The Third Sunday in Lent - March 3

On the Road Again
Exodus 3:1-15 
Luke 13:1-9 

I’m thinking that if the life of faith had a theme song… if our Christian life had a theme song, it might be “On the Road Again.” Sorry, I know I have cursed some of you with Willie Nelson inside your heads for the rest of the day. On the road. To be living as a Christian is to be on the road. There are a couple of important features of being on the road. One is motion. If you’re on the road, you’re not sitting still; you’re moving, going somewhere. And one of the places you’re going is into the future. To be on the road is to have a future to move into. Both the Old Testament reading from Exodus and the Gospel today, directly and indirectly, speak of being on the road and how we are nudged, pulled, pushed to get on the road, to step into the future.

The Exodus reading is the very familiar story of Moses and the burning bush. There’s a technical word for this sort of occurrence. Theophany. Theos – “God” and phainein – “to show.” A theophany is an experience where a person comes face to face with God, where God is shown to them. When Moses encounters the burning bush, he knows that he is meeting God, seeing God, talking with God. In that particular time and place, Moses encounters God.

But God does not say to Moses what we might expect. God does not say, “Behold me. I am here. Behold and worship me here.” Rather, God says, “Pack your bags and get on the road to Egypt. And I will be with you. On the road. God gives Moses a job to do, Moses’ part in doing God’s work in the world. Go to Egypt and help liberate my people from slavery.

Also in this passage, Moses asks God for God’s name. It’s my understanding that this passage in the Hebrew is difficult to translate. As we heard this morning, God’s reply is usually translated “I AM WHO I AM.” But I gather it can also mean I WILL BE WHO I WILL BE… moving into the future.

One commentator on this passage suggests that what God is saying to Moses is, “You will know me only by traveling forward with me.” You will not find me or know me by staying here next to this bush. We are setting out on the road together to Egypt. And it is by traveling together that you will come to know me, that we will build a relationship.

I imagine that each of us longs for a theophany. A burning bush moment full of the clarity and certainty of God’s presence that Moses knew. Maybe you’ve experienced theophanies. Whether or not as dramatic as Moses’, a time and place when you know with certainty that God was with you. There face to face. And, to the degree that we have had these experiences, they are important milestones along the road of faith. And we can cherish and remember them, but Exodus reminds us we cannot cling to them. We cannot stay in that time and place. God moves on.

The Scriptures do not even suggest that Moses built an altar there by the burning bush to commemorate his theophany. We know that he set out for Egypt, step by step taking up the task God had given him. And that God was with him on the road.

The Gospel reading also talks about being on the road, although the reference may be a bit more indirect that the Exodus story. The people gathered around Jesus ask him if those who suffer are suffering because they are worse sinners than other people. Jesus clearly says, no. Then he goes on. He seems to imply that the people around him are unrepentant. That they are just sitting there with their sins, confident perhaps that because calamitous suffering has not come upon them, they don’t need to worry. Jesus says to them, unless you repent, you will perish. Some way, some how you will perish. Unless you repent. But there is a road open to you, a future that you can move into, and God is there. The road of repentance leads to reconciliation, renewal, new life in God’s presence. Jesus is on that road that lies ahead, offering forgiveness and renewal.

Then Jesus tells the parable of the fig tree. The fig tree that was just sitting there, barren, not producing fruit, not living into the fruitfulness that God desired for it. But the fig tree is given a future, a road forward, an assurance of God’s care and guidance—at least for a time. We are given a future, a road into the future, on which to be creative, to live into our identity as people created in the image of God, beings who create. And God will be there, fertilizing, inspiring and sustaining us if we move forward onto that road.

David Lose, the Lutheran preacher whom I often quote, says of today’s Old Testament reading… It should be titled: Get up off the couch. In your life of faith, get up off the couch. Take a step forward. Get on the road again.

The goal of the Christian life is not to ‘get it all together’ and settle down, it is to keep moving, to be on the road.

There’s a lot to do “on the road”:

There are people to free; vocations to pursue. Tasks to perform as our part of God’s work in the world.

There is the ongoing road of repentance and forgiveness and renewal, which (Lent reminds us) is needful for all Christians.

And there is the road of fruitfulness. Of the God-given joy of being fruit bearers who create beauty, sustenance, and learning for others.

Each Sunday when we come here for worship, we are offered theophanies. The chance to see and know and experience the living presence of God in the living Word of God, in the Sacrament of at the Lord’s Table, through the vibrant Spirit manifest in God’s people. This service offers us that every Sunday, but it also asks the question “what are you going to do tomorrow?” “Where is your road with God taking you?” God is with you on that road. But remember the Christian life is not about just sitting around waiting for next Sunday. It’s about knowing and traveling with God on the road… the road of doing our part in God’s work, the road of repentance, forgiveness and renewal, the road of fruitfulness and creativity. It is on the road that we find and know God and fulfill God’s hope for us.

Lent, perhaps more than any other season is perceived as a road. But we think of Lent primarily as a road that leads us to Easter. But, as I’ve often said, I love the seasons of the calendar for what each of them teaches us about our life in Christ. But, ultimately, we live the seasons simultaneously. We live them all at the same time. We live with both Lent and Easter at the same time, all the time. We are always “on the Lenten road”. And, as we travel that road, we are always accompanied by the risen Christ of Easter.