Author: lakewooducc

Lakewood United Church of Christ 2601 54th avenue South St. Petersburg, FL 33712 On land originally inhabited by the Tocabaga
727-867-7961 Lakewooducc@gmail.com

Date: October 25, 2026

Scripture Lessons: Exodus 33:12-23 and Matthew 22:34-40

Sermon: Evidence-based Faith

Pastor: Rev. Kim P. Wells

This past week as I was helping my 5 year old grandson, Emerson, get ready for school, we examined the cereal box as he ate breakfast.  There were two pictures, seemingly identical, but there were actually 8 small differences.  So Emerson and I examined the pictures until we could identify all 8 differences.  The first 7 were pretty easy.  The 8th one took us a few minutes.  Emerson liked doing this because he is a person that likes to pay attention.  A person who notices things.  Especially small things that the rest of us don’t tend to see – bugs, worms, larvae, insects.  He is very good at noticing.  Oh to have such an uncluttered mind that you can pay so much attention to what is around you!

I read this week about a mom who took a picture of her twins as they got to school and posted it on social media.  Only when the comments started rolling in did she realize that she had put two different shoes on one of her daughters.  Yes, she had picked out the shoes and put them on.  No blaming the child in this instance.  This was a source of much amusement on line, and not shaming or condemnation, thankfully.

This past week, at Lexi’s invitation, we attended a Halloween Festival at St. Pete College.  One of the activities was walking around the food garden beds looking for things that were out of place, that were evidence of an imaginary crime that had been committed, the theft of a telescope from the school planetarium.  Again, this required looking carefully, noticing potential evidence.  We had fun finding all the clues.

This noticing, paying attention, looking, observing, this is important to our lives.  And we need to notice more than the Porsche driven by a neighbor.  Or the $2000 handbag the person has at the next table at a restaurant, or the pricey golf clubs of the player in line ahead of us to tee off.

How good are we at noticing things?  Like the slumped shoulders of a friend.  The sad eyes of the receptionist.  The silence of a normally chatty co-worker.  How much do we notice?  Are we paying attention?

In the story of the encounter between Moses and Yahweh, Moses keeps asking for things and God keeps agreeing.  To giving favor.  To sharing goodness.  To showing mercy.  To offering God’s name.  To being present and accompanying Moses.  To being gracious.  Doesn’t Moses notice that God keeps saying yes?  Apparently not.  Because Moses is still not satisfied.  In the aftermath of the golden calf and the broken tablets with the 10 commandments, Moses seems extremely distraught.  He is craving reconciliation, restoration of the relationship between Yahweh and Israel.  He needs reassurance and reconnection.  Moses is looking for the re-establishment of intimacy and trust after a major breech in their relationship.  We know what that is like.  Finally Moses lays it on the line:  Show me your glory.   Show me.  Make me believe that you will safeguard our future.  Give me certitude that you will not abandon us.  Show me your glory.  Moses wants it all, full on.  I must see you, Yahweh.  Like I used to see you, face to face, in the tent in times past.  I need proof – again.

Then we are given a scene full of anthropomorphic imagery in which God agrees to shield Moses in the cleft of a rock while God’s glory, God’s presence, passes by.  But Moses will not be permitted to see God’s face.  Moses will be permitted to see God’s back side.  A rear view.  No full frontal exposure.  No facial recognition.  The back side.  The retreating figure.  That is as much as Moses will be given.  Probably because that is as much as he can take.  As much as anyone can take.  Of the full glory of God.

A glimpse.  A fleeting retreat.  A partial view.  This is how we see God.  This is how we experience the sacred in this life.  This is how divinity comes to us.  In momentary awareness.  At moderate volume not full force.  If we notice.  If we are not so distracted by our own desires and perspectives that we don’t even notice the glimpses of glory we are being given.  Maybe we are so fixated on what we think we want from God that we don’t notice what we are actually being given – which is surely much more than what we may think we want.

Moses wants it all.  And so do we.  But we can’t take it.  We can only process partial knowledge.  As we know from First Corinthians, Now, I see in a mirror darkly, partially, in a hazy, blurred way.  That is how it is in this life.

And we are being cued to Divine glory continuously, if we only have eyes to see.  If we would only notice.  Notice the glory.  The beauty.  The selfless love.  The generosity.  The wonder.  The forgiveness.  The coincidence.  That fills each and every day of our lives, if we have but eyes to see.

But we have to be looking.  We have to be paying attention.  We have to train ourselves to notice.  In part by getting out of ourselves and tuning in to others and the world around us.

Then we start to ask:  Why is our co-worker so irritable?  What is going on with the neighbor who no longer says hello to us?  Why has our son stopped calling daily?  What are we noticing?  When we notice these things and pause, we can respond with compassion.  Asking maybe, What am I missing here?  What do I need to know?  I’m wondering about this.

Then maybe we are able to share a glimpse of the glory of God with someone else.  Shine a ray of compassion on someone. Offer a glimmer of hope.  Maybe we help someone else to see a bit of the back side of God, from a sheltered, protected, safe place.

Yes, we yearn for the big spectacle.  What will that parade be like when the Rays win the World Series?!  We like the balloon drop.  We like the over the top glitz of the award ceremony.  The red carpet.  Show me.  Show me.  Show me.  Something unmistakably, mind-bendingly, immutably, revelatory and celebratory.

And sometimes the power of the transcendent, the sacred, is like that and hits us like a ton of bricks.  We are in stunned shock.  Gobsmacked.

But so often when it comes to the glory of the Divine, a protected view from the backside, that is all we can take.  That is all we need.  And that is what we have to give to one another.

Earlier this week, Ebro Ahmed, a worker at a convenience store in St. Paul, Minnesota was standing outside the store (maybe having a smoke?) when he noticed a school bus passing by.  He noticed that the door of the school bus was open.  Then he noticed that the driver was having a medical episode while driving the bus.  The store clerk ran to the bus, jumped on, and pulled the emergency break.  The nearly 20 students were unharmed and the driver was given emergency medical care and ended up resting at home.  A crisis was averted because the convenience store worker was paying attention, he noticed something, and he responded to what he noticed.  [https://abcnews.com/GMA/News/27-year-man-credited-saving-kids-driver-runaway/story?id=137443017]   And others, surely the bus driver and the parents of the children, saw a manifestation of the power of goodness, maybe even a glimpse of the glory of God.

The glory and power of God are being made manifest around us all the time.  Divine Love is being demonstrated and revealed in the forces of nature and in the nature of human actions.  Our faith is confirmed and strengthened when we choose to notice what is going on around us and when we are then empowered to be a manifestation of Divine goodness and mercy and justice to others.

We never see it all.  Only ever a glimpse of the back side passing by.  And that is more than enough.  Amen.

A reasonable effort has been made to appropriately cite materials referenced in this sermon. For additional information, please contact Lakewood United Church of Christ.