Sunday 22 October 2017
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Exodus 33:12-23 (NRSV)
Moses said to the Lord, “See, you have said to me, ‘Bring up this people’; but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.’ Now if I have found favor in your sight, show me your ways, so that I may know you and find favor in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people.” He said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” And he said to him, “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? In this way, we shall be distinct, I and your people, from every people on the face of the earth.” The Lord said to Moses, “I will do the very thing that you have asked; for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.” Moses said, “Show me your glory, I pray.” And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim before you the name, ‘The Lord’; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But,” he said, “you cannot see my face; for no one shall see me and live.” And the Lord continued, “See, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock; and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by; then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back; but my face shall not be seen.”
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Moses pleads with God. He knows that the safety of the people depends on the presence of God. He knows very well that if this people is left to themselves, they will mess things up. And to be perfectly honest, I think Moses knows this is true of himself as well as the people. And so he pleads for God to be known as present among them and with him. God grants that request and shows the divine presence to Moses, revealing that presence in the midst of the people.
Moses' plea should be ours also. We know that when we are left to ourselves, nothing good can come of this. We will show again and again that we are our own enemy, doing the very thing we know we should not and failing to do those things we know we should. Today we are reminded that God indeed is in our midst. The most powerful reminder of this is when with hands outstretched as a throne for the King of Heaven and Earth, we receive the Lord who is truly present in our midst in the Bread of Heaven and the Cup of Salvation.
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Fr. Timothy Alleman
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