Rev. David Boyd

I made a mistake with the readings this morning. We follow what's called a 3-year lectionary cycle of Bible readings. The intent is to try to touch on every book of the Bible at least once in a 3-year period. We were supposed to read a section from Isaiah today that reflects God sense of abundance and is an invitation for us to shift our thinking from scarcity to abundance. However, for some reason, I had it firmly fixed in my mind that we were supposed to read the story of Moses encountering God in the burning bush and receiving the name of God as "I am who I am."

This is perhaps one of those Freudian slips—in a good way—for I have been thinking about being. Richard Rohr's book, which I've mentioned a number of times in the past few weeks, is about being. The Voluntary Simplicity book that we are reading is also about being. And, as God's name given to Moses is "I am who I am," which is also about being, this story was planted in my head and so we heard it this morning.

Paul Tillich, who may have been the greatest theological thinker of the 20th century called God, "The Ground of Being". God ultimately is at the heart of being itself, of life itself. God is the source from which life springs and when we are able to quiet our minds and stop our doing, we can just be. At that point we place ourselves fully in God's presence, when we can practice a sense of being.

It's not easy practising being. There are lots of things that occupy our attention. We give attention to the things we need to accomplish. We give attention to our understanding of our lives or who we think God is. We give attention to the world around us and want to know the why of things when they don't go the way we think they should. We give too much attention sometimes to the negative things in life and forget the positive.

And it has ever been thus. In the story from Luke's gospel this morning, the disciples' attention was given to the tragic events of Pilate's dreadful and cynical actions in Jerusalem. Their attention was on the people who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell, wondering if they were worse sinners than others. Their attention was given to God's punishment and the idea that when something bad happens, it must happen for a reason. Sound familiar?

Jesus tried to get the disciples to turn around from this view of God and the world, namely that those who make mistakes get what they deserve or the idea that when bad things happen, "those" people must have done something to deserve it. Jesus said that unless they repented, turned away from their ideas, changed their minds and their hearts, they too will perish.

I don't think that Jesus meant that they would be tragically killed in some way, like those who had the tower of Siloam fall on them. I think Jesus was being more existential. If you don't change your heart and your mind, you are not dwelling in God, you are not living in the life of "I am who I am." You are not being all that you are, all that you were created to be. Because God is being, and God is about life and creating life, God is about working in hearts and minds to transform and change us; there is no room in being for retribution or punishment. "Tit for tat," revenge, and reprisal have no place in "I am who I am." When WE can get our minds and hearts beyond thinking that divides and separates, thinking that punishes and seeks vengeance, or thinking that focuses on our individual wants and needs, we can be part of positive solutions in the world; we can be a part of God's work of re-creation and life. We can be part of the growth of being; we can enhance the "beingness" (if I can create a word) of all life. The Ground of Being gets larger so that more people, more creatures, more of life can find solid ground on which to stand—perhaps with feet bare, for this ground is holy, opening us to what might emerge and come.

It is hard for us to make this shift for we are all so well schooled in our Western ways of doing, accomplishing, beating out the competition, succeeding, winning, and so on. We forget, sometimes to stop, slow down, take a deep breath and simply be together. One of the privileges that I deeply appreciate as a minister is spending time with people who are dying and with families who have faced or are facing the death of a loved one. This is a difficult time and I'm not minimising the sense of grief and loss that people feel. But, I say privilege because these are deeply meaningful moments and it is a privilege to share in the lives of families and people at these times of life transition. What I have noticed is that when there is conversation, for much of the time is filled with silence, it is about the importance of life and the meaning of things—we talk about and share in the simplicity of being itself. And God—"I am who I am"—is present in a fullness that is life-giving and healing even when we feel sorrow and loss. Our challenge is to live in this beingness in more of what we do in our lives—in how we work, in how we are with others, especially those with whom we have a disagreement, in how we live, in the tasks and goals we set before us, in all aspects of our lives. Beingness!

Let us therefore repent in the true sense of Jesus" meaning and turn to being in all its fullness and there re-encounter the God who loves us into life.

Amen.