My son, Jim Bob, has always been an amazingly perceptive fellow.  I habitually discount his observations even though they are usually spot on.  I used to take Jim Bob and his sister, Mary Beth, on nightly walks around our neighborhood in Milwaukee.  The kids rode in a wagon to which our dog had been leashed, and I pulled the contraption.  One night we approached three fellows coming the other way.  We exchanged hellos as we passed each other in the dark, and continued on our way.

   After a moment later Jim Bob said, "Dad, that was Uncle Jim."  I said, "No, Uncle Jim lives in Columbus.  Those were just a couple guys.  Jim Bob protested, "Dad, that was Uncle Jim."  I said, "No, it’s dark outside.  You just thought it was Uncle Jim."  Jim Bob responded, "It was him," and I just let it go.  As we made our way around the block, we came across the same three guys coming the other way toward us.  As we past by them Jim Bob said, "Hi Uncle Jim."  And one of the guys said, "Hi Jim Bob."  It turns out that my brother had hitched a ride with two of our friends and made a surprise visit to our place in Milwaukee.  Nancy had sent them off to find us.  Their prank had fooled me, but not Jim Bob.

   Speaking of my brother and road trips, he took my Mom on a trip to one of the Carolinas a few years ago.  You know that my Mom has suffered a couple of strokes in recent years that occasionally affect her thinking in odd ways.  On the way back she slept while my brother, the well-traveled professor, drove.  She stirred in the middle of a nap to look up with her one good eye and observe, "We’re heading to Tennessee."  I can just hear my brother now: "Why don’t we just leave the driving to me."

   130 miles later they crossed the state line into Tennessee whereupon my brother, the well-traveled professor, turned the car around and backtracked those 130 miles to I-77 and the proper way home, while my mother dozed in the right seat and occasionally awoke to chuckle quietly to herself.  It is very easy to discount those who are on both extremes of the continuum of life: the very young and the very old.  It is also very easy to be positively certain when we are dead wrong.

   The title of our message is "Killing Certainties."  When the consequences of being positively certain and dead wrong are going 260 miles out of our way, it can be funny in retrospect and worth a chuckle.  But when somebody gets hurt, it is not so funny.  It is certainly not funny to God when our religious certainties result in his beloved children getting hurt or killed, as when his Son was crucified by the religious authorities of his day who were so certain they were doing God a service.  Imagine crucifying God in God’s name and for God’s sake!

   Why do you suppose the crowds ended up following their religious leaders in clamoring for Jesus’ crucifixion?  What is it about religious certainty that attracts people to the cause?  Why do we buy in to religious certainty?  When I want to buy a product, say some new electronic gizmo, I study the subject to death.  I go online for reviews and comparisons between competing brands.  I go to an electronic specialty store to look at the options and inquire of the experts.

   Often a salesperson will launch authoritatively into a pitch when I realize that this person doesn’t know the first thing about the product in question.  It’s embarrassing.  How do you tell those who presume to be an authority that they are even more ignorant than you are?  It would be nice if they admitted their ignorance and got somebody else to answer your questions, but then they wouldn’t make the sale.  Certitude sells.  It sells in the economic marketplace and it sells in the religious marketplace.  People who peddle certainty don’t have to make sense to get others to buy in.  If they act certain enough they can tell others what to believe and think, and the latter will buy it regardless of how shoddy it is.

   Today we are going to learn why we should not buy into certitude in the religious marketplace.  We are going to learn about some faulty assumptions behind religious certitude.  We are going to learn about an alternative way to approach religious faith in God and why it is preferable to "Killing Certainties."  By the way, I first came across that phrase in an intensive adult Bible study led by Daryl Koning at The Church in Aurora entitled, "Living the Questions"—not "Having All the Answers."  Daryl’s unique gift is not in being a know-it-all, but in knowing how to launch a question and guide a discussion toward the end that a group insight may emerge which is greater than any individual insight leading to it.  Sometimes we pastors learn from the flock when we do not presume to be know-it-alls.

   Moses said to the Lord, "You have been telling me, ‘Lead these people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me" (Verse 12).  God has called Moses to lead his people out of their bondage in Egypt and on to the Promised Land.  Our text takes place during the in-between time.  Moses has led God’s people out of their bondage in Egypt, but has not yet led them on to the Promised Land.  During this breathing spell between one big leap of faith and the next, Moses seeks a little support from the God who has called him to religious leadership.

   When God first called Moses to lead his people, Moses did not feel adequate to the task.  He said, "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?"  And God said, "I will be with you" (3:11-12).  And God demonstrated that he was with Moses in the plagues he sent upon the Egyptians, and in the parting of the Red Sea, and in two guiding signs in the sky: a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.  By these miraculous signs the people could see that God was with Moses, and they followed his lead.

   But after they were led out of Egypt by all these miraculous signs, they began to question Moses’ spiritual authority.  They grumbled when they were hungry, they complained when they were thirsty and they threatened to rebel against his leadership.  So Moses looks to God in our text for a little backup.  Moses said to the Lord, "You have been telling me, ‘Lead these people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me.  You have said, ‘I know you by name and you have found favor with me.’  If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find favor with you.  Remember that this nation is your people (Verses 12-13).

   If I am going to lead your people and if I am going to presume to speak for you, then I am going to have to know something about you and your ways and your thoughts.  Otherwise these people are going to rebel against my leadership saying, "Who put you in charge?"  Who indeed!  Moses needs to have an answer for that question.  Moses needs to know who God is if he is going to have any credibility as a leader of God’s people.

   Then Moses said, "Now show me your glory."  And the Lord said, "I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you…. But," he said, "you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live" (Verses 18-20).  God is going to reveal some of himself to Moses, but he is going to hide his face.  God is not going to reveal himself completely to Moses.  He is going to reserve some measure of mystery for himself.  Moses will not be able to presume to know God completely.

   If we are walking through a crowd, we may see a form pass by and wonder if that is a person we know.  The shape looks right, the gait fits and the clothes look familiar, but can we be sure?  If we hear a person speak we may think, "That voice sounds familiar.  I think I might know that person."  But we are only certain when we see the person’s face.  Then all doubt is dispelled.  "I thought that was you," we say, "but I wasn’t sure until I saw your face."

   God wants Moses to know him, but he does not want Moses to presume to know him completely.  Why?  Because Moses, mere human that he is, is not equipped to comprehend the Almighty completely.  It is not humanly possible.  Any human who presumes to know God completely is dead wrong and is deluded by a "Killing Certainty."  As God says to Moses, "…you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live." Faith cannot live and prosper and grow where anyone presumes to know God completely.

   What an irony that so many faith traditions—so many religions and denominations—presume to have a corner market on the truth!  They are so certain that they are right and going to heaven, and everyone else is wrong and going to hell.  They are so certain that God must be a Republican—or a democrat.  They are so certain that God would take this stand on that social issue, or that position on this political cause.  They are so certain that they will fly a jet into a building full of people with a smile on their face because they are serving God by protecting him from the infidel.  That is invariably where "Killing Certainties" lead.

   You will notice that God’s face always looks amazingly like the faces of those who presume to see it.  The minute we have God all figured out he can never be bigger than we are.  His ways will always be our ways, and our thoughts will be his thoughts.  But as God proclaims in our Call to Worship: "…my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways….  As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts" (Isaiah 55:8-9).

   Does this mean that we can know nothing of God?  No, we can gain glimpses of his glory.  We are equipped to grasp certain revelations God imparts, just not the big picture all at once.  And the revelations God imparts are sufficient for each day.  He may give us a clear picture of the next step we need to take or the next two or three, but it is not given us to see much further beyond that.  Beyond that we walk by faith and not by sight—faith that as God has guided our steps in the past so shall he continue to guide our steps in the future.

   Speaking of stepping out in faith and walking with God, one of the things the Prophet Micah says is required of us is that we walk humbly with God (Micah 6:8).  Let’s add a little humility to our revelations from God. Glimpsing his glory is not seeing his face.  Receiving a revelation is no cause for arrogance, elitism, rudeness, exclusivity or an excessively judgmental attitude toward God’s other children, much less violence toward them because they do not subscribe to our "Killing Certainties."

   Humility would hold out the possibility that as God has revealed himself to us in part, so also he has revealed himself to others in part.  Is it possible to articulate a faith which is inclusive rather than exclusive?  I would like to think that I for one have done just that for over a quarter century, and that others of other faith traditions have done just that for a good deal longer than that.  There is, and always has been, an alternative to religious egotism, arrogance and self-righteousness.

   Rather than demonizing others who are not of our faith tradition, we might respectfully dialog with them and discover that we have much in common when it comes to certain nonexclusive interpretations of sacred texts.  Further, what seem to be differences dissolve upon closer inspection.  Finally, maybe some holes in our incomplete understanding are bridged by the understanding of others, whose own understanding is made more complete by our own.  It sure seems to beat the heck out of diminishing, demonizing and destroying infidels who dare to defy our killing certainties.