September 18, 2022 ~ Rev. Beckie Sweet
The prophet Isaiah (52:7) proclaims:
How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of a messenger
who proclaims peace, who brings good news,
who proclaims salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God rules!”
As I was growing up, I thought it odd that that one would praise the appearance of the feet of God’s messengers. Feet! Yes, baby feet are adorable, and I could kiss them all day long! And some young people’s feet are sensual. But by the time we start proclaiming God’s messages, most of us have feet that we would prefer to keep hidden.
Shoes! They adorn those feet, and hide their road worn and age deformed lines from easy view. For some, shoes are quite utilitarian. They protect the feet in rough situations, or when one is on their feet all day, and provide support to ankles and feet lest they become weak at work. For some, shoes are a necessity due to climate conditions. Warm footwear and good grip are needed when traversing snow and ice. Shoes with breathable fabric are recommended when in extreme heat. But for others, the choice of shoes is a fashion statement, accessorizing an outfit, bearing bright colors in order to be noticed, or high heals to enhance height or create a certain allure. I have often mentioned to children with light-up shoes that I am envious! I have yet to find shoes with lights that flash with each step in my size!
I have a friend, a now retired American Baptist pastor, who had an amazing sense of fashion. Susan always wore just the right scarf to complement her outfit. Her earrings, necklace and bangle bracelet always came from the same jewelry designer and matched perfectly. And when acting in a professional capacity, Susan’s shoes sported a three inch heal, pointy toes, and bling! I don’t understand how she could walk in those shoes, let alone stand on her feet after wearing them for several hours. But Susan managed.
Shoes have provided a fashion statement for centuries. In the days of Moses you could purchase a pair of sandals for the price of a sack of grain (which could have fed a family for weeks). That pair of sandals certainly could have only been afforded by someone with high status in society. And, the higher your status, the fancier your footwear was likely to be. The sandals found in the tomb of Tutankhamun were decorated with the images of foreign captives on the insoles, as if the Pharoah walked over the souls of those who had been conquered. Now that is making a statement with one’s footwear.
When Moses investigates this bush that is burning, but not consumed, God instructs Moses to remove his sandals, because he is standing on holy ground. When we hear those words, we assume that Moses is removing his sandals as an act of reverence and obedience. But Biblical Scholar Carlos Suamala wonders if there is something else afoot here (wink), something besides reverence for the Holy, because, she states, Moses doesn’t sound or act very reverential or awestruck as the rest of his story unfolds.
When she visited the country of Japan, Suamala experienced the shoe etiquette of the Japanese. Every time one enters a building, whether it is a temple, museum, a shrine or a home, shoes are removed. She did some research in order to determine the reason for that custom. One reason was to help keep the floors in the building clean. Another was to be able to relax and be themselves. What if God is asking Moses to take off his sandals in order to say, “drop the pretenses and be authentic with me”?.
It is not clear how much Moses even knows about the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob before this day. Moses was born to Hebrew slaves at a time when all of the baby boys were being killed at the Pharoah’s command out of fear that the Hebrews would become too numerous. Moses’ mother hid him for the first three months of his life. But when she could not keep him a secret any longer, she wove a basket, and waterproofed it, in which to set him afloat on the Nile where the Pharoah’s daughter bathed. The child was discovered by the Pharoah’s daughter, and adopted by her. But needing a nurse to feed and care for the child, she found Moses’ own mother for the task. She cared for him until he was weened, at which time he returned to the palace and received the upbringing and education of a member of the royal household. While in his infancy and toddler years, Moses may have heard the stories of Adam & Eve, Cain and Abel, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Jacob, he was raised in a home where pagan worship was practiced. The names of the deities Isis, Osiris, Horus, and a long list of other gods and goddesses would have become familiar to Moses.
Maybe Moses did not even know that God created humanity, Adam, out of the earth, Adumah (dust and mud). Maybe when God asks Moses to take off his sandals it is so that Moses can feel his connection with creation, and by extension with the Creator. “Feel the dirt beneath your feet, Moses, the mud between your toes. Be rooted and grounded in this holy space. For this ground is holy,” just as all that God created is touched with the Holy Presence of the Creator. (That is something we don’t feel even when we are wearing the most spectacular shoes.) Once this holy place and time are established, God lays out the problem and the solution, and God gets on with giving Moses a holy task. God’s people are in misery, suffering in their enslavement. Moses will go to Pharoah and bring the people out of Egypt. In this space where Moses has stripped off any pretense, Moses speaks truthfully what is in his heart. He asks God, “Who, me?” and God says “Yes.” And, God promises, “I will be with you.”
How often do we take off our shoes with God? Our figurative, pretentious shoes? How many times are we wholly honest with God? How many times do we respond when God is calling us, nudging us, and giving us a task to do by asking, “Who, me?” So many times we are emotionally, physically, and spiritually exhausted by the plight, misery, and suffering of God’s creation. We are overwhelmed by the enormity of the problems and are sure that the task God will give us will be too great for us to bear.
We hear the cries of a war-torn Ukraine, the people who desire to reclaim and rebuild their homeland. We now have begun to hear the cries of Armenians, begging the world to listen to their plight and their anguish. We hear the cries of victims of domestic violence, crime, abuse. We hear the cries of those fleeing from the violence of gangs and drug lords in their homeland, seeking to live in peace and safety, to earn a living, and to have the necessities of life. We hear the cries of persons of color in this land who have suffered under generations of systemic racism, who desire most to be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. We hear the fears of environmental activists who echo the cries of the water, wind, and soil, as the earth warms, continues to be stripped of its resources, and is polluted beyond repair. We hear the cries of children the world over who will go to bed tonight not just hungry, but starving literally to death. And we hear the anger and outrage in our own nation as politicians turn vulnerable people’s lives upside down with the swipe of a pen, making and un-making laws that cause irreparable harm to lives. I don’t know about you, but my heart hurts as I hear all of these cries. And I ask, what task could God possibly give to ME, to US, to bring the world back in alignment with God’s plan?
Robin Wall Kimmerer in Braiding Sweetgrass reminds us that
Many Indigenous peoples share the understanding that we are each endowed with a particular gift, a unique ability. Birds to sig, and stars to glitter, for instance. It is understood that these gifts have a dual nature, though: a gift is also a responsibility. If the bird’s gift is a song, then it has a responsibility to greet the day with music. It is the duty of birds to sing and the rest of us receive the song as a gift.
Asking what is our responsibility is perhaps also to ask, What is our gift? And how shall we use it? Stories like the one about the people of corn (or for us the stories of the people of faith), give us guidance, both to recognize the world as a gift and to think how we might respond. The people of mud and wood and light all lacked gratitude and the sense of reciprocity that flowed from it. It was only the people of corn, people transformed by awareness of their gifts and responsibilities, who were sustained on the earth. Gratitude comes first, but gratitude alone is not enough.
Other beings (creatures) are known to be especially gifted, with attributes that humans lack. Other beings can fly, see at night, rip open trees with their claws, make maple syrup. What can humans do?
We may not have wings or leaves, but we humans do have words. Language is our gift and our responsibility. … We have words to remember old stories, words to tell new ones, stories that bring science and spirit back together to nurture our becoming.
In other words, we can witness: we can tell the stories of when we and others have seen the sacred in the ordinary. We can share our influence to heal where and when there has only been crying. We can speak prophetically to change cycles of destruction and replace them with an environment of care, hospitality, compassion, and restoration. We can be God’s love in human form and action. That is our God-given task. And God promises to be with us always. Amen.
Your homework: Take off your shoes. Put your bare feet on the ground for 10 minutes. Do you feel that you are in the presence of God?