3 Lent.C.16.25
Exodus 3:1-15
The Rev. Melanie McCarley

The ground you stand upon his holy ground. Easy enough to believe while we share this hallowed space. Or, well remembered as we recall the beauty of the Berkshires or the vast expanse of the Great Plains. But do we think of the sidewalk by our street, the garden in our back yard, the space before our kitchen sink or the carpeted floors of our office as holy ground? This, I imagine, is more difficult. Holy ground, for most of us, is reserved for those spaces where we expect to find glimpses of God (the Grand Canyon or Canterbury Cathedral), not those places in which we conduct the every day business of living our lives. But all ground is holy ground.

Alice Walker, in her book of prose In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens remembers her mother’s garden as it was when she was a child, and the power it had to nurture her spirit and move herself beyond the poverty that was so much of her young life. She writes: “My mother adorned with flowers whatever shabby house we were forced to live in. And not just your typical scraggly country strand of zinnias, either. She planted ambitious gardens—and still does—with other fifty different varieties of plants that bloom profusely from early March until late November… Because of her creativity with flowers, even my memories of poverty are seen through a screen of blooms—sunflowers, petunias, roses, dahlias, forsythia, spirea, delphiniums, verbena…and on and on.”

Holy ground is the dirt beneath your feet, the foundation upon which your home sits, and the street outside your front door. Alice Walker’s mother, extraordinary woman that she was, knew the power of holy ground—and in the best sense of the word, she was a steward of what was holy in her life.

Yet when we think of Holy Ground, for many of us, what we conjure up is the image of Moses, standing in terror and awe before the burning bush at the foot of Mount Horeb. We envision a bush consumed by fire yet not burnt. Who can blame us then, if when we think of holy ground, we naturally expect to behold something spectacular. Some biblical scholars have speculated that the burning bush before which Moses stood was, in truth, a type of plant which sprouted bright red foliage rather than a plant literally awash in flames. I don’t possess the answer myself, but there is a part of me that thinks if the historians are correct in their rationalization of scripture—rather than explaining away this event, as sometimes happens, it is made all the more miraculous that Moses saw in this ordinary plant God calling to him from the flame-red leaves. “Moses, Moses.” And upon his response, God reminds Moses that the ground upon which he stood was indeed holy ground. “Take the shoes off from your feet.” God commands. And Moses obeys.

The story continues with God’s promises to deliver the people of Israel to yet another holy land, this one chosen by God to be for God’s chosen people. The Lord says: “I have come down to deliver the Israelites out of the land of their sufferings to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey… Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring forth my people, out of Egypt.”

The promise of holy ground, given to Moses was really a lesson in stewardship. You see, Moses, he never actually got to the promised land. He saw it from afar, but the soles of his feet never touched the soil which held within it the freedom for which the Israelites longed. It is, I believe, a lesson to us that we do not possess the land so much as we care for it for a time. We live upon it, we die in it, but we do not own it.

In ages past, many cultures regarded all land as holy. These ancient peoples were connected with the earth in a way that we are not. These people, living in such close contact with the dirt and elements knew, in a way that many of us have lost, how very dependent they were upon the ground. Industrialization has largely caused this sense of dependency to disappear—at least in our own culture. Technology has succeeded in separating us from our environment—and has nursed in us the illusion that this world was created for us to use solely as we see fit—and so we pollute the rivers and abuse the habitats of the plants and animals that dwell within them. Too many of us have lost the sense that the ground we stand upon is holy, and that we are stewards, not owners. We are those who have been entrusted with what has been given into our care. To abuse this land, our home, is to miss the understanding that this indeed, is holy ground.

Astronaut James Irwin recorded his reflections upon seeing the earth from his space ship. He writes: “The Earth reminded us of a Christmas tree ornament hanging in the blackness of space. As we got farther and farther away it diminished in size. Finally it shrank to the size of a marble, the most beautiful marble you can imagine. That beautiful, warm, living object looked so fragile, so delicate, that if you touched it with a finger it would crumble and fall apart.” He continues “Seeing this has to change a person, has to make a person appreciate the creation of God and the love of God.” It is not just the backdrop of the awesome dark infinity of space that seemed to have evoked in these people feelings of reverence, of protectiveness, of gratitude and responsibility, but the very act of God which loved us so much that a home was created.

Without an understanding of what is holy about the ground upon which we stand, we lose a sense of how we are to treat this world which has been gifted into our care. In a fundamental sense, our personal sense of holiness as well as the freedom that comes with it, is tied intimately to the earth’s. The reason for this is simple. Just as Adam was created from the dust of the earth, so too, we remember on Ash Wednesday and throughout this season of Lent that we too are but dust. We are of the earth just as surely as we are caretakers of it as well. We are as intimately tied to the dust beneath our feet as we are upon the air which flows into our lungs and the water we drink. We are made of both matter and spirit. This is our nature and our heritage. From the awesome limitlessness of outer space to the flower garden on the window sill of a tiny, white-frame house, all ground is holy ground. And it is our privilege as well as responsibility to protect it. In Jesus’s name. Amen.