June 7, 1998
Laity Sunday

Sharon Bottcher

"The Burning Bush Within"

Fire. More specifically, the flame is a symbol of our biblical heritage. In the Old Testament we remember the flames within the burning bush. In the New Testament Gospels we remember the flaming tongues of the spirit at Pentecost and pillars of fire in the book of Revelation. At Easter, with the dawning of a new day and the resurrection, flames represent the light that so brightly shines from the midst of deepest darkness.

The flame then is a part of our church and biblical tradition, and symbolizes how the Spirit of God interacts and touches us in so many ways. Today we consider a Bible story that we were taught as children, the story of Moses and his experiences at the burning bush.

Has anyone ever seen a burning bush? I don't mean burning twigs at a campfire or a brush fire. The writer of Exodus is not concerned to tell us how Moses could have interpreted the burning bush in terms of natural phenomena. It could have been a kind of harmless brush lightning the Romans called Castor that came to rest behind the bush. Or it may have been a kind of St Elmo's Fire, which sailors describe as dancing along the masts and sails of ships. In the text, God becomes visible and audible to Moses out of a bush which is not consumed, not burned up in the process.

The first verse that we read goes like this," Now Moses was tending the flock of his father-in-law Jethro...". I am convinced that it tells us something important about God. I believe that the way God related to Moses tells much about how God may choose to relate to us.

Moses was tending the flocks, he was working. This was not a feast day or a time of Sabbath worship within the cult. This God was "the God of secular human experience, of a working man, of life lived without ecstatic abnormal insights or visions" (1976, p 18). This is a God who approaches us in the ordinary, and through everyday activities.

Moses saw a strange sight, a bush that was burning but was not being consumed. Being curious he went closer, and as verse four says, "when the Lord saw that he had gone over to look God called to him from within the bush, Moses! Moses!"

God had called Moses by name. This human being, with all his limitations and frailties, is approached by God in the course of an ordinary work day and calls him by name. God speaks to Moses many times from the bush. Has God called Your name? Do we recognize that we are being called?

Alice will share her experiences of God calling to her from the music of the Church.

(Here Alice Pennington gave a short talk, reminiscing on many of the hymns that have been important to her over her 95 years.)

Alice feels God's call through music. Others may be called differently.

The Reverend Dr. Fred Craddock is a wonderful preacher and has written many books on that topic. In a sermon he once delivered for an annual conference of the Methodist Church, he wondered, "Why is it that when the Lord calls one into the ministry God never speaks loudly enough for anyone to hear? The validation seems to come from within (In Tull, 1992) How and when has God called you to ministry? Has God helped you with a decision? Can you hear God say, "I love You, for you are my child" when we remember and renew our own baptism at the baptism of a baby into the community ?

I am convinced that God speaks to us and calls to us by name, even though God speaks in a still, small voice and from the midst of our daily routine.

The next thing our passage reveals is that the God who spoke to Moses and who speaks to us, is a God who cares. I think one of the most beautiful verses in the Bible is in this passage. Hear again verse seven. "Then the Lord said, `I have seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters; I know their sufferings"'. Here something is revealed not only to Moses as an individual, but to Israel and to us about the character of God. This is a God who is intimately involved with us. God says I have seen...I have heard ...I know the suffering of my people. That God sees and hears knows implies that God is involved, that God

knows what is happening...to Israel, to the people of Rawanda and Yugoslavia to the homeless in Silver Spring, to us.

God sees and takes to heart the suffering of us all. The Jewish scholar Abraham Heschel calls this "the pathos of God". God comes to us, crosses the vast distance between us (and it is always God who comes to us) and hears our cries. In addition to hearing the cries, there is a response. God responds by knowing the suffering and misery of the slaves.

St. Paul believed and lived out that conviction. In his second letter to the Corinthians he writes:"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of all mercies and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God (2 Corinthians l: 3-4).

God is affected by the cries, God experiences the misery of the slaves in Egypt. In a book entitled What Does The Lord Require?, Dr. Bruce Birch states that,"the Hebrew verb `to know' means far more than the intellectual knowledge our word implies. For the Hebrews, to know meant a total involvement with and experiencing of that which is known. For God to `know' Israel's suffering is a revelation of unique involvement of the divine with the human condition" (1985, p 38).

I believe that God calls us to this sort of relationship with one another. By way of example, let me tell this story from a book titled Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed. It is the story of villagers in a French town during World WarII. These people saved thousands of Jewish people from death in the gas chamber by hiding them, often times in their own homes, and then spiriting them away from the deadly grasp of the Nazis. Led by a minister, this community reacted with horror to the actions of the Germans. They knew the suffering and responded to a call to do something, anything to relieve the situation. This community acted with extreme courage in full view of the French government and an entire division of the SS.

When asked about their heroism, they contended that what they had done was not an act of extreme bravery, nor even particularly noteworthy, it was just something that needed to be done. The need was there, they saw that somebody needed to step forward and so they did.

While most of us will never be called to intervene in situations that are so dangerous as this we will no doubt come face to face with cruelty and injustice and evil in this world and like those French citizens we will no doubt be called to action.

We are called not only to one thing, but many. We can be called to action through volunteer work, we can be called to speak out against racism or homophobia. We can write letters to congress about how the U.S. spends dollars on humanitarian aid, or we can respond by collecting pennies for UNICEF or picking up trash in the park. Each one of us, young and older, are called to action in and on behalf of God's creation.

So far we have encountered the One who interacts with us in everyday experiences, who calls us by name, and who thoroughly sees, hears and is affected by the suffering of His children. Let's return to our story.

God spoke again to Moses from the bush. "So now, go. I am sending you to pharoah to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt." Moses wonders aloud, "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh?" And God said,"I will be with you" (EX 3:10-12). The word that Moses heard burning from the bush is that God is the God of history. God has been, is, and will continually be present with us. Moses was being called to participate with God in the pain of the slaves in exile. He was called to lead them out. It must have seemed rather preposterous. An important reality was being missed by Moses. The bush was not consumed. God is in the Bush (Knight). The fires are part of God's very being in creation.

God won't be consumed by his own Bush, and neither would Moses in response to God's call. So finally a word of grace to Moses and the most important affirmation that is to be made about God, I will be with you. " Moses will eventually look back at this moment of calling and the rescue as but one moment in history. The words I will be with you are an expression of God's saving will"(Knight, p 21). In a later century the prophet Isaiah writes, " Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign: the virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son and will Call him Immanuel(Is 7: 14). God is with us. God has always been present with us. Our story begins, "Once we were slaves". God was with us then and knew personally the depths of our suffering. God led us, through Moses, to the promised land, God was with them then. And so it is today. Think of times when you remember feeling God's presence. Do we have a burning bush within us? Can we feel the comfort of the continual loving presence of God in our hearts?

This story is more than a tale about a supernatural phenomena which happened in the middle of the desert at the foot of a mountain. It is about the story of God and God's involvement in our lives.

God calls us by name, knows our joys and sorrows and is moved with compassion to be with and near us forever.

So be it . Amen.

May the God who sees, hears and knows us more thoroughly than even we can know ourselves, be with you now and remain with you always.

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