March 11 , 2007
Third Sunday in Lent, Year C (RCL), Exodus 3:1-15
In the name of God, who appears in the midst of us. Amen.
Hadn’t Moses’ life been complicated enough? He was abandoned in a basket on the river as a baby while all of the other boys his age were slaughtered by Pharoah’s orders. Then he was raised by that same Pharoah’s daughter and probably incredibly confused about his identity. Then he murdered an Egyptian and had to flee into hiding. Finally poor Moses has found a normal, safe life – tending sheep for his father-in-law. He’s minding his own business, looking for pasture for his flock and he leads the sheep so far out into the middle of nowhere that he’s “beyond the wilderness.” And then, out of the corner of his eye, he sees this spectacle of a bush – a bush that’s burning and yet isn’t consumed by the fire.
Imagine all the things Moses could have done at this moment. He could have been so preoccupied with his flock that it didn’t even register that the bush was burning. He could have considered himself too busy to bother with the bush and just ignored it. Or so frightened by it that he left the scene hoping some other shepherd might deal with it. Of course, nowdays, he could use his cell phone’s video function to get some memorable “youtube” footage.
But instead of doing any of these things, Moses reacts calmly and responsibly. He says to himself, “I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up.” Moses is curious and so he turns to look at the bush. And with that instant, his mundane life of tending sheep is over and he becomes instead the shepherd of God’s people. **
I like to have the readings for future sermons floating around in my head so that I can be thinking about what they mean and seeing how they fit into the world. And so I read this story, our Old Testament reading for today, on Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. I started wondering whether I would have turned aside to look at the bush like Moses did, or whether I would have been so intent on going about my daily life that I missed the phenomenon completely. And if I had seen the bush burning and stopped to investigate, would I have entered into conversation with God like Moses did? Or would I have dismissed it as a voice in my head and turned around and tried to forget the whole thing had happened?
I began to wonder whether God might be appearing in my world initiating conversations with me, and where I might be encountering God and not even realizing it. Since I hadn’t yet figured out what I wanted to do for Lent, I decided this would make an interesting practice for me. I would try to be more intentional about looking for God in the world and, at the end of each day, I would look back over what had happened that day to see if there had been a “burning bush” in there somewhere.
You wouldn’t believe all the ways I saw God working in my life when I started to look for Him there. **
On that first afternoon of this new undertaking I had my kids on a sled and was pulling them on the bike path along the river. Dylan was lying with his head on Sophie’s lap and had started to slip down, so I stopped to re-position him. A woman stopped to watch. She was probably 20 years older than me and walking alone. Without really any introduction she began telling me about her kids – also a girl and boy about the same age distance. Her older girl was born when this woman had no money and couldn’t take care of her, so the child had lived with other relatives while she worked. A few years later, she’d had a baby boy. She was in better circumstances then and was able to bring the daughter to live with her also. She said that her kids were now at college, but seeing my children reminded her of how happy she’d been to finally have both kids living with her, but also of how depressed she’d been over how much time she’d lost with her daughter. I don’t know why she told me all that, but I was grateful that she did. It was sad to hear, and yet somehow healing, for both of us I think. Her story made me think about decisions I’ve made and regretted and times I wish I could go back and change. It helped me, at least for that moment, to put all of that into perspective and to realize that even my regrets are part of who I am, and that who I am is loved by God. If she hadn’t entrusted me with her story, if I hadn’t stopped to listen, I think we would have been poorer somehow. God was with us in that moment. **
A few days later a bunch of us were here for the EYC lock-in. After a lot of food and caffeine and sardine playing and talking, we came into the church for Eucharist around 1 in the morning. Each of us lit a candle and said a prayer. And in the glow of all those candles burning next to each other, in the depth and vulnerability of each of our prayers, and in the communion of all of us standing in a circle around the altar, without a doubt God was there. **
And then you all might remember that day when it snowed on a Sunday morning. There were these huge, perfect, fluffy snowflakes coming down and we were in here for the 10:30 service. During John’s sermon I looked up and saw through that (point) window this gorgeous stream of geese flying in their perfect vee formation through the veil of snow. I was thinking to myself that at that moment there was nowhere else I would rather be.
Then, just recently, I encountered those geese again. (Probably not those exact geese, but close enough.) They’ve been in a field next to the seminary chapel – hundreds of them. I imagine they’re resting before they take off again for Canada or wherever they go next, but they are a bit of a nuisance. They’re constantly in the driveway that goes to the chapel so you have to swerve around them to get on and off campus. I wanted to show Sophie, so we parked the car and we got out and tried to visit with the geese. They were a bit surprised and nervous about our being there and every time we got anywhere near them they would start honking and waddling away as fast as they could. Sophie loved it, of course, even though our shoes got covered with goose droppings. But I couldn’t help thinking how absurd the geese looked up close. Somehow clunky and disproportionate, with their fussy-sounding honks. How could these be the same creatures that had been so stunning when they flew so gracefully through the snow? And why were they wasting so much time in this muddy seminary field so close to a major road when they could be flying gloriously above it all? When I was reflecting back on it at the end of the day it occurred to me that maybe God sees me that way sometimes. God knows that I’m capable of great love and faithfulness in my life, and yet I spend a lot of time bumbling around with my selfish little preoccupations, so far from my God-given potential. I can only hope that despite it all, I’m as endearing as those geese! **
I could go on and on about all the places I’ve encountered God since I’ve been paying attention, since I’ve been turning aside to look. Some days my encounters seem pretty ordinary, and some of them wouldn’t seem meaningful to anyone but me. Sometimes I feel the significance of the moment right away, but more often I only see it in retrospect, in conversation with God.
But my own Lenten burning bush experiment isn’t really the point. The point is that Moses is not the only one that God wants to talk to. God wants to be in conversation with all of us, all the time.
Moses wasn’t expecting it, he wasn’t seeking it, and he certainly wasn’t prepared for it. Moses’ finding God in that blazing bush wasn’t about his faith or human merit. But it mattered that he was willing to turn aside and look. The Bible specifically says that God didn’t start talking to Moses until He saw that Moses had turned aside to look at the bush. It also mattered that after Moses heard God there he stuck around to talk to Him. God introduced himself and then commissioned Moses for his new life. It was the beginning of an on-going dialogue between the two of them. **
If God can make an ordinary desert bush flame and talk, I imagine He can reveal Himself to us using anyone or anything around us. Sometimes it might be just a beautiful moment – something we see in nature, or an especially meaningful time with a loved one. Sometimes it might be an insight – something that calls us to see the world differently or live in a new way. Sometimes it might be a calling to a certain action or vocation. And sometimes it might just be a reminder that we are God’s and we are loved.
I suspect that if God can make Moses’ dusty mountain path, probably littered with sheep droppings, into holy ground, then he can make any corner of our lives holy, no matter how unlikely. But we may not hear if we aren’t listening; we may not see if we don’t turn aside to look.
And it’s not much of a conversation if we don’t stay and talk. Amen.
Elizabeth Rees