23 FEBRUARY
Below is a DRAFT text of the homily. It may vary considerably from the recorded version. Please excuse typos and grammatical errors, and do not cite without permission.
Moses goes up the mountain to receive the covenant with God and forty days later he descends. Do you remember what happens next?
40 days is a long time to be gone…in the Bible 40 days doesn’t usually mean literally 40…it means longer than we care to count. Moses on the mountain for 40 days…Jesus in the desert for 40 days…Lent is 40 days (don’t try to actually count it…it just means it’s a long time…)
And the people left behind are wondering: What’s he doing up there…on that scary mountain…he’s probably dead…he’s probably never coming back…Aaron…help…make us a god…an image to protect us…The golden calf…
40 days later…Moses returns, sees the people worshipping this golden image and you know what happens…he takes the tablets and smashes them, he nullifies the covenant…he rips up the contract. How could they be so faithless?
Moses is (understandably) upset. He orders the golden calf to be melted down to ash, and the ashes to be cast on the water so that the people are forced to drink their folly.
God is (understandably) upset. Plagues are sent on the people. God says, I’m done. “I will no longer be in your midst,” (Exodus 33:3) and makes Moses move the tent of meeting far outside the compound, and will only speak with Moses. But Moses intervenes, pleads with God, “let me know your ways,” come back and lead us…be with us…and God agrees.
A second set of stone tablets is carved…Moses goes up the mountain again…he’s gone for another 40 days…but this time…this time when he returns his face is radiant…his face reflects the divine radiance…the fearsome radiance of that devouring fire up on the mountain…and this time the people waited…they receive the word…the covenant, and they place the tablets carefully in the ark.
The Israelites put the tablets in the ark…the second, unbroken, tablets…but that’s not all…it is said, (source: Talmud) that they also gathered up all of the broken pieces as well of the first covenant…and put them inside…along with…alongside the renewed covenant.
Some say that they put them in first…to form a bedrock, a kind of foundation for the second unbroken tablets. As they continued their journey with God they carried their brokenness with them. The reminders…the physical remnants of their failure…are part of the treasure that is carried in the ark…Brokenness and wholeness are carried side by side.
Jesus goes up a mountain today…experiences a divine encounter…a theophany…very similar to the one Moses has…his face also shines like the sun…
Now Jesus isn’t gone for 40 days…but remember what happens when they come down the mountain…? A man comes up to them… “Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and he suffers terribly; he often falls into the fire and often into the water (fire? ashes? water?…no he’s not the Golden Calf…but wait for it)…I brought him to your disciples (the ones left behind) but they could not cure him.” And Jesus says…”you faithless and perverse generation, how long must I be with you.” (Matthew 17:17) The faithlessness of the Israelites…the faithlessness of the disciples…God threatening to leave…Can you hear the echoes?
40 days later…well, not exactly but you know…some time later…Jesus goes up a mountain again…not with the disciples but with Roman guards and executioners, thieves and other prisoners. Because the disciples have all fled…disappeared…are actively denying that they ever knew him…again proving to be faithless and perverse…
But God again renews the covenant…Jesus is raised from the dead…and when he appears…he bears the wounds of crucifixion on his body…Again…brokenness and wholeness are carried side by side, in one sacred vessel.
As a people we tend to dismiss or cover over brokenness…hide scars…deny weakness…There’s something powerful about this story of placing the broken pieces into the ark as well. There’s a truth here that we don’t always like to admit…Whether we recognize it or not…whether we admit to it or not…we carry our brokenness with us everywhere we go. The shattered pieces of our failures, our shortcomings, our own faithlessness…our disappointments…They rattle around inside our heads and our hearts…our entire lives…the pain and the grief we experience as part of living…that shatter the fragments of our own hearts as we live and experience all the losses that life throws at us…death of loved ones…death of dreams…diminishment of hopes…of abilities…rejections…betrayals…arguments…the slings and arrows of life…all of those shards accumulate in us and if ignored…or left untended…they bang around inside causing more damage…within us (in the form of stress and anxiety) and outside of us in the form of all the horrible behavior that we are daily subjected to and sometimes perpetrate.
If those broken pieces however…are treated with care…are gathered up and placed inside the ark of our souls…lovingly placed there alongside the faith of Christ, the faith of our ancestors, next to the living covenant of God’s love and care for us…then as we continue traveling with God, and the journey jostles and jars us…as the treks up and down the mountains of faith continues…then the rough edges and sharp points of that brokenness become worn down…softened…eventually is transfigured into the delicate, soft, dusty bed that our faith to rests on.
If attended to…and treated with care…the wounds we receive from others and from ourselves can be transformed into the healing touch that Jesus offers the disciples today…Upon hearing God’s voice the disciples are struck to the quick with fear, but Jesus touches them…with the hands are not yet…but in some sense already are…wounded by their faithlessness…he carries in his body the wounds we inflict, and by carrying them alongside the heart of God transforms them into portals for God’s healing power. And our wounds with time…and attention…and faith…can become the same.
As we approach the dusty, desert time of Lent, let us be aware of our own broken pieces…neither hiding nor displaying them…but consciously…intentionally…placing them in the sacred space of God’s love…wherever that is for you…the ark…the foot of the cross…a prayer journal…and let us pray that God will transform them into the fertile ground of healing and faith. Amen.