The folk who choose our readings Sunday do not choose them by random. There is a goodly amount of thought that goes into this process.
When you look closely you can often spot the theme. For example today it is all about God revealing himself and we also discover that there is work to be done.
In the gospel the disciples are sent forth to go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. So we learn that God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit and the work to be done is to baptise all nations. We also learn that He surely is with us always, to the very end of the age.
In the first lesson, Moses is asked to bring two fresh tablets of stone so that God can write again the 10 commandments. (In next week's enthralling homily we’ll be learning what happened to the first draft of the 10 commandments.) Moses has some work to do and we learn something of the nature of God.
The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.
But there are other links between the first lesson and the gospel reading.
First, the invitation to be with God is fairly limited and I guess that is what makes them so precious.
In the Old Testament lesson, it's just Moses and the Lord.
In the gospel, it's only the 11 and The Master. That’s it. No great crowds, no thousands of people waiting to go into the bistro where fish and loaves are on the menu.
And notice the location for both of these events. It's on a mountain.
In the first lesson, it's Mount Sinai. In the second lesson, it's umm… well we are not actually told the exact location. It's simply ‘the mountain’ where Jesus had told them to go.
In both stories, the meeting is set up well beforehand.
In both stories, God is encountered. And as I mentioned on both occasions there is work to be done. We are not supposed to just bask idly in our near God experience. So where is your mountain?
We are indeed fortunate to have the Grampians in our very backyard and I know many of you go exploring them and enjoying them as well as we should.
But your mountain, the place where you encounter God might actually be anywhere. It might be at Church, or it might be the back garden, or it might be … dot dot dot here insert your own ‘mountain’.
Now I have to confess that I am more drawn to the Moses story than I am to the Jesus story today.
For one thing, There is a wonderful back story as to why Moses has to go up with a second lot of tablets for God to write on. The first two tablets met a ferocious end… you can read all about it in Exodus 32.
Further, the imagery of these tablets can be unpacked and reflected upon in several ways.
Sometimes like Moses, we have to have more than one go, or we have to have several goes, or a lifetime before the finger of God writes his commandments upon our hearts, our minds and… this is the really hard bit… upon our lives. It's one thing to read the commandments, another to academically understand them and it's something quite different again to actually live them. No sooner do we understand and want to live them, than we find ourselves distracted to disobedience. Not necessarily because we go out of our way to be wicked, but because we tend to have a bias for naughty things. We find them tempting and alluring.
Moses took two blank tablets up with him onto the mountain and I wonder what we bring with us today to God. What is etched onto our souls that we cannot leave behind?
Often, For me, it is what I affectionately but frustratingly call, the ‘scribble of distractions’. Petty, irrelevant things that can disfigure and frustrate me. They have no place on the mountain.
But it might be worth asking… what do you bring and from what place do you bring it? Is it something from long ago and far away, or a recent dilemma or skirmish?
I suspect that it is only when we go up to our mountain, wherever and whenever that might be, with a completely clean slate and wait patiently for God to write what he wants to write, what we need to learn; It is only then that we can discover who God is and what he wants us to do.
So for your reflection, you might want to ask what God wants to write onto your soul. What are the imprints that he dearly needs to stamp upon us? A few guesses. Love of our neighbour. Commandments 6 - 10
Love of Him, Commandments 1 - 5 or the Readers Digest abbreviated condensed version
Perhaps it is just a simple cross.