Take Off Your Shoes
James 4:8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.
Mark 9:37 "Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me,
and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.
We might ponder just how these two statements point us
toward the same reality. Drawing near to God has long been at the heart of
human yearning. And a close reading of the Biblical narratives, and indeed most
other religious scriptures, depicts a God – whether that be YHWH, Allah,
Krishna, the Dao, Jesus – who seeks to draw near to us as well. We often feel
alone, distant from the ultimate ground of our Being, and many religious
thinkers (Elie Wiesel is one) suggest that often God is alone as well. There seems
to be a gap, a distance, that needs to be bridged.
A foundational story, of course, is that of the shepherd boy
Moses tending his father-in-law’s flock. A bush bursts into flame. A voice from
the fiery bush calls to him to come near. But first, “Take off your shoes, for
the place you are standing is Holy Ground.”[ Exodus 3: 5] Moses takes off his
shoes and life as he knew it was changed. I often wonder what I might have
done. Would I take off my shoes and approach the voice in the bush? Or, would I
turn back and run? Moses was already on the run from having murdered a man.
Perhaps he was tired, exhausted, from running. Perhaps it is when we are most
tired that we finally take off our shoes and approach the voice in the fiery
bush.
Sometime later we see a group of disciples, followers,
trying to draw nearer to God in Christ. He is explaining to them for the second
time just what it means to draw near to God: to walk in the way of the cross.
They don’t understand and are afraid to ask. Instead, not having the advantage
of reading the Letter of James as we have had, they argue about which one among
them is the greatest. We may as well admit, we are more drawn to such arguments
than we are moved to draw near to God. It is become a national past-time, which
we watch and then discuss, analyze and debate for days afterward until finally
comes Election Day.
Jesus’ response is classic. “Whoever wants to be first of
all must be last of all and servant of all.” My favorite theological word,
“all.” That would be everyone and everything that comes from the Word, the
Logos, the source of all things, seen and unseen – and we now know that some
95% of the known universe/creation is unseen – dark matter and dark energy.
All.
Then believing that a visual metaphor may be more effective
in making his point, he places a child in their midst and says, "Whoever
welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me
welcomes not me but the one who sent me.” A child becomes a placeholder for the
Almighty!
To which our modern response is usually something like,
“Awwww….isn’t that sweet,” since our devotion to children and puppies far
surpasses our commitment to draw near to God and the Way of the Cross! The
power of his prophetic action lies in the fact that children in 1st
century culture had the status of just one tick higher than a slave or even a
dog. There was no Toys R Us. There was no baby-proofing of houses. If they
survived infancy, so be it. If not, so be it.
By placing a child in the disciples midst, Jesus makes a
statement of radical acceptance of all people among his followers. If you wish
to draw near to God, if you are going to be first among my followers, you must
welcome those who spend their lives at the very bottom of human society. To
have any chance of seeing God you must welcome all into your midst, into your
heart, into your life. Archbishop William Temple once said, “The source of
humility is the habit of realizing the presence of God.”
Jesus may as well be saying, “Take off your shoes, for these
filthy urchins, these Gentile women, these lepers, and blind, and demon
possessed people are whom God loves and cares for deeply – and that is who I
am. I am who I am!”
We need to take off our shoes. This is the Bible’s way of
saying we need to realize the presence of God in all persons and all things,
including, of course, the very earth we stand upon, our fragile island home.
There are not a lot of role models in our culture, or in the world for that
matter, that live out of the kind of humility that asks us to take off our
shoes. I remember before entering the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount I
had to take off my shoes. To enter a mosque, one must first take off one’s
shoes. To enter a home in Japan and many other cultures, one needs to take off
one’s shoes. It is a sign of respect. And it becomes more and more of a social
equalizer given the time and money we spend on getting just the right pair of
shoes to go with our “outfit” or with the persona we like to project about ourselves. The vast majority of humans on Earth do not
even own one pair of shoes, let alone a closet full.
Taking off our shoes is just one way of recognizing and
accepting the nearness of God, the nearness God desires with us. Accept all
children and God is near. Accept the sacred and holy nature of the very ground
we walk and God is near. I suspect there are many many ways in which we need to
“take off our shoes.” The source of
humility is the habit of realizing the presence of God.
Woody Guthrie left thousands of song lyrics that he never
put to music. Frank London of the Klezmatics put this one to music. It is a
hymn, a psalm really, capable of bringing us all closer to God, closer to one
another and closer to ourselves.
Words by Woody Guthrie, 1954,
Music by Frank London (The Klezmatics), 2003
Take off, take off your shoes
This place you’re standing, it’s holy ground
Take off, take off your shoes
The spot you’re standing, its holy ground
These words I heard in my burning bush
This place you’re standing, it’s holy ground
I heard my fiery voice speak to me
This spot you’re standing, it’s holy ground
That spot is holy holy ground
That place you stand it’s holy ground
This place you tread, it’s holy ground
God made this place his holy ground
Take off your shoes and pray
The ground you walk it’s holy ground
Take off your shoes and pray
The ground you walk it’s holy ground
Every spot on earth I trapse around
Every spot I walk it’s holy ground
Every spot on earth I trapse around
Every spot I walk it’s holy ground
Every spot it’s holy ground
Every little inch it’s holy ground
Every grain of dirt it’s holy ground
Every spot I walk it’s holy ground
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Words © Copyright 2001 Woody Guthrie Publications, Inc.
