Not God of the Mountain

Reverend Philip Stringer

Exodus 19:2-8a

Romans 5:1-8

Matthew 9:35-10:8

LET US PRAY: O merciful Father in Heaven: You give the knowledge of your saving help — a comfort to your people. Feed our hearts with your Holy Word, and make our hearts instruments of your glory, today and all days. AMEN

In Japanese mythology, there was once a woodsman named, Visu, who lived on a barren plain with his family. One night, while sleeping, he was awakened by a great “crack” from deep within the earth. Fearing that it was a sign that an earthquake was coming, he rushed his family out of their hut — and there before them, they were greeted by the most spectacular sight of Mt. Fuji, which had suddenly emerged from the soil. In awe, Visu called the mountain Fuji-yama, the never-dying mountain. And so, the lands surrounding the mountain were transformed into fertile ground where Visu and his family could live a comfortable life from then on.

In Shinto religion, the mountain is said to contain the goddess, Kono-hana, who gave birth to three sons — one of them was the grandfather of the first emperor of Japan. To this day, ceremonies take place throughout the year in a shrine at the summit of Mount Fuji, to appease the goddess.

This ancient Japanese theology is “cosmological.” Centered in the cosmos or creation. It is based upon things of nature. The life of the people is centered in the mountain. So Mount Fuji is worshiped as the holy mountain.

The Israelites went to a mountain, too. Our first reading tells about how they came to settle for a time at the base of Mount Sinai. But there is a difference between this gathering at Mount Sinai, and the Japanese gathering around Mount Fuji. The children of Israel — and we — are not cosmological, having our center in nature. We are “eschatological.” It is a word that comes to us from the Greek word meaning “last,” or “latest.” We gather before a God who is at the leading edge of time — a God who has revealed himself to us as the God of history.

What made Mount Sinai important to the Israelites was not the mountain itself, but the God who encountered them on the mountain. The mountain served to remind them of the God who met them in history, and who continues to be revealed in history — God is the maker of history that is continually unfolding as God passes by.

And there is another difference between the people of Mt. Fuji and Mt. Sinai. The people of Mt. Fuji are left with a silent relic of the past. But the people of Mt. Sinai — whose God interacts directly with them — are rooted in a covenant with God. Our first reading tells of the Word of God delivered to the people, and the people respond to that word, saying, “Everything that the LORD has spoken we will do.”

Now, the people broke that promise. But the covenant — the theology — is not centered in the people. It is centered in the faithfulness of God. Eschatological means it is based in the workings of God in our history. It is a promise that God will continue to encounter and interact with the people over the course of time.

So as we look at history — as we look at God’s experience in our world, what do we see? What can we say about it? What has God done and what is God doing?

In our second reading today, Paul writes, “God’s love has been poured into our hearts.” That is God’s action. It is God’s action of long ago, but it is also God’s action of today. The God who encountered the people on Mount Sinai was on the mountain, but he was not contained within it — The God who met the people at the mountain continued to meet them over and over again in different places at different times, and God continues to encounter God’s people today, as history unfolds in these latest days.

Our worship today began with a confession of sins, and words of absolution spoken on behalf of a God who met you and touched you personally in the waters of baptism. This is one way God continues to break into YOUR history, to occupy the center space of your life. It is God making good on God’s promise, “I will recreate them.” Our theology — our life together — is based upon the faithfulness of God’s action in our lives.

A Lutheran pastor from Minnesota took a trip to Ireland to visit a friend. He noticed the motto his friend had on his desk in his study. It had two words. It so impressed him that he made one just like it for himself. Visitors to his office in America always asked him, "What do you mean by those words?"

The motto read, "But God." He would explain how in the hour of deepest need he would say, "But God will help."

In the moment of utter despair, he could say to himself, "But God will give me hope."

In the moment of loneliness, he could affirm, "But God is with me."

When he felt insignificant and unwanted, it would help to repeat, "But God loves me."

That always turned the scale from despair to hope,

from defeat to victory,

from sin to salvation.

Hope, victory, and salvation based upon the faithfulness of God.

Our God gives us hope, because the action of God is not built upon shaky things — not upon mountains that crumble; not upon people who fail, but upon the strength and faithfulness of God alone. Our trust — our faith in the faithfulness of this God is what leads us out of an existence of death, and into one of life.

Through our baptisms into Christ, the promise given to you and me is that all of our stories become part of God’s own story! And that makes it a love story. And who doesn’t love a good love story!

What this means for us, ultimately, is that we place ourselves in the hands of a God who has promised us a history with a happy ending, regardless of whatever else in this world would seek to derail it. Because we are centered in God’s history — or God’s story — we are eschatological people. And as eschatological people, we are called to release our mountains — to stop clinging to things material.

The Israelites did not stay at the foot of Mount Sinai — in fact, nobody even knows for sure today where Mount Sinai is! And the reason is because we do not worship the mountain; we worship the God who was on the mountain once, but is now “poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”

We are called to release our mountains . . . Where are your mountains?

I was ordained in my home congregation in Fort Wayne, Indiana. There, before the altar, our synod bishop, the pastors of my home congregation and the pastors from around the area all came together — and surrounded by my family and the members of the congregation that had modeled a life of faith for me, they placed their hands upon my head and prayed for God’s blessings upon the ministry I would perform.

Today, the spot where I kneeled is the toothpaste isle in a Walgreens drugstore! Several years after my ordination, the congregation decided to relocate about a mile east.

My dad told me about what happened when he mentioned this to a co-worker, who was a Hindu from India. His coworker was astonished. He shook his head in amazement, saying that in Hindu religion, once a place is consecrated as holy, it is holy forever. My dad answered him that in our Christian tradition we believe that what is holy is in the hearts of the people.

But even we Christians can lose sight of this. I once heard a pastor use a term that really struck me as powerful. A certain congregation that was struggling kept saying about their church building, “we have to keep these doors open.” As they showed me around their building, one person told me that his father had built the communion rail and the cross above the altar. Another told me that the front doors had been given as a memorial to her husband. They didn’t say anything about the love of God or serving their neighbors or working for peace and justice in the world.

As I recounted this to a pastor with whom I was speaking, he said, “Oh! The have an edifice complex!”

An edifice complex — where a congregation became so caught up in the preservation of their building that THAT became their mission.

The church is not a building. God is not tied to buildings or to anything else we can see, hear, feel, smell or taste. But God can — and does — meet us in these experiences.

God is on the move, writing the story that you and I are a part of, and that means that we must not be rooted in the things where we encounter God, but in God’s self.

“I will recreate them.” “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”

In the waters of baptism and in the bread and wine of communion, God promises to encounter us with God’s own presence, bringing to us the forgiveness of sins and the promise of new life and salvation.

But we do not worship the water and we do not worship the wine and the bread.

Today, the most enduring place to find God is not in a place or a thing, but in the contact you have with other human beings.

Once there were two brothers who were both farmers. Although they both worked the same fields, they each had their own granary, into which they divided the crops evenly. The one brother was married and had several children, but the other was single.

One day, the single brother said to himself, "it is not fair that we divide the crops evenly — for my brother has many mouths to feed and I have but one. I know what I will do. After it is dark and my brother has gone to sleep, I will take one of the sacks of grain from my granary and put it into his."

The other brother said to himself, "it is not fair that we divide the crops evenly — for I have many children to care for me in my old age, but my brother has no one. I know what I will do. After it is dark and my brother has gone to sleep, I will take one of my sacks of grain and put it into my brother's granary." And he did.

This went on for some time, and the brothers were each amazed. For even though they took a sack of grain out of their barns each night, when they got up in the morning, each found that he still had the same amount of grain. Until one night when the two brothers bumped into each other — each with a sack of grain on his back to give to his brother. Suddenly, they understood the mystery, and they embraced each other, and loved each other deeply.

Today, the most enduring place to find God is not in a place or a thing, but in the contact you have with other human beings.

When you give out of love for them.

When you allow them to give out of love to you.

When you look at another human being with eyes that believe that God is writing a story that plays out in your interaction with each other...that is where God will meet you.

AMEN