A few years ago I saw, yes, SAW, Dick Celeste give a speech. Celeste is a former Democrat governor of Ohio, ambassador to India, and currently president of Colorado College. And he spoke in such a way that he quite literally lit up the room. I say saw because of the effect he had on the room. He was a bright light shining in our midst.
Friends of mine were present and said “gee, Dennis, what did you expect, he is after all a politician?”
Well, I didn’t expect the nearly overpowering light he projected into that room, that day.
Celeste was Moses-like in his radiance.
My sermon yesterday was from Exodus 34: 29-35. It is the passage where Moses comes down from his second gifting of the Commandments to discover he is putting out radiance from his exposure to God.
Some things seem to come speak to me in this passage.
• Moses wasn’t aware that his face was radiant. And when he became aware, he tried to shield it from those around him.
• The radiance made the Israelites afraid.
• After he finished delivering the new commandments, he put a veil over his face.
The ideas for how to unpack this with the congregation came to me pretty early in the week, and it came so quickly, so easily, I kept wondering was I being too shallow? Was this too obvious?
I chose to take the gift that had been given to me and used it as my three points. I really try to resist the idea of "Three Points" because in the history of preaching, a style called "Three Points and a Poem" was normative for years. Every time I get "Three Points" I wonder if I have found them because there ARE three points, or because of the old format.
My key ideas were:
• Like Moses, we often don't realize that we reflect God's glory.
• That reflection of God's glory can make those around us nervous and frightened.
• It isn't clear what Moses was trying to do by putting a veil over his face, but Paul in 2nd Corinthians felt that he wanted to be sure that the nascent church in Corinth understood unlike Moses, reflecting God's glory was a 24/7/365 responsibility.
I did come back to the idea that Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount reminds us we are called to be “The Light of the World” and prepared to light up that world, and not allow ourselves to attempt to cover up that light. How is that for a challenge? Go out and light up the world. Fortunately, Jesus didn’t give us a timeline for mission accomplishment. Two Thousand Years and we are still working on it.
I do find it interesting that as I quasi Journal this, at neither service did I come back to a lingering thought I had when the message came to me: Gee Dennis, what do you expect, he (Celeste) is after all a politician. It seemed like a logical observation was if a politician was capable of being expected to light up a room, isn’t lighting up a room with God's radiance part of what we should expect for ourselves?
Gee Dennis, what do you expect, he/she (insert name) is after all a Christian? I don’t know: what do I expect?
1 comment:
Thank you for deciding to preach the sermon even though it seemed to come to you too easily. I'm certain I've read that passage numerous times but somehow I managed to pass over the whole part about the veil and I know that I had never undertood paul's later reference to what Moses had done. Nor have I ever heard a sermom preached about that particular passage.
I believe the part about not being able to put a veil over ourselves and hide away from being God's light in the world sometimes was something that I needed to hear, I've been feeling rather burnt-out lately and the idea of "checking out" can be very temping so thank you for the reminder of my responsibility as a Christian. At the same time, it's also nice to be reminded that even people like Moses make mistakes and chose the wrong path at times. God has ever chosen imperfect vessels to work His will.
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