All are invited to join us for service at 10 am.  Coffee to follow.

Notes on this week’s message:

“Do not come any closer” God said, “Take off your sandals. The place you are standing on is holy ground.” Exodus 3:5

Andrew Talbot’s painting “Release,” which he was kind enough to allow us to use for this Sunday’s bulletin cover, is based on a grove of broad-leaved maple trees near Port Alberni, B.C. that are protected from logging, and sustainably tapped for maple syrup production by the Hupacasaph First Nation. When he was painting “Release,” Andrew was going through difficult changes in his life. The painting symbolized letting go of all that was inauthentic in his life. The trees seemed to be “shaking off the past, moving forward, and soaring high through all life’s struggles.” Seeing the trees from a “bug’s eye” view at ground level and looking up through tree trunks and branches to the sky high above returned him to a sense of awe, wonder and mystery.

This passage in Exodus also gives us a sense of awe, wonder and mystery as we see Moses, stopped in his tracks at the sight of a bush, which is on fire, but does not burn. God creates “holy ground” in Moses’ normal working day herding his father-in-law, Jethro’s, flock.

Out of this fire, God calls Moses, and lifts him from his daily routine into worshipping the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The great “I AM.” Moses is not in a temple, a church or attending a religious service; but still encounters the presence of the living God. At that moment, Moses, and we as believers, are made aware that any place can be holy, as God is everywhere.

Photo: Marlene Salmonson