To go up the mountain, we have to leave everyone else behind - April 29

Today’s Readings: AM Psalm 38; PM Psalm 119:25–48; Exod. 19:16–25; Col. 1:15–23; Matt. 3:13–17

In today’s Old Testament lesson, there is this great experience of thunder, fire, and smoke upon the top of Mount Sinai. God is reaching out to Moses with instructions for God’s people. Moses makes the journey up the mountain to encounter God while leaving everyone else at a safe distance. For your information, it is farther than six feet away.

I keep wondering what was going through Moses’s mind. How scared must he have been? I mean the mountain was on fire. And wouldn’t he have wanted to take someone with him? Maybe Aaron? Hasn’t he heard of the Buddy System?

Maybe what strikes me most is realizing that there are some places that we must venture to alone. I feel I have been writing a lot about how we share and invite people into our lives in order to recognize our shared humanity and remove isolation. I do wholeheartedly believe this to be true, and Moses does return off the mountain to share in community what he has learned, but he had to go up there alone first. Or maybe what Moses was learning about God, or about himself and his people, was something that the others were not ready yet to hear. Maybe they didn’t yet have the capacity to hear or learn. To go up the mountain, we have to leave everyone else behind.

In these days of a little elevated stress and worry, what are you learning about yourself? Or maybe more profoundly how is this shaping your understanding of God? Is there a scary place you are being invited into, that you must potentially do alone before you can invite others into that space? Are you learning something about yourself that needs exploration or work that only you can do? And if you do this work, how will it better help you to be in community when you return off the mountain?

- John+

Questions for Self-Reflection

  • What new thing have you learned about yourself in the last six weeks? How do you see this shaping the person you are becoming?

Daily Challenge

  • Take a walk, or intentionally take some time to be apart from people (this includes technology). Name one thing you have learned that others have not yet named that can be used to build up your community.

John Burruss