Last July my partner Linda and I took a cruise along Italy's Amalfi coast. After we disembarked from the boat at our final destination, we spent four additional days exploring the city of Rome. In the weeks leading up to our trip, it seemed like everyone we knew told us about places we had to go, things we had to see, and restaurants we had to eat in. More than a few people told us we had to see Michaelangelo's sculpture of Moses at St. Peter in Chains church.
I'm not sure why, but I got it into my head that we were going to go see this Moses sculpture. I don't remember which day it was, or exactly where in the city we were when we decided, ok let's go find this place; but as it turned out, we were about as far away from that church as you could be. It took us easily an hour of walking to find the church. We stopped at every street intersection to check our map, and at one point we could see the church but couldn't figure out exactly how to get to it.
We finally get there, and join a group of young women walking into the church. As our eyes adjusted to the darkness we could see a large group of people to the right of the altar…looking at Moses.
Slowly we make our way to down to Moses, admiring the beautiful interior of this church and then this incredible work of art. About a minute goes by when I notice a young woman standing next to me wearing a paper poncho. I slowly turn my head and started looking around and realize that there are quite a few women wearing these paper poncho/dresses that are worn to cover their shoulders and knees. Of course, this was the day that I wore a tank top and shorts! I knew that many churches either wouldn't allow or strongly discouraged entering with shoulders and knees exposed. For whatever reason, it had slipped my mind and I hadn't even checked for a notice at the entrance.
I turned to Linda and whispered, "We have to go." She looked at me, and didn't say a word; she didn't have to, I could clearly see by the look on her face what she was thinking…and then she said it…
"We just schlepped across this city, in 100 degree weather, for over an hour because you had to see this Moses and now after all of one minute you're telling me you/we have to leave. Oh no, we've come this far you're going stay here and look at Moses."
I couldn't stay there. I looked over and saw a security person, and thought for sure he was on his way over to tell me to leave. I averted my eyes, thinking well, if I don't see him he won't see me. I suddenly became so aware of my body, of my exposed shoulders and knees; how I was being seen.
But, I'm getting a little ahead of myself. Because I want to say a little more about Moses.
The image on the bulletin cover is a photo of Michaelangelo's Moses at St. Peter in Chains church. You can see that he has tablets tucked under his arm, but he also has horns. In this photo you can only see one, but trust me there's two. Moses is depicted with horns, as opposed to "the radiance of the Lord," due to the similarity in the Latin between the word for "beams of light" and "horns." This kind of iconographic symbolism was common in early sacred art, and of course it's easier to sculpt horns than abstract light. Folks would understand that the horns referred to or represented the radiance of Moses' face, not that he actually had horns. This is the Moses of our ancient testimony this morning.
This text from Exodus is the Hebrew Bible lectionary texts for today. I know that at Judson we don't necessarily follow the lectionary for our ancient testimony, but we do loosely follow the liturgical or church calendar. The Season of Epiphany has just come to an end, this coming Wednesday is Ash Wednesday: the beginning of the Lenten Season.
Today is Transfiguration Sunday. In churches that follow the lectionary, the Gospel text is from Luke and it is the story of Jesus taking Peter and James and John with him up on the mountain to pray. While he is praying, the appearance of his face changes and his clothes become dazzling white. When this happens the disciples suddenly see two men, Moses and Elijah. The text reads that, "They appeared in glory and were speaking to Jesus of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem."
Jesus is transfigured before them as a visible sign that he is the messiah. This transfiguration marks a transition in the Jesus story and subsequently a transition in our church calendar. Having said all that, I knew I didn't have to preach from the Lectionary, but after reading the Exodus text, I couldn't stop thinking about Moses. Now I know this is a bit of a generalization, but I think its pretty safe to say that when we think of Moses there are a few distinct images that come to mind such as: parting the Red Sea, burning bush, the tablets, and yes, Charlton Heston.
Does the image of Moses wearing a veil to cover his shining face come to mind? I know it never had for me. I read the text a few more times and started to wonder about Moses and that veil. Did God tell him to wear the veil? If not, how did Moses decide that he should wear the veil? If it was important for the people to see his face shining, why then did they need to be shielded from it? How did he know that he should remove it when he went before the Lord?
The text just reads:
When Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil on his face; but whenever Moses went in before the Lord to speak with him, he would take the veil off, until he came out; and when he came out, and told the Israelites what he had been commanded, the Israelites would see the face of Moses, that the skin of his face was shining; and Moses would put the veil on his face again, until he went in to speak with him.
The questions that I pose were just a few that came to mind immediately. And as I thought about, meditated, reflected on this passage in the broader context of the Exodus story, what emerged was the concept of Seeing and Being Seen.
It is to this idea, of Seeing and Being Seen, that I now turn because I believe it may offer insight into the question-what does Moses and his veil have to do with me, what does it have to do with us?
"Launch into the deep and you shall see."
This quote from Jacques Ellul appears in Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Dillard's book, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. Dillard has been called a modern-day mystic and it is in this book she uses stories of her experiences living near Tinker Creek to speak about the human condition and our relationship with the Divine. The quote by Ellul appears in a chapter of the book that is titled, "Seeing." I have read this chapter alone at least a dozen times. I'm fascinated by the connection that she draws between how we 'see' and what we 'experience'. Dillard describes two ways or kinds of seeing. This is how she describes the first: "I analyze and pry. I hurl over logs and roll away stones; I study the bank (of the creek) a square foot at a time, probing and tilting my head."
To me this way of seeing is very scientific and practical. It is the type of seeing that I am very practiced at. In fact, it was the first way I launched deep into the Exodus text and began to make connections between sight and experience.
For instance, Moses wants to see the Glory of God. But that is not possible-no one is to see the Face of God; Moses is only afforded a passing glimpse of God's back. This occurs when Moses is talking to God about reconciling and renewing the covenant between God and the Israelites. It is a time of transition in the relationship between God, Moses, and the Israelites. This is what precedes the text we heard earlier. It is while the covenant is being renewed and restored that Moses is truly and fully seen by God, and when that happens, some of God's divine radiance is passed onto Moses.
The text goes on to say that when Aaron and the Israelites see Moses' shining face they are afraid. Moses assures them it is okay and the people recognize Moses' authority and relationship with God, not just at that moment, but in the future because they see that "the skin of his face is shining."
The more systematic, practical way of seeing certainly offers some insight, but to understand the veil, we have to consider the second way of seeing that Dillard describes. She goes on to say, "But there is another kind of seeing that involves a letting go. When I see this way I sway transfixed and emptied."
But it's not as simple as it sounds. Dillard reminds us of this when she writes,
But I can't go out and try to see this way. I'll fail, I'll go mad. All I can do is try to gag the commentator, to hush the noise of useless interior babble…The effort is really a discipline requiring a lifetime of dedicated struggle; it marks the literature of saints and monks of every order East and West…The world's spiritual geniuses seem to discover universally that the mind's muddy river, this ceaseless flow of trivia and trash cannot be dammed, and that trying to dam it is a waste of effort that might lead to madness. Instead you must allow the muddy river to flow unheeded in the dim channels of consciousness; you raise your sights; you look along it, mildly, acknowledging its presence without interest and gazing beyond it into the realm of the real where subjects and objects act and rest purely, without utterance. "Launch into the deep," says Jacques Ellul, "and you shall see."
Dillard warns us that it isn't something you can just go out and do. And yet, I know I tried. And the harder I tried, the more frustrated I became.
The secret to launching into the deep, really is the letting go.
And for a long time I was so afraid 'of letting go.' My fear prevented me from seeing who I truly was and could be; and it prevented me from the assuring and affirming experience of being seen. My fear was rooted in my inability to reconcile my sexuality and my spirituality. I was unable to see how I could be a lesbian and a minister. And so I was neither. I had convinced myself that I could live like that. And for a long time I did.
But my call to ministry was too strong, and in the process of discerning my call, my sexuality came to the fore. It came to a point that I could no longer deny these two halves of myself. I had to let go of my fear, had to lift the veil and seek out my God. True to Dillard's warning that "you can't set out to see that which you most want to see," when it happened, my experience was a gift and a total surprise. Though my experience was not exactly the same as Dillard's, she does describe it best in the conclusion of her chapter on Seeing. I'd like to share a few excerpts from that conclusion. She writes,
It was less like seeing than like being for the first time seen, knocked breathless by a powerful glance.
The flood of fire abated, but I'm still spending the power.
I was still ringing. I had been my whole life a bell, and never knew it until at that moment I was lifted and struck. I have since only very rarely seen the tree with the lights in it. The vision comes and goes, mostly goes, but I live for it, for the moment when the mountains open and a new light roars in spate through the crack, and the mountains slam.
I believe we are all living for those moments. Wanting to be seen and in that glance receiving some assurance and affirmation of who and what we are to be, as individuals and as a community of faith.
So, about Moses and that veil: I believe Moses is 'letting go' when he lifts the veil, letting go of whatever the veil is acting as a barrier to. The passage in Exodus makes it sound so simple. Perhaps for Moses it was simple, but I'm not so sure about that.
How does Moses know when to lift the veil? Again, the text doesn't really give us any clues. And so we are left with some questions of our own. How then do we discern when to lift the veil? Who do we see? And who is waiting to be seen by us?
Ancient Testimony: Exodus 34: 29-35
