I remember sitting in my middle school English class as my teacher explained the difference between main and auxiliary verbs. I recall not thinking twice about the category she called auxiliary, or helping, verbs: be, being, is, are, am, was, were. They all seemed obvious, unnoteworthy.
It was not until I started learning languages that helping verbs gained significance in my mind. My mind transitioned them from a passive, implied aspect of grammar to an active, intentional choice central to my ability to express actions and concepts. Then, at some in my education, I also learned of various philosophical movements. The discourse of the Enlightenment gripped me in particular. This was the first time I was exposed to existential questioning. What is the state of human nature? What does it even mean to be human as opposed to any other animal? What does it mean to be human well? We have likely all heard the refrain championed by the Enlightenment thinker Rene Descartes, “cogito ergo sum,” “I think therefore I am.” Then came along Baruch Spinoza whose work has been colloquially summarized as, “I feel therefore I am.” These sentiments grapple with the concept of being. They take the verb “to be,” a verb that most of us learn as an auxiliary verb, and center it as an emphatic. A declaration of being. “I am.” Yet, before Descartes and before Spinoza wrestled with what it means to be human – to be alive – there was God. God, who was, and is, and will be. God who spoke creation into existence. God from whom life was breathed into human form. And God, who from a burning bush on the side of Mount Horeb, declared “I AM WHO I AM,” thereby establishing that we are because God is, and committing God’s self to journey with God’s people. Most of us have likely heard of the story of Moses encountering God in the burning bush. Moses is out tending to his father-in-law’s flock when he sees a bush on fire but not burning up. Moses’s curiosity takes over and he proceeds to check out the bush.[1] As an aside, I’ve always wondered what he did with the sheep – literally his family’s livelihood – while interrogating this bush but, that is beside the point. So, Moses, sheep somewhere, approaches the bush, and the voice of God speaks to Moses, expressing that God has seen the Israelite’s suffering and promises to deliver them from Egypt to the land of their ancestors in the north. Moses then gets nervous and asks, rather reasonably, “What am I supposed to tell my people? That a voice in a bush told me, a sheepherder, that we will be saved from oppression and given everything ever promised to us?”[2] To which God says, tell them that “I AM” sent you.[3] God’s response to Moses isn’t an answer explaining who Moses is; but rather, it is a declaration of who God is – and how God operates in our world. God chose Moses. God gave Moses his mission, his purpose. Moses became the Moses that we know because God was; God said to Moses, you are and will be because I AM. In this moment, the God who was, and is, and will be made God’s self known to all of humanity not as some aloof, passive being – not as an auxiliary verb – but as a main verb, moving, acting, and abiding in our world, breathing life into all of creation, giving purpose, journeying alongside us, and partnering with us. Thus, when we talk about God being called “I AM,” we are not simply stating that God exists. We are not just expressing our faith that God is real. Instead, we are making a claim about what God’s being-ness means, and about what it means to be in God. The form of “to be” that God uses when God tells Moses that “I AM” sent you is the same form of “to be” that is used in the creation story, that is used to explain the relationships throughout the generations, that is used to express generativity or the creation of the world, and is used when prophesying the coming of Christ. This means that we can know that God is operative in our world; not by some blind faith but, rather, as is declared by God God’s self. And, if God is operative, actively engaged in our world and with us, then this means that Love is operative, actively engaged in our world and with us, because God is Love. This is what God’s being-ness is, and from where we derive what it means to be in God. To be in God, to be followers of God, is to be inspired by God’s divine presence throughout history and that is all around us. It is to live a way of love, live in a way that creates, and live in a way that remembers the community. Though God chose Moses, an individual, to whom to appear; God’s message from the burning bush was for the collective, the community of the Israelites. God used an individual, sent him back to his people, and then guided and cared for an entire community. Thus, this story of God’s being-ness tells us that not only is God active in our world; but also that God’s activity is communally, or collectively, minded. The story of Moses encountering God at the burning bush roots us in community. It begins by telling us about Moses’s relationships to Jethro and Zipporah, that Moses was part of a tribe, a community bound together by kin and history;[4] continues with God reminding Moses of his ancestral lineage to whom land was promised; God then promises to be with Moses; thus, even if Moses feels alone, he is always accompanied by the God who is Being;[5] and then ends with God sending Moses back to the others to continue God’s work as a community and in the world. The Great “I AM,” in whom we all move, and breathe, and have our being, not only gave divine purpose to Moses, but also divine purpose to an entire community when God declared God’s being-ness. This divine purpose, which we now know is to spread love, create hospitality, and strive for justice and peace, is the continuance of God’s being-ness in our world. This is our identity as Christians; which, ultimately, means that we are because God is. [1] Exodus 3:-1-3. [2] Exodus 3:13. [3] Exodus 3:14-15. [4] Exodus 3:1. [5] Exodus 3:12. |