Texts: Exodus 3:1-14; Matthew 13:33
Speaker: Joel Miller
What if I told you I’ve seen the burning bush. Not a burning bush, but as Ohio State fans can surely appreciate, THE burning bush. In person, on location, with my own eyes. The one our Bibles say Moses saw so many years ago. I’ve seen that burning bush.
I was 22 years old. It was my senior year of college. It was a study abroad semester, in Cairo, Egypt. Over one extended weekend, we made a trip into the Sinai Peninsula to climb THE Mt. Sinai, or A Mt. Sinai. No one’s quite sure. At the base of this Mt. Sinai is the world’s oldest continuously inhabited Christian monastery, also containing the world’s oldest continuously operating library – St. Catherines Monastery. And inside the walls of St. Catherines, in an open air space is the burning bush.
In case you’re wondering, it’s pretty big – over ten feet wide. It’s a species of bramble – Rubus sanctus. It is claimed that it won’t grow in any other area of the Sinai Peninsula. You do, like Moses, need to take off your shoes when you’re near it to honor holy ground. And it is not, as you may have guessed, on fire. It’s green. It’s a bush. And it may, or may not, be the very bush in the very location that changed the life of Moses, the Jewish people, and the world. It did not, especially, change my life.
The story of the burning bush is pivotal in the biblical narrative. Remember that at this point Moses is not a young man. He was a baby in the Nile River when Pharaoh’s daughter found and adopted him and raised him in the palace. He was a grown man when he saw an Egyptian taskmaster beating a Hebrew slave. Moses killed the taskmaster, and fled for his life. He met a holy man from another tribe, married his daughter, had children, and grew his flock, which he shepherded in the wilderness. That’s what he was doing, on a day like any other, when he looked and saw a bush blazing with fire but not consumed. Moses “turned aside” the text says, to see this wonder, and is instructed by the Divine voice to take off his shoes to honor the holy ground. A few chapters later we learn that Moses was about 80 years old. It’s the perfect age to really get started with your calling in life.
There’s a Jewish midrash, a creative teaching, that says Moses had visited the bush many times and God had tried and failed to speak with him each time. So God finally decided to light the bush on fire to get Moses’ attention.
God says, more or less: Moses, now that I have your attention, now that you feel this good earth beneath your feet, I need your help. I’ve seen the suffering of my people, Moses. They’re crying out under their oppression. I want to relieve their suffering. And I’d like to do that through you.
Famously, Moses hesitates, even resists. He feels small, insignificant, incapable. And besides, what’s he supposed to tell the people? That he had a talk with a plant claiming to be God? What’s your name, anyways? Moses asks God.
Famously, God gives God’s name in intentionally ambiguous Hebrew: אֶֽהְיֶ֖ה אֲשֶׁ֣ר אֶֽהְיֶ֑ה It could be translated as “I Am Who I Am,” or “I Am What I Am,” or “I Will Be What I Will Be,” or, a slightly looser translation: “I am the unnamable, untamable fire within every atom of this world. I am the light behind every conscious thought in your mind. I am the urge behind every longing for justice and liberation.” Now go, embody me in your small, significant life, your aging frame, made capable by a power beyond your knowing.
One of the remarkable things about this story is that it flips the script on who is seeking who between humanity and God. There is no indication whatsoever that Moses woke up that morning thinking: Today is the day I learn the name of God. Rather, everything points to God who is in search of Moses, and finds him, and repeatedly invites him into deeper communion and courage.
The great 20th century rabbi and scholar Abraham Joshua Heschel highlights this very thing in his book God In Search of Man. Heschel notes that the first question in the Bible is not one that humanity poses to God. Rather, God poses a question to humanity. In the garden, after the man and the woman have eaten from the tree of knowledge, they hide themselves. And it is God who comes looking for them. God asks, “Where are you?” Genesis 3:9. That’s the question, Heschel writes, God continually poses to us. Where are you? When we’re able to hear that question, we’re also better able to hear where God would have us be – embodying compassion and justice in the world, relieving the suffering of ourselves and others, standing, always, on holy ground.
If you’re keeping track, so far we have heard from the Hebrew Bible, Jewish midrash, and a modern rabbi as we prepare for Lawrence’s baptism, a Jewish man drawn to Christian faith through this Mennonite congregation. My intention is to honor that tremendously rich tradition, and to celebrate that one can be a Jewish Mennonite Christian with, as Lawrence will soon share – a layer of Buddhism, and a healthy dose of scientific inquiry tossed in for good measure.
If you want to know what a Mennonite interpretation of the burning bush looks like, I think the first half of today’s service is a perfect example. Today the benches of this sanctuary are aflame with the presence of God through these colorful and lovingly made comforters. Burning bushes all around us. Rather than just one Moses hearing the call to relieve the suffering of God’s people, many hands have contributed to this work. Some of them are even over 80 years old. These comforters embody our love and presence of God for refugees around the world.
Jesus spoke of the kingdom of God as being like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened. It’s a one sentence parable. Three measures was like 50 pounds of flour. And the word “mixed” is literally translated as “hid.” “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman hid in a ridiculously large amount of flour, until all of it was leavened.” Sometimes God gets our attention through a flaming bush, and sometimes the goodness of God is so hidden you can’t tell the difference between it and the sustenance of bread, the warmth and beauty of cloth, the smallness and wondrous significance a single human life.
If any of you would have met Lawrence on the street just a couple years ago and told him he would soon become a baptized Mennonite, he would have had to restrain himself from laughing in your face, possibly recommending a few clinician friends who can help you work through your delusions. But here he is today, ready to take this step. How does one go from not being able to imagine this possibility, to embracing it?
Well, what if I told you that Lawrence has seen the burning bush? Not the one that didn’t change my life in St. Catherines, although maybe you have?! Much to his own surprise, Lawrence has seen the burning bush of Divine presence that was hidden, like yeast working its way through a batch dough, somehow made visible like flame. He is no longer a young man, but a perfect age to go deeper into his life purpose. He has heard that he, like Moses, like you, like all of us, like Jesus, has a calling, from God, to relieve suffering, to speak truth as best he understands it. To be, like Moses, both humble and bold.
Lawrence – you have been a seeker your whole life, although not necessarily of God. And in this last short while, you have found yourself sought: God in search of Lawrence. You have, I know, had a lot of fun being surprised in this way. It is with great pleasure, and humility of standing on holy ground together, that we baptize you today.
Baptism Reflection
Speaker: Lawrence Needleman
Good morning.
I’m very grateful to be here with all of you today. And, I’ve been fretting about what I would say. After Pastor Joel suggested some topics I might talk about, in typical fashion, my brain immediately turned that into the sense that I needed to share everything about my history and spiritual journey — probably a 783-page spiritual memoir, giving you every twist and turn of my journey and who I am.
Fortunately, I stepped back. And I thought about why I am choosing to this place and you. That is really what I want to share.
I’ll give you a few words that describe me and my journey — more like dots than fully developed stories — and then I’ll focus mostly on what it has been like for me to be here with you.
I am Jewish by birth and culture. I am Lisa’s partner, and Lisa is here today. I have two sons, Wm and Josh, also here today. Lisa and I have two dogs, Karma and Bodhi, who unfortunately are not here today. And a number of dear friends from outside the church are here today too.
I am a widower of eight years. I am a clinical psychologist and a retired faculty member at OSU’s Department of Psychiatry.
And the part of my history that is probably most surprising is that I was an atheist my whole life until recently — never seriously considering the possibility that there might be God.
But throughout my life, I have always been driven by a deep desire to connect to people and to understand the universe. Those desires are probably nearly universal, but for me they were heightened by emotional pain.
Over the course of about 40 years, I read and pondered Eastern spirituality, ethics, psychology, worldviews, narratives, delusions, consciousness, purpose, meaning, and mysticism. And I learned much. But it was also very lonely — 40 years in the desert.
Then, a couple of years ago, I discovered a kind of Christianity that I had never known about before. After my wife died, there was room to explore more broadly. I encountered a Christianity that was non-dogmatic, metaphorical, nondualistic, mystical, inclusive, loving, and socially and politically engaged.
So I started attending churches. And around Lent last year, I found CMC, which seemed to hold this vast Christianity.
Honestly, being an atheist Jew, I had some trepidation about being in a church and letting people know who I was. But from my first moments here, I felt welcomed. I felt valued as a person. My oddities were not a problem to be tolerated; they seemed to be appreciated.
When I entered this place for the first time, I was very warmly greeted. When I stepped into the sanctuary, someone ushered me to the hearing-device table and showed me how to use the devices. I was so appreciative that this community cared enough to include hearing-impaired people.
One of the first things I heard was Children’s Time, about parables. The leader talked with the children about how parables are special stories that keep working in us. She made it relevant to their lives — although I don’t remember the specifics, I think the story was about a child at school being excluded on the playground. But what was amazing was how she ended. She did not say, “This is what this story means and what you should get from it.” Instead, she said something like, “I’m really interested in how you will understand this, and how it will grow in you over time.” Wow!
I was also surprised on that first visit that the pastors were not up front leading everything the whole time. The congregation led so much of the service. At CMC, the pastors are everything I would want in pastors — deeply caring, wise, knowledgeable, and role models of living ethically, and kindly and courageously. But they also co-created a completely democratic community. Congregants are involved in so many aspects of the life of the church — shepherding, budget planning, the building, and decision making.
I was attracted to this church through the website, especially because there was a Richard Rohr contemplative group. I attended that group right away, and I believe I have attended every single meeting since then over the last year.
In that group, and later in a spiritual growth group that some of us formed, I felt: these are my people. You are my people.
The people I met were open-minded, open-hearted, spiritual, growth-oriented, and committed to doing good in the world.
I was also amazed and delighted that at every opportunity, it seemed like this church was trying to help vulnerable people or otherwise make the world better.
For example, today, all around us are these beautiful Piecemaker quilts that will be sent around the world to refugees. Early on, I learned that CMC has sanctuary apartments. I learned that four percent of the operating budget goes toward reparations to African American and Native American organizations. When Dr. Nick Maynard, an Oxford surgeon who had worked in Gaza, was disinvited from speaking at OSU and other venues, CMC immediately invited him to publicly share his devastating firsthand account.
And on Good Friday last year, instead of having the service only inside the church, we met at the corner of High Street and North Broadway and held up signs expressing love, inclusivity, concern, and grief over what is happening to immigrants.
Even preparing for baptism has reflected what I value about this community.
Pastor Joel worked with us on the vow language. I had been afraid that, to cross this threshold, I might have to say things that did not feel quite comfortable to me. Instead, I was shown sensitivity and caring by being invited into a collaborative process — one that honored both the deep values of the church and my own deep beliefs and values. It enabled me to express my commitment whole-heartedly.
I have also found ways to get meaningfully involved.
I feel sickened by, and responsible for the plight of immigrant people in this country. I know I haven’t harmed them but still somehow feel responsible. Undoubtedly, this in part was becasu my grandparents fled Eastern Europe, and many, many people left behind were killed. Through CMC, I found a way to use my research skills to try to make a difference for vulnerable immigrants by systematically writing public-information requests that may reveal potentially unlawful cooperation with ICE.
I am here choosing to follow Jesus. I am here to become less enclosed in myself, more open-hearted, and more available to God, to community, to creation, and to the suffering world — and more ready to help heal it.
And it means doing this among and alongside the people in this church, whom I have deep admiration and affection for.
I am deeply grateful to you all, to CMC, for all that I have mentioned.
I am also deeply grateful to my family and friends who have been incredibly supportive of me in this transformation.
I am so happy to be part of this community, to be part of the body of Christ, and to be part of the kingdom — the work of repairing the world and trying to bring peace and love.
And I feel gratitude for the strange and surprising possibility that what I was looking for may have been, hidden in plain sight — an answer for a prayerless atheist who did not yet know how to ask.
PRAYER
Lord, teach me to see as You see: the broken as beloved,
the lost as found,
the small moments as sacred.
Teach me to see e very place, every person,
and every moment as holy ground, holy time, divine presence,
Divine Union — each one a doorway to seeing interrelatedness.
Remind me to zoom in and out from seeing the Oneness and the 10 billion things.
Creator, remind me again that all Creation is DRENCHED in Your glory.
Shape my heart until it beats in rhythm with Yours.
Spirit, breathe through me.
Breathe Your wisdom, Your courage, and Your kindness into me.
Help me pray not just words but a way of being — hearing and seeing, loving and giving, forgiving and hoping.
Allow me to put aside my small self and access joy, awe, gratitude, and wu-wei — ease with the unfolding universe.
Open my eyes to the signs You scatter like wildflowers.
Help me become more like Jesus: tender with the wounded, brave before power, free from the small self, and poured out in love.
Like Desmond Tutu: joyful, loving, and prophetically courageous.
Like Mother Teresa: humble in service to the poor, the suffering, and the forgotten.
Like the MYSTICS throughout the ages: who see through illusions of culture, of separation, of ego the Divine Interconnection everywhere.
Like Pope Francis: merciful, humble, and morally imaginative.
Like St. Francis: loving toward all beings, creation, and the whole living universe.
Like Barack Obama: steady, hopeful, disciplined, and civically imaginative.
Like Liz Cheney: courageous in conscience, moral duty, and integrity, even when vilified or threatened.
Make me strong where I am weak, and weak where I am prideful, so that I am aligned with the flow of Your Spirit — an instrument of healing, courage, tenderness, and peace.