Questioning God

Six: The God Who May Be

153 six The God Who May Be Richard Kearney Introduction In Exodus 3:14, Moses meets his maker. Leading his flock to the desert mountain of Horeb, he is summoned by a voice from the midst of a flaming bush. From this strange fire which burns without being consumed, the voice calls and Moses answers ‘‘Here I am.’’ The voice bids him stand back and take off his sandals. And revealing himself as the Lord of his ancestors—of Abraham , Isaac, and Jacob—God says he has heard the cry of his people and has come to deliver them from bondage. But it is not enough for Moses. Standing there under the midday sun, he surely wonders if this is not some mirage, some hoax. Perhaps the voice is an inner demon prompting him to a fit of madness. After all, wasn’t it just such a dark angel who appeared to Jacob late one night and shattered his hip before disclosing the name of Israel? And wasn’t it another strange voice which summoned Abraham to Mount Moriah to murder his own son? That was a cruel command. A trick, of course. Only a test of faith. But still, he must tread carefully. Moses isn’t quite sure he wants to do business with such a mercurial God: one who sends visitors to maim you in the middle of the night and Richard Kearney 154 commandeers blood sacrifice (even if he isn’t really serious). Every angel is terrible in a way, isn’t it? Moses longed for a God of justice and liberty. A God who would remain constant and faithful to his people. But who was he to question God—if this really was God and not some counterfeit conjured by his dizzy mind? He would have to proceed cautiously. So instead of asking straight out Who are you?, Moses puts it another way, the other way around: ‘‘Who am I?’’ ‘‘Who am I,’’ he inquires, that I should go unto Pharaoh and lead the children of Israel out of Egypt? To which God replies with a second, though still indirect, revelation of himself: ‘‘I will be with Thee.’’ The ancestral God is now declaring himself a faithful God—one who will stand by Moses as he embarks on his mission to a promised land. Still Moses is unsure, but he is beginning to like the sound of things. There is maybe more to this deity than meets the eye, he muses. Something more than the tribal divinity of his forebears, a hint of something new. Not just a God of ancestry, it seems, but a God of advent: a promise for the future. Emboldened by this surmise, Moses asks God, one last time, to reveal himself, to say who he truly is, to disclose his real name. Feet still bare on the hot sand, Moses takes a small step forward. He wipes perspiration from his forehead, and addresses the burning bush: ‘‘When I come unto the children of Israel and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say to them?’’ (Exodus 3:13). To which God responds, bolder and brasher this time—his third and final reply: ¿ehyeh ¿aser ¿ehyeh. The King James version reads: ‘‘And God said unto Moses, I am that I am: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I am hath sent me unto you.’’ And lest there be any lingering doubt, God adds the binding promise: ‘‘This is my name forever and this is my memorial unto all generations’’ (Exodus 3:15). So there we have it. Holy Moses, a tired shepherd with a price on his head, dusty and parched after days of wandering about with his father-in-law’s sheep in the desert, is confronted with a fire that doesn’t burn out and a voice that answers his questions with a riddle! If Moses is to lead his people out of bondage in Egypt, he needs to know the credentials of the one who speaks to him. He must be able to convince his own people, after all, that this God is a better bet than the magic deity of Pharaoh and the Egyptians. So how does God respond to Moses? How does he reassure His bewildered shepherd, racked with doubt and insecurity? He reassures by repeating Himself, by not really...