Reading: Exodus 3:1-13 The opening words of Exodus 3 contain for me what is the most significant story in the Old Testament. It is about the nature of God. And let me say from the outset that, as disconcerting as it may be to the current batch of atheists, I no longer believe in God as a being who controls the earth. God is the ground of our being. God for me is the energising substrata of life.

And immediately I say that I know I have not said enough to describe God. Indeed as Val Webb says, `It is impossible to catch God within the net of human words`. The Jews tumbled to this millennia ago. One of the great contributions of the Jewish faith to the life of the world was their understanding of God as `inexpressible`. They maintained that it is of the nature of God to be indefinable. It was this that made them so implacably opposed to idols. It also, however, resulted in a real problem. How do you speak of and express the inexpressible? How do you speak of the nature of God? The story in Exodus 3 deals with this question.

Moses finds himself in the presence of God – the eternal flame, the flame that is never extinguished. It has been a symbol of God from the earliest times, its significance being that it has no form and gives light and warmth.

Moses finds himself in the presence of God and asks the question. `What is your name? If I go to the people of Israel, whom shall I say has sent me? What is your name?` (Remembering of course that the name in those days was about the nature of the person and not just the whim of a parent.)

And then comes the oddest answer you have ever heard. The answer given is `havah`, the verb to be, a word closely associated with the word `chavah` – to live. This is translated by most as `I am` or `I am who I am`. `When they ask you, `Who sent you?` say `I am has sent me`.

To many people this is a most peculiar answer. Not a bit of it! It speaks of the essence of God, that of being, the life force, the essence of life, the energising substance of life – or however else you want to describe life itself.

The theologian who came closest to speaking of God in this way was Paul Tillich. He spoke of God as `the ground of our being`, the `depth of our being` vis a vis the shallowness of much of what we know as life. The titles of his books show what he was on about: `The Courage to Be`, `The New Being`. He suggested that instead of thinking of God as a supernatural being out there, think of it in terms of depth of life. `The name of this infinite and inexhaustible depth and ground of being is God`. God is the ground of our being. `In God we live and move and have our being.`

What is being maintained in this story is that God is the spirit, the very breath, of life. God is the evolutionary invitation to fullness of life, the energy that drives the evolutionary process, the energy of resurrection. God is not a noun. God is a verb. God is not a being. God is the ground of our being, and the glory of God is everything fully alive. Every time we are aware of being alive, every time we resonate with life and life resonates with us, we are close to, we know, we become aware of the presence of the one whom we call God – the great `I am` revealed to Moses in the wilderness.

`To be or not to be` really is the question. To be alive is miracle enough. To be conscious of being alive is awesome. To stand in awe of life - this is what worship is all about. This is what our opening hymn sought to do: `Lord of all being, near and far, your glory flames from sun and star. Centre and soul of every sphere, yet to each living heart how near.`

Let me at this point sum up in a few sentences what I see emerging from this scripture– a summary of my faith if you like.

How the universe came into being is of interest but no great interest to me. It may well be particles in a vacuum. What is of interest to me is, to coin a phrase, `fullness of life` and how we love it into being. The Christian faith is essentially about the present and the future. It is about being, and the ground of our being, with God as the energising spirit of life, and Jesus being the man from God`s tomorrow – love incarnate as they used to say in the first century. As the writer of the first letter of John says: `God is love and those who live in love live in God, and God lives in them for God is love.` (1 John 4:16)

How do we speak about God today?
If `it is impossible to catch God within the net of human words`, how do we speak of God today? What I will be suggesting this morning is that the only option we have is to speak in terms of metaphor, and that metaphor has two inherent dangers – that of using inappropriate metaphors and of literalising the metaphor.

The Importance of Metaphor
It is not often that politicians agree with me or I with them. We operate from a different premise. It was with interest then that I read Paul Keating`s comment that the Labor Party lacks `an overarching and compelling story`. He went on to say, `The great changes in civilization and society have been wrought by deeply held beliefs and passion rather than by a process of rational deduction . . . This is not to say that rationalization isn`t important and good. It is. But left to itself without the guidance of a higher concept, rationalism can be mean and incomplete.` The Australian, October 22, 2011.

Fascinating stuff! A politician recognizing that it isn`t simply a case of rational and irrational, there is also the non rational, a politician who sees through the disaster of dualism, how the giving of allegiance to one polarity of subject and object, material and spiritual, faith and reason etc puts one into a straitjacket. It really is fascinating how politicians who have retired seem to see things very clearly. General Eisenhower was the same and ended up referring to war as futile and stupid, and every rocket fired being theft from the poor. Keating in his retirement is also starting to make a great deal of sense.

But that is not the aspect of Keating`s statement to which I want to refer. It is about the lack of `an overarching and compelling story`. What Keating says of the Labor Party is true of society at large: it has no `overarching and compelling story`, and a society without an overarching and compelling story is like a ship without a rudder. And it is only a matter of time before it washes up on some desolate beach and becomes a rotting hulk.

It is true too of individuals. Each one of us needs a compelling and overarching story by which to live, and this is evidenced in so much of the senseless activity we see evidenced in our society. It is also evidenced in part by the increasing number of youth suicides. These are young people with the whole of their lives stretching out before them and they deliberately end it. And it isn`t enough to simply say they were depressed. The question is, `Why were they depressed?` There are no glib answers but one of the factors is the lack of a significant and compelling story by which to live, a story that can deal with suffering, inadequate relationships and a lack of direction.

Keating is right. Without a vision the people perish.

What I would like to do this morning is to look at the Christian Faith as an overarching and compelling story, and that when it comes to a situation of `may the best story win`, it is up there with the best of them. The Christian faith has nothing to fear in a secular post modern society and indeed should welcome it. I do not seek to defend the Christian faith. As David Sheppard said many years ago `You don`t defend a lion, you simply set it free`. What I will be suggesting is that the failure to understand the nature and use of metaphor is one of the chains restraining the Church today.

The Nature of Metaphor
So what is metaphor? Metaphor, as Sally McFague defines it, is `a way of thinking of the unknown in terms of the known`. Why use metaphors? There are a number of reasons:

(1) The first reason metaphor is important is that it is a way of expressing that which cannot be known. There are many things which remain unknown. The future for example remains unknown, and metaphor enables us to open up the future. Metaphor enables us to transcend the present and to think about life as it could be. It is `a way of thinking of the unknown in terms of the known`.

And, as we saw in our Old Testament scripture, metaphor is particularly important when we speak of God for, as the Jews have maintained for centuries, there is no other way to speak of God. As a friend of mine puts it, `Metaphor is a theological necessity`. God cannot be defined. Once you do so, you have an idol. Do we then stop talking about God as the Jews actually did at one point in their history? (1)

I doubt if that is a realistic possibility. The alternative is to use metaphor to express the inexpressible. And this is what has been done over the centuries. We use metaphor to speak about God – and the metaphors have changed as our understanding of life and the world have changed. At one point in our history we thought of God in terms of an all powerful superhuman being residing in the heavens and controlling the world. Today we think of God as the energising spirit of life calling us to fullness of life. God is seen as the ground of our being. The glory of God is everything fully alive.

At one point in its history the Church was obsessed with belief as the primary issue and the all important question was, `Do you believe in God?` This is a question that makes no sense today. You may as well ask `Do you believe in life?` The terms `God` and `Life` are different ways of describing the same reality. If someone says to you, `I don`t believe in God!` the appropriate answer is, `Tell me about the God you don`t believe in because I suspect I don`t believe in that God either.` Our ideas about the nature of God have changed enormously over the centuries and this is because metaphors change with the times and this is why some of us no longer find the old metaphor of God as an all powerful being in the heavens helpful. We prefer to use the metaphor of God as the energising Spirit of Life in which we live and move and have our being, the evolutionary spirit of life pointing us to fullness of life. Be that as it may, the point I am making is that when we speak of the unknowable we have to use metaphors.

(2) The second reason for using metaphors is to clarify what is already known. Contrary to what some assert, life isn`t simple, and anyone who asserts it is hasn`t got to square one. The use of metaphor can help explain what are very difficult concepts to explain. This is, of course, why Jesus used metaphor so extensively. Matthew tells us that `without parables he did not teach them`. The reason he used extended metaphor is also stated: `People`s minds have become dull, they hear but do not hear.` Parables are used so that they `may see with their eyes, hear with their ears and understand with their minds`. (Matt 13:15). Parables are designed to `impact` upon those who hear them. They are stories with a sting in their tail. They are designed to evoke a response. They challenge us to choice and decisive action. Unfortunately, centuries of Christianity have taken the punch out of the Parables. No longer do they shock and disturb as they did in the first century. Their radical nature has been lost in the halls of history.

The fact remains however that metaphors are a dynamic way of communicating. It overcomes passive listening. In metaphor the truth is implicit and the listener has to work at finding the meaning. If he or she gets it, it will be his or her truth and may lead to God only knows where. The language of metaphor liberates. The language of definition constricts. Metaphor is the language that opens up the future.

Two dangers with respect to using metaphors
(1) Firstly, something that is very obvious. For a metaphor to work it must be of an experience shared by the one who hears it. And this is one of the problems which the Church faces today with many of its metaphors. Take for example the metaphor of the shepherd and his sheep. Only a very small minority of people in our society have anything to do with sheep, and those that do certainly don`t know their sheep by name. I am not suggesting that we do away with the metaphor of the shepherd and his sheep. It is of historical importance. We do, however, need metaphors that are more relevant to our experience. One can learn a foreign language but understanding and communication are best served by speaking in the language of our fellows.

It is not enough to say that the `the acids of modernity have eroded a truthful understanding of language`. We need new metaphors. `If there is to be a renewal of Christian life, there will need to be a reformation with regard to language`. Forgive me for repeating the words of Keith Rowe once again. `We need to rethink Christian belief in the light of insights and understandings not available to earlier generations.` The bible is overstocked with sheep but that doesn`t make it a relevant metaphor for our day and generation. To speak of God in terms of burning bush today wouldn`t be helpful, because our experience of burning bush is very different from that of Moses. For a metaphor to work it must be of an experience shared by the one who hears it.

Michael Morwood is one who emphasises this idea of relevant metaphors. He points out that language and metaphors of one century do not hold for all time, that what people are rejecting today is an outdated framework, an outdated story, and that we should be doing for our day and generation what the Christian thinkers did for the early centuries of the Church - and we should be doing it with the same diligence and courage. It is no surprise to learn that in 1998 the Roman Catholic Church banned his book and prompted him to leave the priesthood. He continues today to talk of a New Story and radical changes to how we articulate the Christian Faith. He also points out that in promoting what he calls New Story, we will probably encounter as much opposition and argumentation as the early Christians did in theirs.

(2) The second danger is that of literalising the metaphor. I see this as a crucial issue for the Church and one which is turning many thinking people away from the Church. To take the metaphors of the bible and literalise them is a recipe for disaster. To take the metaphor of the opening chapters of Genesis and turn it into fact is counter productive. The scriptures are full of metaphor for the two reasons I have suggested: because we are talking about God, and because it needs clarifying. To take these metaphors and turn them into literal belief makes the Christian faith an anachronism, makes it irrelevant in our day and generation. I have no problems with God being described as `like a Father`. It is a metaphor and generally speaking a good one – although many fathers today leave a lot to be desired. But to make God literally a dominant male being who sacrifices his son and invites us to heaven to be with him there is a disaster of literal proportions and it has much to do with the disrepute into which the Christian faith has fallen today. In a recent Q&A the listening audience were asked, `Does religious belief make the world a better place?` Twenty thousand responded and 75% of those said that religious belief does not make the world a better place. It gives some idea of the low standing of the Christian faith in society as a whole and the reason the Church is in real trouble today. We now have a generation of people who have no understanding of the Christian faith – and why? Because we literalise the metaphors and make the Christian Faith incredible.

What then about the scriptures today?
The scriptures remain of huge importance. They are our link with the past. The scriptures are our rear vision mirror. If you do not use your rear vision mirror you can end up in real trouble. Its use is critical to knowing what is going on around you. The scriptures remain of huge importance.

Walter Brueggeman speaks these days of `double reading` the scriptures: to read them from the viewpoint of what our culture has to say about their story, and what their story has to say about our culture. They are wise words – to read the scriptures so that the biblical story and our story inform each other. This is what I like to think we are doing today in looking at the story of Moses and the burning bush.

My concern is that when we literalise the stories we bring the scriptures and the Christian story into disrepute, and for the life of me (a very interesting phrase) I cannot understand why people insist on literalising metaphors. It places a stumbling block of huge proportions in the path of so many people. As Marcus Borg says, `We need to take the scriptures seriously but not literally.`

Conclusion
What then am I suggesting? We live today in a post modern society, that is a society in which there is not one story but many. Within this society, the Christian faith is one of many stories but for me it is the one that leads the way. It stands head and shoulders above other stories. Two of the other stories which are popular at the moment are that of pleasure being the aim and end all of life, and violence being an effective instrument of change. If we had time we could look at these stories and how inadequate they are. (2)
Sufficient now to say that the Christian story is good value and stands well in the company of other stories and I find it sad that in so much of the Christian Church we are denigrating it by literalising outdated metaphors. Our society, and we as individuals desperately, need an over arching and compelling story by which to live. It is my contention that the Christian faith is such a story. It is one that I covet for myself and our society.


Notes
(1) So concerned were they about this that they took out the vowels from their word for God and I noted the other day that this is what some theologians are doing today: they are writing the word God as G_D

(2) Pleasure as the aim and end of life is the popular story at the moment and it is woeful as a story by which to live, as Aldous Huxley pointed out so long ago in his novel `Brave New World`. He suggested that the logical outcome of a society based on pleasure was that of people lying in pods and being fed pleasure inducing drugs. If pleasure seeking is one`s life story, one needs to be pitied more than praised. Pleasure is a by-product of life not an end in itself. The Christian story stands head and shoulders above that of pleasure seeking.

The same goes for violence being an effective instrument of political change. The Christian story is a story of non violence. Notwithstanding the terrible history of the established Church, the Christian story is one of nonviolence with the crucified Jesus being the epitome of active non violence. One would have to be blind not to see that violence is increasingly dysfunctional as a political instrument, something that is evidenced in Iraq, Afghanistan and in our justice system.