A friend of mine from college, we’ll call her “Elizabeth”, had many struggles through out her life, she came from a father who didn’t acknowledge her and was addicted heavily to cocaine. Her father had custody of her, because her mother abandoned her. Yet she was the valedictorian of her graduating class and was introduced by her father to drugs at a very young age.
We met my sophomore year of college, her freshman year. She was a girl unlike any that I had met. She was very clingy, she attached herself quite quickly to me and 3 other girls. She was incredible smart, a talented poet, and skilled orator. She was one of the most-book smart people I have ever met yet she had no people skills at all.
I remember the first conversation I had with her. She stuttered and tripped all over her words, she didn’t make sense, never gave me eye contact, and the conversation was really short. She told me later that she was nervous because I spoke to her first.
We had nothing in common, had completely different interests, she a little annoying and she had a horrible habit of her nose bleeding, and while that wasn’t the problem the problem lied in her having nose bleeds 4-5 times a day, all of the time. And yet, we shared a class together, which sparked an odd friendship.
Through the course of our friendship, she began revealing things to me, slowly. She let it slip one day that she had a bag of cocaine in her room and she wasn’t taking her antidepressants.
Well, by that time I was a junior in college, from small-town Bardstown, what in the world did I know about cocaine and antidepressants. I knew what it felt like to be really sad, and I had always heard that people took medicine to help their moods, but I had never met anyone who had. If I did, I didn’t know they were taking them. So I did some research. Yet Between cocaine and pills I was completely confused on the matter.
Our scripture this morning is sort of like being a fly on the wall watching, listening and observing this very intimate conversation between God and Moses. Moses is having to talk to God on behalf of the Israelites because they sinned a great sin they made a cow….out of gold….to worship, an idol because they thought that God had abandoned them, simply because Moses was taking a bit longer on the top of Mount Sinai than they thought was necessary. Cell phones, text messages, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, emails, and other forms of communication didn’t exist then.
What we find here is the negotiating process between God and Moses. And when God says to Moses “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.“ Moses, wanted more than what God was giving, wanted not just God’s presence, but wanted to see God face to face. He wanted to have the knowledge which no one but God carried. Moses wanted to see God’s glory. Moses needed to see, to believe.
Moses wanted so badly in the midst of all of the chaos of the Israelites and the inadequacies that he thought he had, to see, the face of God to know that God was with them. He wanted to see the very being that was going to be with and protect the people. And he wanted it on his terms. Show me your face he says. But God replies I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, I will show mercy on whom I will show mercy but you cannot see my face, for no one can see my face and live
How many times do we want to see the face of God?
How many times do we want something done on our terms? And not on God’s.
How many times have we asked for God to be with us? Even though we know, God has never left.
I imagine the answer is similar for all of us. We long for, desire and need to know that God is with us. We want to know that God is in the midst of the chaos with us and the inadequacies we feel we have, we need to know that they are ok. We want God to make Godself known to us on this journey of life. And we want it on our terms. We want more than just words to tell us we are okay, we need something tangible, we need to hold on to something concrete, we want to see God’s face.
In the midst of a painful break up we ask “Where Is God?”
In the heart ache of a loved one’s death we mourn “ Where are you God?”
In family arguments we scream “ God are you here?”
When friendships fade we beg “God, please don’t leave”
Watching the news, reading the paper, surf the internet, or listening to the radio makes us think that Moses is still on the mountain talking with God, and God has abandoned us. So much hurt, so much destruction, so much hate, God are you with us?
We desperately cry out for God’s face to be shown. We need see God’s presence.
Moses and God had an intimate conversation one of those conversations where both parties leave from the conversation, changed. Moses wanted to see the full Glory of God, God said you can’t see my face, but you can see my back.
Moses gets a glimpse of God. For according to this scripture, if Moses saw the full glory of God, Moses wouldn’t know how to articulate, comprehend or grasp the complexities of this eternal being: God. Moses would be so in awe that anything he tried to say, just wouldn’t work. So because of this, God does show Moses a glimpse of God’s wholeself, God’s back was shown. A reminder, a morsel, a glimpse of something bigger than Moses finite self was shown.
And God also shows us glimpses. We ask for God to reveal God self to us when we are hurting and in pain. We ask God to show us God’s face in the midst of the chaos of our lives. God shows us glimpses just not always in the way that we ask.
I recently received an email forward that made me think.
There was this woman in the park one day, she was upset because her husband just filed for divorce, her kids were failing school and her life she thought just couldn’t get any worse. She was crying and wanted reassurance, she wanted to know that God was still with her. The women whispered, “God, will you talk to me for a minute?” A meadowlark sang and she waited. The women asked again, thinking that maybe she wasn’t loud enough; she raised her voice just a little and asked again “God, can we talk, I need you to talk to me.” Thunder rolled across the sky and the woman thought, hmm wonder if it’s going to rain. Time passed and day turned into night and this woman was just determined be reassured that God was still with her. She stood up from her bench and looked all around her saying “God I wish I could just see you, just to talk to you, I have some questions.” A night star shined brightly and the women thought, “Oh look it’s the big dipper.” Finally the woman was so distraught that she asked just one more time “God I just want to know that I haven’t done anything wrong and that you haven’t left me.” Just then a young child comes running up to her, crying because she is lost in the middle of the night, the woman calls the child’s home, and before long a parent picked up the child. The woman leaves the park.
We see glimpses of God everyday. But it’s hard sometimes to see them, because we often let the movement and motion of being alive, distract us from really living. We often let the pain, distract us from the joy, we often let the hurt cloud the healing, and we often feel as if we need to have all of the answers, to live in the questions.
The author of the book of Hebrews said in chapter 11 verse 1Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. The people that the letter of Hebrews was written to were struggling with the same things we struggle with.
The Israelites in Exodus wanted God’s face to be shown, The Jewish-Christians of the book Hebrews wanted a concrete faith and today we want assurance that we living life, right, and things are going to get better.
So what are we really talking about?
Faith?
We must have faith, so that we can see the glimpses God has for us.
A glimpse of God’s self in the hallway at school when someone helps another student.
Faith in God’s continued presence.
A glimpse of humanity’s effort to help with the most recent natural and human-made disasters.
Faith in God’s continued presence.
A glimpse of God’s self in the midst of a selfish world
Faith in God’s people to see the invisible in the visible
A glimpse of something bigger than ourselves
Faith that it’s God.
And still the friendship between Elizabeth and I grew, and I tried to get her help, but all she wanted to do was talk to me about my life. Every time I would ask her about cocaine she would turn the subject around and asked me questions. I encouraged her to take her medicine and eventually she did, so that was a positive, but it was just puzzling to me why all she cared to know was about me.
We talked about my classes, about my family, the dates I had, I talked to her about church and the clubs I was in. I eventually began to look past the constant nose bleeds and her annoyance and began opening up to this girl.
We talked about her addiction finally and then she showed me the slits on her wrist from cutting herself. And it appeared that just as if we were getting to a plateau in her life, she would spiral down. This was a constant pattern until my senior year of college.
Elizabeth and I were still friends, despite the attempts I made to help her, and despite the attempts Elizabeth didn’t make to help herself.
Just like she let it slip one year that there was a bag of cocaine in her room, she also let it slip that she hadn’t been high the whole summer before my senior year. She hadn’t used cocaine in 3 months. And she was home at her dad’s house.
Inevitably her nosebleeds stopped, but her moods were horrible. She was on and off her medicine, and while she wasn’t doing cocaine anymore, she did start to have withdraws, which caused something horrible to happen to her moods.. I was genuinely scared for her.
I remember one evening, I was taking a walk one day around campus, I usually did this about once a week my senior year as I reflected my years of college. It was often during these walks that I asked God to reassure me that what I was doing with Elizabeth was the right thing, and I desperately wanted her to get her moods straight. As I was walking one particular night, I heard a loud sobbing cry, my natural curiosity took a hold and I followed the cry. I saw sitting on a hill Elizabeth. She was crying, something I had never seen her do in the 3 years that I knew her.
She was crying, and I wanted to run up and hug her and I wanted to tell her it’s all right, I didn’t know why she was crying, but I wanted to make it better. Yet, I didn’t move an inch, something held me back. I stood off to the distance and heard her say. God (I had never heard her mention God or religion, even when we talked about it, I always mentioned it, she listened) forgive my dad, he is a bad man and he doesn’t know what he is doing. I know he loves me, I know he has to, God forgive him.
I will never forget those words as long as I live. I stood frozen for a minute in complete and total awe, tears welled up in my eyes and I turned and walked away. Elizabeth never knew that I saw her. Later that evening I was in my room laying down watching TV. Elizabeth just walks in like she always did, came up to me and hugged me she told me that she called her father, someone she had written off that summer, and decide to never speak to him again, and he wasn’t there, my immediate reaction was “I’m sorry” she continued, but his wife said that he checked himself into rehab a week ago.
We ask to see God all of the time, in the midst of everything that goes on in our lives.
God gives us glimpse everyday. Look around at the many backs of God. Who says the face is what we really want anyway?
