The scriptures we have just heard this morning situate us in the middle of the tales of two prophets, Moses and Elijah. And in both stories, we find our prophets—men we assume always had clear insight and an open line to God—grappling with confusion, burnout and resignation. Moses has just returned from the mountain of God to discover that the Israelites had let their fears get the best of them, seeking security by worshiping a blasphemous golden calf. He had lost his temper, broken the original stone tablets containing the law, condemned and punished the community for their disobedience, and stormed off in frustration. Now he’s thinking back. Had he been too harsh with them? Had he not been harsh enough? The Israelites wouldn’t listen to him or to Yahweh, and they refused to cooperate with one another on anything except organizing around false gods. This whole project of leaving Egypt and forming their own community was beginning to seem hopeless. Moses is hurt, angry and frustrated—if he’d have had the choice, he’d would’ve just given up on this whole Promised Land thing and moved to Canada. He senses that God is trying to do something great, but in the middle of this tumultuous time it is hard to know what to do.

Elijah fares no better as we pick up with his story. He too has been battling false prophets and fickle people who abandon Yahweh. King Ahab and his notorious wife Jezebel have imported foreign priests with foreign gods into Israel. Without a moment’s hesitation, the people began offering praise and obedience and sacrifice to these other gods. It was as if all God had done for them no longer mattered. Did they forget Yahweh’s care for them in bringing them out of Egypt, Yahweh’s provision of manna in the wilderness, Yahweh’s protection and Promised Land? With God’s help, Elijah had stood on the mountain before the gathered people and demonstrated with miracles of fire and water that Yahweh is stronger and more faithful than any other God. Even so, he remains unsure who the people will follow, and what he should do with them. Should he shun them? Should he cajole them? Should he plead with them, take pity on them, punish them? And of course, to top it all off, no royal family appreciates having their gods and prophets humiliated before all the kingdom, so Ahab and Jezebel are now out for Elijah’s head. He is exhausted, he is angry, he is afraid for his own life and for the life of Israel. Like Moses, he feels at a loss for what to do.

I think we, in our day, have much in common with Moses and Elijah in this regard. We live in a tumultuous time, when false gods beckon, when people feel restless and insecure, when God’s clear direction for us and for our world seems lost or confused. A recent poll, just released this week, said that a full 67% of Americans believe that our country is headed in the wrong direction. Sixty-seven percent say we’re headed down the wrong path. That same poll showed the split between Bush and Kerry supporters to be in a statistical dead heat, so this malaise is no windfall for the Democratic presidential challenger. It’s a discontent crosses party lines, and I’d venture a guess that visions of what is right and what is wrong in the direction of our country vary as widely as the political spectrum.

The war in Iraq remains hotly contested. Some think it was a step in the right direction, others see it as a giant leap in the wrong one. And now, with Saddam Hussein gone, what should be our course? Should troops stay for the long haul, or hand over control of security to the United Nations, or directly to the people of Iraq? We have seen of late new tactics of terrorism—kidnappings and violent killings—but what should be our response? Opening another front in the war on terror, this time in Saudi Arabia? Attempting to enforce international law with arrests and trials of leading terrorists? Or cooperating with the Saudi royalty to ensure enforcement of their domestic laws? Can the path to peace and security ever run through a war? How are we to be sure? Globalization and job outsourcing, the culture of instant media access, opening the institution of marriage to gay and lesbian people—our nation is divided over whether we are moving in the right direction or the wrong one, and both sides are equally convinced they have God on their side. Even when, like Moses and Elijah, we hold fast to God as the beacon of justice for all people and peace among the nations, we wonder exactly how we should proceed to build that just world. Whose understanding of justice and righteousness should prevail? Whose strategy reflects God’s own calling? Where is God, and exactly how does God call us to respond to these many complicated challenges? Like Moses and Elijah, we feel frustrated, confused, angry and exhausted. We flop down at the edge of the desert and say with the prophets, “God, just make yourself clear to me! Show me a sign! Send me some directions!”

And God responds. But our expectations of God’s response are often like those of Elijah. Elijah, at the top of Mount Sinai, taking cover in a cave, perhaps the very same cave that offered refuge to Moses generations before, awaits God’s promised arrival. He hears the great wind, the mightiest wind he’s ever heard—and is certain he should be able to know God in the power and force of the gusts, but God is not there. Then he feels the earth begin to move and shake, and he is sure that these rumbles and cataclysms are the bold footsteps of the Almighty—but God is not there. Then he feels the heat of a mighty fire, and he peers out of the cave into the brightness of the flames, certain he will see God amid the light and heat. But God is not there. We can hear his plea: Oh, God, just make yourself clear! In all the tumult, where are you? It is only after the tumult, in the sheer silence that follows, that Elijah knows God is passing by. He emerges from the cave and in that small, still moment, glimpses a trace of the divine. But even then, it is not a face-to-face meeting, but only a passing glance, a fleeting moment—a sense of God’s having just drawn near. How many of us are so focused on discerning God in the midst of the tumult we almost miss the Almighty’s passing by?

The story of God’s revelation to Moses makes it clear that all we can ever glimpse is a passing trace of where God has been. God explains straightforwardly that no one can see the whole glory of God’s face, nor gaze upon God’s fullness. Instead, God makes Moses hide behind a cleft of rock, where God’s hand will cover him until God has passed by. Then, says God, “Moses, you can have the privilege of glimpsing my backside.” To borrow a phrase from the eminent Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann, God says, “Look out, Moses, I’m about to moon you.” Yes, my friends—God’s answer to the hue and cry for direction and confirmation seems to be a holy mooning.

What we are left with, in these two stories of God’s passing by, is what I like to call a theology of God’s backside. Now, of course, this theology of God’s backside presumes that God has sides at all, so you must necessarily grant that I speak here only in metaphor. But in these tumultuous times, full of confusion and doubt, it seems to me that we have a lot to learn from this rear view of the Holy One. Using a bit of imagination and metaphor, much can be said for a theology of God’s back side.

Consider the spatial implications of our perennial backside view. Because we see the rear, never the face, we are necessarily standing behind God. This has two repercussions. First, it means our God does not by standing behind us. God does not stand safely at the back, pointing a long, divine finger out across the chasm of time and ordering us into the breach. If we only ever glimpse God from behind, it means that our God leads by being always out before us, by going ahead, shining the light of glory behind along our path. The second implication of this spatial relationship to God is that there is no place that we can go that God has not already been. As long as we are behind the Holy Presence, it means that God will never send us anyplace Godself would not also go. This knowledge that any glimpse we might ever get of the divine glory will always be from the back side can give us courage and hope in the midst of tumult, because our God Yahweh is not distant and on high, but clearing the path before us. There is the promise held out to us in a theology of God’s backside.

But remember, Moses and Elijah also sought direction from God. They both had an intimate relationship with the Holy One, and even in the worst of times they talked openly with God on a daily basis. What they sought, and, the story tells us, what they each found up on Mount Sinai was a clear sense of direction in God’s passing by. Which leads us to ask: how did a glimpse of God’s backside offer the direction they sought? It’s simple: by knowing where God had been, knew where they should go. Moses and Elijah could follow God’s path by trailing along behind God’s own backside.

But perhaps you are still troubled. Yes, you may say, that works great for Moses and Elijah. Moses and Elijah actually SAW God, even if only in passing. It’s easy to take metaphorically the promises of God’s going before us, but how are we to get the direction we seek? What about us? Well, my friends, I think it still works. You see, we too have the opportunity to glimpse at where God has been. Think back over the course of your life. As you were facing difficult decisions and trying times, you may not have been clear about the right course in the moment, but now, looking back, are there not times you can point to across time and say, “God was there”? I have heard so many people testify to the workings of providence in their lives, saying, “I didn’t know at the time, but God was definitely leading me here.”

Think too over the course of history. We are not the first peoples to face times of social tribulation and political upheaval. Indeed, for many, this is not the first time in the course of their lifetime when they have faced great social uncertainty. We turn back and look over the course of the 1960’s, World War II and the Great Depression, the Civil War, even the American Revolution. Perhaps it seems clear to us now, the right path of justice and righteousness. We can see the victory of the civil rights movement, the defeat of fascism, end of slavery, birth of democracy. But in the midst of those tumultuous times, the victory was not so clear. Did our ancestors have more clarity than we about the proper direction to take? I doubt it. They had what we have—an abiding sense of God’s desire for justice and freedom and peace. But they too struggled and argued and debated over exactly how to live up to God’s promises.

But there is also the wisdom gained through years, a learning obtained only across distance and time. What is it we call that wisdom? Ah yes—hindsight. God’s backside, moving across history, scattering traces of divinity for us to follow.

The tumult might continue for now, but God goes before us, and where God has been, nothing remains the same. God’s passing by always leaves traces of divinity in its wake, and when we follow those traces of divinity, those moments of love and peace and justice and hope, we follow God, if only from the backside. We will never know exactly where God is leading, but we can be assured that wherever we wander, God goes before, and we are not alone. May we hold fast to one another in the confusion and tumult of our own day, and look out for a glimpse of God’s passing glory, that we might follow in its wake. Amen.