my soul thirsts for you, my flesh faints for you,
as in a barren and dry land
Moses turned aside, curious, at least, perhaps pulled by some deeper emotion, to see what was causing the bush to burn yet not be consumed. He was in a barren and dry land, perhaps; he and his father-in-law Reuel’s flock (Zipporah’s father) had strayed beyond the wilderness, far from home base, and found themselves on this mountain holy to the Midianites. (His father-in-law was a priest of Midian.)
More than thirst was going on. Thirst for justice. Thirst for freedom. Thirst to worship without fear. Hunger and thirst. drought and famine, from which the Israelites cried out to be released. From a more than physical bondage they fled. And Moses was the one to lead them. As always, the improbable one, the one called by God, is the one to lead the way.
Moses was no ordinary son of Abraham. He fled from Pharaoh after killing an Egyptian and hiding the body in the sand. He wandered far away into the desert between Egypt with its watered fields and Canaan the land where milk and honey flowed.
Because he had been there first, he could lead the people through the deserted unknown places. Because he knew his own unworthiness, indeed his sin, he could lead others through the passage between bondage and freedom.
Key to our understanding is this feeling of unworthiness, reasonable unworthiness, indeed of awe. Remember : when Jesus instructed the fishermen to let down their nets and they encountered a miraculous catch of fish, Peter said to Jesus, go away for me for I am an unworthy man. The presence of the holy overwhelmed him.
Here it is the presence of the divine, manifested first in the miraculous sight, the sign of the bush, the symbol of its burning, then in the message of the angel, take off your sandals, for where you stand is holy ground, that awes the modest human, causing him to be unclothed of all his weary sinfulness. This is the beginning of redemption.
Remember: Moses had fled Egypt, a sinner, a murderer indeed. He has found shelter, comfort, even a wife, in a new life far from Pharaoh’s power. And yet that is not enough, not for God, and not for Moses’ life. God now redeems him; redeems him like a debt unpaid. Moses begins to reconcile with the one more important than (but not in contravention of ) any human law. He must go back.
O God.
And free his people. First he must convince them. Whom shall I say sent me? The ground of being, in a nice phrase, for the one whom he met standing on holy ground is indeed the creative, organizing, and inspiring power of the universe. Beyond holy. Beyond any god of man and women he might think might merit devotion. This is the one who is. I am who I am, I will be who I will be, I am he who causes to be all that comes to be. And yet is not consumed, comprehended, encompassed by all that, but contains it within his will. His will and power and mercy. Justice and steadfast love. That is who Moses has fallen a-fair of.
How will I possibly convince them? I cannot even talk.
You have a brother, Aaron – and a sister, Miriam. He will speak for you, she shall lead the women in dance and exaltation, in praise at the deliverance of the people.
This shall all come to be. I am who I am. I am the one who causes to be what is, and what will be.
Take off your shoes. All right, put them back on. Go back and break the news to your father-in-law. And your wife, Zipporah.
O god. Indeed.
care o’ fig
In the Old Testament lesson for this Sunday a man confronts a plant that embodied the divine. In the gospel lesson a man who embodies the divine speaks about a plant. I think it’s about more than that, don’t you? It seems to me that in today’s gospel, the plant is a plant and this is good husbandry. I also think it could be a figure (pun alert, sorry!) for Israel or the Church. One more year, pleads the gardener; give me one more year to turn things around. I’ll dig around it and give it fertilizer. (Personally I’m tempted to try this on a couple of trees - again - this spring, but a hae ma doots about a couple of them: they look like goners to me.)
Jesus as the gardener, the Father as the landowner, and the people as the vineyard with the fig tree in it. In California I’ve seen, at the turn to Glen Ellen, roses growing at the end of rows of vines of wine grapes. I’ve been told they act like canaries in a coal mine, as they are likely to show symptoms of stress before they are visible on the vines. Here in the gospel imagery the fig tree is taken as a common accompaniment to vines in the garden. So each of us can shelter under the shade of the tree and eat from the vine; they are companions in the field.
"A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the gardener, 'See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?' He replied, 'Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.'"
God has not given up on us yet. Art Hoppe had a wonderful image in his column in the San Francisco Chronicle. There on a cloud are the Lord and the angel Gabriel contemplating, once again, the follies of the human race. The Lord pats his beard, thinkingly. Gabriel is more cheerfully decisive: eagerly he inquires, “Shall I sound the eviction notice?” brandishing his trumpet. But the Lord says, no, no, give them another chance.
How long can this go on?
Perhaps we find out in other vineyard and landlord parables, like the one where the wicked tenants insult and assault the managers’ messengers who are sent to collect the rent, then finally the son of the owner. The message there is that that might not work out so well for the tenants. They can be replaced.
I suppose Gabriel, in the Chronicle story, had something similar in mind.
God gives us another chance. If that is what this parable is about, it is not so complicated. And parables need not be so complicated. They may have one simple message, that we can see because first it turns upside down our common view. Once we look at the world with new vision it changes.
The passage before that confronts us with the common linkage between sin and misery. They must have done something, been worse than other people, or this calamity would not have fallen upon them. But they are no worse than others. Indeed, they are no worse than we are! No more deserving of tragedy, loss, or catastrophe. That does not mean they are without sin. It means that they and we are no more sinful - and perhaps no less - than anybody else.
At that very time there were some present who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. He asked them, "Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them--do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did."
Negligence or police brutality, natural disaster or human turpitude, not victims’ sin.
No grounds for judgment; no grounds for schadenfreude (joy at the pain of others); no secret security for us as better people. And no safe place to hide from God’s inexorable… grace. For he did not come into the world to judge the world, but to redeem it. That is what this season is about; that is what it is preparing us for: the outrageous reality of God’s self-sacrifice, self-emptying gift, to free us from our own prisons of folly, guilt, error, and all the other failings of the human comedy.
Therefore I have gazed upon you in your holy place, *
that I might behold your power and your glory.
For your loving-kindness is better than life itself; *
my lips shall give you praise.
© 2025 John Leech
