(A sermon preached by the Rev. Donna Allen at the ninth annual Gladstone Festival of Preaching, February 15, 2000, at McMaster University)

In the book of Exodus, the third chapter, the first twelve verses, we find these words as recorded in the NRSV:

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 see, God called to him out of the bush, "Moses, Moses." Moses 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." God said further, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob." 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, to 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." 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 send you. You have brought the people out of Egypt. You shall worship God on this mountain."

A divine-human dance. When we consider this theophany, this story, this event, this appearance of God, we are gripped by the extraordinary. Oh come on, there is nothing ordinary about this story. Nothing ordinary! God is present. God is visible in a bush that does not burn. God is present. God is heard through a voice. A voice in conversation with Moses. God is present in this story event. This is an extraordinary story.

The community that gave birth to these words capture for us an experience of a rather intimate God: God coming to creation in images that make us smile. As we try to imagine a burning bush that is not consumed, our attention is in tuned to the extraordinary. And rightly so, for there is nothing ordinary about an appearance of God. In fact, in the story, when we the readers are impressed with the presence of God, everything changes. Holy ground suddenly emerges on a mountainside. Shoes that were good for walking must be shed to worship. A neck once stretched to see the flame now bows to honor the phenomenon. Transformation! A rickety staff becomes a source of strength. Moses’ stagnate speech from a stuttering tongue becomes an eloquent arrow for liberation. Nothing stays the same in the presence of God. Everything changes. Transformation!

Helpfully, the authors of the story raise a question for us. In between each line, I hear resonating the question, "Who is this God?" Who is this God? Who is this God that burst onto the scenes of human story in the form of a burning bush? Who is this God? Who is this God that speaks out of nothing, a voice that commands Moses into conversation? Who is this God that declares that we shed sandals because simple sand has become holy ground? Who is this God? It is a God who sends people on road trips without compass, or map, or destination, like Abraham. This God is a God who touches a barren woman’s womb and gives birth to babies for she who would have none, like Sarah. This God is a God who puts a fortress around a fugitive like Jacob. This God is a God who keeps a dreamer’s dreams alive, like Joseph. This God is a faithful God. A God of intimate action. A God of human history.

I am intrigued that Moses would first of all have the audacity to move in the direction of a bush. A bush that was on fire. Right away, immediately, I admire Moses. I would not have gone that way, but I admire Moses. The notion that God speaks to Moses and Moses engages in conversation with God speaks to the intimate image of God the writers give us. An intimate God. An accessible God. Intriguing. The reality that God declares who God is through history. Through human history. I am the God of Abraham, of Sarah, of Joseph, and the list goes on. That is God’s name tag. The story is intriguing. The intrigue increases, for this God engages Moses in conversation with the revealing declaration "I have seen the oppression of My people, I have heard their cries, and I have known their suffering." God declares, I have seen their affliction. I have heard their cries. I know their suffering. If we are not careful, we will miss at the good news of the text. The good news! Now, as my cousin would say, it gets good-er. That’s the first good news in the text. That God has seen the affliction of God’s people. God has heard the cries. God knows the suffering people. To the oppressed, this is good news!

My ancestors cry out in the Negro Spiritual, "Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen, Nobody knows my sorrow. Nobody but Jesus!" Oh, that is good news. If you are pressed to the margins of society, if you can imagine in the midst of despair, that you serve a God who sees affliction, who hears cries, and who knows suffering, that is good news. The good news of the story reminds us that something is about to happen. In the presence of God, change is bound to occur. Oh, that is the good news of the witness of the text. God sees affliction, hears cries, and knows suffering. Look! Listen! Know God’s response. The God of Exodus declares that human liberation involves human responsibility, human obligation, human vocation. "So, Moses, I have heard, I have seen, I have known. Now you go." Hey I figure that’s what Moses deserves for walking up to the burning bush in the first place. Go, Moses, you go!

The Divine Human dance. Truly the divine-human dance which we are repeatedly invited to join. God hears, sees, and knows suffering. God’s response is to beckon a dance partner. "Moses, Oh Moses I have heard, I have seen, I know. I want you to go." Now hope is floating in the air. Perhaps only gentle glimpses of hope. Like a breeze in the summertime, just enough to bend a blade of grass, to shake a leaf on a tree. Hope is in the air. Moses cries out, "Who am I? Who am I that I should go to Your people? Who am I that I should tell Pharaoh to let them go?" This too is our response to the divine invitation: "Who am I?" "Who am I that I should respond to God?" Get ready for some more good news, because God will respond to our cry! God declares nothing about Moses and everything about God. God says to Moses, "I will go with you." Let us dance! Can you not hear, echoing through history, God calling us, to be God’s partners in a divine-human dance? And we, like Moses, have the audacity to say, ‘Who am I? Who am I? I am a single mother. I have scarcely raised my own children, just got my high-school diploma, trying to get to college, thinking about seminary. Who am I? I am a dad. I have always worked with my hands. If you look at my nails, they are short and forever tinted from the hard labor I have done. Feel the calluses. I am no theologian. Who am I? I barely earn enough to keep food on my table, and coming to school is a stretch of my imagination. So every time I show up I must be dreaming. Who am I? That I should plunge in the snow and think I can overcome ice. Who am I?"

Who are you? Well, God’s response to us is, "I will go with you." It is as if God says to us, "I know who you are. I am glad about it. But the point is not who you are but who is with you. I will go with you." The divine-human dance. God makes it clear God leads and we follow. God directs and we move with God. The dance is worth dancing because the partner is worth dancing with. Ministry calls us into a divine-human dance that began long before we dared to become Reverend, Deacon, Elder. Ministry, ministry and the work, work, work of the people of God is a divine-human interaction. We have been invited to dance with God. We are privileged. The Divine human dance has been moving before we were born and it rolls on through us. We feel the weight of the witness of history nudging us along. We are not the first ones to struggle with a sermon on Saturday night, to go to bed hoping and praying that something will happen while we sleep. We are not the first ones to make it to the church, knowing the manuscript is lacking every principle of preaching we have ever been taught. We are not the first ones to dare to preach, knowing the words we have make little sense to us, let alone when they fall out of our mouths to our people. We are not the first ones to break open the word of God, to read the words and try to make sense of the notion that we should turn the other cheek, go the second mile of the way, give away our coat. Oh, we are not first to be seduced to this miracle called ministry. In the divine-human dance we serve a God of liberation who involves human hands, human hearts, in a divine human dance.

God says to us, do you want to dance? Do you want to dance? Do you want to dance? Dancing with God is a compelling image because it suggests a certain order to the movement. If you have ever danced, you know, depending on your partner, you really don’t know exactly what you shall do until you are doing it. You really don’t know when you’re going to end, and you don’t know where you’re going to be on the floor when this particular dance is over. All you know is that you have agreed to do this thing together. You give yourself away to the moment. In the space of uncertainty there is a spontaneity. There is creativity. And when you are clear that you are willing to dance with God, it is miraculously true that the first step to dance with God is one where you repeatedly lose your balance. You repeatedly give yourself over to God’s beckoning. You repeatedly surrender to God’s nudge, God’s push. You repeatedly fall into God’s hands, willing for God to guide you in dance. The divine-human dance. The dance wherein we surrender to God’s will. Amazed, inspired by a God who hears, sees, and knows. So why would anybody want to dance with God? If the dance means you’ll be engaging in work, why would anyone want to dance with God? If the dance means you’ll be laboring for God. Well, you’ll want to dance with God, because in that dance your relationship with God reflects a knowing that you cannot have without God. You don’t know yourself until you’ve given yourself to God, and allowed God to guide your life. You don’t know the extent of your ministry until you’ve released your grip on it, and allowed God to shape you. You don’t know the celebration in your sermon until you’ve let it fly on the wings of the moment of worship. You don’t know. It’s true; it does not yet appear what we shall be, but if we would start to dance with God, glimpses of God’s presence, God’s reign will break out all around us. It’s true. Eyes have not seen and ears have not heard. It has not entered into the hearts of men and women what great things God would do if we would surrender to dancing with God, let ourselves go to God’s lead, God’s direction. Moses’ question, "Who am I, that I should go?" brings God’s affirming response, "I will go with you." We do not go into our ministry alone. We do not venture into service by ourselves. But we go with a God who goes with us, with us. With us to the pulpit, with us to the nursing home, with us to the hospital, with us to the home of the bereaved. God goes with us. With us when we dare to dance with the homeless, dance with the hungry, dance with the hurting. God goes with us when we find ourselves among the least of them. God is there with us. You shall miss a step or two, and you shall fall out of rhythm and sync with God and you shall lose your rhythm and timing. You shall not be able to keep up, but rest assured. In this divine human dance God is with you, dancing with you and you are not alone. So God says to us today, "Do you want to dance?"

Divine-human dance as an image of our ministry also compels us to consider that we are not puppets. We have not lost our will. We have not lost our ability to create and do in ministry. No, we are engaged in ministry with God. In fact, more often than not when we become puppets, it is because we have surrendered our will to the institution we honour. We have surrendered our will to rules and regulations that we choose to worship. We surrender our will to laws and things that bind us. We create bondage where God moves with creative liberation. We throw up barriers and restrictions where God casts them aside and makes a path for dancing. We put down who shall and who shall not. Who’s good enough and who’s not good enough. Who can come and who cannot. Where God just beckons all who will dance, "Let’s dance." We bring limitations where God gives an invitation for inclusion. But maybe you don’t know the limitations that some of us encounter. Some of them are captured in those ‘isms.’ We bring the limitation of sexism, we bring the limitation of racism, we bring the limitation of Classism, we bring the limitation of heterosexism. We set up boundaries where God pushes them away and invites all who will come to come and dance with God. Divine-human dance is a place for possibility, endless opportunity, an in-breaking of God’s interaction in human history. So the God of Exodus is a God who understands human liberation, involves human responsibility, human obligation, human vocation. God is our leading partner. We rest not on the notion that the church is a source of salvation in the world. We rest not on the suggestion that preaching is the means of salvation. We rest not on any human effort as the definitive source of liberation. No. But we understand, at least from Exodus, that God calls humanity to serve humanity, to set humanity free. It’s really very peculiar. The people are oppressed by the people and God calls one of the people to set the people free. It’s nothing we would elect to do on our own and nothing we could achieve. But that’s how God works. Let us just face it. It really is the good news, but you might not be excited about it — what God does, God often does through us. That’s right. Doesn’t look good. Never has. History was confounded by a young Jewish boy, the least of them, a carpenter’s son, born to a young woman, growing up in the margins of society, born in a manger, running around talking crazy about the reign of God. We never like God’s partners. I’m glad it doesn’t matter, because God keeps dancing anyhow. Its strange, it’s awkward, but that’s what God does. God uses us to set us free. God uses us to liberate us.