Let’s go to Moses.

Exodus reports that the Israelites “groaned from the bondage and cried out, and their plea from the bondage went up to God. And God heard their moaning, and God remembered [literally, took to heart] His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. And God saw the Israelites, and God knew.”

“What did You know?”

What I needed to do.

“And what was that?”

Read the next chapter.

“It’s about Moses encountering the burning bush.”

Yes, I had to get his attention. Often I have to put something in people’s paths to get their attention.

“And the Lord’s messenger appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of the bush, and he saw, and look, the bush was burning with fire and the bush was not consumed. Moses thought, ‘Let me, pray, turn aside that I may see this great sight, why the bush does not burn up.’ The Lord saw that he had turned aside to see, and God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, ‘Moses, Moses!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’’’

“He reports for duty, ‘Here I am.’”

Moses had the capacity to listen to Me and to obey.

God gives Moses his mission. “And now, go that I may send you to Pharaoh, and bring My people the Israelites out of Egypt.” And Moses asks, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and that I should bring out the Israelites from Egypt?”

But Moses will not be on his own. “And He said, ‘For I will be with you.’”

Moses protests. “Look, when I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they say to me, ‘What is His name?’, what shall I say to them?”

There are various translations of God’s answer, the most revealing of which is by Everett Fox. Moses should tell them “I will be-there” sends me to you. “What does this mean, Lord?”

Several things are going on in that name.

I did disclose it and they got it essentially right. Self-disclosure is part of it. Presence is part of it. The fact that I am seen all the time, that I am ever-present to people, communicating with them sotto voce all the time. It is also reassurance, because I am there to help. When you need me, I will be there. It also has something to do with the quality of presence, that I am fully and authentically and immediately and intimately present, as when you say that one person is “more present” than another.

It means that My essence for human beings is that I will be there, be present, that I am a companion and friend and ally; that My very presence is the heart of Me, and is what (the what of Me) human beings need to know, (the what of Me) that matters.

I will be there for you, by your side, in the fight or in the suffering or in the love. I will be a participant and a partner. That is My essence for human beings.

________

Listen to this on God: An Autobiography, The Podcast– the dramatic adaptation and continuing discussion of the book God: An Autobiography, As Told To A Philosopher by Jerry L. Martin.

He was a lifelong agnostic, but one day he had an occasion to pray. To his vast surprise, God answered- in words. Being a philosopher, he had a lot of questions, and God had a lot to tell him.

Egyptian God control God, mistake of man

“It’s a mistake to try to control God . . .”

July 26, 2016

Trying to control God:

My first impressions of the ancient Egyptians were formed in Sunday School, put to music by gospels such as “Go Down Moses,” and brought to the silver screen by Cecil B. DeMille. It was not a pretty picture—false gods, harsh rulers, fake magicians, and slave-drivers wielding the lash.

Egypt was on the wrong side of everything.

But now I was told that God was sending divine messages to every culture. So I had to look at the land of the pharaohs through different eyes, Egyptian eyes.

Written in hieroglyphs that were already old when Sumerian cuneiform was young, the Pyramid texts date back almost five thousand years.

Chiseled into the walls of the dark corridors beneath these monumental tombs, these texts provide the deceased Pharaoh. Keys to a successful afterlife. How to overcome each obstacle on the way to the divine realm… What words to speak to the guardians who block the way. One strategy was to enter the cyclical course of the cosmos and accompany the sun god in the baroque that transverses the sky each day.

The deceased king went so far, according to one inscription. As to kick the sun god overboard to make room for himself in the divine baroque.

The complex mythology of the Egyptians far surpassed the simple piety of preliterate polytheism. But, however complex, these greedy efforts to compel or trick the divine powers seem spiritually retrograde compared to the sensitive cave paintings and the humble peasant honoring a stream with a pile of stones.

“Isn’t that right, Lord?”

Yes, it is a fundamental mistake of man to try to control God rather than the other way around.

Do not exaggerate it. It is no different from (no worse than) trying to bribe the king’s mistress or learn the password that goes you through the palace gates, but it is not high spirituality, and in fact is not really a kind of spirituality at all.

“It is a mistake of man to try to control God rather than the other way around.”

July 26, 2015

Mistake of Man-

My first impressions of the ancient Egyptians were formed in Sunday School, put to music by gospels such as “Go Down Moses,” and brought to the silver screen by Cecil B. DeMille.

It was not a pretty picture—false gods, harsh rulers, fake magicians, and slave-drivers wielding the lash.

Egypt was on the wrong side of everything.

But now I was told that God was sending divine messages to every culture.

So I had to look at the land of the pharaohs through different eyes, Egyptian eyes.

Written in hieroglyphs that were already old when Sumerian cuneiform was young, the Pyramid texts date back almost five thousand years. Chiseled into the walls of the dark corridors beneath these monumental tombs, these texts provide the deceased Pharaoh with the keys to a successful afterlife: how to overcome each obstacle on the way to the divine realm and what words to speak to the guardians who block the way.

One strategy was to enter the cyclical course of the cosmos. And accompany the sun god in the barque that transverses the sky each day.

The deceased king went so far, according to one inscription, as to kick the sun god overboard to make room for himself in the divine barque.

The complex mythology of the Egyptians far surpassed the simple piety of preliterate polytheism.

But, however complex, these greedy efforts to compel or trick the divine powers seem spiritually retrograde compared to the sensitive cave paintings and the humble peasant honoring a stream with a pile of stones.

“Isn’t that right, Lord?”

Yes, it is a fundamental mistake of man to try to control God rather than the other way around. Do not exaggerate it. It is no different from (no worse than) trying to bribe the king’s mistress. Or learn the password that goes you through the palace gates. But it is not high spirituality, and in fact is not really a kind of spirituality at all.

________

Listen to this on God: An Autobiography, The Podcast– the dramatic adaptation and continuing discussion of the book God: An Autobiography, As Told To A Philosopher by Jerry L. Martin.

He was a lifelong agnostic, but one day he had an occasion to pray. To his vast surprise, God answered- in words. Being a philosopher, he had a lot of questions, and God had a lot to tell him.