Sermon transcript:
Who can blame Moses for wanting to do his due diligence? Here he is, facing a bold deity disguised as a shrub on fire, who just told him to go back to Egypt and lead the Israelites out of slavery. This isn’t a “Mission Impossible” invitation— “Your mission, should you choose to accept it…” It’s a command: “Now go, I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people…out of Egypt.”1 Moses, is understandably hesitant. I mean, he’s got a record back in Egypt. He went off on an Egyptian abusing an Israelite and killed them. After expressing doubts about his own abilities—and getting an answer that doesn’t feel fully satisfying—he says, “Look, if I get backed into a corner and the people ask me which God sent me, can I at least have a name to give them?” Moses needs assurance. He wants to know as much as possible about this God before he commits.
Maybe you can relate. I certainly can. There’s this idea that faith is something we can study or even engage from a distance. One common approach—especially in Western liberal societies and the liberal church—is to treat Scripture and God as subjects to be studied. We hold them at arm’s length, analyze them, and draw conclusions about the worth and value of a religious life. With this approach, some reject faith entirely as superstition with no basis in truth. Others stay in religious life but are never sure how to reconcile the rational and spiritual. It caused a crisis for me—my mind saying one thing, my heart another.
On the other side, some people completely deny that rational thought and critique have any role in faith. So, they entrench. Faith and God get reduced to a set of clear beliefs and dogmas. Faith becomes about certainty in belief, and God becomes a dispenser of rules and judgment. Mercy is there too—but only if you find your way back to the rules and judgment. God becomes a figure of authority, and the relationship depends on obedience. Both approaches give us a sense of certainty and control. We think we know this God. There are no surprises.
But that’s kind of what Moses wanted—and it’s not what he gets. He only receives: “I am who I am…Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I am has sent me to you.'”2 We aren’t told Moses’ exact reaction in the moment, but we know it’s enough for him. He’s already been reassured this is the God of his ancestors—a steadfast and loyal God, with a history of trust. The “I Am” name speaks only of presence.3 Just like his ancestors, Moses isn’t being offered a plan—only a relationship. A relationship we call faith. Moses’ sense of inadequacy isn’t met with a playful jab on the shoulder and a “You got this, big guy” affirmation of his skills and aptitude for the job. Instead, his consternation is met with a promise: “I Am.”4 “I have no plan for you, Moses—only a relationship. Seek me in the moment. I am there.”
It’s an interaction which speaks to something fundamental about the nature of faith, something our United Church Song of Faith5 says, “God is Holy Mystery, beyond complete knowledge, above perfect description. Yet, in love, the one eternal God seeks relationship.” You can’t know God from the outside looking in—not in any meaningful way. Isn’t that true for any relationship of significance in our lives? To know God, you must go with God. Faith is a full-contact, participation sport. Belief and reason are not enough. Surrender is necessary. God says to Moses, “Join me, Moses, and find out who I am.”
Are there any Dolly Parton fans here today? She died this week, and lots of good and interesting things have been written about her. One writer was struck by the crowd at her 2016 concert in New York: “drag queens, evangelical Christians, hipsters, and people whose lives otherwise seemed unlikely to overlap, all waiting to see the same woman.”6 She is beloved by many in the queer community for creating welcoming spaces at her venues and speaking against anti-trans and drag legislation. She made a fortune from Whitney Houston’s cover of “I Will Always Love You” and used the proceeds to buy and revitalize a building in a Black neighborhood in Nashville. She called it “The house Whitney Built.”7 In the wake of George Floyd’s murder in 2020, she went out of her way to say Black American lives matter. She even dropped the word “Dixie” from the title of one of her shows because, as she put it, “I love all my fans. I love everybody, and I don’t want one person to be offended.”8 She established something called The Imagination Library, which has sent out—free of charge—hundreds of millions of books worldwide to kids who need them. One in six children in the US currently receive books from the Imagination Library.9
An interesting thing I’ve also read is the sense of mystery about her; she was a bit of an enigma. Someone on social media quoted the late film critic Roger Ebert, who shared this story involving his colleague Gene Siskel: “In Dallas for the premier of ‘9 to 5’, I had an uncanny experience, and on the plane home to Chicago I confessed it to Siskel: I had been granted a private half hour with Dolly Parton, and as we spoke I was filled with a strange ethereal grace…It was healing and comforting. Gene listened and said, ‘Roger, I felt the exact same thing during my interview with her.’ We looked at each other. What did this mean? Neither one of us ever felt that feeling again. From time to time, we would refer to it in wonder.”10 In a 2016 interview, she was asked what she thought people saw in her—what was this attraction? She replied, “I really like to think it’s God spark,” She then explained that every day she asked God to let her do or say something that mattered to somebody, to let some love pass through her.11 Dolly Parton grew up a daughter of American southern evangelical religion, but her faith never fit neatly into any box. She talked often about God, Jesus, scripture, and prayer. When once asked how she practiced her faith, she resisted the verb: “I don’t practice it. I live it.”12
When we reach the limits of our minds in the life of faith—when belief or rational explanation is no longer enough, yet our souls burn with a love we cannot understand—the only way forward is by trust and by taking the great leap of faith into the arms of God. No more holding back. No more looking at God from afar, through the lenses of explanation or belief, as if faith were a problem to be solved. Faith is an adventure to be lived.
In 2020, true to her sense of adventure and artistic curiosity, Dolly Parton did a collaboration album with an electronic dance music duo from Sweden. In the piece named “Faith,” she sings:
Let me shine and radiate
With your love and light, and help me make
Any change I can in this world today
Just show me the way
To know God, you have to go with God. Faith is an adventure to be lived. Moses or Dolly—take your pick. You can’t go wrong.
Rev. Joe Gaspar
1 Exodus 3 : 10.
2 Exodus 3 : 14.
3 Walter Brueggemann, Commentary on the Book of Exodus, “New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary”, vol. 1, Abingdon Press: Nashville, 1994, p. 714.
4 Brueggemann, p. 719.
5 http://www.united-church.ca/beliefs/statements/songfaith
6 Jason G. Edwards, Dolly Parton’s faith was hard to measure, “Christian Century”, August 26, 2026, https://www.christiancentury.org/features/dolly-parton-s-faith-was-hard-measure.
7 Edwards.
8 Greg Garrison, Dolly Parton taught a veteran reporter about faith and why she ‘always loved Alabama’, AL.com, August 25, 2026, https://www.al.com/news/2026/08/dolly-parton-taught-a-veteran-reporter-about-faith-and-why-she-always-loved-alabama.html.
9 Edwards.
10 Roger Ebert, https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/903436-in-dallas-for-the-premier-of-9-to-5-i
11 Edwards.
12 Edwards.