KENOSIS | Self-Forgetting | Possibility
Sermon: The Way of Tears and Fire
The God Who Self-Empties…
A sermon given at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Madison, CT, on Sunday, March 23, 2025, the Third Sunday in Lent¹
You’re Not Going to Like It…
We are living in hard times, and a lot of us are stressed. Some are looking for a rung to grab onto… something that will crystallize for them, the sense of resistance that they feel. They are looking for a symbol.
If you are looking for a symbol of resistance that is appropriate and compelling for our times, I have one for you, and you’re not going to like it. It’s this; an empty bucket. I’m just going to set this symbol on a stand before the altar for you to think about as I speak.
Lives Saved
A friend of mine became an alcoholic and was hospitalized, jaundiced and on the cusp of liver failure. His doctor changed his life. “As I look down on you lying in this hospital bed”, he said, “I feel like I’m looking at myself. I was an alcoholic, just like you.”
The doctor went on, “You are at a crossroads now. If you keep drinking, there is only painful and certain death, and soon. But if you want life, come with me to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, and you might have it. No guarantees, but if you want life, I can offer you that possibility. It is the only path of life open to you.”
My friend listened, went to AA, and stayed. I would not wish the tears he shed on anybody, but he did it with a lot of help from others. He was sober for 20 years before his death. He went on to be a sponsor himself and saved the lives of many other men and women.
What my friend experienced in that hospital room was a burning bush moment. These are moments when it seems like the voice of God is pouring into you with an offer you cannot refuse, like Moses.
Full of Himself
Moses is not all that different from my friend. He has lost everything. The adopted son of Pharaoh, he’d led a life of power and privilege as a prince of Egypt. But finding his heart strangely affected by the brutal forced labor of the Hebrews, he kills an Egyptian overseer. Full of fear about retribution and death, he flees to Midian to lead the life of a shepherd, a job usually given to 10-year-olds, and one far different than what he had known.
Moses is a man whose bucket is full… full of ego, privilege, self-agency (which is why he killed the man… “I can fix this myself”), full of self-pity and anger at his loss of power, full of fear at being brought to justice back in Egypt. Moses is a man full of himself, and completely entangled and constrained by his anger, fear, and hopelessness.
And then, he sees a fiery bush, and something in him stirs. A nudge… a felt-sense of curiosity about something other than himself. And THAT is the point where it starts… where Moses begins, ever so slightly, to self-empty².
Harder Than God Thought it Would Be!
I have a homework assignment for you to read Exodus chapters 3 and 4 about the burning bush. This morning’s reading shortens the give and take between Moses and God, which kind of deprives you of a humorous and poignant attempt by God at co-creation. Moses begins the conversation by saying “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”, which essentially says “You’re nuts! I’m too afraid to do the job… Pharaoh is going to kill me!” God explains why it will be alright. It goes back and forth for four more objections:
- “I’m going to be embarrassed if they ask who sent me and I don’t know your name”
- “What if they don’t listen to me?”
- “I’m not a great speaker; I’ll be embarrassed!”
In every case, God carefully details the ways in which this won’t be a problem. But Moses is too full of himself… his bucket is almost filled with ego, pride, and fear. Finally, he says:
“O my Lord, please send someone else.”
Friends, when you have your own Burning Bush moment, maybe don’t say that! The storyteller says “The anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses.” I think this is the moment in the conversation when God realizes that this is going to REALLY hard; harder than God thought. God shows admirable restraint and patience, however, and eventually, Moses is off to do the job.
The Symbol of Resistance
The story of Exodus is the foundational story of the Hebrew people and their journey out of bondage in Egypt to a land full of possibility. And it is ALSO the story of Moses and how he emptied his bucket of ego, rage, and self-pity, so that he could be filled again by God. So empty is Moses, that when God re-fills him, his face glows.
And this why the empty bucket is such a powerful symbol of resistance for today.
The God we worship, the God of Moses; this God wants nothing more than to be in relationship with the creation that God made. And the METHOD of relationship, the WAY that God will be with creation is to self-empty. God self-empties into creation… God pours out into us as a gift. Incarnating as Jesus in a human body is God self-emptying. Jesus emptying himself so that he is able to say “The Father and I are one”, is Jesus imitating God by self-emptying. Jesus on the cross is God self-emptying.
And if our bucket is full of ego, anger, self-pity, and fear, then we can’t receive what God has to offer; there is no room.
We are the image-bearers of God… we mirror God. If God is the one who self-empties to be in a relationship, maybe we are supposed to self-empty back. Maybe THAT is what an authentic relationship looks like. Maybe we are supposed to empty ourselves of security, status, dominance, and reputation. Maybe we are supposed to forget ourselves. Maybe we are to stand before God as an empty bucket so that the Self-Emptying One can pour into us love, glory, and mercy. Maybe, that is what it means to “put on the mind of Christ”.
Turn Toward Holy Ground
When I look at a lot of world leaders today, I see Pharaoh, full of ego and self-righteousness, full of dominance and retribution, full of violence and contempt. When I look at the poor and the marginalized around the globe, I see their misery, I hear their cry on account of their taskmasters, I know of their sufferings. Do you know what fueled that burning bush in the desert? It was the tears of the Hebrews under the oppression of the Pharoah. Tears kept that bush kindled. And all around me today, I see holy fire after holy fire kindled by the tears of the oppressed.
Friends, our call in times like this is the same call that Moses received. Our call is to notice that burning bush… to turn aside from our path and approach it, to turn away from self and toward holy ground. Our call is to empty ourselves so that the One who burns with the tears of suffering ones, can self-empty into us. And then together, we will co-create with God to respond in God’s way. To respond with possibility.
That’s what my alcoholic friend did. He had his burning bush moment, and he self-emptied. God filled him to the brim. There were tears… lots of them. He could not have imagined his outcome… it was unimaginable from the prison of that hospital bed.
Seeds Planted Decades Ago…
I don’t know what your burning bush moment is going to be. Some of you have had them. I am not sure how you will self-empty like God self-empties, but I know how I do it. Meditation is a great practice since it is really the practice of turning away from thought and back toward the silence of God. You’re like an athlete training your self-forgetting muscle memory. Another is to enter into the stories of suffering others, to forget yourself as you listen to the authentic stories of their heartbreak. I have done that with many others including some of you, and there were often tears.
Keira Schwartz is an example of someone who has self-emptied by entering into the stories of those experiencing homelessness and poverty in New Haven. Her heart has been filled with a new and unexpected call to serve them, and she has invited you to join her. I don’t know if Keira has been given the gift of tears, but it wouldn’t surprise me. All that she has been… all the gifts that have been poured into her across the journey of her life, are now being used in a new and fresh way. None of us knows where this will lead; all we know is that it looks like possibility.
All of you are the precious person you have become. The seeds of your future relationship with God were sowed from when you took your first breath. The skills you need to thrive with God in times like today were planted decades ago. You are doctors, and lawyers, and students, and business owners. When you self-empty, and God fills you up to the brim, you will still be those things, but for new causes and in new ways you cannot imagine.
The Way of Tears and Fire…
Since control is an illusion anyway, let go of trying to imagine. Just get into the flow and forget yourself and God will fill you up. A sure sign that you are on the right path of transformation is tears. If you find yourself welling up and spilling over for unexplainable reasons and at inappropriate moments, take it as a sign that the work of self-emptying is well underway. I know, I REALLY know that the gift of tears does not FEEL like a gift sometimes. But lean into it and let them track down your face.
“The gift of tears is a sign of change, of conversation of heart. The tears that are a gift are a sign of willingness to let go, of desire to let go, and the power of God acting in response to the person’s prayer of longing. …The gift of tears is a sign of self-forgetfulness… a desire that comes from within to create space for God by letting go of … security, power, attachment …. The way of tears, while not seeking pain for its own sake, is a willingness to be continually confronted not only by painful truth about one’s self, but also seeks to know this truth on a universal level of human suffering … The way of tears quickly proceeds … to an orientation toward the Other … choosing to be related to the creation” ³
May God self-empty into your bucket. May it be a good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over. And may there be holy tears. Because where there are tears, there is fire.
¹ Taken from Exodus 3:1–15 (NRSV):
Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; he led his flock beyond the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed.
Then Moses said, “I must turn aside and look at this [gives up control… he’s curious… self-emptying to a small degree] great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up.” When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” Then he said, “Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” He said further, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.
Then the Lord said, “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the country of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. The cry of the Israelites has now come to me; I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them. So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.”
But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” He said, “I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain.” But Moses said to God, “If I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” He said further, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I am has sent me to you.’” God also said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you’: This is my name forever, and this my title for all generations.”
² Themes for this sermon were derived from Ross, Maggie (1987). The Fountain & the Furnace: The Way of Tears and Fire. Paulist Press.
³ Ibid. p45
Refresh the Soul author just published this article on tears. She says “But I soon saw these tears as a good thing — a healthy, loving release.”
Spot on.
The Rev. Ron Steed is an Episcopal Deacon in Southeast Connecticut and a chaplain at Lawrence & Memorial Hospital in New London, CT. He writes haiku and lyrical prose that he hopes will help others put the head and heart in right-relation.
Top writer in Art, Watercolor, Haiku, Sermons, Refresh the Soul Weekly, and Episcopal Church.
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