SCENES FROM THE WILDERNESS:

CHARTING NEW TERRITORY

Exodus 19:1-20:2 – Rev. Jerry Duggins

September 4, 2011

Touch…. When I read this text from Exodus, the cautionary comments around “touching” strike me as especially noteworthy. God tells Moses to make sure the people understand that neither they nor their animals are to touch the mountain. Those who do touch the mountain are to be put to death by a means that does not involve “touching.” Furthermore, Moses tells the people – well, the men, presumably - not to go near a woman.

It’s as if God is afraid of too much intimacy or feels the need to preserve the boundaries of personal space. On the day when God appears on the mountain to talk with Moses, God even puts it in terms of a violation of personal space: “warn the people not to break through to the Lord… or the Lord will break out against them.” Were the terms not so serious, I’d think we were dealing with a pair of siblings bickering in the back seat over who has more room. Or is it the lover who holds back for fear of being hurt?

Touch. Clearly God wants to draw near to the people. The text speaks of God’s desire to make them a “treasured possession out of all the peoples.” God did go through a lot of trouble to bring these people to this place. “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.”

So at first glance, there appears to be a mixed message going on in this text when we think about it in terms of touch. This seems especially true if we hear the story through New Testament eyes. We think about Jesus touching and healing lepers, rebuking the disciples when they prevent children from drawing near, giving sight to the blind with a touch, opening the ears of the deaf with a touch.

Today, we speak of the ministry of touch. Ellen Armstrong was telling me last week about a group of ladies who gather in the lobby following dinner at Hope Woods for some end of the day conversation. Everyone gets a hug before returning to their room. Everyone experiences the reassurance of touch before calling it a day.

Hospice workers will remind family members how important touch may be for their loved one even or especially after they pass into that unconscious state before death. Most of us know the value of a hug after disappointment, the pleasure of handholding whether we speak of lovers or parents and grandparents with a child, the strong sense of belonging when lovers’ lips touch.

So despite or because of God’s claim to regard these people as a treasured possession, we are left confused by the threats uttered against those who would draw too close. Is God attempting to set up an intimate relationship or break it off?

Touch. You may be familiar with the idea in the Hebrew Scriptures that to see God was to risk death. It would seem that we have a similar notion going on here with the sense of touch. I don’t imagine this sits too well with us. But let’s look a little closer.

We need to begin by returning to Egypt. We don’t know how long these people had been slaves in Egypt. It must have been for several generations. Four hundred years had passed since the days of Joseph. We know they were slaves at the time of the birth of Moses, that they supplied the hard labor for the massive building projects of Pharaoh. And we know that their cries reached the ears of God.

It’s a little outside our experience, but we need to imagine how a slave experiences touch: the master’s whip, the sensitivity of sun-baked skin, the strain of muscles stretched beyond their strength. Contrast this with the gentle touch of a companion, the warm embrace of a daughter upon one’s return to the family. The cruel touch of the master offset by the consoling touch of one who shares in the suffering.

What would their experience be of God’s touch, a God who had seemingly abandoned them? And how would they have felt about God’s touch as the first of the plagues struck Egypt, turning water into blood, followed by frogs and gnats, flies and disease, boils and thunder and hail, locusts and darkness and then the loss of the Egyptians’ first-born? Would such a demonstration of power, of even greater mastery, induce a desire among the Hebrews to be embraced by God?

And then God leads them out through Moses, leads them in the form of a pillar of fire, demonstrating more power as they cross the Sea.

They experience hunger and thirst only to be saved by still more awe-inspiring acts. I don’t consider it a surprise that they wonder whether they’d be better off back as slaves in Egypt. Is this the God you’d want a hug from, the one who made water come from a rock, who rained down bread from the sky, who led you out here into the wilderness and then gathered you here before the fiery mountain? Would you really need to be told to stay off the mountain? Everything God has done says, “Take a step back!”

Embracing God seems beyond the scope of possibilities. But suppose God ultimately desired this kind of intimacy. How would God begin? How could God begin with a people for whom the touch of a master was not a good thing? How does “don’t come too close” sound to someone whose preference already is to remain at a safe distance? Is it possible that God makes these rules as an acknowledgment and validation of the feeling of these people? Is it possible that this text is not so much about the holy otherness of God as it is a reflection of the new relationship just begun, that God begins with where they are?

I wonder whether there isn’t some good news here for people who don’t like to be touched and for the times when all of us don’t want to be touched. Burn victims, survivors of abuse, some experiences of paralyzing grief, new relationships after a recent betrayal. There are times when we want only to draw into ourselves, to be left alone, untouched. We shouldn’t always take God’s silence as a lack of interest. Perhaps God is giving us space to begin anew too.

Certainly God challenges us and stretches us to become more faithful followers of Christ, but always in a way that grasps our pain and is respectful of the distance we require at the time.

As we gather around this table, we are invited to draw near to God. Today, some of us will want to feel God’s embrace through the sacrament. Such a thing is possible. Others will only be able to receive the assurance that God does understand how we feel. They may be in a place where intimacy seems less desirable. If we have learned nothing else from our host, Jesus, we do know his invitation to come as you are. Amen.