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Moses returns from Mt. Sinai with the tablets of the Ten Commandments to find the Hebrews reveling before the golden calf. In a rage he smashes the tablets. And, of course, God is furious, too. After punished is meted out, God tells Moses to go ahead and lead the Hebrews to the Promised Land, but God will no longer go with them. They are on their own. This is a very big problem. And Moses in his role as mediator between the people and God has to do something quick.

Moses has to somehow get God back on board, for without God’s presence, the enterprise is doomed. God is in a very bad snit, and Moses has to indulge in the subtlest kind of diplomacy. God assures Moses that God hasn’t given up on him personally. Moses says, "Okay, but what about the people?" Moses says:

If your presence will not go, do not carry us up from here. For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people, unless you go with us? Is this way, we shall be distinct, I and your people, from every people on the face of the earth.

There it is. Faith and grace in a nutshell. It is God going with us that makes us distinct – nothing more. Moses is reminding God of this, but somehow, I think, also discovering it for himself. The most powerful words of the Bible are "Fear not, I will be with you." And it would have been inconceivable for the Hebrews to have gone anywhere without that assurance. And Moses succeeds in changing God’s mind. God says, "I will do the very thing you have asked."

Now Moses grows bold. "Show me your glory, I pray." Moses is asking to see God directly – face to face. God responds this way. God will make God’s goodness pass before Moses. God will proclaim the sacred name: "Yahweh". But, says God, you cannot see my face, for no one sees the face of God and lives. The Hebrew word for face and presence are the same. And then there is this marvelous moment when God puts Moses in the cleft of a rock, shields Moses’ eyes with God’s hand, walks past in glory, and then uncovers Moses’ eyes in time to behold his back, but not his face.

A lot could be said about this, but I see it this way. For us to see God face to face is impossible. To see God face to face is to know the heart and mind of God. It is to dwell within the mystery of God. It is to understand the meaning of our lives and the world. But God’s face is veiled to us. "Now we see through a glass darkly," said Paul, "then we shall see face to face." The face of God, the immediate glory of God, remains a mystery, separated from us, as one famous mystic put it, by a "cloud of unknowing."

God did not permit Moses to see God face to face, but God did allow Moses to see God’s back. (The Hebrews were so clear in their radical monotheism that they could engage in the most playful "anthropomorphism") God permitted Moses to see where God had been and the direction God was headed in. God permits us to experience the impact of God’s goodness. We can see directly what God has done and where God is going. When you follow someone, you walk behind them, or perhaps, if you’re lucky, beside them. But you follow their lead. You are a follower. Walk humbly with your God.

What does this mean for you and me? This year the world has reeled from a series of cataclysmic natural disasters: the tsunami in Southeast Asia, hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the flooding and mudslides in Central America, and the earthquake in Pakistan. Hundreds of thousands of lives lost and unimaginable suffering and destruction. Why? To ask why is to try and discover the meaning of these events. To ask God why is to try and discern God’s purpose in these events. If one concludes that God was somehow not responsible, or even helpless to stop them, that, of course, raises profound questions about the nature of God. But I believe the best answer is that we cannot know, because the face of God is veiled. The mystery of God’s purposes is hidden from us. Does that mean that God cannot be trusted, or that God is no longer with us? No, it means simply that God’s purposes are hidden from you and me, for now at least.

A relevant question is: why do we want to know God’s purpose in these events? Would we feel or behave differently if their meaning were more clear? I don’t think so. Our questions are motivated by our pain. We, and many others far more than us, are suffering tremendous loss at many levels. That hurts. And we think that if we just understood what God has in mind, we might feel better about it. It’s like when someone at a funeral says, "Don’t be sad. God loved your child so much that he took her to heaven to be with him." Or that New Orleans is Sin City and this flooding was God’s vengeance. That is supplying a superficial consolation that really doesn’t make you feel any better, or at best redirects your anger. Most questions of meaning have to do with wanting to feel better. That is understandable, but the truth is that it doesn’t work. So, I believe that whether or not God has a purpose in these tragedies and what it may be, is simply unavailable to us. There is nothing of meaning for us to figure out. In this we should be agnostics.

But having said this, I believe there are two questions that are important. They are: what do we know? And what are we to do? These questions not only can be asked, they must be asked. What do we know? We know that earthquakes and tsunamis happen because of shifting tectonic plates under the surface of the earth. We know that in certain parts of the world earthquakes are bound to happen, but that scientists are as yet not able to predict them precisely. We know that there is a sixty per cent chance that Northern California will be hit within the next fifty years. What else do we know? We know that scientists are telling us that the number of hurricanes is likely to increase, due to the periodic cycling of warm water through the Atlantic Ocean and, quite plausibly, global warming. And we know that there are people living in many of these regions, on geological fault lines or in areas below sea level, or near or even on volcanoes. Some people have the resources to live elsewhere, but have chosen to gamble that nothing will happen. Others, in their poverty and circumstances, have little choice. They have nowhere to go. I heard a seismologist say last week that the range and depth of the Pakistan earthquake was, in fact, relatively shallow. What led to the scope of the disaster was, as with Iran’s recent quake, poor and primitive housing that easily crumbled. This leads to the conclusion - the fact - that most people in the world live that way. It is the poor and powerless who are most vulnerable. And the fact is that the world tolerates this injustice and inequity.

All these things are facts that should be looked at squarely. The second question is what are we to do? The simple answer to that is that we do all we can to help those in need. And that we do all we can to address the injustice that sustains the suffering. Mother Theresa once said leave the big jobs to others; just do what you can with what you have, and stop worrying about it. It is useless to agonize over the scale of human suffering or feel guilty and helpless. That is immobilizing. We can’t save all those who have been dislocated by Katrina and Rita, but we can make a big difference in the life of the Duroncelay family. We, on our own, can’t restore the Mississippi coast, but we can help rebuild the Back Bay Mission – through our gifts, volunteer trips, and our prayers. We should do all we can and entrust the rest to God. In addition to supporting our traditional offerings and Our Church’s Wider Mission, you can focus your giving on any specific need by simply writing an earmarked check to CCC or going online to UCC.org. Our denomination’s responses are clearly spelled out there.

I began this sermon by saying that we cannot see the face of God, cannot fully comprehend God’s purposes, though we can see the impact of God’s goodness, and accept the invitation to be humble followers of God. But I would now, in closing, like to amend that a bit. Sandy told me last week that when her daughter, Jaime, heard Guatemala mentioned on the radio, she said, "That’s where I’m from." And in that moment I imagined her face and imagined the faces of all those children who had died, and all who have been left alone and homeless. Jaime is, thank God, safely here. But she saw her connection. I wonder if God is saying to us something like this: you want to experience my glory by seeing my face. I’m not interested in that. My ways are not your ways. But if you really want to see my face, look someplace else. Look into the faces of the suffering, the neglected, those who have lost everything. If you want to see my face, if you want to be on my side, look into their faces. Get on their side. It is not about looking for me. It is about looking with me. Look with my eyes. Walk in my steps. Follow me. AMEN.

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