<html><body><div>Here's what I have, unedited, for this Sunday.</div><div><br></div><div>Happy weekending!</div><div><br></div><div>Bob</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>THE TWENTIETH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>EXODUS 33:12-33<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> PROPER</span> 24 a</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>1 THESSALONIANS 1:1-10<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>22<sup>nd</sup> OCTOBER, 2017</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>MATTHEW 22:15-22<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>PSALM 99</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'> </span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>An acquaintance wrote the other week, “My aunt told me once there were only TWO real questions I’d have to answer: How can I help? And what excuses do I have to not?” <sup>1</sup></span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>That sounds about right. Except that I’d like to add a corollary, or a tweak. There are only two or three questions you and I should <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>ASK</u></b>: “How can I help? And what excuses do I have not to?”</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Brother David Vryhof, whom I quoted last week, had another spot on piece of spiritual advice a few weeks ago.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>“The world is full of wonder. Each day packed with one marvelous mystery after another. But often we miss them, racing around with lots of very important things to do and preoccupied with anxiety and care. We ourselves are mysteries so complex and intricate – works of wonder, through and through.” <sup>2</sup></span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>What I like particularly is the fact that Brother David reminds us that we ourselves are “fearfully and wonderfully made”. It’s a timely comment when the tendency is to put down those with whom we disagree. Of course, if we can, as white, privileged, not exclusively male members of society did historically, and continue to do; if we can classify an individual, or a group, or a nation as not human, then it becomes easier to ignore and to deprecate any other whom we may choose. But Brother David reminds us, on the one hand, that every human being is incredibly wonderful, and, on the other hand, no matter what happens, we still persist in tarnishing our own humanity and the humanity of others.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Perhaps this is why God and Moses go round and round in this morning’s story. “I really like you, Moses. You’ve got a good heart. You seem to think clearly. You try.” That was God.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Now if someone said that of us, we’d be elated. We’d assume we were going to be best friends forever with that person. Nothing would appear able to separate us. And nothing, really, could keep Moses and God apart, even when Moses’ friends kept making a mess of things. Yet there was something nagging in Moses’ mind. He kept trying to put his finger on it. Then it came to him. Perhaps <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:
normal"><u>THIS</u></b> is what caused a bit of isolation between the people and God, and the people and Moses. They couldn’t see God. They couldn’t reach out to touch God. They weren’t even allowed a selfie of them and God in the middle of the Red Sea, or in the dunes of the desert. They had to be content with words; with words and memories – and we all know how fragile memories can be. It seemed, perhaps, really hard to come up with some personal experience of God.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Even Moses felt this, even Moses had his moments of questioning, if not doubting. Somehow, though, he was able to get through the day without making too many deadly mistakes, but he knew he <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>DID</u></b> make them. After all, he was human, just like us.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>WE</u></b> are just the same. We, like Moses, have been called, called to lead, to witness, to walk through dark and dangerous places and speak to strange and sometimes challenging people, no matter how wonderfully made. We’re called to struggle with making decisions. We’re called to be healers of people and nations. We’re called to be compassionate. Yet we fail, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:
normal"><u>SO</u></b> many times. Either out of nervousness, or fear, or stubbornness, or – yet we <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>HAVE</u></b> to say it – out of malice, we fail.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>No matter how wonderfully made, failure is part of our system, and this <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>HAS</u></b> to be admitted.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Moses seemed to be aware of his own shortcomings. In fact, at the burning bush in the desert, he said as much to God. The point was, however, that he was up-front about this with God and with himself. Perhaps this is what you and I have to wrestle with so often. Even when we admit to ourselves, very quietly, that we’re <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:
normal"><u>NOT</u></b> completely functional as human beings, we’re pretty reticent about opening our mouths about this, certainly in public, and perhaps it’s this which makes us unable or unwilling to see God. Maybe this is part of what Paul described as if we see through an imperfect glass. Something clouds our vision; something prevents us from coming out of the closet, so what we <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>DO</u></b> see is not the full picture. Somehow, it’s distorted – an optometrist’s delight. When Moses asks for a full frontal view of God, he’s told that that would be completely impossible for him to bear. And so for us.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>How much simpler life would be if we could go on line to Amazon to order a framed photo of God, something that we could all put up on our front room wall. Even a Rubens, or a Caravaggio, possibly even a Picasso in his wildest, most imaginative mood; even a representation on canvas would work. But this is not to be. What God said to Moses, what God says to us, is, “I will make my goodness pass before you”, and with this we’ll have to be content. To see the fullness of God’s glory would be so devastatingly wonderful and beautiful that not only would our breath be stopped, but our eyes would be seared and the optic nerves all the way to the brain would be fried. If we thought we’d have problems looking at the recent solar eclipse with our eyes, then multiply that by a trillion times a trillion and you and I might begin to get the picture.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>God’s glory is so focused on pure life and pure energy that it would be <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>SO</u></b> damaging to us to see it – for now, anyway. Only after we strive to pattern our lives fully on God’s self-revelation in Jesus do we come to see who God is, what God is like.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>So Moses couldn’t be granted this request. Nor can we, no matter how frustrating, how much we long for it and think that it may help to straighten out our attitudes and our behavior. Yet God doesn’t leave Moses comfortless, nor are we left bereft. God says, “You shall see my back.”</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"><br></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"><br></span></span></p></div></body></html>