Pasadena Presbyterian Church
Sermon Text
Sunday, September 2, 2007

"Becoming Ourselves"
Preached by Jessica Weinhold

Scripture: Exodus 3:1-7, 10-15  

Then the Lord said, “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters.  Indeed, I know their sufferings. . .So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.”  But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”  God said, “I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you:  when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain.”  

But Moses said to God, “If I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?”  God said to Moses, “I am who I am.”  God said further, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I am has sent me to you.’”  God also said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you’:  This is my name forever, and this is my title for all generations.”

Last week I received this advertisement in the mail from “The Friends of Music” here at Pasadena Presbyterian Church.  I’m guessing many of you received the same mailing as well.  It reads on the front of it, “The only proof needed of the existence of God is music.”  As I read it over a couple of times, I quickly found myself nodding in agreement.  I thought back on my own life, and realized that some of my most powerful spiritual experiences have been the result of an encounter with music.  This has become all the more true now that I’m married to a jazz musician.

When Brandon, my husband, and I first met, I didn’t know a heck of a lot about jazz.  In fact, all I could say to him was that I had “heard about” people like John Coltrane and Miles Davis.  So definitely not enough to impress a guy pursuing his doctorate degree in jazz performance at one of the most prestigious music schools in the country.  Out of the kindness of his heart, Brandon chose to overlook this shortcoming, for which I’m grateful.

I distinctly remember asking him that first night, “So why jazz?  Of all the types of music out there—and especially for a young guy like yourself—really, why jazz?”  It only took him a moment before he said, “Improvisation.”  From there he went on to explain that improvisation is the fundamental element in jazz: musicians in a kind of dialogue with each other.  As many of you know—and for those of you that may not know—in jazz each musician takes a solo.  The hope is that in these “soloing” moments the musician will create something entirely new.  Something specific to the feelings and emotions of that particular place in time which in turn allows the music to develop through inspiration and interdependence of the musicians on each other.  Jazz, then, is less about playing the “right” notes and more about creativity.  It’s about venturing into the unknown in the hopes of finding something you didn’t expect to find.

Brandon has said to me on more than one occasion that he feels the closest to God when he’s playing his music.  That—in a sense—he “finds” God there.  Many other musicians and artists throughout history have echoed a similar sentiment.  John Coltrane, for instance, created the album Love Supreme, which is essentially the culmination of his quest for God.  Coltrane believed he could reach a state of spiritual union with God through his music and this became his primary goal throughout the latter half of his life.  He was most fully himself when he played the saxophone and even more so, when he let go of the need to play the “right” notes and abandoned himself to the “unknown,” to wherever the music might take him.

In our Old Testament lesson for today, we see in Moses a man who is afraid to “let go” so to speak.  God calls him to confront an “unknown” future by asking him to go to Pharaoh and demand that Pharaoh let the Israelites go. But Moses isn’t quite sure how he feels about this.  He hesitates.  He responds to God’s call by asking, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”  Moses’ question is revealing because, like many of us, he feels a deep sense of uncertainty about his future—and more precisely—about what God is leading him to do in that future.  He wonders if God has made a mistake in choosing him, if he’ll be up to the task, if he’s capable of managing the unexpected.  And God’s answer to Moses’ fears, doubts and uncertainty is simply to say, “I will be with you.”

We know from reading more of the story that much of Moses’ sense of doubt is rooted in the fact that he has a speech impediment—a glaring handicap in his mind.  So in spite of God’s reassuring response, Moses is yet to be convinced.  He feels the need to work out all the angles, like a musician determined to hit all the right notes, and asks, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is [this God’s] name?’  Then what shall I tell them?”  And again, in simple fashion, God responds by saying, “I AM WHO I AM.  This is what you are to say to the Israelites.  ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”

Initially, this response leaves us wanting.  Or at least I know it left me wanting when I first read it. “I AM WHO I AM.”  What does that even mean?  It reminds me of my dad, who when I questioned why I had to do something, would say, “Because I said so.”  It’s an answer that isn’t really an answer.  It’s a kind of circular logic.  “I am who I am” or “Because I said so” are ultimately unsatisfying answers because they seem to avoid the real question.

And in some sense God’s response to Moses is an aversion to the question in that it maintains an element of mystery and hiddenness.  But at the same time, it’s important to understand that God’s response is also deeply personal and quite revealing.  Because, you see, when God says to Moses “I Am who I Am,” God is, first of all, expressing a desire for relationship, simply by virtue of revealing the divine name.  And secondly, when God says “I Am who I Am,” God is in essence saying:  I always have been and I always will be the same.  I will be who I will be.  Forever faithful.  This is who I am.

But this response is not only important because it tells us more about who God is, it’s also important because it helps us to understand who we are.  We are who we are because of who God is.  In other words, we are the people that we are because of who God is in us and through us. So for example, when Brandon, or any musician, says they feel the most “at home” with themselves when they’re playing their music because it’s in those moments that they experience God—they’re tapping into the truth that we find ourselves in God.  Their sense of “at homeness” with themselves and their experience of God are almost synonymous with each other.  Consider with me the quote printed on the first page of your bulletin for this morning.  Thomas Merton writes the following, “There is ‘no such thing’ as God because God is neither a ‘what’ nor a ‘thing’ but a pure ‘Who.’  [God] is the ‘Thou’ before whom our inmost ‘I’ springs into awareness.  [God] is the I Am before whom with our own most personal and inalienable voice we echo ‘I am.’”  Merton’s point being that we come to know ourselves, truly and fully, when we come to know and experience God in us.  So when Brandon plays his guitar, he is—in his own way—saying, “I am.”  This utterance is drastically different from Descartes, for example, who coined the popular phrase, “I think therefore I am” and it’s even distinct from the African word, which some of you may know, ubuntu which means, “I am because you are.”  Rather, Merton is suggesting, “I am because God is” or perhaps put a better way, “God is therefore I am.”

So you see, the more we live into the futures God has set before us, the way Moses did—even in spite of his fear—the more we become ourselves, the more truthfully we’re able to say, “I am.”  But in order to live into those futures, in order to become the people God is truly calling us to be, we have to let go of our need to know exactly where we are going, how we’re going to get there, and what we’re going to say once we’ve arrived.  As with jazz musicians who don’t know where the music will take them, but trust that it’s in the “not knowing” that leads them to moments of true beauty, creativity, and peace so the same is true of us.  Our lives as we live them require us to be open to improvisation. To God leading us to places unknown and perhaps unexpected.  

It’s like the old saying goes, “We’re all in search of gold, but there’s a lot you can do with silver and even more you can do with tin.”  We don’t need to be perfect, Moses certainly wasn’t.  We don’t need to be fearless, Moses certainly wasn’t.  We need simply to risk improvisation; to risk becoming ourselves.  And when we do, we’ll find we have the courage to step forward into our unknown futures because—and only because—God has promised, “I will be with you.  I am who I am.”  Amen.

(c) Copyright 2007 by Jessica Weinhold.  All rights reserved.  Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution.