10/18/20 “Standing in the Crevice” by Nancy E. Petty

Exodus 33:12-23

From my perch in life, it seems like a valid request. God, if you are going to ask me to lead your rebellious, stiffed-necked, often wayward people, at least let me know that you will be with me. And by the way God, I need to see you so I know you are real, and so I can trust that you will actually show up. I feel you brother Moses – I, too, could use a face-to-face meeting with God right now given the way things are going.

There is a back story to understanding Moses’ request to see God’s face. It goes like this. While Moses was up on the mountain conversing with God, Aaron was busy down the mountain with the people creating a golden calf so that the people of Israel could see and touch their God. They felt alone and abandoned and needed something tangible to go before them. But here’s the problem: they had forgotten that whole thing about not creating craven images to worship. Their selective memory and acts of desperate disobedience had frustrated God and God was ready to opt out of the covenant and start over with a new covenant people. God sends Moses down to get ahold of his people. When Moses got down the mountain, he was so shocked by what he saw that he dropped the tablets of stone, breaking them. I can only imagine how for Moses this was one of those parental moments when you leave the children at home to run a 30 minute errand and you return home to find total chaos: the kids running wild through the house, popcorn and potato chips littering the floor, the dog eating the casserole on the counter that you had put out to thaw for dinner. In his own disbelief of what is happening, he is even more aware of God’s frustration with the people. God is ready to abandon the relationship. But Moses pleads with God to not break covenant. Moses finds himself the man standing as a lone bridge in the middle of the chasm between God and God’s people.

As for Moses, he is used to having these kinds of conversations with God. Not face-to-face, rather in burning bushes and clouds of smoke in a tent. This time, Moses goes into the tent and begins his conversation with God, pleading with God to not end God’s covenant with the people; but to stay with them and guide them into the Promised Land. Moses is understandably worried about the future of the people and the possibility of God not accompanying them. So Moses begs. Stay with us God, after all these are your people. And by the way God, I know the people did wrong, but I kind of understand what they needed – to see you clearly, to know you are with us. Even I need some reassurance that you are going to be with us. I need to see you. I need to see your face.

Now I will admit that I have had my Moses moments. Too many times, I have asked God for a sign, some reassurance that God is with us, God’s people, in this fight for LGBTQIA+ rights, police accountability, economic equality, racial equality, religious freedom, and all the things that represent justice-love. But I must say, I’ve never had the chutzpah of Moses. You get the feeling in our text that Moses is saying to God, okay God, here’s how this is going to go down. Yes, you’ve given your word that you will go with us. I hear your trust in me, that’s all good. But right now, it’s just not enough God. I need to see you. I need to see your face. I need to look you in the eyes and know that you are serious. I need that level of assurance right now.

You’ve got to admire the guy. He knows what’s on the line, what’s at stake here. He knows the consequences. He’s thinking about how it’s going to look to the other side of the political divide if things don’t go well. God, I need to see you face-to-face to be assured that you are on my/our side. I need that assurance. If there is any question about you being with us on this journey into the “promised land” of equality and justice – if it looks like you are not with us – folks will say you are not on our side. Moses is not giving God a pass on this one, yet.

God, on the other hand, remains patient, reassuring Moses again and again that he is not alone, that Moses has favor with God, that God’s glory with be with him. Moses keeps pressing and pushing. And then comes the moment where God draws the boundary. I will not show you my face. In fact, God tells Moses no one can bear to see the glory of God’s face and live. But God doesn’t leave Moses there. It’s as if God wants to reassure Moses as much as Moses wants God’s reassurance.

It is this God, who is patient and merciful and compassionate that I think we sometimes forget about. This God wants the level of intimacy that Moses is seeking, and yet knows that sometimes we can’t handle what we ask for. This God wants us to know that in all things God is with us. This God is a God who keeps working with us until we can accept the blessing, the assurance, the promise of presence, the favor, the glory. This God seems to know that while there are boundaries to what us humans can bear, there is no boundary to God’s love and presence when we seek it.

And so, God offers Moses another option of reassurance. God says to Moses, “there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock; and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft – a crevice – of the rock; and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by; then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back; but my face shall not be seen.”

“Our English texts usually say that Moses could “see God’s back,” but [one source I read] noted that’s an inaccurate translation. Moses caught no sight of the ‘body’ of God.” More accurately, Moses “saw the place where God just was.” This source goes on to suggest that that is how we often experience God. “In the busyness of life, [we are] not anywhere near aware or awake enough to see God’s Presence. [We are too busy] answering emails, making visits, writing sermons, picking up kids from school, washing the dishes…but, when [we] look back over [our] day, with intention, [we] can see God’s Presence so much easier.” The place where God just was.

In this translation, Moses’ encounter with God shifts from the singular experience of one man to a universal truth that we have the innate ability to recognize the energetic signature of God. Yes, we may be too busy and hectic to “see” God in the moment, but God’s presence leaves a fragrance that we can know if we are willing to take it in. If we are willing. How often do we take time to stand in the crevice and notice where God just was? And furthermore, are we willing to be reassured of God’s presence with us from the perspective of the crevice? Are we willing to trust our own inner knowing versus the shiny idols that surround us. 

I had a mentor once who loved to ask me when I was struggling: Nancy, where in your narrative can you look back and see where you were able to get through something hard? In other words, go stand in the crevice and see where you just were. Maybe it was just hours ago, or days ago, or weeks ago, or even years ago. But stand in the cleft of the rock and find the assurance you need to keep on going. It was a powerful exercise, one I still use today. When life is faltering, when the world seems overwhelming, when you feel all alone, when you wonder if God is there, stand in the crevice and see where you have been, see where God just was.

We, as individuals; we, as a people; we, as a nation are being asked right now to stand in the crevice. We are being asked to stand in that place and see where God has been and where God just was. It is our calling, our discipline to hold this view for others who are not in a place to stand in the crevice. Our faith calls us to this place. It is what we have to offer the world at such a time as this. The world needs our seeing. The world needs us to stand in the cleft of the rock and see where God has been and where God just was, and where God is – with us. It is from this place in the cleft of the rock that we do not despair, but rather hope. We may not be able to see God’s face, we may not even be able to see where God is in any given moment, but surely as God’s people we can stand in the crevice and give witness to where we have experience God’s presence. It is our gift as people of faith to have the courage to look back over our long narrative as God’s people and say “God was there” with us. 

Sometimes, standing in the crevice, we need to take a longer view, to see from a broader scale of time. If we are only willing to consider the past four years, it might be hard for us to pick up the fragrance, even though we know it has been there. But if we are willing to look at an epic unfolding, might we more clearly sense this energetic signature? “Give me your tired, your poor… your homeless!” It is easy to focus on how this nation has failed that colossal call to the world, but even the dream of this kind of radical hospitality reeks of God’s hand – surely we know, as we look back, that God was powerfully present as that mother of exiles raised a torch in New York’s harbor! “We, the people, in order to form a more perfect Union, [and] establish Justice…” These words are so familiar to us now that we forget how they rang out as a new note on this planet. A nation whose aim was by definition about union, about relationship, and about sharing power. We all know the great lie of that original aim – that baked into the proclamation of union and equality were deeply held commitments to elitism and racism. And so the American experiment betrayed its potential from the very beginning. And yet. And yet. Surely we can see God’s hand in the evolutionary leap in human consciousness that was even willing to pen this audacious shift from MINE to OURS! 

But it isn’t just in our origin stories that we can smell the fragrance of God. Just as important as these founding impulses is the rambling, circuitous, contentious path this nation has been on since its founding. You see, we all know that adage about power corrupting. Once power is attained, it is a basic law of humanity that it rarely given back. But this nation has managed the peaceful exchange of power between sworn political enemies for almost 250 years! Standing in the crevice, we might realize that at every single presidential inauguration, God’s hand has surely been there! And even in the place of our darkest collective shadow, if we are very still and very quiet, we can sense the enduring presence of our God. This nation was founded in the name of equity while standing on the necks of any and all non-white people, particularly the indigenous and enslaved Africans. 250 years later we are still living in the shadow of that original sin. And yet. And yet. In an unprecedented and bloody chain of events, this nation ended slavery, enfranchised African Americans, and created policy to ensure civil liberties and rights. Are we proud of where we started? Nope. Have you got it right yet? Nope. Are people still enslaved in this country in systems of injustice and racism? Yes. But are we finished? Hell, no! This question is, do we have the wisdom to bear witness to the unquestionable presence of the hand of God in the arc of justice-love that connects this moment to our earliest days as a nation? I can’t overstate this, folks. If we are willing to see God, we see that God has been there! 

In the cleft of the rock, standing in the crevice, is a powerful place to stand. Maybe even more so than seeing God face-to-face. But it does ask something of us. It requires us to use not just our eyes, but our hearts. For the fragrance of God is one that we know, we taste, we smell, we sense, but rarely do we have the eyes to see. 

There is definitely a word for us right now in this text that speaks to our political situation. The piece that we need to hear as a nation is we have a post to hold, a job to do, a blessing to offer. We are to stand in the crevice and bear witness that God has been with us. That means that we will have to see beyond the craven idols of this day and time. We need to see and to tell the longer story of this nation, not just replay the latest memes. We need to call America to her highest self, not engage in the petty politics of reality TV. As one of our modern prophets has said, “When they go low, we go high.” We need to be the Americans we want America to be. That’s why it’s important to stand in the cleft of the rock, in the crevice. To remember who we are. 

But the other proclamation in this word is that God does cover us with God’s hand, comforting us, reassuring us, holding us until we are ready, showing us what we need and can handle. Hands hold intimacy. They are symbols of intimacy. I remember the first time I saw Rodin’s The Hand of God sculpture. I was so intrigue by it that I ordered a small replica of it. This image of creation coming from God’s hand – creating, shaping, and forming – is a powerful image. God said to Moses, “as I pass by you, I will cover you with my hand.” Maybe I should, but I don’t hear that as God trying to hide God’s presence from Moses. I hear it as God holding Moses in God’s hand. I hear that word “covering” more as a blanket wrapping around Moses – God’s hand wrapping around Moses in comfort and assurance and intimacy and love.

This image reminded me of my great-grandmother’s hands. As a young person I can remember studying her hands. Bent and gnarled from years of tending her garden, working the dirt, canning her vegetables, sowing her clothes, peeling potatoes and shelling peas her hands fascinated me. Her hands represented her love of her family and friends as she shared the fruits of her labor with those whom she loved. Her canned vegetables, her home cooked meals, her bonnets that she sowed and gave away, the blankets she made us to cover us in the cold winter months. I remember watching her hands spin and toil working and tending her garden as she lay on her death bed dying. Her hands never stopped.

My great-grandmother’s hands reminded me of another set of hands. I had been at Pullen a short 4 months as one of your staff members when I called Mahan Siler, Pullen’s pastor at the time, close to midnight one night to tell him I needed to talk with him about something important. He suggested that it might be too late to meet that night but that he would meet me the next morning at the hotel café for breakfast. I didn’t sleep all night waiting anxiously for the morning to dawn and for the clock to strike 8:00 a.m. We took our seats at the breakfast table and before the coffee and juice could arrived I nervously confessed: “Mahan, I am gay. I’ve only been here 4 months and if this is a problem just let me know and I will leave.” With those enormous “God-like” hands, Mahan reached across the table, took my much smaller hands in his, his covering mine entirely, looked me in the eyes and with the most caring and compassionate voice ever spoken to me, he said: “Nancy, that issue has already been decided at Pullen. You are safe here. Nobody is going to ask you to leave. You don’t have to worry. It’s okay and it’s all going to be okay.”

It was his hands taking hold of my hands that I will never forget. 

That morning, Mahan wasn’t saying to me that there wouldn’t be hard and challenging days ahead. He was simply reminding me, covering me with those compassionate hands of his, that I am okay and that I am God’s beloved.

As God place Moses in the cleft of the rock, the crevice, God was reminding him that Moses and God’s people are God’s beloved. And while there may be some hard and challenging days ahead, God’s presence – God’s fragrance – is always with us.