Hello friends,
This is Mark Gladman,
Also known as Brother Frederick James,
Your friendly neighbourhood monkey and dogs.
Welcome.
Day 4 of our Guardians series.
And today we're going to sit a classic Lectio.
So let me just set that up for those of you who aren't familiar with Lectio Divina.
This is an ancient way of praying with scripture.
And shortly.
.
.
I will be reading a text of scripture.
Not too fast but also not too slow but probably slower than normal.
And after the reading there'll be a time for silence and we'll do that three times and each time you're invited just to Seek the guidance of the Spirit on a word or a phrase.
That stands out to you and to take your time sitting with that,
Contemplating that,
Meditating on that.
And then allowing that to turn into a prayer.
So we'll have the reading,
And then about a minute's silence,
Another reading,
About a minute's silence,
Another reading,
Two minutes' silence,
And then we'll close with a prayer.
And I'd love for you to pop down in the comments what it is you heard,
Or the phrase that stood out,
Or perhaps what you are taking with you as you walk away from the Lectio Divina today.
That's pretty much what people who practice Lectio regularly do,
Which is one of the practices of the Benedictines,
The religious order that I belong to.
We sit Lectio every single day and make this a practice not of reading and studying scripture.
We do that in addition But this is actually part of our prayer on top of the daily office and time in silence and contemplation.
Before we enter the Lectio Dei,
I just want to tell you why we're sitting with this particular passage at this point in our God is series.
We're going to be doing a reading from Exodus 3.
It's one of those moments in scripture where someone asks God a question that I guess you would if God appeared like God appears in this particular passage,
Which is as a burning bush.
Who are you?
Is the question.
Moses,
Who's the person who sees this bush,
Wants a name.
He's going to go back to the Israelites shortly,
And he wants to know this because he knows that they're going to ask,
Who sent you?
What's the name of the God?
That you're talking about has sent you and What's interesting about God's response to this question is it's one of those strange answers that you get sometimes in the Bible that we actually probably don't sit with,
With its strangeness.
But God responds,
I am who I am.
Or depending on how you translate the Hebrew here,
It is,
I will be what I will be.
And it's almost like God responds with a verb when Moses is actually asking for a noun.
Moses says,
What's your name?
And God,
In effect,
Says,
I am.
And it's not even an I am this or an I am that.
It's just I am.
Bye.
And that takes us right back to where we've been for this first few days of this series.
God's not a thing.
God's mystery.
God is more.
Even the name of God.
Refuses to allow us to turn God into an object.
We want to be able to say,
This is God,
But God seems to keep saying,
I am.
And I love the elusiveness of that.
But despite being elusive.
.
.
God is still revealing something about who God is.
But what God reveals isn't a nice tidy definition.
The sort of thing that we humans would want.
God's giving us a definition that says more about presence and being and life,
The God who is,
The God who was,
The God who will be.
The God who's not going to be reduced to an image or contained by a concept.
It's important that this revelation happens in the middle of the wilderness.
It's not in a holy,
Sacred place.
Well,
Not in a place that we would expect to be holy and sacred like a temple or in the midst of a religious ceremony or some sort of theological learning space and place.
Moses is in the wilderness doing something completely ordinary.
He's looking after sheep and then suddenly There's a bush that's burning and the bush says,
Take off your sandals for this is holy ground.
Moses turns aside and God speaks,
And there's something for us here too.
God.
Probably doesn't just reveal themselves in the places that we've labelled as sacred.
Revelation can happen anywhere,
In any interruption,
Any ordinary moment.
In that moment when you know,
Something captures.
Our attention and invites us to look again.
As you enter the passage today,
Don't rush to explain the bush,
And don't try and solve with a name,
Don't turn I am.
Into some sort of formula,
But just listen.
Notice the God who refuses to fit comfortably into a noun.
Notice the God who can't be reduced to a definition.
The God who simply says,
I am,
And then allow yourself to sit with the question.
What if God's nine?
Isn't really a name at all.
What if.
.
.
God's name is an invitation to encounter the One who simply is.
So let's enter the story.
As we take a deep breath and bring ourselves fully into this moment.
And ask that God opens our ears,
Our minds and our hearts today that the seed of the scripture might find place in good soil to bring forth fruit for the world.
Exodus chapter 3 verses 1 to 15 Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro.
The priest of Midian.
He led his flock beyond the wilderness and came to horror people.
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 God 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 hit 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 up.
Out of that land to a good and broad land,
A land flowing with milk.
And honey.
To the country of the Canaanites,
The Hittites,
The Amorites,
The Perizzites,
The Hivites and the Jebusites.
The cry of the Israelites has now come to me.
I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them.
So come.
I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people,
The Israelites,
Out of Egypt.
But Moses said to God,
Who am I?
That I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt.
God said,
I will be with you.
And this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you.
When you have brought the people out of Egypt,
You shall worship God on this mountain.
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.
He said further,
Thus you shall say to the Israelites,
I am has sent me to you.
God also said to Moses,
Thus you shall say to the Israelites,
The Lord,
The God of your ancestors,
The God of Abraham,
The God of Isaac,
And the God of Jacob has sent me to you.
This is my name forever.
And this my title for all generations.
Exodus chapter 3 verses 1 to 15.
Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro.
The priest of Midian.
He led his flock beyond the wilderness and came to horror people.
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 God 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 up.
Out of that land to a good and broad land,
A land flowing with milk.
And honey.
To the country of the Canaanites,
The Hittites,
The Amorites,
The Perizzites,
The Hivites and the Jebusites.
The cry of the Israelites has now come to me.
I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them.
So come.
" I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people,
The Israelites,
Out of Egypt.
But Moses said to God,
Who am I?
That I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt.
God said,
I will be with you.
And this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you.
When you have brought the people out of Egypt,
You shall worship God on this mountain.
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.
He said further,
Thus you shall say to the Israelites,
I am has sent me to you.
God also said to Moses,
Thus you shall say to the Israelites,
The Lord,
The God of your ancestors,
The God of Abraham,
The God of Isaac,
And the God of Jacob has sent me to you.
This is my name forever and this my title for all generations.
Exodus chapter 3 verses 1 to 15 Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro.
The priest of Midian.
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 sea,
God called to him out of the bush,
Moses,
Moses.
And he said,
Here I am.
Then God 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 up.
Out of that land to a good and broad land,
A land flowing with milk.
And honey.
To the country of the Canaanites,
The Hittites,
The Amorites,
The Perizzites,
The Hivites and the Jebusites.
The cry of the Israelites has now come to me.
I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them.
So come.
" I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people,
The Israelites,
Out of Egypt.
But Moses said to God,
Who am I?
That I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt.
God said,
I will be with you.
And this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you.
When you have brought the people out of Egypt,
You shall worship God on this mountain.
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.
He said further,
Thus you shall say to the Israelites,
I am has sent me to you.
God also said to Moses,
Thus you shall say to the Israelites,
The Lord,
The God of your ancestors,
The God of Abraham,
The God of Isaac,
And the God of Jacob has sent me to you.
This is my name forever.
And this my title for all generations.
Let us pray.
God who is.
We have no need to contain you.
We have no need to define you,
To explain you.
Or make you fit comfortably within the boundaries of what we already know.
You are.
You were before our questions and you will be beyond our answers.
You are the God who speaks from the fire,
Who meets us in the wilderness,
The God who calls our name and invites us to turn aside and see.
Teach us to recognize holy ground.
Open our eyes to your presence in places where we've overlooked.
Give us courage to let go of the God we've made so that we can encounter the God who simply is.
When we grasp for certainty,
Give us wonder.
When we demand answers,
Give us patience.
When we think that we've understood you,
Remind us you are more.
I am.
Be with us now and lead us into the mystery of who you are.
And may grace,
Peace and love hold us as we go today and always.
Amen.
I'd love to know in the comments,
Friend,
What passage,
Phrase,
Word might be in the text,
Might not have been in the text,
Might have been something else God placed in your heart around the things that you were contemplating from the text.
I'd love to see what happened for you and let's share together and you know,
Spur one another on to really see this God who simply is more and more and more and more.
I hope you're enjoying the series so far.
Until tomorrow,
Grace and peace be with you.
Bye for now.
