Sermon: Collation of new Archdeacons
From Wellington Cathedral of St Paul
Collation of new Archdeacons for Ministry & Mission
14 February 2010
Canon Deborah Broome
- Exodus 3:1-6
- John 12:27-36
http://cathedral.wellington.net.nz/index.php/Sermons
So there is Moses, ‘keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro’. Moses doesn’t seem particularly special at this point. Unlike the owner of the sheep, he’s not a priest or a prophet. He’s a helpful son-in-law, contributing to the family, and he’s taken the sheep into the wilderness. This is about Moses – but it’s not just about Moses. It also has a lot in it about us, and about Danny and Tony who are collated into their new ministries tonight.
It’s an ordinary, everyday journey for Moses. He’s not going anywhere special, just wandering around so the sheep can find food. And then Moses sees something that – just like the Air New Zealand safety message – is worth a second look. ‘Then Moses said, “I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up.” When the LORD saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush.’ Just a minute: does that mean that if Moses had not turned aside, God would not have spoken? I’m sure there are plenty of other ways God could have got Moses’ attention, if the sight of a bush afire but not burning up hadn’t worked. But maybe, just maybe, there might be something to that.
Moses sees something strange and stops for a better look. We’d probably do the same – perhaps. I mean – you’d turn aside, wouldn’t you? I would – maybe. Because, if we’re really being honest, don’t we have a tendency to keep on walking? After all, we’re busy – we need to get somewhere, there’s no time to stand there, staring. We’ll come back later, once we’ve finished what’s top of our list right now. Or, if we’re not rushing off to something, then maybe rationality can keep us from turning aside. This is too weird. Things like this don’t happen. We must be imagining it. And who would believe us if we said anything about it. There are, when you think about it, plenty of reasons to keep on walking. But Moses turned aside. Maybe curiosity got the better of him. And when God saw that he turned aside to see, it was then that God called to him. So what I would say to Tony and to Danny, as they begin their new ministries, is develop the capacity to turn aside. Be willing to put on hold the routine, and even the urgent tasks, in order to notice what God might be doing. Be willing to move away from the scheduled, the regular, the habitual, in order to focus on the unexpected. And I say this of course not just to these two, but to all of us, and perhaps to myself most of all. And above all, develop curiosity.
God, you see, has a habit of using human curiosity. Curiosity can lead to call, for it’s often curiosity that opens someone up to being drawn into the sphere of God. Be curious about the things that are happening in the lives of people and parishes, and encourage curiosity in others. God might be doing something, might be wanting to ask something of us, to invite someone we meet into a closer relationship. But maybe, Danny and Tony, you know that already. One day you may have taken a curious look at a job description for an archdeacon’s position – and now, look where you are! And if you are wondering (as we all wonder, as we take on anything new) ‘what have I got myself into?’ – ask that in a curious rather than a nervous frame of mind. And go on developing that holy curiosity.
God calls to Moses and Moses answers. Then God said, “Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” The ground was not holy before. Just as there was nothing really special about a dutiful son-in-law looking after the sheep, so too was there nothing particularly special about that piece of land. It wasn’t anywhere set aside for worship, designated beforehand as ‘sacred space’. It became holy because God was there, because of the encounter between God and Moses. So another thing I would say, to Tony and to Danny, and to all of us, is develop a sense of the holy where we do not expect it. Develop a habit of looking for God in unlikely places.
Because God has a habit of turning up in unlikely places and meeting with unlikely people. Sometimes your new ministries, Danny and Tony, will involve helping parishes and individuals to look around in a new place and acknowledge that God has been there before them. Sometimes you will be teaching us to recognise the holy when it doesn’t look like our traditional ideas of church, or ministry, or mission.
And God said to Moses, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.” Moses is an exile, living with his father-in-law because he can’t go back to Egypt. And even when he was in Egypt, he wasn’t at home there. He was an alien, a member of an enslaved minority, who had come from somewhere else. God reminds Moses of where he began, connects him to his people and to the story of God’s dealings with that people. God tells Moses where he’s come from and who he really is.
There is a sense in which all ministry and all mission does this same thing. It connects an individual to who they truly are, gives them a people to belong to, a story to enter and a God to worship. As Tony and Danny are collated into their new positions tonight they are called to do this, but the responsibility for mission and for ministry is not theirs alone. This Moses story is not for them alone. It is a story for us also, for each of us who has ever turned aside from what they were doing and found themselves on holy ground, meeting a holy God.
And so to Danny, to Tony, to each of us I say: develop the capacity to turn aside, be curious, look for God in unlikely places and among unlikely people, and remember who you are and your place in the story. Because if we can do that, we will all be walking through life barefoot, for every where will be holy ground.
