“God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM.'” – Exodus 3:14

I don’t usually indulge in the histories
of the shepherds who keep us.
What matter to me or to ewe
as long as they lead us to grass?
As long as they guard us from wolves?
As long as they don’t get us lost?

But Moses, for all of his protests to God,
did not keep his silence from us.
How often we heard how he lived dual lives,
one family held by the other as slaves?
How often we heard he had ruled as a prince
and fled as a criminal here to our hills?

Though I’ve not known a sheep with two hearts,
poor Moses had two in his breast.
One beat to the rhythms of royalty.
One pulsed with the sorrow of slaves.
He wept when he called out his orders.
He knelt when he tended our hurts.

I’m not one to linger by fire – it burns –
but when Moses turned aside to the flaming bush,
I followed, and listened, and chewed on the grass.
The voice challenged Moses to merge his two hearts,
to step up and lead, not as prince, but as prophet,
to commit his one heart to deliver his people.

He sidestepped and soft-shoed, did Moses.
“Who am I?” he demanded, “to set people free?”
No sheep ever asked, “Who am I?” but of course,
no sheep ever lived with two hearts in its chest.
“You are the one I have chosen,” said God.
Just one, said God. One man with one heart.

“Well, then, who are you?” asked the twin hearts of Moses.
“Who shall I say has given this command?”
A soul who couldn’t be sure of himself
asked another for certainty. An echoing
silence greeted the question awaiting an answer.
“What is your name?”

“I AM WHO I AM.” the voice softly declared.
“I am who I am” is all I could say
if asked to account for my being, my name.
“I am who I am” reveals my one heart,
my undivided soul, my unified self.
“I am” is enough for a human, for God, for sheep.

Are you listening, Moses? Do you understand?
“I AM WHO I AM,” is the living Divine,
but is also the nature of all living things.
Let your hearts be united now, Moses,
and see. You are who you are.
You are made in the image of God.

When he put on his sandals, returned to the flock,
I followed, and knew I would see him no more.
His separate hearts were not healed, no not yet.
They were healing, however. “I AM” had begun.
He called us together this time without tears.
He led us on home. He led us to home.

A poem/prayer based on Exodus 3:1-15, the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel Reading for Year A, Proper 17 (22).

The image is Moses before the Burning Bush by Domenico Fetti (ca. 1615-1617) – Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, Bilddatenbank., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5224456.