REVELATION: OUR SELF-REVEALING GOD

Exodus 3: 1-6; Romans 1: 14-23

A Sunday School teacher watched one of her young students intently drawing a picture on paper. The boy was totally immersed in his work. “What are you drawing?” his teacher asked him. “A picture of God,” he replied. “Oh,” she said kindly. Deciding to take it one step further, she said, “You know, nobody knows what God looks like,” to which the boy, never taking his eyes from his work, said, “They will now.”

If someone were to come up to you on the street one day and ask “Have you seen God lately?” what would you say? That was the question I posed in my very first sermon in seminary on January 29, 1979. It used today’s passage about God’s voice coming from a burning bush to Moses; and I used the Noah story to lift up God’s presence and promise through a rainbow. Other texts on the topic of God’s appearing have been included in anthems, stories, and sermons. In Deuteronomy we read, “You will seek the Lord your God and find him if you search after him with all your heart and soul.” (4:29). The CHRISTIAN BELIEVER writer put it this way: “Israel [could] find God because God had already found and chosen them. Centuries later, when the people were captives in Babylon, the prophet Jeremiah reassured them on God’s behalf, ‘When you search for me, you will find me’ (Jeremiah 29:13.)” And it was Isaiah who melodically implored the people of Judah to “Seek ye the Lord, while he may be found; call ye upon him while he is near.” (55:6) Today our texts suggest that if we haven’t found the Lord it’s because we don’t know where and how to look. As far as seeing God with our eyes, that’s a different story. Let’s lift up three places where we can find God and God’s handiwork.

First, look for God in nature. Can a sudden shower, or a sunrise or a sunset, or a rainbow or a storm be a spiritual moment? Yes; but when we are looking for God there we are less likely to see a face and more likely to find evidence. Some feel the majesty of God at the Grand Canyon or at Niagara or Teton Falls. Can the growth of crops for farmers, or the birth of baby animals on farms or in nature remind you how to wonder, and how to marvel at all that God has created? Even science, when one looks at the stars, or under powerful microscopes, looks at living cells, gives us glimpses in to the mysteries and powers of God. Is frost on the ground the hem of a holy garment? Are stars at night the jewels in the holy crown? Can earthquakes and tsunamis remind us of the power God could exert with one footstep? In the Bible God’s handiwork is revealed at creation, reiterated by the Psalmist, and in metaphors. God raises people up as on eagles’ wings in Isaiah; God is like the sun: generating light and warmth. And whenever God gives a prelude to the Old Covenant or the New, it is with water: the Red Sea in the Exodus story, and the Jordan River at Jesus’ baptism and the start of his ministry. Finally, when God speaks with Moses on Mount Sinai to deliver the words on which Jews and Christians depend that we call the Ten Commandments, it was through a mass of lightning, clouds, and thunder. Moses is told not to look for God directly, as he is warned: “Mortals cannot see my face and live.” So God uses indirect ways of revealing holiness through nature.

Second, look for God in people. Though many times God speaks to us unconsciously, God also communicates to us through other people. There are times when I have prayed for an answer from God and it comes from the mouth of an acquaintance or even a stranger. Several years ago, a woman named Barbara Hall was intrigued by the idea of God being with us, perhaps even appearing before us, and giving us answers in surprising ways. As with the Matthew 25 passage when disciples were puzzled by Jesus telling them that they had or had not fed him, given him something to drink, visited him when he was sick or in prison, or clothed him when he had no clothes, Barbara Hall created the television series, Joan of Arcadia, which was cancelled too soon. In it Joan built a relationship with and talked with and listened to God, but not like Moses did. God appeared in the form of a boy in class, a lunch lady, a homeless man, a janitor, and the list went on. Joan never knew when God was watching, what form God would take or what God was going to say to guide her in her moments of teenage angst. I think it was worth watching, if for no other reason than to remind us that not only is God watching us, we might, indeed, see God in other people. Films, such as “Oh God!” and “Evan Almighty” have unpacked the idea of talking with and having God watch us from up close. The God of the heavens, after all, came to earth as a human being. Is there anything too difficult for the Lord? Is there any length to which God will not go to try to reach and guide us, if we just have the eyes to see, and the ears to hear? Last week I even mentioned that in Luke 24, disciples, who should have known what Jesus looked like, did not recognize the risen Lord until he broke bread in their home. Sometimes, perhaps, our Lord Jesus keeps us from recognizing his face in the crowds. But other times, if we look, we might see the face of Jesus.

Finally, look for God, like the Sunday School boy, through the eyes of faith. We learned last week that when evidence of something is brought forth, faith is no longer needed. So we live by faith, and not by sight. Even if we can’t see the wind, we can see ripples across a lake to let us know that wind is present. Just as Jesus called his Heavenly Father “Abba” or daddy, the name a child might call his father, so faith calls for child-like trust in God. That kind of trust is exemplified in the little book MISTER GOD, THIS IS ANNA, a true story of a young man named Fynn who finds a little girl named Anna. One day the four year old explained God to the man like this:

“You see, Fynn, Mister God is different from us because he can finish things that we can’t. I can’t finish loving you because I shall be dead millions of years before I finish, but Mister God can finish loving you, and it’s not the same kind of love, is it?” [Fynn gulped to answer but she went on.] “Fynn, what is the word for when you see something in a different way?” After a minute or two of scrabbling about, the precise phrase she wanted was dredged out of me: point of view. “Fynn, that’s the difference.” [A little further questioning cleared up what she meant: Humanity in general had an infinite number of points of view, whereas Mister God had an infinite number of viewing points. [That meant, Finn deciphered, that God was everywhere.] Anna burst into peals of laughter. “You see?” she asked. “You see?” I did too.

[Ballantine Books, New York, 1974, pp. 27-28]” Anna’s story is true. She was only four years old when Fynn found her on London’s fog-shrouded docks. He took her back to his mother’s home, and from that first moment their times together were filled with delight and discovery.

Delight and discovery; I had with a group of women and children yesterday. God wants it for us as- through nature, faith, and other people- he makes his playful and his guiding sides known. God is here; for us and with us. Don’t let a word, or a glance, or a whisper confound you. Listen for God to guide and bless your life.

Jeffrey A. Sumner October 14, 2007