Holy Groud by Cheri Holdridge (with an assist by Kurt Young)

Take off your shoes. I mean it. If you are willing. Just take off your shoes and socks right here and now for the rest of the service today. This is a religious practice, that we simply don’t practice much in our tradition, but let’s try it today. I’ve been walking around with my shoes off all morning.

Take off your shoes, and realize as you rest your feet on the carpeted floor, that somewhere beneath the flooring is the earth. DIRT. GROUND. HOLY GROUND. The creation of God.

Imagine in this moment that you are connected to every other child of God who has ever walked on this same planet Earth. This one spherical mass of water and mineral is all connected, and we are all touching it with our feet. Holy Ground.

As the story goes in Exodus, God spoke to Moses and told him to take off his shoes. God said, “You are standing on Holy Ground.” Out of humility and respect for God, in that moment, Moses took off his shoes.

In some religions, the people take off their shoes to enter their Holy places of prayer every time. I have a pastor friend who takes off her shoes every Sunday to preach – much to the dismay of some of her more traditional congregations! I don’t know why they would prefer her to wear high heels. You see, bare feet are also a sign of poverty, and putting our materialism behind. I’d like that in a pastor.

So, we take off our shoes, to connect to our Creator, and the creation. We take off our shoes as an act of humility and respect for God, and to let go of material hungers.

Taking off our shoes, is a Sabbath ritual. It’s another way to STOP, and pay attention to God. Do you find it easy to find time and space to STOP and pay attention to God? About twenty of us were on a retreat yesterday at Swan Creek. In the morning, Sr. Breta and Sr. Sandy gave us some printed guides for reflection and sent us out for walks in the park. They asked us to reflect on one of these things: plants, trees, sky, or water. But for many of us the hardest thing was first just to STOP, to still our minds from all the other things we do in a day. Several in our group talked about needing to organize ourselves first, because that’s how we work every day. It was hard just to BE, because most of us are people who DO.

But Kristen shared a great story of how once she was finally able to sit still and just be, that she looked up and saw a small herd of five deer in Swan Creek. It was Gods sabbath gift of beauty in the moment. It was a Sabbath gift, something she never would have seen at work, or at home, busy DOING. She had to STOP her regular routine and be in God’s creation in order to receive this gift. She was still smiling Sunday morning about it.

We stretched ourselves on the retreat. Some of us danced a little dance out there in the park. We looked a little silly. But it was fun, for some of us, just do dance in the sun and be free; to allow our bodies to move, uninhibited for a few moments, like children. . . children of God.

Sabbath moments, are about STOPPING our regular routine, and opening ourselves to God. One of the best scriptures I know, about “stopping,” is the one that says: “Be still and know that I am God.”

Is it easy for you to be still, and just listen to God? For most people, who have never practiced quiet, listening prayer, it is a hard practice to begin. I suggest starting with a minute or two and then adding one minute a day, until you get up to 15 or 20 minutes. But this kind of quiet meditative prayer is something that takes practice, just like any other new thing in our lives.

But here is one good thing: meditative prayer is free, and you don’t need any special equipment, or any membership to an expensive health club to do it. You can practice quiet listening prayer anytime, anywhere. You just sit, you are still, clear your mind of any other thoughts, and listen to God. The STOPPING, of everything else is the biggest challenge. It something we can learn. I love to help people stop and practice this. Just ask me.

Well, let’s turn to our scripture for today, now, and see how God got Moses’ attention. This is a wonderful story, of God stopping Moses in his tracks. Just as God got Kristen’s attention yesterday with the small herd of deer, God gets Moses’ attention with a bush.

In today’s story, Moses was simply minding his own business. He was having a normal work day. He was a shepherd, working for his father-in-law Jethro. You may remember the story of Moses. He was a Hebrew baby, but he was raised in the palace of the Pharaoh of Egypt. But when Moses saw the Hebrew slaves being mistreated he got into a fight, and killed one of the overseers of the slaves. He had to flee the nearby country. He married Zipporah, and worked there for her father Jethro.

But God had much more in mind for Moses, than the quiet life of a shepherd. And so on the day in question, God got Moses’ attention with a burning bush. This was not just any burning bush, it burned but it was not consumed. When Moses saw the bush, he STOPPED, dead in his tracks. God told him to take off his shoes because he was standing on Holy Ground. Then God proceeded to tell Moses that God had a plan, a big job for Moses to do. Moses would go to the new Pharaoh (the old one had died by this time). And Moses would tell Pharaoh to set the slaves free!

But here is the part of the story I want us to focus on today. God got Moses’ attention, out there on the hillside, where Moses had been every day for year. It was the same boring routine. Now I don’t know much about taking care of sheep but I can’t imagine it’s very glamorous work: hard, work, yes, but not very exciting. I imagine it would be similar to the monotony to working in a factory in Toledo. Or maybe sitting behind the counter in a gas station where most people pump their own gas, on the midnight to six a.m. shift. Pretty boring work.

I am sure Moses did not expect to meet God that day. But he did. And here is why. Because God came looking for Moses, and Moses paid attention. When God set that bush on fire, Moses STOPPED! He took off his shoes in humility and respect, and he listened to God. How often do we just walk on by a burning bush of our own?

And in that moment, Moses’ life was changed, and the lives of countless other people where changed. They were set free from slavery because Moses said YES to God’s call upon his life.

How about you? When God sends you a burning bush, are you going to see it and STOP? Are you going to take off your shoes, in humility and respect and LISTEN to God? Are you going to be ready?

We have been talking for a few weeks now about Sabbath, and the idea of Sabbath rest. Last week, we took the long view of Sabbath rest and the idea of taking an every seven year Sabbatical, and the value of vacations to have some rhythm to rest in our lives.

But you don’t have to take a trip or a year off from work or even a week or a whole day to experience Sabbath. Sabbath can come in a moment too. Another way to think about Sabbath is this: to experience Sabbath means simply to STOP and pay attention to God. STOP!

Writer Wayne Muller, in his book, Sabbath, describes it this way, as he encourages us to use our senses to reconnect with God:

“The Sabbath prohibitions restrict those things that would impede our sensuality. Walk leisurely, don’t drive; walk in the garden, don’t answer the phone, turn off the television and the radio, forget the CD and the computer. Quiet the insidious technology, and remember we live in bodies that, through a feast of the senses, appreciate the beauty of the world. Walk under the stars and moon. Knock on the door, don’t ring the bell. Sing at the table. Eat, drink, touch, smell, and remember who you are.”

Many people who have a regular practice of prayer and reconnecting with God, say they do this best in nature. That’s why we usually do our retreats in parks. We take prayer walks. Other people take time on the weekend to go out somewhere in nature. There is something about being in the beautiful creation of God that pulls us outside ourselves.

Some people garden to connect with God, or stare at the stars at night, or go to a nearby stream and take of their shoes and wade in the water, like we all did when we were kids. There is something basic in connecting with the Earth, that soothes us.

We just need to STOP, sometimes, in order to calm and center, and rest in God. Some people take a nice hot bath to wash away the stress of the world and rest in the warm embrace of God.

You see. It’s not that complicated. Sabbath rest is not rocket science. It is time and space – set aside for God. It’s a change of pace.

Sabbath is as simple, as taking off your shoes, where you are, to be humble and remember that the earth is a creation of God. And to connect our bodies to this creation of God, and to remember that we are God’s creation too.

So I invite you this week, to carve out your own time and space for Sabbath. Consider right now how you will do that. What is one Sabbath ritual you will practice this week, and when will you do it? Make yourself a promise right now to do it. Take your shoes off like your crazy pastor. Do it right now, find your Sabbath this week.