All of Us with Unveiled Faces: A Sermon

October 4, 2011
Maryville College

Exodus 33:12-34:9, 29-35
Bhagavad Gita XI, selections
2 Corinthians 3:1-18

Exodus 33:12-34:9, 29-35

Moses said to the LORD, “See, you have said to me, ‘Bring up this people’; but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, “I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.’ Now if I have found favor in your sight, show me your ways, so that I may know you and find favor in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people.” He said, “My face will go with you, and I will give you rest.” And he said to him, “If your face will not go, do not carry us up from here. For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people, unless you go with us? In this way, we shall be distinct, I and your people, from every people on the face of the earth.”
The LORD said to Moses, “I will do the very thing that you have asked; for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.” Moses said, “Show me your glory, I pray.” And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before your face, and will proclaim before you the name, ‘The LORD’; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But,” he said, “you cannot see my face; for no one shall see me and live.” And the LORD continued, “See, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock; and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by; then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back; but my face shall not be seen.”
The LORD said to Moses, “Cut two tablets of stone like the former ones, and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the former tablets, which you broke. Be ready in the morning, and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai and present yourself there to me, on the top of the mountain. No one shall come up with you, and do not let anyone be seen throughout all the mountain; and do not let flocks or herds graze in front of that mountain.” So Moses cut two tablets of stone like the former ones; and he rose early in the morning and went up on Mount Sinai, as the LORD had commanded him, and took in his hand the two tablets of stone. The LORD descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name, “The LORD.” The LORD passed before him, and proclaimed,
“The LORD, the LORD,
A God merciful and gracious,
Slow to anger,
And abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,
Keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation,
Forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin,
Yet by no means clearing the guilty,
But visiting the iniquity of the parents
Upon the children
And the children’s children,
To the third and fourth generation.”

And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped. He said, “If now I have found favor in your sight, O LORD, I pray, let the LORD go with us. Although this is a stiff-necked people, pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for your inheritance.”
.…
Moses came down from Mt. Sinai. As he came down from the mountain with the two tablets of the covenant in his hand, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God. When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, the skin of his face was shining, and they were afraid to come near him. But Moses called to them; and Aaron and all the leaders of the congregation returned to him, and Moses spoke with them. Afterward all the Israelites came near, and he gave them in commandment all that the LORD had spoken to him on Mount Sinai. When Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil on his face; but whenever Moses went in before the LORD to speak with him, he would take the veil off, until he came out; and when he came out, and told the Israelites what he had been commanded, the Israelites would see the face of Moses, that the skin of his face was shining; and Moses would put the veil on his face again, until he went in to speak with him.
2 Corinthians 3: 1-18
Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Surely we do not need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you or from you, do we? You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all; and you show that you are a letter of Christ, prepared by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.
Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our competence is from God, who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of letter but of spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
Now if the ministry of death, chiseled in letters on stone tablets, came in glory so that the people of Israel could not gaze at Moses’ face because of the glory of his face, a glory now set aside, how much more will the ministry of the Spirit come in glory? For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, much more does the ministry of justification abound in glory! Indeed, what once had glory has lost its glory because of the greater glory; for if what was set aside came through glory, much more has the permanent come in glory!
Since, then, we have such a hope, we act with great boldness, not like Moses, who put a veil over his face to keep the people of Israel from gazing at the end of the glory that was being set aside. But their minds were hardened. Indeed, to this very day, when they hear the reading of the old covenant, that same veil is still there, since only in Christ is it set aside. Indeed, to this very day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their minds; but when one turns to the LORD, the veil is removed. Now the LORD is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the LORD is, there is freedom. And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the LORD as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the LORD, the Spirit.
If I really knew what I was talking about, I wouldn’t be trying to juggle all these balls in the air, as it were. But, if I don’t try to juggle all these balls I won’t be able to know what I’m talking about. And that, you see, is an act of faith. It’s the act of faith at the heart of learning.

I.

The first ball in the air, then – the first face of faith – must be the face of God. In a strong sense, faith is about facing God, facing up to God, no matter what. Yet, in the first part of the long story we heard from Exodus, God seems, rather literally, to turn away from such faith.

Moses had brought the people up out of Egypt to Mount Sinai, led by the LORD in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. Moses went up Mount Sinai, and for forty days and nights in the fiery cloud of the LORD’s glory, he was instructed in how to build and operate the tabernacle that would be the LORD’s dwelling place among the people while the god journeys with them to the promised land. During this time, however, the people made an image of their god, a golden calf to worship. The LORD’s anger threatens to consume them all and, although Moses manages to prevent that, there must be a consequence. The LORD declares concerning the people, “I will send an angel before you . . . . but I will not go up among you, or I would consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people.” The burden of the story we heard, then, is: who will the LORD send instead?

It is at this point we hear Moses boldly demanding that the LORD name the divine delegate: “See, you have said to me, ‘Bring up this people’; but you have not let me know whom you will send with me.” The LORD answers Moses, “My face will go with you, and I will give you rest.” What could this mean – “My face will go with you”? Given the LORD’s earlier rebuke, the implication seems to be that this divine face is the angel spoken of before, the mightiest of divine messengers perhaps, but nonetheless a figure distinct from the LORD’s own self. The text is layered and complex here, but this way of making sense has the support of some later Jewish interpreters who understood the meaning of “my Face” this way and developed elaborate theologies from it. Still, ambiguity remains, but it is ambiguity that is tolerable, even commendable, if we consider the passage in light of the academic study of religions and of religious symbols especially. So, the commentator, William Propp writes: “Depending on the context, . . . [‘my Face’] can be regarded as equivalent or non-equivalent to Yahweh, just as, among [so-called] idolaters, an idol both is and is not the god.”

Now we might suppose that, under the circumstances, Moses would know better than to look the divine Face – a gift horse from God – in the mouth. It should shock us when Moses responds doubtfully, even insolently, saying, “If your face will not go, do not carry us up from here. For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people, unless you go with us? In this way, we shall be distinct, I and your people, from every people on the face of the earth.” Apparently unperturbed, the LORD says to Moses, “I will do the very thing that you have asked; for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.” Then, as if still not satisfied, Moses replies, “Show me your glory, I pray.”

I like to imagine the LORD’s response as an elaborate “Easy, Tiger” – that same mixture of admiration with warning: “I will make all my goodness pass before your face, and will proclaim before you the name, ‘The LORD’; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But . . . you cannot see my face; for no one shall see me and live. . . . [Y]ou shall see my back; but my face shall not be seen.” What the LORD means by this comes clearer – maybe – when the LORD does pass before Moses and proclaims covenant guarantees both of mercy and of condemnation. The face of the LORD seems both to mask and emit the ultimate and essential holiness of the divine, which would flare forth and consume whatever, whoever, profanes it. But the LORD’s “back” seems to represent the covenant commitment to continue with the people. Thus, the privilege granted Moses is not seeing the face of God but rather witnessing a divine transposition, from face to back, from absolute, all-consuming holiness to the timely, covenantal regulation of rewards and punishments that enables a people to bear God’s holiness. Therefore, Moses, though he brings the law, cannot mistake the LORD’s covenantal accommodation to human frailty and faithlessness for a full or final measure of the glory of God. At last, awe-struck, Moses “quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped” – a gesture of faith in stark contrast to the conduct of the “stiff-necked” people he leads.

II.

Time, now, to put a second ball in the air; Time to turn to, another face of faith. In Book XI of the Bhagavad Gita (a near-universal scripture for the one billion Hindus living today, not to mention many others whose faith it has fed), a prince, Arjuna, is given a “divine eye” and even then, confronted with the faces of god Arjuna, too, bows his head, and pleads for relief – like Moses who is granted the grace of torah, so Arjuna is granted the grace of dharma. The metaphysics need not detain us now, but the act of faith-filled devotion to the supreme Lord, recognizing both the terrifying holiness and the not quite tame hospitality of God is the key. Krishna = the “intimate” face of God, the Lord as guru, as participant – indeed, a victor – on the battlefield of life, in the midst of his people.

III.

[Turn attention back to the previous scene of Moses bowing before the LORD.] Moses remains with the LORD again for forty days and nights, receiving the Law. When he comes down from the mountain back among the people, he discovers that his own face has been terrifyingly altered. The skin of his face shines. In the case of the word translated “shining,” as with the idea of the “face” of the LORD, there is ambiguity which is probably unresolvable: Moses skin is said to have “horned.” This might mean that he has grown horns, or that his face has been scorched by the holy presence of the LORD, or that he shines. The tradition fairly definitely opted for the image of Moses radiant. Yet, according to any of the translation options the point seems to be that Moses is transformed to be face of the LORD. In other but awkward words, Moses “faces God”: not in confrontation with the face of God, but by following in back of God, he presents in his person a visible divine image in the midst of the people.

IV.

It is on this story that the apostle Paul, in the Second Letter to the Corinthians, directly comments. His comments, however, involve what may truly be called dramatic license. That Paul’s retelling of the story should wander from the text as we have received it is no surprise given his participation in a primarily oral culture, in which stories – even Bible stories – mutate to fit a variety of contexts and purposes of interpretation. The question, then, is what context, what purpose, explains Paul’s particular adaptation of the story?

His retelling exhibits three key alterations. First, Paul says that Moses wore the veil to keep the people from seeing his face, whereas in Exodus Moses dons the veil only when he has finished speaking with them; while he speaks with them he speaks face to face. Second, Paul says that the purpose of the veil was to “keep the people of Israel from gazing at the end of the glory that was being set aside.” No such explanation, in fact no explanation at all, is offered in Exodus, although we might infer that Moses simply intends to shield the people from his terrifying aspect. The general consensus of subsequent Jewish interpretation, including among Paul’s contemporaries, is that the glorification of Moses’ face did not fade but endured without dimming. Third, Paul’s explanation of the veil is accompanied by a negative evaluation: the veil becomes a metaphor to him a kind of spiritual imprisonment.

So, why these alterations? What situation seemed to Paul to require them, and what did he hope to accomplish with them? The beginning of the passage we heard, about needing or not needing letters of recommendation, reminds us that Paul tells the story of Moses in the context of an effort to regain the confidence of the largely Gentile church in Corinth. Although he and his co-workers founded the community, rival apostles have since come to Corinth and the Corinthians now doubt the authenticity and efficacy of Paul’s ministry. What had they learned from those apostles?

Honestly, I don’t know. Determining an answer with any certainty is likely impossible. There are reasons to hypothesize, though, that those other apostles may have adopted some of the habit and methods of Greco-Roman rhetors in order to win pagan converts to the essentially Jewish gospel of Jesus Christ. In practice this may have meant rhetorical glorification of Moses and, by extension, of Jesus as the definitive interpreter of Moses, in terms that a sophisticated and cosmopolitan audience such as dwelled in Corinth could admire: pampered looks, polished manners, powerful speech.

If this speculation is right, then Paul may be envisaged as offering a different image of Moses, not for its own sake, but in order to rebut his rivals’ preoccupation with prestige. This image, for Paul, is not important for its historical accuracy, nor its hermeneutical rigor, but for its usefulness as a prism through which to prosecute his case against those other apostles and their prestigious Jesus. That is, Paul presents Moses as he does, not because he thinks it an accurate or even an approximate portrayal of the facts of the matter (whatever that would mean). Rather, Paul projects an image of a humbled Moses, whose glory is destined to fade, because he wishes to highlight the central importance of a new image of divine glory: not the sophisticated superstardom of his rivals, but the faith of Jesus Christ, a faith that endures all humiliation for the sake of a greater glory than the outer world can offer.

It is a mistake, then, to think that Paul is dismissing without qualification the Sinai Covenant, the “glory of Moses,” in short, Judaism, and announcing a new covenant called “Christianity.” The very language of a new covenant written not with ink, and not on stone tablets, but with the spirit of God on human hearts comes to Paul from the prophets, Jeremiah and Ezekiel. The distinction is a Jewish distinction between a false apprehension of the glory of Moses and a true one. What makes Paul’s use of the distinction so remarkable is his perception that the problem the prophets identified is not just a Jewish problem, and that the solution is not just for the Jewish people. The veiled, hardened mind that Paul attributes to the people of Israel in Moses’ day is the same veiled and hardened mind that he hopes to deliver his gentile Corinthian church from. For, he says, “when anyone turns to the LORD, the veil is removed.” [My emphasis.]

“Now the LORD is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the LORD is, there is freedom. And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the LORD as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the LORD, the Spirit.” Any and all, Paul says, who have been exposed to the glory of God in the resurrected Christ “are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.” In Paul’s vision of the new covenant, not just one person, Moses (or himself!), must struggle to deal with the faithlessness of a stiff-necked people, but each person is a type of Moses [bringing the people up from slavery]. Each and every one is a face of God for others. Worldly prestige is two-faced. It fades and fails, and hides its failure behind many a mask. But where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom, freedom to be frank, to be humble, to be honest about our frailties.

Now lest this seem too “liberal,” too “humanistic” a lesson to draw, let me point out that Jesus, as he is remembered in the gospels, recognizes the insufficiency of his face as a reflection of the full glory of the face of God. Matthew’s Jesus teaches that although he will depart from his disciples, he can be seen and served in the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick and the imprisoned, even in the least of these (Mt 25). Both Luke’s and John’s Jesus send the spirit upon the disciples to “guide them into all truth” (Jn 16). We might like to think that, if God knows all things, can do all things, then surely Jesus can, too. But that, I think, is a mistaken inference. Faith is not dead certainty. Faith is life in spirit. Christian faith seeks and sees the face of God in others, even in others who seem outwardly so different from our idealized images of Jesus.

How ironic, then, that so-called Christians (and some of us may count ourselves among them) wound up binding Paul, the Gospels, and the rest into a “New Covenant” written in ink, and rarely in our hearts, and then supposing that can free us from the old covenant of Moses that judges faith by its works.

Fortunately, at least some in the later Christian tradition ‘got’ Paul, and remembered Moses as a paragon and exemplar of faith for all peoples. Gregory of Nyssa, for instance, wrote:

“Moses shone with glory. And although lifted up through such lofty experience, he is still unsatisfied in his desire for more. He still thirsts for that with which he constantly filled himself to capacity, and he asks to attain as if he had never partaken, beseeching God to appear to him, not according to his capacity to partake, but according to God’s true being. Such an experience seems to me to belong to the soul which loves what is beautiful. Hope always draws the soul from the beauty which is seen to what is beyond, always kindles the desire for the hidden through what is constantly perceived. Therefore, the ardent lover of beauty, although receiving what is always visible as an image of what he desires, yet longs to be filled with the very stamp of the archetype.” (Life of Moses, II, 230.)

The minds and hearts of Gregory and others were not hardened, they found the face of God, and their faith was inspired from Judaism. Many would not and could not, yet some did. And perhaps the same can be hoped for in our relations today to the panoply of faiths, not least the Hindu faith that sings out in the Bhagavad Gita:

This form you have seen
is rarely revealed;
the gods are constantly craving
for a vision of this form.

Not through sacred lore,
penances, charity or sacrificial rights
can I be seen in the form
that you saw me.

By devotion alone
can I, as I really am,
be known and seen
and entered into, Arjuna.

Acting only for me, intent on me,
free from attachment,
hostile to no creature, Arjuna,
a person of devotion comes to me.