Shoes

Standard

Sermon for March 23, 2025

Readings:

A friend of mine once said, “If you buy Cole Hann shoes, they will last you a lifetime. If you put them on your credit card, that is about how long you will be paying for them.” I have to admit that over the years that has been one of my preferred brand of shoes, not just because they are comfortable and fashionable, but largely because they are durable, and I do a lot of walking. So they aren’t cheap, but sometimes you get what you pay for. Anyways, this is a sermon and not a commercial. 

I bring up shoes, because it occurred to me this week that they really are a piece of ancient technology. I don’t usually think of shoes as being technology, as they aren’t mechanical or electronic. I think of them as being an object of fashion at best, or an everyday necessity at least, but I don’t usually think of them as being a technological advancement. But that is what they are. They are one of the most basic human inventions, that allow us to travel great distances. They give us freedom, they give us protection, they make us feel less vulnerable. They are technology, but I hadn’t really thought of them much in that way until I was reading our Exodus passage this week.

In our Exodus passage this morning we hear the story of Moses’s first encounter with God speaking to him from the burning bush. It is important to note that this is the first time Moses meets God. This is long before the encounter when Moses receives the Ten Commandments, which we recited a few minutes ago. That meeting happens after the exodus from Egypt, but this one is before. Moses’s first meeting with God.

And the thing about this meeting that I find fascinating is that the first thing that God asks Moses to do is to take his shoes off. Why does God do this? He says that the place Moses is standing is Holy Ground, but that doesn’t really answer the question. What is it about shoes that God finds to be unholy or inappropriate for this place or this encounter? What is wrong with Moses’s shoes? That is the question that I have been pondering this week. So, I began to wonder, “what is a shoe really?” Well, it is a piece of technology. A human creation that makes us feel less vulnerable. Shoes protect your feet so that you can travel great distances. Without shoes Moses would have had a much harder time trekking across the desert to meet God. They serve a good purpose, but like any piece of technology they can mask our true vulnerability and weakness as humans. As simple as they are, they make us feel stronger and more independent than we actually are. Don’t believe me? Those of you who commute into the city, think of what your life would be like if you had to do that barefooted every week? Still don’t believe me? Then I would just point out that I put out a sign-up sheet several weeks ago looking for twelve volunteers to get their feet washed on Maundy Thursday and I am still a name short. Shoes make us feel less vulnerable, and on most of our walks in life that is a good thing, but not on our walk with God. With God, we need to be vulnerable. With God, we need to first understand how weak and helpless we really are. 

That is where Moses begins with God: barefooted. God is almighty and there is nothing that Moses can do, but just bow down before him. But then God has work for Moses to do. God is going to send Moses back to Egypt, back to Pharoah, and through Moses God is going to set his people free and lead them out of slavery into a new land. God is going to use Moses to save his people, and then after God saves his people, after he spares them from the plagues, and from thirst and starvation, and after they walk through the sea, then God is going to call them back to this holy mountain and then he is going to give them the law, the instructions on how they are to live their lives in this world. But he saves them first.

The first time that Moses encounters God on the mountain, he has to learn about his own weakness and vulnerability and dependence on God and God’s love for salvation. That comes first. Then, the second time that Moses encounters God on the mountain, then he is given practical rules and laws that he can live by that will make his life and the lives of others better on earth. The children of Israel aren’t saved because they adhere to the law; they adhere to the law because they are saved. God saved them before he ever gave them the law. God saved them simply because he loved them. It was his power that saved them; not their own. It wasn’t their shoes that parted the Red sea.

One of the things we encountered in our study of Deuteronomy this week, was Moses saying to the Israelites before they entered the promised land that they were not here because they were more righteous than other nations. In fact, he says, you are stubborn. But God loves you. That is why God has brought you here. And the commandments that God has given you, they are for your benefit. They will make your life, and the life of the world better, if you keep them, and teach your children to keep them. This is not about earning God’s love; it is about responding to God’s love. Yes, you will fail in some way, we all do, but you can always come back to them. That is what repentance means. It doesn’t have to be a shameful thing. It shouldn’t be shameful at all. It is about rediscovering something wonderful: God’s love. That is what repentance really is, rediscovering God’s love and rejoicing in it again. 

When Jesus talks about repentance in the gospel this morning he is really talking about it as a way of life. Not a one-time thing of telling God you are sorry, but a continual returning to God as the source of all that is good in your life. Our faith really is about trusting in God’s goodness more than we trust in anything else, including and especially ourselves and the works of our own hands. No piece of technology, no matter how insignificant should ever come between us and God. We can’t put our faith in them. In the gospel, some people came up to Jesus and asked him about two things: a horrible act of cruelty that Pontius Pilate had done, and a terrible disaster where many people were killed by a building’s collapse. Right away Jesus dismisses the idea that those disasters were in any way God’s punishment for sin. No, he says. It doesn’t work that way. Disasters happen. Humans do despicable things. Technology fails. Bad things happen to innocent people. The world has always been this way. Don’t try to blame the victims for being sinners and don’t try to blame God for punishing sin. That is not what is going on here. But repent anyways Jesus says. Repent. Turn back to God. Rediscover God’s love and rejoice in it, because the world is unpredictable. No amount of technology is going to give you complete control over the world around you or the people in it. So first of all, live in the knowledge and light of God’s love. But if you do believe in and trust the saving power of God’s love, then listen when God is telling you to do something, or not to do something. We should rejoice in God’s salvation which is not something we earn, but we should also rejoice in God’s wisdom and law and exercise it to the best of our ability. It is not a choice between belief and action. It is both. Belief and trust first, then action. 

First, we must learn what we cannot do, then we must learn what we can do. That seems to be how God’s salvation works. It is a two-step process. First, we must be completely vulnerable with God, and recognize our own weakness and frailty as human beings; then we must listen to God and choose to follow in the way he has shown us. God does give us commandments; he gives us examples; he sends us out into the world with work to do, and we should do that and do it boldly, but only as people who have first humbled themselves, and know, truly know, that everything ultimately depends on God and not on us. That is at least why I think that God makes Moses take his shoes off first, before he sends him on an incredible journey.