The bush is still burning. Have you ever had one of those days where if you get one more phone call, hear one more co-worker call your name to help with something, or your child, or your student, or your spouse, or a patient or even a friend calls out your name and asks for something, you think you’ll scream? Poor Moses, not just any voice calls his name, it is God calling. There we all are minding our own business, doing the best that we can and something interrupts. So it was with Moses, literally, minding his own business since he was quite literally about the business of tending sheep. He was a shepherd at the time, out in the wilderness of Sinai. But God is sometimes in the interruptions, even, or perhaps most especially, in the irritating interruptions. And so Moses did what we sometimes do he simply turned to notice. Before he ever heard God’s voice, he turned aside to notice that burning bush. Did you notice then what happened? It says, because God saw that Moses turned aside to see God spoke to him. God noticed that Moses turned aside to see.
Isn’t that the problem for so many of us, that in the busyness of our lives we think we don’t have time to turn aside and see; we think God couldn’t possibly be in that voice calling to us, that irritating or just burdening voice on our busy day. But sometimes God is in the interruption and sometimes God will speak if we turn aside to see.
Thank God it’s not always an irritating interruption; sometimes it’s a bright sunrise after a day of rain and a warm day after weeks of bitter cold. And you might turn aside and see, Ahh. God’s here, God is here. Or sometimes it’s a moment of awe and wonder like the one that comes with the birth of a child, or even the stirring of life in the womb that portends a child is on the way. Ahh, God is there.
But sometimes its hard to turn aside and see, we want to avert our eyes when the news on the front page or on the radio or TV reminds us that towers are still falling like that tower in Siloam that they asked Jesus about in this morning’s Gospel reading. They’re falling whether it’s in Bagdad or Wall Street or a kind of interior tower on which you’ve built so much of your hope and your life. Whether it’s a glorious sunrise and a warm day or the birth of a child or a falling tower, if we turn aside to see God is there. God is there. And God might just call to us; God might speak and call your name and mine.
Why? Three things come to mind. The first and I hope you will dwell on this for a moment. God wants to honor us for turning aside to notice. God wants to love us for paying attention. So much of our lives are spent not noticing, not paying attention that God delights and wants to honor and love us when we stop and notice. So perhaps you can stop right now, just for a moment, and let God honor you for being here to notice God and let God love you.
But God wants to do something more than honor and love you and me when we stop and notice. God wants to speak to whatever it is we are feeling and thinking about, that thing that has caused us to turn aside and notice. If it’s joy at sunrise and warmth or the birth of a child God wants to share in that joy. God wants to rejoice with us. God wants to confirm our joy and say; “This is good.” If it is anguish at falling towers or falling hopes and dreams, God wants to mourn with us. God wants us to know we are not alone in joy or in anguish.
But God wants to do a third thing and this is where the trouble can begin. God wants to use that opportunity, as God wants to use every opportunity in our lives, to call us deeper. Not just to honor and love us, not just to call our name and be with us, but to call us deeper, deeper than we knew we could go, deeper than we had thought to go, deeper even than we had wanted to go. After all, we just turned aside to see the sunrise or to notice the wonder of the child’s birth or to let those falling towers and the anguish of them touch our hearts. All we did was pause to let those things move us. Ahh, there’s the problem. We wanted to be moved in emotion or thought and that’s good, but God wants to move us in another way. God notices that we are already moved and calls us to move not just in emotion or thought but in action and God wants to move into action with us, just as God wanted to move into action with Moses.
Now if you’re beginning to get fidgety and a little panicky, hold on, I’ll get to that in a minute. Think for a moment with me about the God who reveals God’s self when God notices that we turn aside to see. What’s the name that God gave to Moses when Moses said: “Well, what’s your name, You who are speaking to me out of this bush?” God said, that unspeakable name that our Jewish brothers and sisters will never speak in worship or in private prayer, and out of respect for them I will not speak it here either. It translates, I am who I am. What kind of a name is that? I imagine Moses asking. Maybe you’re asking the same thing. It is God saying, I am life itself. I am being, blazing in everything. Burning bushes, children at childbirth, falling towers, falling hopes, I blaze in everything, I am life. What a great name. And notice that Jesus takes up that name when He says, I am resurrection and I am life.
When God noticed that Moses turned aside to see, He had a job for Moses. And perhaps you feel like Moses when God speaks to you, in your inner heart when you bother to turn aside to see. Perhaps you feel a bit of a panic. Perhaps like Moses you say, now wait a minute God, You see your people, Israel, suffering in Egypt. You see that they’re being oppressed by the taskmasters. You hear their cry, their cry of anguish has come up to You, so why me? Why don’t You do something about this? Maybe you feel that if you are a mother or a father at the birth of a child. You want me to be what to this child? You want me to be mother, father? How can I possibly take that on in this dangerous world? And the God who said to Moses, I am Who I am, might give you a new name to hear in the midst of your panic about fathering and mothering. The name Jesus gave to himself in last week’s gospel, you remember? How I would have gathered you as a mother hen gathers her chicks under her wing. Oh, I get it God; I’m not supposed to mother or father this child by myself. You are mothering and fathering this child with me. Maybe I can let go of my panic. Or in that beautiful sunrise and this warm day, maybe you feel called, not just to admire, but maybe you hear God calling you to do something about global warming. And you think God what can I, one small person, do about global warming? Indeed, what can one person do? But God might give you a new name in that panic, the name of burning bush. I am with you as a burning bush. The light will never go out. There will be energy forever if you let me guide you. Can God guide you and me to find new ways of energy that don’t burn up the bush? Renewable forms, energy that will last, that will never be consumed. We can’t alone, but with God, the Burning Bush, perhaps we can. What about the anguishes in your life this past week? What about your falling towers, your worry about bloody sacrifices around the world, your worry about those who are oppressed far and near at home. Do you feel overwhelmed? I often do. What name can God speak to us when we feel overwhelmed by all these needs close at home and far away? What name can God give here at the midpoint in Lent; perhaps God in Jesus wants to give us the name. I mix my blood with every sacrifice. Every tower that falls and crushes a human being, falls on me and I go on living and feeding with my blood and my body those who feel crushed, even those who die. For I am life and I am resurrection and you need not do this journey by yourself.
So what name is God calling to you, to give you this week? Where will the bush blaze for you in this week and will you turn aside to see or will you walk by. And if you panic will you ask God to be with you as life and light in what you cannot bear alone, but with God’s help can be born now and into everlasting life. Thanks be to God. Thanks be to God. |
