SermonStudio

This sermon was prepared especially for a congregation of ministers. It was used, in slightly different forms, at a ministers' conference, in the chapel of Columbia Seminary, and at several ordination/installation services for young ministers. At one such service the young man who was being installed came forward to answer the required questions after he had removed his shoes.

The sermon combines personal experience with the story of Moses and the burning bush. It seeks to draw parallels between Moses' experience of standing on holy ground with that of the minister who has responded to God's call, and, as a result, stands in the pulpit regularly.



I have a kind of obsession about the shoes I wear in the pulpit. I would not dare enter the pulpit in shoes of any color except black. Why am I so strict about wearing only black shoes in the pulpit? It is because when I was a student at Columbia Seminary over half a century ago, Dr. J. McDowell Richards was president of the seminary. He drilled it into our heads, or at least into my head, that the only appropriate color shoes to be worn in the pulpit is black. Therefore, for me to wear some other color shoes in the pulpit would be a form of heresy and a desecration of the memory of Dr. Richards.

A few years ago I went up into the mountains of North Carolina to baptize infant twins of friends of mine. When I arrived on Friday afternoon I found that I had forgotten to pack my black shoes. All I had were the shoes I wore up there - caramel--colored loafers.

All day long on Saturday I wrestled in agony about how I could get hold of some black shoes. No one in the gathered company had black shoes that would fit me. The little town did not boast a shoe store. Finally in late afternoon a friend and I drove over winding mountain roads to a town about ten miles away where there was a nice department store. There, by the providence of God, I found a pair of black shoes on sale for $25.

They fit me. I bought them. In proper ecclesiastical garb I baptized the babies. That was five years ago. I still have that pair of black shoes, and I wear them every Sunday. I have them on right now.

But you know, I did have another alternative which I did not think of at the time. Instead of going through so much trouble to get black shoes I could have worn no shoes at all. I could have come into the pulpit wearing robe and stole, but absolutely barefoot. Now the family of the baptized babies probably would have been shocked; the congregation doubtless would have been puzzled to say the least; there might have been a ripple of not very well suppressed snickers in the sanctuary.

But God might have been pleased. I think God would have smiled, not from amusement, but from delight. I think God would have been pleased if he knew that I came barefoot into the pulpit, not because I could not find any black shoes, but because I remembered Moses, and a bush that flared and flamed with swirling fire but was not consumed; if he thought I, too, had heard God's voice calling my name and saying to me, "Put off your shoes from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground."

Surely for Moses the place on which he stood looked no different from the rest of the land over which he had led the family sheep. True, it was illuminated by the flames of the burning bush. But that was not what made it holy.

For Moses the burning bush was a puzzlement, a curiosity, something to turn aside to see. Did you notice in the text that when the voice spoke out of the bush and called Moses by name, that Moses expressed no wonder or surprise? He simply answered, "Here am I."

It was not until he realized to whom the voice belonged that he hid his face and was afraid. It must have been at that point that he took off his shoes and stood on the sandy ground exposed, unprotected, vulnerable. The soles of his bare feet were in direct contact with the holy ground. I wonder if he did not feel some tingling of energy, some surge of power as he wiggled his toes in the sand.

Moses knew the ground was holy when he realized that at this place he was in the presence of God and that God was communicating with him; God was revealing himself to Moses.

"I am the God of your father...." This was no new God. This was the God of all history, the God of Moses' heritage, the God of all the generations on earth. "The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob...."

He was a God involved, intertwined, concerned for the realities of human existence. Listen to the good news he brought to Moses: "I have seen ... I have heard ... I know ... I have come...." Here is a God whose majesty and might are symbolized by leaping flames of fire, flames which preserve rather than destroy the living bush. But here is a God with a compassionate human face. "I have seen the misery of my people; I have heard their cry; I know their suffering."

But once this God sees, hears, and knows, he acts. "I have come down to deliver them."

Good news for Moses. The Lord does care about the slavery, oppression, and injustice which Moses' kinfolks are enduring back in Egypt. And God himself is going to do something about it. No doubt Moses, too, had been anxious about the situation. I can imagine that he had tossed in his bedroom at night while he kept watch over his family's sheep. But what could he do about it? He had struck one blow for their freedom, and his own people had rejected his efforts. Now he was only a shepherd working for somebody else, working for his father--in--law at that.

But this God is full of surprises. He got Moses' attention with a burning bush. He scared him half to death by telling him to take his shoes off and stand on holy ground. Then he gave Moses the shock of his life by announcing that this business of liberating God's people was going to be a joint venture between Moses and God.

"So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt."

If I had been Moses I think this would be the time to reach down and start putting on my shoes. I would have been ready to make tracks away from the holy ground, away from the burning bush, away from the revealing Voice.

But Moses, barefoot, stood his holy ground and contended with God for a while. He blurted out a natural and understandable question: "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?"

The Lord did not answer Moses by listing all Moses' qualifications for the job. God answered him with a two--pronged promise. The first part of the promise was: "I will be with you."

Moses would find his identity and authority in his relationship to God. Moses was the "God--with--me" person. The way would be hard; the obstacles, fierce; the difficulties, seemingly insurmountable. But Moses could always remember God's words: "I will be with you."

The second part of the promise was: "When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain." The task, with God's help, would be accomplished. Moses would lead out a worshiping people, a people who acknowledged God as the one who gave them their identity.

But Moses went still further in his encounter with God. He wanted to know God's name. The people would surely say to Moses, "You claim that God sent you. Who is this God? Does he have a name?"

God's answer was mysterious, enigmatic, and profound: "I am who I am. Tell them I AM has sent you."

What more was there to say? What further authority did Moses need? The One who is pure existence had sent him; the source and sustainer of all there is in the universe was calling him to a task.

Are there ways in which our ministries reflect some of the luster of the ministry of Moses?

Did it not begin with some mysterious vision; perhaps not a burning bush, but a kindling stirring within the spirit? Was there not a time when we heard a Voice calling our name?

Have we not encountered a God who sees, who hears, who knows, who comes down to deliver his people? Is this not the good news we have received and in which we stand? Is not the human face of God the face of Jesus Christ?

Have we not heard that chilling but thrilling word spoken directly to us, "I will send you"?

Who among us has not answered, "But, Lord, who am I to take your freeing word to the people?"

The answer keeps coming, "I will be with you." So we keep on going despite "the relentless return of the Sabbath," despite too few hours in the day, despite our own imperfections and those of our people.

Does the routine regularity of standing in the pulpit tempt us to see that place as ordinary ground?

I challenge you some day to be audacious enough to stand barefoot in the pulpit and to tell your people why you are wearing no shoes.