Traveling shoes no longer needed

Bishop Scott Bullock
The Third Sunday of Lent
March 23, 2025

A couple years ago I took the opportunity to meet in our parish church with a group of very enthusiastic second graders ahead of their First Communion to give them a tour of the church and all of the things that will be used for their celebration — hosts, chalices, and other things. I was hoping to impress upon them in Holy Communion that were never lost to God. If we feel lost, we can always come to Jesus in communion and be found by his love.

So, to illustrate this fact we took a tour of the lost and found items in the ushers’ closet. My point? While these things were lost, we’re never lost, and we can always find God and be found by him in communion. 

You’d be surprised what people leave in the church. If you’ve ever lost your car keys, they’re probably there in the back of the church. Then this time of year lots of mittens, hats, and even some coats are left in the church. Once I found a hunting knife in the church. I’m not sure what was being hunted at church. Some of the more surprising but not completely rare lost and found items however are shoes. And not just children’s shoes. Once I found one adult shoe. What does that mean? It doesn’t raise an intriguing question — how does one get home without shoes? 

The lost and found shoes might make more sense than one first thinks, but more about that later. Thinking about a lost and found, a shoe in the church doesn’t merely erase what we take for granted which are our foot coverings. They’re necessary to protect our feet while at the same time allow us to go places and do things of our choice with the proper support and protection of our feet. This truth can help illuminate one of the most famous and strangest of the divine commands contained in the entirety of the whole scriptures heard in today’s first reading when on Mount Sinai Moses is commanded by God to remove his sandals for, he, God reminds us, is on holy ground.

What’s the deal with the command to take off his shoes? Remember that the people of Israel were people who had been on the move having recently been delivered from slavery in Egypt. So, Moses’s shoes, and everybody else is in the crowd, were travelling shoes. It would be impossible to imagine an exodus without shoes for all those desert perils that they walked across — rocks and prickly plants and poisonous animals to name a few. In many ways Moses and the people had reached Mount Sinai and the end of their journey with this remarkable encounter with the living God because they were shod — they had shoes on. The divine command now to shed the shoes is about more than the end of the exodus from Egypt for listening carefully to what precedes the shoe incident. The scriptures say, “When the Lord saw Moses coming over to look more closely at the burning bush, God says, ‘come no nearer and remove the sandals from your feet.’” 

So, Moses’s shoes are still traveling shoes, and in this case, coming over to look more closely at the burning bush, that great display of God’s divine presence, when God commands this mini pilgrimage to the burning bush to end now, which is confirmed by asking them to take off their travelling shoes. The Lord seemed to be saying, “No Moses, in my presence you will know complete safety and protection for your journey. No traveling shoes needed anymore.”

It turns out we’re well into Lent and you’re heading toward the saving mysteries of Good Friday and Easter Sunday. For me one of the highlights of the many highlights of those three holy days soon to come — Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter — is situated right in the middle the adoration of the Holy Cross on Good Friday. It’s the cross that makes Good Friday good and that through it, God’s love is unleashed on the world for our life and our salvation. At the sacred center of these sacred days is the adoration of the cross, and our ritual directs something to happen that is an ancient yet no less strange moment. For the adoration of the cross the priest is supposed to go first to adore the Cross, but first take off his shoes. It’s a replaying of that message to Moses in the desert — for the cross our journey to God comes to an end. Protective travelers’ shoes no longer needed.

It’s obvious that good protective shoes are needed across the events of our lives: working, walking, and even during leisure. Even if we don’t do much physically every week, let’s take off our shoes as a symbolic way of recalling once again that our eternal searching ends with Jesus. So, at this altar, and at all altars, it’s always Good Friday. It’s always the burning bush. It’s always that place of God’s glory being shown to us that is the Cross. That outpouring of divine life that’s given to us each time we share on the Eucharist. Maybe we’re not able to be physically present, but we still can receive with that intention in our hearts and the Lord will reward that. So, let’s in a certain spiritual sense take off our shoes and look no further than this holy ground. Ground always made holy by divine presence. 

So maybe it’s not so strange to find shoes in our lost and found in our churches but once we’ve been found by God and the radiant presence of the Eucharist, traveling shoes are no longer needed. The eternal searching is over. The journey of our hearts is at an end and here we are found by God’s presence.