Saturday 15 November 2014

Background

Through history people have tried to make sense of theirsurroundings and, humanly, we seem to feel that there is more tolife than just our earthbound existence. Bookshelves lined withbody, mind and spirit titles witness to this in our age. For thewandering people of Israel in the time of Moses this was nodifferent. Something else, allied perhaps to a sense of awe, is thefeeling that God is above us in spatial terms. So we feel near toGod in the mountains. And this is where we begin.

The people are at the foot of Mount Sinai. What is confusing isthe description of the mountain clouded with fire, smoke anddanger. This sounds like an active volcano, and some geologistssuggest that this might better site the biblical Mount Sinai inSaudi Arabia than in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula. Be that as it may, itshould not disturb what the story tells us of the developing faithof the Hebrew people. What it does do is to explain the descriptionof the mountain that we find in Exodus.

Now none of this should surprise us as the ancients, every bitas much as we today, needed to rationalise their faith in relationto their experience. It is rather like us trying to make sense of atsunami while worshipping a God of love. And so this embryonicfaith was developing in a context of geological activity which was,naturally, attributed to God and began to give shape to belief.Here is 'El Shaddai', the mountain God, the God of destructivepower.

Positively this reminds us that God is beyond our capacity tocontain or understand. The downside is that we see God as remoteand, worse, we set boundaries around God so that only the pure orpriestly can approach. "The people are not permitted to come up toMount Sinai" (v. 23): this attitude can still pervades the Churchtoday as we fence the sacraments and sometimes seek to elevate theministry above the laity.

To Ponder

• Do you ever underestimate God's power? How does this affectyour faith and life?

• How do you think the Church puts up barriers between people andGod? How might we break these down, or even better avoid buildingthem in the first place?