Recently the kids and I got our dog a puzzle. We have a four-year-old
miniature schnauzer named Jarvis and we think he is smart, so we thought he
might like a challenge. The puzzle consists of 4 plastic boxes that open in
various ways. The first step is to put a small treat in each box while they are
fully open so the dog knows that treats are in there. And slowly and gradually
you begin partially closing some of the boxes with treats in them and letting
the dog figure out how to get to the treat. So after some time of the boxes
fully opened, me and the kids sat down around the puzzle, we put the treats in
and we partially closed two of the boxes. Jarvis’s immediate reaction was to
stare at the boxes and bark. Occasionally he would kind of kick back his feet
and look at us and then bark. I knew what this meant from our puppy training
classes … he was frustrated. And it is so hard to not just open the box and
give the poor little fluffy guy a treat when he is so clearly distressed. But I
also know from puppy training classes, that if I don’t give in, he will figure
it out soon after the barking. He will eventually believe he can do it and try.
But
it’s hard to wait through the frustration. Partly because he is cute and we
love him and partly because we have empathy and we all know what frustration
feels like and it does not feel good. Life is full of so many frustrations. Sometimes
it is obstacles that interfere with our plans like illness, flat tires or
canceled plans. Sometimes it is an inability to understand like hard math
problems at school, crises at work or why people think and act the way they do.
And sometimes it’s general frustration with life and God- you hear frustration
behind questions like why do bad things happen to good people, how could God
let this happen and why did this horrible thing have to happen.
It
is a feeling common to all of humanity and across time, it can be heard
throughout the pages of the Bible. Think of how Jonah felt when he was sent by
God to Ninevah, the place of his brutal and destructive enemies, God sent him
to proclaim their demise. Jonah begrudgingly does it only to find out that God changed
God’s mind. And Jonah is frustrated. Or Job, he did everything he thought was
righteous and just and yet catastrophe and suffering pours down on him. Prophet
after prophet follows God’s will and does what is right only to be ignored,
rejected and sometimes killed. The Old Testament story today is the beginning
of the story of Moses freeing the Israelites from Egyptian captivity and on the
journey that follows there is a lot of frustration, to the point where many
wish they had never followed Moses out of Egypt in the first place.
I
wonder if Moses felt frustrated when he asked God for a name? Moses says, “if I
come to the Israelites and say to them, The God of your ancestors has sent me
to you, and they ask me What is his name? What shall I say to them?” and God answers
“I AM WHO I AM.” A little vague I would say, and not at all like the tribal
gods of that time who had very specific names.
In
this passage, God gives three ways of saying God’s name. the first is “I AM WHO
I AM” and then right after that God shortens it to simply “I Am.” And then
right after that God says, “This you shall say to the Israelites, “The Lord,
the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of
Jacob, has sent me to you.” So, Lord is the third way. In the New Oxford Commentary
notes on this it says, “The third name is LORD. In Hebrew the name has four
letters, “yhwh” (perhaps pronounced Yahweh), and is thus known as the
Tetragrammaton. Like the first two versions of God’s name, it is from a root
meaning “to be.” God’s name thus has a verbal rather than a noun form …”[1] So, in other words, the
three ways God says God’s name to Moses are all verbs rather than nouns. Nouns
would have been typical names for gods at that time, just as we typically use
nouns as our names these days.
And then right after this, God tells Moses to gather all
the elders of Israel and tell them what God has done and what will happen next.
And after that God tells Moses to go to the King of Egypt and when the King of
Egypt does not listen, God tells Moses the plan for what will happen after that.
God has plans and is taking action.
The message is clear, God is not a statue that will be put
in one place and stared at admiringly. God is a presence; God is an active part
of this relationship with humans. God is moving and doing and being.
You can hear this same form of experiential testimony in
the Psalm we read today, especially the last two lines, “For you have been my
helper,
and under the shadow of
your wings I will rejoice. My soul clings to you;
your right hand holds me
fast.” It is an experience of God as being, a very real and near presence.
I think there is something really powerful that happens
when we can accept God as “I am who I am”. When we can pause from trying to solve,
explain, identify and label. When we can accept God is who God is and rest in
God’s presence. When our soul can cling to God and we can rest under the shadow
of God’s wings.
And sometimes the not knowing and the not understanding can
be frustrating. I feel frustrated when I see things happening in the world that
are unjust. I am frustrated when I see people being treated without dignity. I
am frustrated when people are hurting or suffering and there is no solution. I
am frustrated when I see bad things happening that I cannot control. And I am
frustrated by normal life things. Like when our ceiling leaks every time we get
a heavy rain even after we have the roof patched. Or when the kids keep leaving
their shoes in the hallway. Or when a computer doesn’t work or traffic is slow
or the things I can’t control just keep stacking up. I feel like my poor little
dog barking with frustration and bewilderment as he smells a treat he can’t
figure out how to get. He’s probably thinking, why are they making this hard,
just give me the treat!? And I get it because sometimes it feels like, why is
life so hard, why can’t we just know why things are the way they are, what will
happen next and how to fix everything. Why can’t God do what we want God to do,
why can’t we figure out the why’s and the how’s?
And to this God says, “I am who I am.” And that can be incredibly
freeing. We can give it up. We don’t have to understand it all or solve it all
or carry the weight of the world on our shoulder. God is who God is and there
is nothing we can do about that but trust. Not a helpless kind of giving up
that leaves us sitting around with nothing to do- but rather, a kind of
acceptance that opens our hearts to hearing and seeing and feeling God’s
presence in the world. A kind of acceptance that releases us to see the beauty
of God’s presence in our lives and the lives of others. The kind of acceptance
that brings us to our knees in worship as we recognize that we are not God and
we don’t have to pretend to be because our God is present and active and real.
I hope that as we journey toward the cross this Lent, it
can be a time of release. Release from the things that block our vision of who
God is around us. Release from the frustrations that keep us pretending we can
control things we can’t. Release from an inability to see the very real presence
of God in others, especially in those we may not expect. And trust, knowing that
God is who God is and that is something our souls can cling to.
Wonderful sermon. Thanks so much. Poor Jarvis! Did he get his treats?😊
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