Trinity Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Sermons 

Title: "The View from Behind"

Text: Exodus 33:12-23

which Harriet read us a few minutes ago,

ranks right up there as one of the strangest in the Bible.

Especially, one of the strangest

that made its way into the common lectionary.

There are, indeed, many stranger,

but we never get to hear them!

This one, however, just showed itself to us.

It starts off fairly straightforward.

Moses and God are having a conversation,

as they seem to do fairly frequently in the book of Exodus,

have you noticed?

Seems like every time you turn around,

Moses is back up on the mountain,

either because he has a question for God,

or God has some instructions for him.

Anyway, the conversation sounds in some respects

like that conversation they had forever ago at the burning bush.

Then, God had something that needed doing,

Moses was reluctant,

and even after being persuaded,

he wanted more reassurance.

"Who am I?" Moses asked, and then,

"How will they know that it was you I talked to?"

In this later encounter, Moses echoes those questions.

Only here, he wants to know,

"How shall it be known that I and your people

have found favor in your sight?"

Moses is never quite satisfied

with what God tells him the first time around.

Even when he’s certain that it’s God he’s talking to,

he’s still … what?

So full of self-doubt? Frightened?

Unclear on the instructions?

Wants it spelled out even more clearly?

So he keeps pushing:

How will this happen?

How will that happen?

What if …?

So what if I know; how will everyone else know?

Sound at all familiar?

Make it really clear, God,

or I won’t do what you say.

So far, so good.

That’s not the weird part.

That sounds like something that any of us might do.

The weird part is what comes next.

In a sense, God gives in to Moses’ demand of,

"Show me your glory."

Only there has to be a compromise.

Moses cannot see God’s glory face-to-face;

he can only be permitted to see God from behind.

So God puts Moses into a cleft in the rock,

and covers over him with one hand while walking by,

and then, after walking past,

God removes the hand and Moses is permitted

a glimpse of God’s backside.

Is it just me,

or is that weird?

Except, in context,

it turns out to be perfectly logical.

God is trying to persuade Moses

that God is going to be with him and the people

as they continue to journey toward their goal.

Yes, one would hardly expect anything different.

But does Moses know where they’re going?

No … he knew how to get out of Egypt,

but beyond that, well,

there was probably no place on his map

labeled, "Land Flowing with Milk and Honey."

In other words,

God was going to have to lead the way,

and Moses was going to have to follow

and, of course, get the Israelite people to come with him.

With me so far?

Okay, now, if you are following someone or something,

which part of them do you see?

The backside, of course.

It wouldn’t have done Moses any good

to see God’s face anyway;

that wasn’t the part of God he was going to be seeing

as the journey continued.

He needed to be able to recognize God’s glory

from behind,

as God led, and he followed.

Not so weird after all.

But so what?

Was that all just an intellectual exercise

in trying to make sense of a biblical story

that is more odd than most?

Come now, you know me better than that.

I realized, in trying to wrestle some sense out of this text,

that we, also, really only get to see God from behind.

We follow God; we don’t lead God.

So if we are going to see God at all –

and of course, there’s no guarantee of that –

but if we are going to see God at all,

it’s going to be God’s backside.

God, ahead of us,

leading us on to whatever comes next.

One of the first things that happens to us

on our faith journey

is that we learn to see God in our past.

We look back on our lives thus far,

and we can see where God was at work

even though, at the time, we were unaware of it.

God carried us, or accompanied us, or inspired us,

and we can see it now, with hindsight,

but we surely didn’t see it at the time.

That is a perfectly wonderful place to be

in the early parts of our faith journey.

We recognize God’s footprints in the sand along with ours;

we see God’s fingerprints on the painting of our life,

and our faith blossoms and matures.

But Moses is a step beyond that,

and I suspect, that’s where we need to try to end up as well.

We need to learn how to recognize God not only in the past,

but in the present, and in the future as well.

And to do that,

we’re going to have to become better acquainted

with the view from behind.

To follow God’s footprints

when they are leading away from wherever we are now,

toward a future that, so far, only God knows.

And that’s part of the trouble, isn’t it?

If God would only get out of the way,

and stop blocking our view of the future,

we might know which road to take!

It’s this bit about moving ahead

without knowing for sure what’s up around the next bend,

that makes us reluctant to move at all.

That starts to sound a lot like Moses, doesn’t it?!

"How will I know?"

"How will they know?"

How will we know?

We will know,

when we have learned to recognize God from behind.

When we can find some assurance in knowing that,

even if we can’t see what’s up around the next bend,

we can see God’s backside up there ahead,

and so we know two things:

one, that we’re on the right road;

and two, that it’s safe to proceed.

Yeah, I know,

of course we don’t literally see God’s backside.

Maybe Moses did;

he was special, and times were different.

For us to recognize God "from behind," as I am suggesting,

requires two things, I think.

And both of them are mostly a matter of

knowing where to look,

rather than knowing exactly what we will see.

We can do them in either order.

One is, we take a serious, evaluative look at our life thus far.

We notice where God was with us.

We notice those times when God was not with us,

and figure out why.

What were we doing,

that took us away from God,

and what was God doing while we were wandering?

In other words,

we try to see what God’s pattern has been

of caring for us, and directing us,

and waiting for us when we strayed, until we made our way back.

Although God may not always do the same thing in the future

that God has done in the past,

nevertheless, this is one very good starting point

for us to get an idea

of where we might look for God’s backside

moving ahead, into the future.

The other thing we must do

is to take a serious, evaluative look at the scriptures.

Where was God in the past,

with God’s people?

Where did God try to lead them?

Where did they go astray,

and how can we avoid making the same mistakes?

What happened to them

when they failed to follow God properly,

and has any of that ever happened to us?

Or is it happening right now?

And if so,

hadn’t we better get behind God once again?

The time will come

when we can see God face-to-face,

but it will be in a life beyond this one.

Except, of course,

insofar as we see God face-to-face

in each other’s faces,

but that’s another sermon for another day.

In the life we have right now,

our call is to follow God,

whatever interesting and challenging places that leads us,

and to look for, enjoy, and be content with,

the view from behind.

Amen.