The angel of the LORD appeared to Moses in a flame of fire out of a bush…
Exodus 3:2
If you feel as if large parts of the world are on fire now, even in your personal world, and if you are wondering where God is in all that is happening, rest assured that you’re not alone.
There are burning bushes everywhere.
That was my first thought this week when I read the story of God’s call to Moses, a story you will hear should you worship in an Episcopal Church this Sunday. When there are burning bushes everywhere, I wondered, which one speaks to us of God?
You may recall that one day Moses was caring for his father-in-law’s sheep when he noticed a burning bush. It fascinated him, because the fire never seemed to go out and the bush was not consumed. God then spoke to Moses from out of the bush—a mystical encounter that would forever change his life and that of his enslaved relatives living in Egypt.
“The burning bush was not a miracle,” Rabbi Lawrence Kushner writes. “It was a test. God wanted to find out whether or not Moses could pay attention for more than a few minutes. When Moses did, God spoke.”1
I don’t believe that God has started the fires that are all around us now, but I am pondering what God might be saying to us through them.
Two possibilities come to mind:
First, some of the fires need to be addressed by anyone who has eyes to see them. If God is speaking through these fires, surely the invitation is open-ended: Is there anyone willing to help?
I think of Jesus’ story of the Good Samaritan in this light. In response to a lawyer’s question about who one should consider a neighbor, Jesus tells of a man who was robbed and left for dead on the roadside. Two religious leaders pass by, pretending not to see him. Another man, of a despised race, stops to help the wounded man, not because God was calling him in particular, but because he saw the need and felt moved to respond.
Imagine God’s gratitude when we see a burning bush of need and respond, as the Samaritan did, out of the desire to ease another’s suffering. With so much suffering everywhere, we needn’t look far.
Yet other fires touch us personally, as if God is speaking directly to us through them. The example of Moses’ call is instructive here. The theologian Eric Law suggests that God deliberately chose fire as the means to get Moses’ attention because of the fire that had once burned so fiercely inside him.
Remember that Moses was born a Hebrew slave who was taken from his parents and raised as the adopted grandson of the ruler who oppressed his people. Growing up, Moses saw injustice all around him, and it burned inside him like a consuming fire. One day, he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew slave and in his rage, he killed the Egyptian. Fearing for his life, he fled to another country, and he settled there. By the time he encountered the burning bush, Moses had mellowed and was living a comfortable life in exile.
But God needed Moses for a particular task: to lead his own people out of slavery into freedom.
Eric Law writes:
Moses’ passion for justice had gotten him into trouble before. His rage had burned and consumed him, causing him to lose sight of his calling and to hide as a shepherd. Encountering the burning bush reignited his passion for justice. But this time, the bush was not consumed. God promised Moses that his passion would bring about life for many. His passion, instead of consuming, would take his people to a new land of freedom.2
It may be that God is calling each of us to address a specific concern now, because of who we are, with our combination of gifts, life experiences, and even our sins and vulnerabilities. I take comfort in God’ way of redeeming and repurposing our lives, allowing vocation to emerge from broken places. Should a particular burning bush seem to have a claim on you, remember that God calls you for who you are, as you are.
Moses was utterly and completely human when God called him. And so are we.
1Lawrence Kushner, God was in This Place and I Did Not Know: Finding Self, Spirituality, & Ultimate Meaning (Woodstock VT: Jewish Lights Publishing, 1991)
2 Eric Law, Holy Currency Exchange: 101 Stories, Songs, Actions, and Visions of Missional and Sustainable Ministries (St. Louis, MO: Chalice Press, 2015).
