Tuesday, May 19, 2015

April 19, 2015--An Altar in the World: Paying Attention

Rev. Tom Ott
Exodus 3: 1-5
One of the ways we maintain the illusion of control in our lives is by shrinking the world down to a size that feels manageable.
We bring the sky down to a ceiling just a few feet above our heads, which, in most cases makes us the biggest thing in our world. We wall off the space that we live in so that we can arrange everything in our world to be exactly the way we want it to be. We choose the colors that we look at every day and the texture of ground beneath our feet: soft pile carpet in one area, smooth polished boards in another, hard glassy tiles in another. We arrange the furnishings to suit our preferences, we decorate the space to reflect our aesthetic sensibilities, and we control the light illuminating the world that we live in. By shrinking the world, we can keep everything relatively clean and neat. We can filter the pollen and dust particles out the air and set the temperature to our own liking. We can choose what to bring into our world and what to exclude.
Shrinking the world down to a more manageable size allows us to maintain the illusion of being in control of our lives. And when we have to venture outside, we enclose ourselves in a mobile miniature world that transports us from one shrunken world to the next.
But in between those places, on our way from one shrunken down world to another, if we step outside and look up, we are suddenly struck by the realization that the world is a much bigger place than we imagine.
There is an oak tree growing next to my house that is over 70 feet tall. It is probably closer to our house than it should be. Every once in a while, a branch will break off during a storm and impale itself in our roof. Twice since we’ve been in our house I’ve had to patch holes in the roof over our living room made by limbs the size of my forearm that penetrated the shingles and roof decking and were protruding down into our attic space.
I’ve been aware of that huge oak tree for the last seven years, but that tree has lived near the stream that flows past our house for more than a hundred and fifty years. Its canopy towers over the house I live in. Its lowest branches are so high that they have been inaccessible to anyone for a long, long time. Its trunk is so wide that my two arms won’t reach even half way around it. That tree has endured countless long cold winters and hot scorching summers. Every spring it buds with tender shoots of new growth and every fall it blankets the ground with its leaves and its acorns sustain another generation of chipmunks, squirrels, raccoons and deer.
I hold deep reverence for the huge oak tree growing beside my house. I don’t worship it or idolize it or attribute any divine powers to it. But I am in awe of it. When I stand next to the trunk of that beautiful tree and look up at its limbs towering above me, it makes me dizzy. It was alive even before my grandparents were born and in all likelihood, it will still be standing long after I am dead.
There is a perspective that I recover every time I see the huge tree growing next to my house. It is impossible to feel too self-important in the presence of such a mighty oak. I am dwarfed in its shadow, I am humbled by its beauty, I am overawed by its enduring strength.
The great oak tree next to my house never goes away. It doesn’t ever shrink back down to a sapling, it doesn’t uproot itself and wonder around the neighborhood. Its beauty, stature or strength doesn’t diminish with the changing seasons. The great oak tree next to my house is always there but I am not always in awe of its majesty. In fact, most of the time I’m am completely unaware of its proximity. Even though it stands little more than 10 feet away from the living room couch where I sit, relaxing, practically every evening of my life, it has little impact on me most of the time.
In order to experience the reverence inspired by the oak tree next to my house, I have to turn aside and pay attention to it. I have to get out of the shrunken world that I have created inside the four walls of my home and look up. I have to pause on my way to and from the busy activities that fill my days and stand still long enough to notice what is always there, standing right next to me.
Today in our scripture lesson from the book of Exodus, we heard part of the familiar story of the call of Moses. Usually when we hear that story our attention is drawn to the spectacle of the burning bush. It was on fire but it was not consumed by the fire, and the voice of God spoke to Moses from out of the burning bush. It was such a profound spiritual encounter for Moses that he felt compelled to take off his shoes because he realized that he was standing on holy ground.
Most of the time we move very quickly from the encounter with the burning bush to the activity that was inspired by it. From the burning bush, God called Moses to a ministry of liberation saying, “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...come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.”
The burning bush encounter profoundly changed the trajectory of Moses’ life. Instead of tending the flocks of his father in law Jethro, he returned to Egypt, confronted the mighty power of Pharaoh, liberated the Hebrew people from their slavery and accompanied them throughout the forty years of their wilderness wandering.
Without the burning bush encounter, there would be no exodus, no gathering at Mt. Sinai, no tablets of stone, no Torah, no conquests of Joshua, no throne of David, no holy city of Jerusalem, no temple, no Israel, no Christianity, no conversion of Paul, no mission to the gentiles, no congregational movement, no pilgrims, no New England missionaries traveling to the Midwest frontier, no First Congregational Church in Battle Creek. It is not inaccurate to say that one bush is responsible for our being gathering in this space today offering our worship to God.
But as Barbra Brown Taylor points out in her book, An Altar in the World, the bush that was burning but not consumed was not right in front of Moses. It wasn’t blocking his way. It didn’t top him in his tracks. It was off to the side somewhere. Moses had to turn aside in order to investigate this thing that had caught his attention out of the corner of his eye. He could have easily gone on about his business without stopping. God didn’t yell to Moses from out of the burning bush. On the contrary, God was just waiting to see if Moses would pay attention. The text says, “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.’”
That is what reverence requires. In order for us to become aware of anything greater than ourselves, we have to be willing to turn aside and pause long enough to see what is beyond our control and to notice what transcends our understanding.
This past Tuesday, Emily Joye and Tom and I were on retreat down at the Gilchrist Center just north of Three Rivers. It is a beautiful place to turn aside and become mindful of the full extent of our limits. In a meadow next to the house where we were staying there was huge labyrinth that had been mowed into the underbrush. It took us about an hour to make our way through the labyrinth, walking with our prayers, moving back and forth, in and out, sometimes walking away from each other, sometimes approaching each other.
When we all reached the center of the labyrinth we ended up laying on the ground on our backs looking up into the late afternoon sky. It was deep blue with high wispy clouds. Our eyes had been looking down most of the hour as we made our way through the undulating terrain of the labyrinth and the world had shrunken down to a few footfalls in front of us. But laying our backs looking up suddenly filled us with reverence and awe as considered our own size and the enormity of the world we live in.
This week I want to challenge you to turn aside and pay attention to a burning bush, or a towering oak tree, or billowy clouds drifting in the afternoon sky. Wednesday is Earth Day. Take some time to notice the miracle of life springing forth all around us: green shoots pushing up through the ground after lying dormant in the earth all winter long, the melodies of song birds, the soft warm flesh of another human being created in the image of God.
Don’t be content to live your life in a shrunken down world. You don’t have to go anywhere special or practice any complicated ritual to be reverent. Just step outside and look up, or turn to the person next to you and see their beauty. This week, turn aside and practice paying attention. Amen.

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