“Cannot Be Shaken”
Eleventh Sunday After Pentecost
August 24, 2025
Burnt Hills United Methodist Church
No, today I’d just like to take you back to the story of a group of newly freed slaves, wandering in the wilderness, trying to make sense of who they were and, perhaps more importantly, whose they were.
This group of newly freed men, women, and children had witnessed firsthand the power and majesties of God’s wonders.
They saw plague after plague befalling their captors.
They saw the river turn to blood.
They saw the frogs and locusts consume crops.
They saw disease and pestilence spread throughout the land.
They saw the angel of death strike down the first born of all of their captors.
They saw the mighty sea split in two, so they could cross over to the other side.
So they could cross over to their freedom.
And they saw that same sea come crashing down and swallow up the forces of those who sought to keep them captive.
And as they made their escape, they followed the path carved by a pillar of fire—an all-consuming fire.
An all-consuming fire that led them to a mountain where there was thunder and lightning and the sound of the horn and smoke coming from the mountain.
And this newly freed group of Israelites called out to the prophet who had delivered God’s command of liberation to their oppressors, saying “Do not let God speak to us, or we will surely die”.
And so Moses ascended the mountain, to speak with God.
Now, there’s an old story—a midrash—about this episode in our Bible. These midrash—these stories—have been passed down and preserved in the rabbinic tradition as various teachers strive to come to a better understanding of the word of God and its relevance for our lives today.
Because, you see, right before this story of the people coming to the mountain, Exodus gives us, as the readers, the ten commandments in full.
I am the Lord your God.
You shall have no other Gods before me.
Make no idols.
Do not use God’s name in vain.
Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.
Honor your parents.
Do not kill.
Do not commit adultery.
Do not steal.
Do not bear false witness against your neighbor.
Do not desire and try to take from your neighbor.
And yet, the text also says that the people cry out to Moses, begging him to talk with God on their behalf, and saying “do not let God speak to us, or we will surely die!”
And so rabbis have, for generations, wrestled with this question: just how far into the ten commandments did God get before the people had enough?
The story goes that one rabbi posited that God was only able to make it through the first commandment: I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You must have no other gods before me.
Another rabbi believed that the people couldn’t take it anymore after they heard the sacred and divine name of God found in the first commandment: I am the Lord.
But the third rabbi argued that God was only able to get through the first letter of the first word found in the first commandment. That first person pronoun.
Now, in English, the first person pronoun is just one letter: I. In Hebrew, however, the first person pronoun is אָֽנֹכִ֖י (anoki). Spelled with the consonants aleph, nun, kaf, and yod.
And this is the sound the consonant aleph makes.
[silence]
Aleph is a silent consonant.
The third rabbi argued that the people couldn’t bear to hear God utter the first letter of the first word of the first commandment.
A silent consonant.
A noiseless sound.
Even that was too much for the people to bear, and so they begged Moses to go and talk to God for them.
This is what our passage from Hebrews this morning is speaking to.
A God that defies comprehension and understanding. A God that those of us who live on this side of the European Enlightenment—with its emphasis on truth with a capital T that comes through observations that create data points that create trends and patterns that can be analyzed and interpreted into testable and repeatable hypotheses that can be experimented on with variables that can be controlled—perhaps don’t quite know what to do with.
A God that can’t be observed. A darkness. A shadow.
A God that can’t be touched. A burning fire. A whirlwind. A sounding trumpet.
And yet a God that is also made known—a God that is revealed—to us.
A God that draws us in. A God that animates our very being. A God that breaks through reality itself and shakes the very foundations of our lives.
A Maker in whom we live, in whom we are and move. In whom all the hosts above and all on the earth below dwell upon that great, unending love.
That great, unending love that is an all-consuming fire. That great, unending love that serves as the foundation of that realm which is our shared inheritance. That kingdom which cannot be shaken that we will come to know when all that can be shaken has been shaken out of our lives. When all that can be burned away has been burned away from our lives. When all that remains in my heart and yours is that perfect, unending love. Love of God. And love of neighbor.
Because the only way we can love God is through loving our neighbor. Both our neighbors within these walls and beyond those doors.
That’s all that God wants of us.
That’s all that God desires of us.
And when we love our neighbors—when we love our neighbors as Christ so loved us—we’re going to find that we’re the ones who are being transformed.
Because, while love is unchanging, love changes us.
Love transforms us.
Love molds us into the likeness of Christ.
And the good news from our passage in Hebrews is that that likeness of Christ is already present in each and every one of us.
That likeness of Christ is already there, within each and every one of you. I see it. I’ve seen it just about every day this week—how Christ’s glory shines through your lives and your witness and the ways you show up for one another.
In people coming day after day and treating someone else’s junk like the treasure it will be for someone else.
In the ways you welcome new people into our fellowship with open arms, warm hospitality, and honest conversation.
In the lives of those saints who have gone before us—who cared so deeply for this community of faith even to the end.
That likeness of Christ is already there, Burnt Hills. It’s plain for me to see.
The question we have to wrestle with is what are the things that are getting in the way of making that likeness of Christ fully manifest—fully revealed for all to see? What in us is stopping others from looking at us and seeing the fullness of Christ revealed through our fellowship in such a way that compels them to return—that draws them in closer to that deep abiding love that knows no bounds?
What are those things in our own lives that keep us from having that perfect love of God and neighbor shed abroad in our hearts? And, can we heed the advice of Taylor Swift and just, shake them off?
Dear friends, our God is indeed hard to fathom. Hard to comprehend. Hard to understand. God cannot be touched or seen or heard, and yet, at the same time, God can be felt and experienced and lived in. God is a fire that is consuming and refining all that stands in the way of us being transformed into the perfect image of that great unending love. Love so amazing and love so divine marked by lives dedicated to humble service among friends and neighbors.
So approach that mountain. Feel that earth shake. Reach out and let the fire that consumes but does not burn become one with you. And let everything else go, so that only that which cannot be shaken remains.
May the one who began a good work be faithful to complete it in us.
The work continues.
Amen.
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