It is a strange and wonderful thing, to be standing up here preaching a candidating sermon with you, to be here before you for the very first of what I sincerely hope will be many times, seeking to break open God’s Word with you.  We’ve never met before, you and I.  We’ve read about each other, prayed about each other, wondered about each other.  We’ve heard rumors about each other from people we know who know people who know us.  But we’ve never actually met before, and here we are.  Our introduction, a “HELLO!  My name is ______” moment.  We stand here on the threshold of our relationship, here at the beginning of all things, ready to introduce ourselves, to begin to be the church with one another.  It is strange and wonderful and a great, great blessing to be here together, you and God and I.

And it puts me in mind of another introduction, another, “Hello, my name is” moment in the long story of God’s relationship with God’s people: the story of Moses and the burning bush.  It is Moses and God’s first encounter.  As you might remember, by this point, Moses has already been set afloat in a basket in the Nile by his Hebrew mother, been discovered and adopted by Pharaoh’s daughter, raised as an Egyptian prince, run out of town for murdering an Egyptian boss who’d been abusing Hebrew slaves, gone to another land, and gotten married.  Got that?  So, now he’s working for his father-in-law, minding the flocks.  It’s already been an eventful life, but he ain’t seen nothin’ yet.  For one day, when he is alone on top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere, God jumps him.

First, there’s the bush that burns but is not consumed, a small miracle in the grand scheme of things, but a miracle nevertheless, and enough to get Moses to notice.  Once God is sure she’s got Moses’ attention, it’s time for introductions.  From out the bush, God introduces Godself: “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.  I have observed the misery of my people…I have heard their cry…I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them…, and to bring them up….The cry of the Israelites has now come to me.”  And we find out God’s proper name: “I am who I am” or, depending on the translation, just “I am” or sometimes “I will be who I will be”.  God exists, God is the ground of being.  God is.

No surprise there, at least not for those of us who’ve been following the story of God and God’s people up till now.  But here, the story takes an unexpected twist.  God’s already introduced himself.  What we’d expect in a normal “Hello, my name is” moment is that Moses would then introduce himself.  But instead, he responds to God’s introduction by saying, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”  “Who am I?”  Not, “I am Moses of the Israelites, son of Egypt, keeper of the herds of Jethro.”  Not even, “O great God, I am your humble servant Moses.”  No introduction at all, really; just simply, “Who am I?”

You see, Moses knows what such a moment means in the life of a follower of this God.  He knows that when once you meet this God, whether it be in a burning bush, or in God’s community, or in the flux and swirl of circumstance, it is next to impossible for one’s identity to ever be the same.  He knows that, in the meeting of the strong, the dangerous, the widely-knowing love of a God such as this, who you are matters significantly less than who you’re about to become.  And so he responds in the only reasonable way: by asking, in the light of a fire that blazes but does not consume, who he is.

In the moment when God and human meet, God’s introduction is always an invitation.  In the moment when we open ourselves fully to God’s presence in the world, in our lives, in us, we are changed.  In the moment when we meet God, we begin to know that the introduction is always also a calling, a reorientation of life and perception and meaning toward the center, the ground of being, the great “I AM”.  God’s “Hello, my name is” always becomes “Hello, YOUR name is.”  And though the new name is usually one we must work to grow into, it is always a hopeful one, a life-filled one, a God-filled one.

“Who am I, God?” asks Moses.  And God’s first response?  The first thing out of God’s mouth, before the great challenge, before the explanation of the call, before the sending?  The first thing God says when Moses asks who he is is, “I will be with you.”  It’s always the first promise out of our God’s mouth: “I will be with you.  You will never be alone.  I will be with you.”  And then begins the process of formation.  Then begins the naming.  No longer prince, Moses.  No longer murderer.  No longer herder.  No longer foreigner in the land of Midian.  Now, liberator.  Now, leader of my people.  Now, prophet, now judge, now blessed for all time.

In college, I studied environmental science.  College is also when I came out as a gay man.  Which meant that by the time I graduated, and though I had been brought up in a Christian home, the vast majority of my friends and acquaintances were either scientists or gay.  Now, for some extremely good reasons (mostly having to do with the behavior of us Christians), many, if not most, scientists and gay people have historically had strained relationships with people of faith, and as often with the very idea of faith.  Which meant that, for much of my college career, and especially after I discerned a call to ordained ministry in my junior year, I stepped carefully when it came to naming myself Christian.  Fear of derision, or of being labeled somehow intellectually deficient, fear of being labeled a “traitor” to my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters, many of whom have been terribly wounded by the church, combined to make it harder—far harder—for me to “come out” as a Christian than it ever was to come out as gay.

Then, in my first year at Union Seminary in New York City, I went to my first-ever Ash Wednesday service.  And there, God jumped me.  In the breaking of the bread and the remembrance of what happened with Jesus and the gentle imposition of ashes by a loving hand and the even gentler, though somehow stronger words, “Remember that you are made from dust and to dust you shall return”, I met God in a new way.  I got a new name.

And I broke down and I cried.  And then I pulled myself together, and I walked out of the building, and I got on the subway and I rode it straight down to Chelsea—which, for those that don’t know, is the modern gay district of New York City and the kind of place where you expect to see just about anybody but someone with an ashen cross on their forehead walking around—and head high, I strolled down the street, and right into the most crowded coffee shop around, ordered coffee, and sat me down.  And as I walked and as I sat, I noticed people glancing at my forehead out of the corners of their eyes (one kind soul stopped me to warn me I had schmutz on my face), and all I wanted to do was point at my head and yell, “SEE?  You see this?  That’s right!  I’m a Christian, and I don’t care what you think about that!”

And one guy did ask me about it, and I did tell him what it meant for me, and he did excuse himself from the conversation with a spooked look in his eye.  And I went home blazing with love for my God.  Fearful one no longer.  Closet Christian no longer.  Now, proud.  Now, disciple.  Now, even evangelist.

“For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”  Jesus knew something about losing his life for the sake of a living and loving God.  And—praise God—he certainly knew about the new life in God that follows.  In our story from Matthew today, Jesus speaks of the cross.  The loss of your life, he says, is the price of following him, the price of putting the living God first, a price that even Jesus, God’s own son, must pay.  You can hardly blame Peter for balking at such a statement.  But then, Peter didn’t know the end of the story.

But we do.  We know that beyond the cross, beyond the loss of the old life, the loss of the old identity, lies an empty tomb, shining glory, hope for all the ages, God’s last word, which is always life, life, life.

It’s a truth that this church knows well.  Look at the history of this Old South Church.  In 1669, 28 families of the First Church of Boston met God in a new way and, with fear and trembling and conviction, left their church home to found another church, with wider doors and a larger welcome, one that extended to all baptized Christians.  No longer First Church.  Now, the Third Church, Old South Church.

In 1773, as one of the largest meeting spaces in Boston, and from a commitment to the civic life of the city, Old South hosted a political meeting that turned into the Boston Tea Party.  No longer colonial church.  Now, a church seeking the political freedom to exercise God-given rights.

In 1816, Old South and Park Street Churches followed God’s leading to found the City Mission Society to deal with issues of urban poverty.  No longer small town church.  Now, a city church, fully engaged in the city’s problems.

In 1979, Old South discerned God calling it to hire Rev. Jean Curtis as Assistant Minister, six years after electing its first female moderator.  No longer a church led only by men.  Now, a church on its way to equality for all God’s people.

In 1994, this church again heard God’s call to open the doors of the church still wider, and formally and publicly declared that anyone seeking to know God is welcome to become part of the body of Christ here, regardless of sexual identity.  No longer an exclusive church.  Now, proclaimers of the Good News to all the people.

In 2005, Old South listened for God’s voice, heard yet another new thing, and called its first female senior minister in its three hundred and thirty-six year history.  No longer church with a stained-glass ceiling.  Now, church with a new kind of proclamation.

You know that—because you’ve lived through it in your own lives and in the life of this congregation—with each meeting with the God of the burning bush, each new “Hello, your name is” moment, there is worry.  There is pain and confusion and uncertainty.  There is all that always goes with the loss of old life.  “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”  And here we are, my sisters and brothers, in this Old South Church, alive and thriving in a life our ancestors could never have imagined.  Because we followers of the God of Jesus Christ are the ones that meet that God in our communities, in the waters of our baptisms, in the broken bread, and in circumstance, and on the mountaintops, and ask, “Who am I”?

And with each step, each change, each new identity formed out of the fusion of who we were and who God calls us to be, there is this promise, always this promise: “I will be with you.  I will be with you.  I will be with you, and you will find life.  My life.  New life.  Resurrection life.  And together through time, you and I—you, my beloved child, and I—will blaze and shine and never be consumed.”

I praise God for the opportunity to join you in meeting God in those places where God would have us meet, in discerning together God’s will for this community, in joyfully—and sometimes fearfully—listening to God whisper, “Hello, your name is” again.  Now that this introduction is over, I can’t wait to discover together what God will name this people next as we seek together to love, to serve, and to praise.  Amen and amen.