imagining how the church can reorient around mission

In Exodus 3:5 God said to Moses. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.”

The story of the burning bush in the Bible is not only a contextual story but a metaphor for the universality of everyday sacramentalism.  The holy ground mentioned in the cited text was holy when God activated Moses’ awareness of it. Was it really different ground than the ground, say, 30 yards away?

Ok, it did have that inexplicable feature of having a bush that was on fire but didn’t burn up. There is that?!?!?

However, I have become convinced that the sacredness was made acute by focus and awareness of the divine. Is not all of life sacred if we have the eyes to see it fully, completely, in all of its unique connection to a creating God? (see footnote by Henri Nouwen)

This reminds me of the familiar poem by E.B. Browning entitled Aurora Leigh: “Earth’s crammed with heaven. And every common bush afire with God.”

So, take off your shoes and live into the ordinary, everydayness of what is sacrament.