3rd Sunday in Lent

The Rev. Rob Fisher

St. Dunstan’s, Carmel Valley

Texts: Exodus 3:1-15; Psalm 63: 1-8; 1 Corinthians 10:1-13; Luke 13: 1-9

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Bridgeport, Connecticut is an old city on the shore of Long Island Sound.

It was once a booming industrial center.  Its most famous citizen was P.T. Barnum, who was for a time also the mayor.

Today, if you ride the commuter rail from New Haven to New York City, and you look out of the window as the train rolls through Bridgeport, you will see the old factories, rusting and vacant.  You will see big sections of pavement that once served as parking lots, broken up and cracked and being overtaken by thick grass.  Many of the old brick apartment buildings are dark and have boarded-up windows. It looks like the rough, crime-ridden city that it is.

But there is also a hill, rising up above the hard-luck city, and on top of that hill is a modern building, which houses Bridgeport Hospital.

When I was in seminary, up the road a little bit from Bridgeport, I took a summer posting as a hospital-chaplain-in-training at Bridgeport Hospital.

It was nothing if it wasn’t humbling to spend a summer walking into rooms day after day, never knowing what I would discover around the corner.  I fell in love with Bridgeport in spite of its harsh exterior, as I discovered countless precious souls.

We chaplains visited everybody, regardless of religious background, to let them know that a chaplain would always be available if they wanted one.  If we were not what they wanted at the time, we could at least help find them what they needed—like a Catholic priest, or a rabbi, or an imam, or a prayer shawl, or electric Shabbat candles.

I remember once walking into a room when the patient complained loudly, “The doctors are so young in this place!”

To which I responded, “Actually, I am not a doctor.  I’m the chaplain.”

She then went on, “The chaplains are so young in this place!”

On another occasion, a night once when I was on call, I went to visit a man who was going in for a major operation the next day.  We would always visit with pre-op patients and offer prayers.  Before entering the room, I saw that there was a large gathering of family there, and I had the chance to speak with one of the nurses, who in a somewhat gossipy way told me that this man was a mafia guy.

Tue to type-casting, he was a commanding presence, surrounded by large young men, with tears welling up in some of their eyes, whom he introduced to me proudly as his sons.

He repeatedly called me “Father,” even though he knew I was not ordained.  He said, “You’re doing ministry, you’re a minister—I call you ‘Father.’”

I wasn’t going to argue with him.

He then said, “now we will hold hands and say the Lord’s Prayer.”

I said, “Yes Sir.”

It was strangely touching.

***

To all of us chaplains, the hospital was a sort of wilderness.  We were strangers, wandering the halls day and night.  But often, and when we least expected it, we came upon a burning bush.

In the Old Testament this morning, we hear of Moses watching his father-in-law’s sheep, and journeying to Mt. Sinai.  Along the way he encounters a bush in flames, and to his amazement he notices that is not being consumed by those flames.

He does not pass it by, but stops and turns to gaze at it.

And the bush calls out to him by name, “Moses, Moses!”

Moses realizes then, right at the moment when he hears his name spoken, that he is in the presence of God.

The voice tells him to take off his shoes, for the ground is holy ground.

But Moses is troubled because he does not know God’s name, and he asks God to tell him his name.

Here we get the mysterious response, that God says to Moses, “I AM Who I AM.  Tell the people ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”

God’s name is “I AM.”  Or, YHWH in Hebrew, an unpronounceable name which people sometimes refer to as “Yahweh.”

Some theologians have said that, if God says that his name is simply “I AM,” then God is being itself. God is, therefore, not a being among beings, but the ground of being.  God is the ground of all that is.

This foundational story is about holy ground and revelation, and it is also about names.

And it is interesting that this holy in-breaking happens because God has heard the suffering of his people, and is responding to it.

***

In the hospital, I often met patients who were very, very ill.  Imagine meeting a person for the first time while that person is literally on his or her death bed.  People often don’t look like themselves.

As strangers, we tend to see only the outside of a person.

When you, as a chaplain, walk into the room, and you speak the person’s name, you see a change in the light in that person’s eyes, and you recognize the precious the soul that is bound within the mortal the flesh!

Holiness happens in the meeting.  It happens when my soul meets yours and recognizes that we are both precious in God’s sight.

The presence of the spirit makes itself known, and it opens our eyes, and gives us goose bumps.

Suddenly, to our surprise, we find that we are in fact standing on holy ground.

I wonder, are we standing on holy ground all the time and we just don’t know it?

Moses is a prophet because he is one who notices.  He stops to notice what God is doing in his midst.  He could have easily walked on, but he stops his pressing tasks and takes notice.

And when he hears God speak, he follows.

We, too, are called to be people who take the time to notice.

And when we do, we cannot help but follow.

It is a story of revelation, when ordinary dirt is discovered to be holy ground, and when ordinary people are discovered to be the children of God.

Amen.