Getting Our Attention-Burning Bushes

Exodus 3:1-15

A sermon by K. Toivanen at EMUC, 9/7/2008

Today, in worship, we begin a new theme based on some of the pivotal stories from the Book of Exodus. Whether we’ve grown up in the church or whether we are exploring the Christian faith for the first time, most of us know something of the stories from Exodus. Cecil B DeMille brought the story to the big screen in lavish Hollywood style with Charlton Heston staring as Moses in the "Ten Commandments". In the late 1990s, an animated version called "Prince of Egypt" brought the story alive to a new generation of viewers.

Today, we have skipped past some of the initial chapters of Exodus, so let me briefly refresh your memory of the story. As a result of a famine in their own land, the extended family of Jacob came to Egypt for food. Joseph, one of Jacob’s sons had been appointed as a key leader in the pharaoh’s government. Over the years, Jacob’s people, known as the Israelites, grew in population…so much so, that a new pharaoh became fearful that they might try to overthrow him.

So the pharaoh rounded up the Israelites into forced labour camps and commanded their midwives to kill any newborn baby boys. The midwives craftily defied the pharaoh’s orders and so many of the boys lived, including one boy who was placed in a papyrus basket and hidden in the reeds in the river.

Low and behold, the daughter of the Pharaoh, comes down to the river to bathe, and discovers the basket and the child. She takes the child for her own, naming him Moses, for she ‘drew him from the water’. Moses’, older sister, whom we later learn is named, Miriam, arranges for Moses’ real mother to nurse him through infancy.

Moses grows to adulthood in the pharaoh’s royal palace. While we are never quite sure if Moses realizes his true heritage, one day he dramatically responds to the suffering of his people. Seeing an Egyptian beating one of the Israelites in the labour camp, Moses kills the Egyptian and hides him in the sand.

Word of Moses’ actions gets back to the Pharaoh and Moses flees for his life to the land of Midian. There, he is taken in by a local priest, Jethro. He marries Zipporah, one of Jethro’s seven daughters, and takes up the work of shepherding Jethro’s flock of sheep.

Which is where our story begins today.

On this ordinary day, there is nothing to prepare Moses for his extraordinary encounter with God. It’s a regular work day for him, in his battered sandals and rough sheep-smelling clothes, leading the flock to find pasture. There is nothing to prepare him for an ordinary Middle Eastern bush that although consumed by flames doesn’t burn up. (If you are curious to see what the bush might have looked like, at the St. Catherine Monastery on Mount Sinai, near the Chapel of the Burning Bush, is a rare species of rose bush that is reputed to be the same bush as the one that burned in today’s biblical story.)

I think that the ordinariness of the day is an important clue as to how we encounter the holy. Encounters with the holy, with God, can happen in the middle of a regular work day, in the midst of our normal environment. We don’t need to be in some special exotic location, garbed in a special outfit to experience God’s presence.

But of course, how many of us have actually encountered God in a literal burning bush? And even if we did, I wonder if our response wouldn’t be to go for the nearest fire extinguisher and put it out. You may laugh, but metaphorically, I think that we are tempted to run for a fire extinguisher when in the ordinary world that we think we know so well, we experience an interruption in our normal routine; when we get a tingling sense that God is nudging us and calling us to look closer at what is in front of us; to stop and pay attention to a deeper message and a greater truth.

Much of the time we want to shrug off these encounters, pour cold water on them and extinguish any notion that the Spirit of God is at work in our lives.

Let me see if I can give you an idea of what I am talking about. First of all, I think we are inclined to dismiss the idea of Holy Ground.

Remember when Moses decides to check out the burning bush, the first thing that God tells him to do is to take off his sandals because he is standing on Holy Ground.

Now we all know what a difference it can make to be barefooted. To feel the soft moisture of grass or garden soil beneath our feet opens a new awareness to us of the gentle and fertile earth. The same, of course, can be said about exposing our feet to stony ground. To walk over rough terrain can lead to a greater awareness of the potential for pain and suffering in this earth.

When we protect our feet with sandals or shoes, we can walk right over different terrains, insolating ourselves and weakening our connections with the earth. Theologian and writer, Philip Newell once stayed at a Benedictine Monastery in India and he was struck by the number of occasions in which it was expected that he should walk barefooted.

In meditation or at sunrise along the banks of the holy river, Cauvary, they would walk with bare feet, feeling the morning coolness of the path. At prayer in the Christian temple or in visiting Hindu temples, they would take off their shoes on entering. Eating together, seated on the floor of the monastery’s dining area, they would be barefooted as a way of showing reverence for one another and for the gifts of the earth.

In Philip’s trip to India, he was also very aware of the times when he deliberately chose to keep his shoes on as a protective measure; perhaps unconsciously to keep the pain of others at bay…when he visited a leper colony or a hospice for the dying, and when he walked one evening in a street in Madras where the poor were sleeping not only without shoes but with very little to cover them from the night air.

Just as we can put shoes on our feet to desensitize them to the ground that we walk on and ignore what is under foot, so too we can put shoes on our spirits and ignore the holy ground and burning bushes that God places in our midst. We can take measures to keep the holy, to keep God at bay.

Philip Newell notes that when we do so, we diminish our sensitivity to both the glory and the pain in life; we turn away for deepening our relationships with one another, the earth and God. (excerpts from The Book of Creation, p. 38-40)

But if we hunger for a deeper connection with this earth, if we are seeking to make meaning in our lives by building loving and just relationships, if we can no longer turn away from the cries of those who suffer in this world, then we must take off the shoes that insolate our spirits so that we can stand firmly on holy ground and draw closer to God’s presence.

For it is the God of holy ground and the burning bush who hears the groaning of our earth and the cries of all those who suffer. And as strange and mysterious as it may be to us, this is a God who cannot or will not respond to those groans and cries without working in partnership with us.

This is a God who sees deep into the heart of each one of us, beyond our handicaps and failures, beyond our doubts and fears, beyond our excuses and inadequacies and knows that we have gifts to offer for the mending and healing of this planet and its peoples. This is a God who can be counted on to call us out of our comfort zone; beyond what we believe we are capable of -

and this is a God who will faithfully strengthen, equip and partner with us in the new ventures that we are called to take on.

Of course, like Moses, we hang back; looking for greater reassurance and for a bit more to go on. We want some kind of security deposit from God - a name or a title that will guarantee power and authority, at the very least a clear track record with identifiable benchmarks, something concrete to assure us that God will take care of things when God’s calling leads us into a sticky situation.

But the only guarantees and promises God will make is simply to be with us…just as God has been with all of with our ancestors in the faith, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Rachel - just as God was with Jesus of Nazareth throughout his life, death and resurrection.

It’s as we regularly retell their stories, that we remember God’s active presence with them - sustaining them in difficulty, forgiving them in failure, restoring them to hope and awakening them to new life even in the face of death.

So, let’s follow the example of Moses and take off our shoes and take away all that disconnects us from the sacred and holy in this life. Let’s put an end to the doubts that God might actually need us to make a difference in the world.

Let’s trust that when God calls us to respond to the cries of suffering and pain in this world that it’s not just about our own capabilities. It’s about partnering with God to restore the earth and its peoples to wholeness and health. It’s about being connected, strengthened and empowered by God’s transforming Spirit.

So take a deep breath and step into God’s future, as unknown as it may be, trusting that the God who heard the cry of the Israelites hears our cries of need, and even now is awakening and calling upon others to respond.

Thanks be to God. Amen.