THE ADVENT OF GOD: The Advent of Presence: Moses and Madiba

There are times in history, and special people in time, that suggest to us that God has in some sense walked among us. Not that Nelson Mandela would ever make such a claim, such was his humility and his own awareness of failings.

In ‘Conversations with Myself’ he wrote: As a young man I … combined all the weaknesses, errors and indiscretions of a country boy, whose range of vision and experience was influenced mainly by events in the area in which I grew up and the colleges to which I was sent. I relied on arrogance in order to hide my weaknesses. As an adult my comrades raised me and other fellow prisoners … from obscurity … although the aura of being one of the world’s longest serving prisoners never totally evaporated. One issue that deeply worried me in prison was the false image that I unwittingly projected to the outside world of being regarded as a saint. I never was one….

Yet as we mourn and celebrate the life and passing of this dear man, Madiba, it is difficult to avoid the sense that here was one who consciously or unconsciously had aligned himself with the presence, the voice and the energy of God and through this became the father of a new nation, one who brought freedom to people who had been suffering and oppressed.

Perhaps Mandela has been a modern day Moses. The comparison is worth some consideration in the context of part 2 of our advent theme today: The Advent of God:The Advent of Presence.

With great charm, humility, humour and wisdom Nelson Mandela journeyed from 27 years in prison cell to President, guiding his people through the suffering of violent racial discrimination to the relative freedom of democratic equality. The spiritual teacher and activist Rabbi Michael Lerner says this: The brilliance of Mandela was in his ability to lead the majority of South Africans to not do to others what had been done to them. In speech after speech, he taught his huge movement—and eventually the entire population of South Africa, which had elected him president—that revenge was the wrong way to go. Reconciliation, he argued, was the path to liberation and to a peaceful transition to African majority rule. And he was shown to be right!

Where did Mandela find his spirit, his insight, his presence to achieve these things? Perhaps for him the far side of the desert and the illumination of the light of the fire of God that took him away from violence to ways of peace and reconciliation was the prison cell itself. He says:

The cell is an ideal place to learn to know yourself, to search realistically and regularly the process of your own mind and feelings. In judging our progress as individuals we tend to concentrate on external factors such as one’s social position, influence and popularity, wealth and standard of education. These are, of course, important in measuring one’s success in material matters and it is perfectly understandable if many people exert themselves mainly to achieve all these. But internal factors may be even more crucial in assessing one’s development as a human being. 

And again: Honesty, sincerity, simplicity, humility, pure generosity, absence of vanity, readiness to serve others – qualities which are within easy reach of every soul – are the foundations of one’s spiritual life.

Development in matters of this nature is inconceivable without serious introspection, without knowing yourself, your weaknesses and mistakes. At least, if for nothing else, the cell gives you the opportunity to look daily into your entire conduct, to overcome the bad and develop whatever is good in you. Regular meditation, say about 15 minutes a day before you turn in, can be very fruitful in this regard. You may find it difficult at first to pinpoint the negative features in your life, but the 10th attempt may yield rich rewards. Never forget that a saint is a sinner who keeps on trying.

Maybe this was so for Moses too.

Is it not extraordinary that a man, who along with all other Jewish baby boys was due to be killed at birth on the orders of Pharoah of Egypt who has enslaved and oppressed Moses’ people, ends up being brought up in the royal court of that very same Pharoah and king?

Moses’ name means ‘is born’ but his survival depended on the compassion of the midwives who placed him in a basket of rushes sealed with bitumen and cast him adrift on the river Nile instead of throwing him into it to be drowned. Moses didn’t suffer imprisonment, but rather like the Buddha was brought up in a state of luxury, being spared the suffering of the Hebrew people who were slaves in Egypt busy building cities and pyramids perhaps. He had been found by Pharaoh’s daughter and brought up in the royal household. But the time came when he did realise the suffering of his people.  He killed an Egyptian who was beating a Hebrew and so had to flee from Pharaoh. Moses left Egypt, married Zipporah and became a shepherd somewhere in the Arabian Peninsula. We read that Moses travelled to the far side of the desert and there had an experience of God: the encounter with the burning bush.

For Moses it appears to be the journey through the desert and the experience of having to flee for his own life that brings about the deep reflection and eventually the ecstatic experience of the burning bush that changes everything for him.

At the time, possibly the reign of Ramses II, Egypt had a pantheon of divinities: gods and goddesses like Ra, Amun and Isis. In earliest times the gods were often considered as present in nature and responsible for all the events that people experienced. As civilisation developed with technologies for building cities and pyramids the gods became more remote. As human beings developed greater control over the natural environment to cultivate the land, domesticate animals, provide water supplies etc the gods were increasingly relegated to the heavenly realm – they became ‘sky gods’. Whereas in early animistic times the divine was seen as present everywhere, now the gods were more separate and needed to be appeased with offerings and sacrifices.

The experience of Moses at the burning bush is one of the most compelling moments in the Bible that suggests some new insight into the nature of the divine. Not that it is easy to interpret for it leaves us with Mystery. Moses experiences what James Alison calls an instantiation of God – a local and specific conscious awareness of divine presence. In that context Moses discovers that God is both personal and compassionate: the divine presence calls Moses by name, cares about suffering and desires freedom from it for the Hebrew people.

It is sometimes tempting for me to think of God as being impersonal, that God is simply the energy of the universe, the quantum energy of matter.  This encounter of Moses with the burning bush suggests more personal, or that the core energy of the universe is personal, loving and compassionate. These themes are expanded much more in the life and teaching of Jesus and also in that local instantiation of God as fire that the disciples experienced at Pentecost that unleashed astounding love and compassion for all. Also, if you have had mystical experiences, or your own personal encounters with God, these may have come to you as the most profound experience of Love.

One of the most compelling things at the burning bush was the revelation of the name of God. “I Am” or “I am who I am, I will be who I will be”. The Hebrew is difficult to translate (apparently) and the root word means something like “being and becoming”. This idea remains an inspiration for many of us today and sits well with developments in science and what I call evolutionary spirituality.

Perhaps this name “I Am” speaks not of God as being like one of the gods of Egypt, human or animal in form and capable of the best and worst extremes of human mood and behaviour, needing placation through sacrifice. Perhaps “I Am” speaks of that which causes all things to come into being, that which continues to hold things in being, that which is the ultimate source of all that is good, beautiful, true, forgiving, compassionate, fair and just in this world.

Moses was also told that the ground upon which he stood was holy ground and to take off his shoes. Maybe this has an expanded meaning for us today.  Maybe in today’s context (climate change, deforestation, fracking…) this speaks to us of the ground or earth itself being everywhere holy or sacred. Maybe it points to the need for a greater harmony and connectedness with the earth and the environment and compassionate human interaction with it.

How do you think about God? I think of God as the creative Presence in all things, the evolutionary impulse that continues to form both the universe but which is also available to us as the inspiration for human life and culture. I think of God as being an energetic Presence that contains the fullness of personhood expressed as love, compassion and forgiveness. I think of God as a mysterious Presence and power who is towards us with generosity and love but inviting us to be more, perfect and authentic expressions of divinity in human form. I think that human beings have a choice to open their minds and hearts to this Presence and that this may be, but need not be, a religious matter. I think that the inspiration that gives rise to all that is good, beautiful and true – whether in music, science, politics or any other human endeavour is part of the ‘being and becoming’ that is God.

Nelson Mandela, Madiba, (like Moses before him) I believe discovered this source and because of that was able to do so much good that we are able to celebrate today in honour of his passing. We must pray that we and others, including our current world leaders, tap into this source and express it in our lives and that we consequently experience the Advent of God, the Advent of Presence increasingly in this world.

  JJelfs 08.12.13