I am coming to a different kind of appreciation about the importance of identifying the ground on which you live and work. It’s about identity. It’s about tradition. It’s about community. It’s about justice and reconciliation. It’s about holding the past and the present together.
This reflection was shared at the 2023 Florida/Bahamas Synod Synodical Women’s Fall Gathering. Based on Joshua 5:13-15, John 20:11-18
Grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus. It is such an honor to be with you today, as we immerse ourselves in the transformative experiences of camp and consider what God continues to say to us in this moment. I bring you greetings today from my current faith community and colleagues of the Manitoba/Northwestern Ontario Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada. Some of you know that I followed this somewhat random call to serve as the Assistant to the Bishop of the MNO Synod after being here in Florida for the first season of my ministry as a Deacon in the ELCA. It was through my time here in Florida that this community of women invited me into your fellowship. You listened to me, affirmed me, and encouraged me as I explored my identity as a rostered leader in the church, as a deaconess in the ELCA Deaconess Community, as a Director of Faith Formation, and then as a member of the Florida-Bahamas Synod Staff. I continue to be deeply impacted by the Fall Gatherings I got to be part of in various ways, and am grateful for the encouragement and support you continue to offer me.
This year is particularly meaningful to me as I am able to be here with my mom, who often shows up in my presentations and sermons for the way that she chose to live and share her faith and witness with those around her. I’ve said positive things about you to her and about her to you, so I trust you both to prove me right. It was the women’s Bible study groups at Salem Lutheran Church in Glendale, California that supported and encouraged both my mom and my grandmother, and that faithfully prayed for my family as my parents followed their call to live and work in Kenya, East Africa. So, while there are lots of things about how we organize ourselves, what we call our fellowship groups, how we function in relationship to the larger church, and how we invite and include new and young people that requires faithful reflection and discernment as we consider where we are being called as God’s people, what I am reminded of over and over again—and in particular ways when I get to be with groups like this one—is that there is still something really transformative about investing in our faith formation and fostering friendships and community across generations and congregational boundaries. Because God is still up to something that we get to be part of, regardless of our age and experience, and whatever God is up to has impact that we would never anticipate or be able to control with our own efforts.
So I think I’ve said this before, but let me say it again: thank you for your faithfulness as you support your congregations, as you pray for your children and grandchildren, as you seek to love those around you and alleviate the suffering in the world in whatever small way you can, and as you show up for one another in big and small ways. As one who has been blessed by the inheritance I have received from the traditions and convictions you all model…thank you.
By the end of this weekend, you are likely going to be tired of this phrase, “this is holy ground,” and hopefully you’ll eventually get the song “we are standing on holy ground” out of your head. But before you do, I want to dig into a few passages from scripture that will hopefully help us explore and experience what we mean when we say “this is holy ground,” and in what ways God might be speaking to us on this ground.
Since moving to Canada, I am coming to a new appreciation for the significance of naming the ground we are standing on. As Canada continues to reflect on its own history, and especially the relationship with indigenous people, there is a lot more public conversation about issues relating to land, as well as the role that land plays in identity, purpose and power. And within the ELCIC specifically, there’s a different emphasis on ‘the land that you are from’ than I experienced here in the US. Lutherans in Canada—in Winnipeg, anyway—are very quick to ask you to identify yourself and locate yourself according to the ground you are on or the ground you are from. I’ve learned that if I try to introduce myself without referencing the specific part of the city where I live, or the specific part of Florida where I moved from, or the specific parts of the world my parents and grandparents are from, it’s likely I will get more questions until I’ve given enough geographic context to locate myself as a person. There are all sorts of cultural and historical reasons for this, but I am coming to a different kind of appreciation about the importance of identifying the ground on which you live and work. It’s about identity. It’s about tradition. It’s about community. It’s about justice and reconciliation. It’s about holding the past and the present together.
Which is what the classic “holy ground” story in the Old Testament is also about. When you hear that phrase “holy ground,” who comes to mind? Moses. Moses encounters God’s voice and presence when he comes across a burning bush and a voice that says, “remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground (Exodus 3:5). That conversation with God…that moment on that ground…transforms Moses and maybe even altars the trajectory of his life. That moment on holy ground anchors the big scary thing that is ahead of him in the even bigger thing that God is up to, and gives him the promise and conviction he needs to take the next step.
We’re not going to talk about Moses today. But I do want you to keep that familiar story in your mind because I think it gives us some framework for what to pay attention to when we read about other ‘holy ground’ moments. Something about the past and the future are brought together. Something about the person God is speaking to is validated, strengthened, or encouraged. Something about being part of what God is up to is presented.
Has anyone seen the movie, “The Lion King”? This is one of my family’s favorite Disney movies—if not our absolute family favorite. Maybe it was because The Lion King came out when we were living in Wheaton, Illinois for a year after my oldest brother graduated from high school. Maybe because it was a Disney movie based in Africa with characters like lions and hyenas and baboons. We lived in Kenya, so baboons, lions and hyenas were as familiar as squirrels, deer and raccoons are here, and this movie scratched that homesick itch we were feeling during that year in the States. Maybe it’s because the dialogue and characters in the movie are particularly clever and there are lots of quotable sections, and the bigger themes and lessons about life are really easy to draw out. For whatever reason, our family loved this movie, and we would spend the car ride between Wheaton where we lived and West Lafayette, Indiana where my brother was going to college reciting the lines from the movie. Even now, nearly 30 years later, there are certain lines from that movie that still show up in our family vernacular.
One scene in particular is particularly poignant for us. In case you’re not familiar, Simba is a young lion who is set to inherit his father’s seat as the king of the jungle. But due to a series of unfortunate events, Simba runs away from the safety of his family and friends and settles with a rag tag warthog and lemur who help him redefine himself and distance himself from the discomfort of his pain. But these things have a way of catching up to you, and as a young adult, Simba is found by characters from his past…particularly a wise old baboon named Rafiki who challenges him to face his past and take his rightful place as king. Simba resists, saying there’s nothing he can do about the past. In a humorous exchange, Rafiki hits Simba over the head with a stick and Simba cries out in pain and asks Rafiki why he did that. Rafiki says, “it doesn’t matter. It’s in the past,” to which Simba says, “it still hurts,” and Rafiki explains, “ah yes, the past can hurt.” Rafiki continues to encourage Simba to face the pain he’s been running away from, and particularly to remember who he is so that he can go back to his community and be part of healing and restoration—both his and that of his neighbours.
When Moses encounters the burning bush in Exodus, he is in a similar struggle. He’s running away from the pain of his past. His encounter with God on that holy ground invites him to remember who he is and to be willing to face the challenge of going back for the sake of being part of the healing and restoration of his community.
I’m actually not here to dig into the story of Moses. I think we will reflect on this story in other ways this weekend. But I do want you to have both this story about Moses that we read in Exodus and maybe even the fictional story of Simba and Rafiki in your mind as we consider two different “holy ground” moments in scripture. And let’s see what connections and applications we can make that might have something to say to us today.
The first holy ground moment I want to consider with you has to do with Joshua. If as soon as I said “Joshua,” you started singing a song about the battle of Jericho, you are right…that Joshua. Or if your mind went to numerous high school graduation gifts that reference the verse “I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord,” you’re right…that Joshua. Joshua is the one who picks up the mantel of leadership from Moses, and so Joshua’s holy ground moment is kind of a bookend to the one that Moses has. But let’s get some context and connect the two stories.
Moses has this holy ground moment with the burning bush, which sends him to Egypt where he participates in Pharoah releasing the Israelites from slavery. There’s a series of dramatic events that result in the institution of the Passover and the Israelites pilgrimage into the wilderness towards the Promised Land. There’s a dramatic scene on the banks of the Red Sea where Moses lifts up his hands and the waters part, and the people walk across the sea on dry land. They’re supposed to be following God’s guidance to the Promised Land, but they get in their heads about a bunch of things and try to take their own control over things like worship, leadership, and meal planning. And so, God flips the script on them and says the route to the Promised Land will have a 40-year detour, and Moses himself will actually not be the one to lead the people into the Promised Land. That’s where Joshua comes in. He is identified as the successor to Moses. He is Moses’ intern in some ways. His role is to learn from and support Moses, with the understanding that he will take over the leadership from Moses. And that happens. Where we pick up the story is after Moses’ death, when the generation of those who left Egypt has died and the ones who are in the wilderness are those who were either kids in Egypt or were born in the wilderness. Egypt and the history of slavery is in their past, but they do not have direct experience with it. Their experience is the wilderness. They’ve heard the stories of their parents of the slavery in Egypt and the promise of the Promised Land, but they have not experienced either one.
So Joshua is fully in charge, and the nation of Israel has crossed into what is identified as the Promised Land. The complicated reality of these stories in the book of Joshua is that in the journey towards the Promised Land, there’s a lot of conflict and battles as the people conquer and destroy cities and communities along the way. I want to name that this is complicated, and I don’t honestly know always how to make sense of that aspect of the story. It brings up a lot of questions, especially in light of ongoing turmoil in the world today, that I don’t have easy answers for. And I know that some of the language having to do with battles and commanders as it relates to God and God’s people is hard to make sense of. But I’m going to use the language that is in the story. With all of that, I want to reflect on a few verses at the end of Joshua chapter 5.
13 Once when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing before him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went to him and said to him, ‘Are you one of us, or one of our adversaries?’ 14 He replied, ‘Neither; but as commander of the army of the Lord I have now come.’ And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshipped, and he said to him, ‘What do you command your servant, my lord?’ 15 The commander of the army of the Lord said to Joshua, ‘Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place where you stand is holy.’ And Joshua did so.
The wilderness exodus begins with an encounter between Moses and the voice of God in the burning bush where Moses is commissioned into leadership that he wasn’t necessarily looking for. Now, as a bookend to the exodus, and as Joshua is faced with leadership challenges that he doesn’t particularly feel qualified for, he has an encounter with God that gives us some things to ponder as we reflect on our own holy ground moments. So, let’s just get the series of events in our head. Joshua is somewhere near Jericho. He looks up and sees a man standing before him with a drawn sword. Joshua’s first instinct is to ask this man if he is a friend or an enemy. The man doesn’t answer Joshua’s question directly, but proposes a third option—he is not on either human side. He’s on God’s side. With that response, Joshua responds with awe and worship, and re-aligns himself with this man’s authority by identifying him as ‘lord’ and calling himself a ‘servant.’ Maybe hoping to secure God’s favor, he asks what he needs to do. The man doesn’t say anything about the upcoming battle or the military quest of advancing further into the Promised Land. Instead, he says, “take off your shoes, the place where you stand is holy.”
I am sure I read this text before, but for some reason I read it in 2015 and it stopped me in my tracks. Those of you who have known me for some time won’t be surprised to hear that I was navigating internal turmoil and uncertainty about…oh, everything. I was trying to figure out if I should stay in my call or think about finding a new call. I was trying to figure out if I was supposed to stay in youth ministry or go into some other area of ministry. I was trying to figure out if I was supposed to stay working in the church as a deacon or explore other ways of serving the church and the world. I wasn’t facing the mighty walls of Jericho, but it did feel like I was facing these huge obstacles to experiencing the fulfillment to all those things I thought God was guiding me towards when I responded to the call to go into ministry. And in the midst of all of that turmoil, I read these few verses about a messenger of God coming to Joshua, and responding to Joshua’s “what should I do” question with, “take off your shoes.” Take off your shoes. This place where you are standing is holy ground.
Wait a minute, I can imagine Joshua thinking…THIS place is holy? This place right in the shadow of the biggest battle we’ve yet to fight is holy? This place before our wilderness wandering is actually over is holy? This place where the challenges ahead feel too big, and the people I’ve been told to lead are vulnerable and confused? This place where I’m not even sure if I have what it takes to be the person my people need me to be is holy? THIS PLACE?
Have you had an experience like this? Maybe you haven’t been facing a physical obstacle like Joshua was, and maybe you haven’t been facing a vocational crisis like I was…but do you know what it’s like to be in that space between where you have been and where you’d like to be? Do you know what it’s like to be weary from the journey of life and absolutely overwhelmed about what is ahead of you? Do you know what it’s like to feel caught between all the ‘this’ or ‘that’ options in life, and confused about whether God is even on your side anymore?
If you do, this brief story about Joshua might be for you. The man who appears to Joshua is clearly meant to be a messenger of God, but when Joshua identifies him as “lord,” I think we’re meant to realize that this man is more than an angel. He is the physical manifestation of God…God in human form…maybe even Jesus. One day you’ll win pub trivia because you’ll know that in the Old Testament, when someone has an encounter with a physical manifestation of God, it’s called a theophany. Most commentaries agree this event with Joshua is a theophany. Some think there’s good reason to interpret is as a Christophany, a physical manifestation of what the gospel of John means when it says of Jesus, “he was with God in the beginning.”
So…right in the midst of the wilderness, in the shadow of incredible adversity, exhausted from wandering and not yet fully experiencing the fulfillment of the promised land, the very presence of God comes to Joshua and says, “this ground where you are standing is holy ground.”
Now, keep that story in your mind, but fast forward with me to another holy ground moment. This one is in the New Testament—John chapter 20. The community that surrounded and followed Jesus has just been through incredible chaos and disruption as they witnessed their leader and teacher get arrested, go on trial, and be crucified. I know we often tell the story of that last week in Jesus’ life as though it was nothing, but do you remember what the last week of March and the first few weeks of April 2020 felt like? Do you remember how disorienting it was when we were told we couldn’t gather for worship in person? Do you remember the grief of losing friends and family but not being able to hold funerals or memorial services? Do you remember the anxiety and concern for those who did not have what they needed to protect themselves from disease? Do you remember the vulnerability, frustration, and uncertainty that surfaced in light of racial and political tension in this country? Can you imagine what the last few weeks have been like for folks in Israel and Palestine? Can you imagine what the last few years have been like for folks in the Ukraine?
Whatever your access point, I think you can appreciate some of what Mary was feeling when she went to the tomb to put burial spices on Jesus’ body. And even though we’re about to go into the season of Advent, let’s remember the story real quick. After Jesus’ crucifixion, in John’s version of the story, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb early in the morning and found the stone rolled away. She runs back and tells Peter and another disciple that the body isn’t where it’s supposed to be. The two of them, and Mary, return to the tomb and find the linen wrappings lying there…no body. The passage in John 20 tells us that they didn’t understand what was happening, so the two men go back to their homes. But Mary stays back and is weeping outside the tomb. She bends over and looks again, and she sees two angels sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying. They say to her, “woman, why are you weeping?” She says to them, “they’ve taken away my Lord and I don’t where where they’ve laid him.” She then turns away from the angels and sees Jesus standing next to her, but she doesn’t realize it’s him. Jesus asks her the same question the angels asked, “why are you weeping.” She thinks he’s the gardener, which is a logical conclusion, and so asks him if he knows where they’ve put the body. Jesus identifies her by name, Mary recognizes him, they chat for a minute and then Mary goes back to the disciples and says, “I have seen the Lord!”
Like I said, the familiarity of this story can make it easy to read over without really grasping what Mary was feeling. But take a minute and imagine John 20 v. 11 that says, “But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb.” Imagine all that she had been through in the previous weeks. You can probably imagine that when she goes to the tomb to put burial spices on Jesus’ body and discovers that his body is not there, all she can do is throw herself on the ground in the garden outside the tomb and break into tears. She has reached her saturation point. Too much has changed too quickly. Her world has been tilted upside down one time too many, and she has reached her saturation point. Jesus is not where she expected he would be, in the way that she expected him to be there.
And, like with Joshua, an unrecognized character comes onto the scene. Someone that Mary assumes to be the gardener approaches her in her grief and asks her why she is weeping. Which makes sense, right? So just like Joshua asked the man he saw whose side of the battle he was on, Mary asks the man in the garden if he knows what has happened to her friend’s body. It is when the man calls her by name that Mary realizes the man is actually Jesus. She responds with a statement of her own that speaks to her relationship with Jesus, and Jesus follows up with instructions about not holding onto him, which is then followed with Mary going back to the disciples with the declaration that she has seen the Lord.
Mary’s encounter with Jesus doesn’t have the reference to holy ground that Joshua and Moses do. But I think there are some parallels which help us draw out some points of application as we think about our own holy ground moments. Both Joshua and Mary were in the uncomfortable tension between the past and the future. Both Joshua and Mary have questions for their unknown visitors. Both responses include some instructions that transform and expand their understanding of what they’re facing. And at some point, both Mary and Joshua realize they’re in the very presence of Christ, and that realization gives them what they need to embrace whatever is ahead of them.
So what does this all have to do with us? What does a military commander and a gardener have to tell us about how we experience the voice and presence of God in our own lives? What are we to make of holy ground experiences in our lives? Those are great questions! Here are a few thoughts.
Well, for one thing: the presence of God is with us in ways we sometimes are aware and sometimes are surprised by. And especially in seasons of conflict, despair, grief or confusion, God is particularly present. So, whether we recognize it or not, we can take courage in the hope that when the ground we are on feels tangled up with conflict, tension, grief, and confusion, God is there with us.
What this means for us is that we do not have to depend on our own strength to find solid ground again. When the man identifies himself to Joshua as the commander of the army of the Lord, Joshua realizes he no longer has to depend on his own strength or skill. When Jesus finds Mary in the garden, she doesn’t have to depend on her own understanding to explain the resurrection…she can simply witness to her experience. Some of us might be trying to find solid ground on our own strength. We might be relying on our own understanding to explain the big questions we have about why certain things have happened. But it’s not up to us. Our invitation is to take off our shoes, to stop fighting, to not hold so tightly to our expectations of how God functions, and to worship, to hear our name called, and to tell others what we’ve seen.
There’s a song we sing sometimes that goes, “tell me whose side are you leaning on…leaning on the Lord’s side.” Joshua learns that holy ground is not where God shows up and takes your side. Holy ground is when you choose to be on God’s side, and let God guide the way, even when that way is unclear or uncertain. Mary learns that holy ground is where you voice the deep grief that’s within you and Jesus reminds you who you are, that he is still up to something and you are still invited to be part of it. Both Joshua and Mary realize that holy ground moments are not necessarily when you have the courage and conviction you need to feel confident about whatever’s before you. Holy ground moments are when the presence of Christ becomes real to you in the midst of your overwhelm, your uncertainty, and your grief, and you respond to the invitation to stop fighting with your own strength, remember that you are a beloved child of God, and respond with worship and awe.
In the movie The Lion King, Rafiki helps Simba remember that he is the son of the king, and that by leaning into that identity he can participate in restoring his community. Nothing he has done in the past, as much as it hurts, changes his central identity. This lesson gives Simba the courage he needs to go back and face his past and fulfill his destiny as the next king. The man who appears to Joshua helps him realize that the battle he is about to fight is not one that depends on his physical and military strength, but rather is one that he can entrust to God. This encounter gives Joshua the courage to go back to his people and lead them into the next leg of their journey. Can you imagine what people must have thought when Joshua goes back to camp to lay out the plan for how they’re going to handle Jericho? But by letting the commander of the Lord take his position, and by Joshua stopping and taking his shoes off, the people experience what happens when they recommit themselves to following God’s directions. When Mary is met by Jesus in the garden, her grief and confusion is calmed and she goes back to the disciples with a testimony of having seen the Resurrected Christ. In that action she becomes one of the first evangelists, and the story of the resurrection continues to spread.
I want to invite you to take a minute and think about your relationship with the ground you are on right now. Maybe that’s the physical ground, and you think about your love of gardening or your struggle with keeping the floors in your house clean. Maybe it’s the symbolic ground of your personal history and the experiences that have shaped your identity. Maybe it’s the spiritual ground of your faith and the various messages that have informed how you are currently in relationship with God and God’s people. But what does the ground you are on right now feel like at the moment? Take a minute and think about that.
Now bring to mind the image of friend, mentor, companion or guide. When the ground I am on feels a bit shaky, I know that I sometimes reach out to who I call my ‘wisdom people’. These are people I trust to support me, advise me, challenge me or comfort me…I know they have my back and will support me. Who are those people for you? One of the things I love about these holy ground moments that we’ve considered today is that, unlike the voice in the burning bush, God shows up in physical form for Joshua and Mary. Some of us may have burning bush moments where we experience God in supernatural or unexplainable ways. Most of us, though, probably experience God through the people around us. It’s through those who answer our questions with insight that leads us to a third option that we hadn’t even considered. It’s through those who can stand up to us and say, “stop. Take off your shoes. This is ultimately not your fight.” It’s in those who come alongside us and ask, “why are you weeping,” and then encourage us to not hold on to something so tightly but to open ourselves to the possibility of the resurrection. Who are those people who manifest the presence of God in your life?
And finally, one thing I have been noticing as I’ve been reflecting on holy ground moments is that they lead to some kind of action or response that participates in God’s mission in some way. Moses encounters the burning bush and goes back to Egypt to challenge Pharoah to free his people from slavery. This challenges and stretches Moses beyond what he feels competent and capable of, and requires him to continually trust God and God’s call on his life. He doesn’t always get it right, but God is faithful and doesn’t abandon him. Joshua encounters the commander of the Lord’s army in the shadow of Jericho and is able to lead his people into battle…a battle that involves marching around the city and making a bunch of noise. He doesn’t always get it right, and it requires him to continually trust God and God’s call on his life. But God is faithful and doesn’t abandon him. “God’s faithfulness to God’s covenant with Israel, in spite of the fact that they have been a pain…since the Red Sea, remains.”[1] Mary encounters Jesus in the garden and becomes one of the first to publicly witness to the resurrection, even though she’s a woman…even though she had less than a stellar reputation. She hasn’t always gotten it right, but God is faithful and doesn’t abandon her.
So what has your response been to holy ground moments in your own life? How have the various ways God has met you along the way empowered and encouraged you to participate in what God is up to in the world? We’re not all sent to walk around a city until it crumbles, but before Joshua does that he stops and worships. We’re not all sent to be public witnesses, but before Mary does that, she is invited to stop clinging to previous perceptions of how Jesus shoes up. Holy ground moments are moments where God speaks to us in various ways, in the midst of the turmoil and chaos of our lives, and gives us whatever we need for the next step. We likely don’t know the end of the story. We probably can’t predict whether we will ‘win’ or ‘lose.’ But we will have what we need for the next step, and God will remind us that God remains close to us and promises to be faithful.
In 2015 when I came across these verses in Joshua during my devotions, I wrote a journal entry that I later posted on my blog. I want to share that with you as we close, and invite you to consider what God might be saying to you in this holy ground moment:
“He replied, “Neither, but as commander of the army of the Lord I have now come.” And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped, and said to him, “What do you command your servant, my lord?” The commander of the army of the Lord said to Joshua, “Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place where you stand is holy.” And Joshua did so.” (Joshua 5:14-15)
In the face of adversity, the commander of the Lord’s army shows up. Joshua asks him what to DO. The angel says, “take off your shoes. You’re standing on holy ground.” That ground right before the “battle of Jericho” is holy–set apart by God. that ground in the middle of the journey when the Israelites are not yet to the Promised Land is holy. That ground in the shadow of the daunting opposition is holy. That ground in the middle of the wilderness is holy.
How many times when we face opposition and God shows up do we say, like Joshua, “what do you want me to do?” We imagine that reinforcements have arrived so now is the time to ACT. But God says, “the ground HERE is holy. Take your shoes off.”
How many times recently have I asked of God, “what do you command…what should I DO?” I wonder if I’m even open to an answer like this: “take off your shoes…THIS ground that you are standing on is holy ground”–this ground of indecision and unknown…this ground of journey and wilderness…this ground in the shadow of daunting challenges…THIS ground where are RIGHT NOW is holy.
Please pray with me:
Dear God,
If the ground that we are standing on is holy ground, then there’s no rush to get past it. We can take our shoes off and rest in being in your presence in this place at this time. Help us to see your presence here and now–in the midst of uncertainty and indecision…in the midst of the journey and the wandering…in the midst of overwhelming challenge and expectations. Show us what it means that “the place where we stand is holy.”
Amen.
[1] Giere, Samuel. Workingpreacher.org. March 6, 2016. Accessed Nov. 9, 2023.