Full Face

Knowing God so we can know ourselves

Exodus 3:1-2, 13-14

Moses was tending the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian. Leading the flock across the desert, he came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There an angel of the LORD appeared to Moses in fire flaming out of a bush. As he looked on, he was surprised to see that the bush, though on fire, was not consumed. So Moses decided, “I must go over to look at this remarkable sight, and see why the bush is not burned.”

Moses said to God, “But when I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ if they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what am I to tell them?” God replied, “I am who am.” Then he added, “This is what you shall tell the Israelites:  I AM sent me to you.”

          A year after I was ordained a priest, the bishop sent me back to school to study canon law. Apparently, I had not learned enough in seminary, so the bishop sent me to Catholic University of America to learn some more. It’s like catching a fish that’s too small to keep, so you throw it back and let it get bigger, then you catch it and eat it. The bishop was not ready to fry me up and eat me yet! While I was in Washington D.C., I got to tour the U.S. Capitol Building, and see the “House Chamber,” the large ornate hall where the House of Representatives meet. It was breath-taking, standing where presidents deliver their “State of the Union Address” and where our country’s laws are discussed, debated and decreed.

          But something surprising struck me along the walls of this hallowed room. There are reliefs of the twenty-three greatest law-makers in the history of the world, such as Hammurabi and Napoleon I and Thomas Jefferson. But one relief is different all from the rest. Twenty-two of the reliefs have only a side portrait, as if you’re seeing them from their shoulder and see only half their face. But only one showed his full face, from the front. The full face was that of Moses, the greatest law-giver of all time, who gave us not human laws but divine laws, the Ten Commandments.

          But I believe Moses did more than just give us another list of laws to obey, like Gaius and Maimonades did. Moses taught us that we can only be fully human when our lives are rooted in God. Only if we know God can we know ourselves. In other words, only if we have a relationship with God will we see our “full face,” otherwise, we see ourselves only as a side portrait; we see only half of us. You see, when man is cutoff from God, he not only doesn’t know God, he doesn’t really know himself; Without God, man is only half himself.

The first reading today presents precisely this dramatic moment in Moses’ life, his first encounter with God in the burning bush, and his encounter with himself. Notice how the story reveals not only the identity of God, but also the identity of Moses. First Moses asks God for his name, and God replies: “This is what you shall tell the Israelites: I AM sent me to you.” God’s name is that great and mysterious “I Am Who Am,” a name so holy to the Jews that they never even utter it out loud. It is symbolized by the four letters, “YHWH.” By the way, that was the first four letter word you shouldn’t say! But notice that God’s identity is not all that hangs in the balance in this sacred scene. Moses also asks, “But who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” Moses asks God in effect, “Who am I?” because he knows only God can fully answer that question because God made him. Indeed, through his interaction with God in the remaining 37 chapters of Exodus, God reveals Moses’ deepest identity as “the most humble man on earth” (Numbers 12:3). You see, Moses not only came to know God in the burning bush, Moses also came to know himself; Moses saw his “full face” in the Face of God.

          A boy was sitting on a park bench with one hand resting on an open Bible. He was loudly exclaiming his praise to God. “Hallelujah! God is great!” Shortly after, along came a man recently graduated from college. Feeling very enlightened he was eager to educate the naïve young boy. He asked him why he was so happy. The boy said, “Don’t you have any idea what God is able to do? I just read that God opened up the waves of the Red Sea and led the whole nation of Israel right through the middle.” The man laughed lightly, sat down next to the boy to open his eyes to the realities of the so-called miracles of the Bible. He said, “That can all be explained because modern scholarship has shown that the Red Sea in that area was only 10 inches deep at that time. It was not problem for the Israelites to wade across.” The boy was stumped. He eyes wandered from the man back to the Bible in his lap. The man, content that he had enlightened the poor, ignorant boy, got up to go. All of a sudden, the boy began to rejoice even louder than before. The man asked again why he was so happy. The boy said, “God is greater than I thought! Not only did he lead the nation of Israel through the Red Sea, he topped it off by drowning the whole Egyptian army in 10 inches of water!” I guess that college graduate needed to go back to school to learn a little more; he was still a small fish. He needed to learn that without God you are only half yourself.

          Today I’m here to talk a minute about Trinity Junior High and to encourage you to send your children there. Of course we have superior academics: our Quiz Bowl team just won the state championship. By the way, they’ve won it 11 out of the last 12 years.  And the year we didn’t win, we didn’t compete.  We have excellent extracurricular activities like band and cheer, dance and basketball. We just hired Coach John Vitale to be the new head football coach. He’s been the head football coach at Van Buren high school. We’re blessed with dedicated and driven teachers and the St. Scholastica Sisters on the same campus praying for us daily.

          But our biggest blessing is that God is the classroom. Every day begins with a prayer. We have Mass every Tuesday, confession twice a year (actually, the students need confession every week!) and two weeks ago I led their annual retreat. Each teenage student asks himself or herself the same burning question that Moses did: “Who am I?” and Trinity Junior High is like the burning bush where God answers each student back in their hearts, revealing their deepest identity. Of course, at other schools students will learn math and science, history and economics, and play football and volleyball, but only in a Catholic school will they learn who they are; they will see their “full face.” Every other school will only give them a “side profile.” Without God, you are only half yourself.

          By the way, do you know where that full-face profile of Moses is placed in the House Chamber? It is on the wall directly opposite from where the president stands when he delivers his State of the Union Address. Moses faces the president. It’s a not-so-subtle reminder to each Commander-in-Chief of the only law-giver who has a full face: because Moses knew God, he knew himself. That’s something the president and each of us should keep in mind whenever we ask ourselves the question, “Who am I?”

          Praised be Jesus Christ!