your people, God, because we have your name.”

God responds again and again it is a short response. “What you have asked I will do, Moses. Because you have found favor in my sight and I know you by name.” Again God emphasizes, “I know you.” But Moses wants more.

“Show me your glory,” Moses says. It’s a surprising thing to say. It doesn’t seem to follow from what has gone before. Is Moses losing faith in God’s promises and power? What more could he want to see? Already Exodus has talked about showing God’s glory over and over. When the plagues came, that was a manifestation of God’s glory. The cloud by day and the fire by night? Those were God’s glory. The manna in the wilderness? Those were God’s glory. When God speaks to the people it is God’s glory on display, but that’s not what Moses wants. Moses wants to see God.

So God agrees…well, mostly. God agrees to have Moses stand on a rock and to cover him with the hand of God as God’s goodness passes by. Moses cannot see God’s face, but, “After I pass by,” God says, “you can see my back.”

It’s a wonderful image - these two who have shared so much to this point. Moses is so close to God that the Bible sometimes describes them as meeting face to face, but it’s not quite that close. Moses is allowed to come close enough to know that this passionate, liberating God is wild and holy and has chosen, for God’s own reasons, to be Israel’s God.

In this story Moses seems fearful, lonely and uncertain about this God he has staked his life on. In a confrontation with God he reaches for more substance, more contact, more assurance of God’s presence and is rewarded with God’s backside and God’s name. And as a result he can go back to leading the people. They are still a holy people. They are still called to be distinctive among the nations. They are called to be different.

And here you are. Here you are in this place where we have called upon God’s name, where we have invited God into our midst, where we have boldly approached God’s throne and have listened to God’s word. What you may not have realized as we did those things is that we getting dangerously close to a God who has no place for complacency. We were getting dangerously close to a God who is not content for you to remain detached and uninvolved, keeping God at arms length, observing this ‘religion thing’ without being totally involved.

As funny as Seinfeld is, there is no place for Seinfelds in the worship of the God of Israel and the God of Jesus. This God asks more from us than an awareness of how screwed up the world is and how screwed up our lives are. Yes, they are messed up. Yes, we have a tendency to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Yes, we are sinners in need of grace. Yes, we are bundles of old wounds and new anxieties that trip up us even when we put forth the best effort. Yes, we are all those things.

But don’t ever say that you are only human and therefore incapable of living a life worthy of the God who knows you by name. You are a human being, we are human beings, who have been created by God, loved by God, judged by God, redeemed by Christ, reconciled through the working of the Holy Spirit, saved from destruction and damnation and set forth on a course that we could never have imagined and could never have prepared. A way has been prepared for us in the midst of our wilderness. A savior has come among us to make us whole and to call us to follow after him. A passionate, death-defying God is demanding that we shed the self-protective shields that we are using so poorly, to come out from behind our disappointments and cynicism and self-doubt, to come forth unprotected to meet this God who will pass by. God wants you to be close enough to be dangerous. The world ought to be concerned because people who have encountered this God are dangerous people who say to a world in love with death that life has come to stay. The Good Friday world ought to be afraid because we are Easter people who know that God is good and that world will be too.

I don’t want to be estranged from the world in which we live. I don’t want to engage the people around me without hope. I don’t want to believe that I am the worst thing I have ever done. We have encountered a God who is making all things new.

And so we pray. So we read these scriptures. So we search earnestly after God believing that we are continually in the presence of the holy. And when we pray…when we read the Bible…when we meet with one another in small groups and in service…we become the dangerous people we were meant to be. We may always be gazing upon the backside of a God who is always and ever just ahead of us, but to see God’s train passing by, to hear God’s name, and to know that God’s know us by name. This is sufficient for a wild and holy, dangerous people. Thanks be to God.