for something more and something else than traipsing around hillsides looking for grass. But how would he discover that call?

Transcription

1 George A. Mason 12 th Sunday after Pentecost Wilshire Baptist Church 31 August 2014 Labor Day Weekend Dallas, Texas Burning God Ex. 3:1-15 He wasn t born to this life, but by the time we pick up the story in Exodus 3, Moses is a shepherd. In the first two chapters we learn that he was given up out of love by a desperate mother who was a Hebrew slave in Egypt. Pharaoh s daughter rescued him from the Nile and took him to live in the palace as if he were royalty. The story is actually quite spare from there about Moses childhood, despite what Cecil B. DeMille showed us in his epic movie The Ten Commandments. What we do know is that as soon as he was grown, Moses saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew slave. He intervened, killed the Egyptian and buried his body. When Moses learned that there were witnesses to this murder, he escaped to the desert, married one of Jethro s daughters, and started tending sheep. Now understand, there s nothing wrong with shepherding if you re meant for that work. But Moses was meant for shepherding people, not sheep. The circumstances of his life and the traits of his character called for something more and something else than traipsing around hillsides looking for grass. But how would he discover that call? One day as he was tending sheep, he wandered to the edge of the wilderness and started up the slope of a mountain. Suddenly he saw a bush burning, and what happened next amounted to nothing less than a turning point in the history of the world. But what exactly happened? We could spend a good bit of time on the burning bush itself. What kind of bush was it? How did it catch fire? Was this a miracle, or was the miracle that Moses saw it and saw into it in a way that someone else might not have? Was it burning only for Moses, or might anyone have seen it that way too if they had taken the time to look into it deeply? This is the kind of thing we might get by reading poets such as Elizabeth Barrett Browning in these lines from her poem Aurora Leigh : Earth s crammed with heaven,/and every common bush afire with God;/But only he

2 who sees, takes off his shoes,/the rest sit round it, and pluck blackberries Beautiful. But it seems it was only this bush that was burning that day. So it s probably not about the bush, per se. It s not so much a story about how the world is charged with the grandeur of God, as Hopkins put it, even if that s true and beautiful, too. Another way we might look at this is that the burning bush is a kind of mirror that reveals to Moses what was going on in his soul. He was a man burning on the inside. He has a head that runs as hot as his heart. He was passionate. He cares deeply. But after letting his anger get the better of him, he was out in the middle of nowhere trying to figure out what to do with a sense of being underemployed. Moses was sidelined from the action. And in his heart he knew that there had to be more for him. He was a burning man. The phrase burning man is interesting, given the coincidence (or not!) of this text coming up in our lectionary readings on the same week the quirky Burning Man event is being held in Black Rock Desert in northwestern Nevada. If you don t know anything about this, you probably aren t hip enough to know or hippie enough, don t you know?! The event started on a San Francisco beach in 1986 and moved to the desert 10 years later. It s a little bit of Woodstock, a little bit of campout, a little bit of arts festival. No cars allowed. It s meant to be a temporary experiment in alternative living. It s earthfriendly in that the attendees leave no scar on the land and no trace that they have been there. But mostly it s a hoard of people in search of experience. It s a trip of indulgence and selfexpression. The name Burning Man comes from the wooden figure of a man they burn at the event like a big bonfire. They ignite the fire with the sun and dance around it in all sorts of ways that depict their conviction that fire comes from within. The burning man figure portrays the burning men and women who carry within them red-hot passion for life. At least that s what they say it means. So is the burning bush really about the man who burns as he stands before it? Does Moses just project his inner struggle onto God and call it a calling? 2

3 We all wonder about our inner voices, don t we? That conversation that goes on inside our heads: Is it just us talking to ourselves? Is the other voice really our mother or our father that we have made into a god figure? Or could it be that the God who made us the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob is really talking to us just as to Moses? Our understanding of God begins with an experience, and then we reflect upon it. But the Bible does not describe that experience as something completely subjective, as did the Buddha who sat in contemplation until he discovered the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path to Enlightenment. The God of our faith is Lord of all nature, humans, and time. We get a hint of this when Moses asks God s name, and God s answer is one of the most puzzling answers ever. God s name is ehyeh asher ehyeh I am who I am, or I will be who I will be. God is the bedrock of all being and the active and present power of all reality. This God is personal and powerful, but this God burns with a fire that is love and compassion. Moses does not discover God. God discovers Moses. God discloses to Moses who God is and what God cares about. The first thing we should say about whatever it means to be someone who believes in the God of the Bible is that however much we may talk about God, it is always and only because God first talked to us. The word is spoken to us. God calls out from the bush and addresses Moses. God calls out from the strange circumstances of our lives, and we feel ourselves to be addressed. Yes, the story is about the burning bush. And, yes, it s about a burning man. But most of all and first of all, it s about a burning God. The bush burns but is not consumed. God s anger at injustice is the burning of God s love. But God knows how to direct God s anger in a way to give life rather than take it. And just this is what is remarkable about this God. God hears the cries of those who are oppressed and suffering and is moved with a passion that is compassion. This is no distant 3

4 God who flies overhead like an all-seeing drone, ready to fire on the world at any moment. Hard to believe that this is the image for God that one of my colleagues is using in a sermon series right now drones. God is like an all-knowing, all-present, and all-powerful drone. I wish I were kidding about this. Let s try reading the Bible before we preach, shall we? In defense, this pastor says: We try to use things that our culture can identify with. And besides, they help us as we fight against the bad guys. 1 Actually, no. If Moses relied on his culture, he would have seen God as a pharaoh who oppresses. In fact, this whole thing about taking his sandals off because he is on holy ground is interesting. In the tomb of Tutankhamen, sandals were found with an engraving of figures of foreign slaves on the soles. It was a reminder that the powerful ruler walked on helpless people every day to prove his superior place. But God is not like that. This God calls for humility and sympathy 1 drone-god-megachurchpreacher?utm_medium=social&utm_source=t witter&utm_campaign=voxdotcom&utm_cont ent=thursday for the weak and lowly. Moses ponders this kind of burning fire in his bare feet a power that burns but does not consume. What if that burning inside him for justice could be harnessed? What if it actually reflects upon the God who made him that way? What if that power and passion could be liberating instead of lethal? Last Sunday, when Rabbi David Stern was here to preach for my 25 th anniversary as your pastor, we had a few minutes between services in my study. He asked me about whether I ever saw Jesus as a pure human exemplar or always as the divine Son of God? I told him that I always view him as both at the same time. I think that Jesus depicts for us in his person the perfect harmony of divine and human life to the extent that you can t distinguish between the two. What you say about one you can say about the other. And that is actually what he invites us to participate in ourselves. And then he talked about how in his sermon he was doing that same thing in a way out of his faith experience. He was preaching from Isaiah 40 about how God is both the powerful 4

5 avenger and the compassionate shepherd at the same time. But no sooner had he done that than he explained how Israel is supposed to be that same way, how the people who are created in the image and likeness of God are to have those same characteristics. And he applied it to being a pastor as the shepherd of the people. This is what we learn as we grow in our faith: it s never just about God and it s never just about us; it s always about God and us together. The burning bush teaches us about a burning God and a burning man at the same time. Look at the world we live in now. We have people who think they are doing justice in the name of God by beheading innocent journalists. We have police acting like military anti-terrorist forces in suburban America. We have an officer using lethal force on an unarmed teenage boy who allegedly had his hands in the air. We have a segment of that aggrieved population with no better sense of how to protest than to loot and riot. We have Israel and Hamas engaged in a violent stalemate because they have no better imagination about how to channel their anger for justice than by killing each other. This story of Moses call at the burning bush is the beginning of something big. It leads to a revolution in the way we understand God and power. It leads to freedom that comes without a shot fired. It proceeds from nonviolent love to unending liberty. And the only violence done is by those who continue to refuse the call of Moses God then and now. Over the next two months we are going to follow Moses and learn the ways of God from him. But I can already tell you how it will turn out, because the man on the cross who burned with love for God and the world is afire in every heart that loves justice. You are going to need this power with you. There are vulnerable people who need advocates. There are pharaohs in your world who need to be confronted. But here s the good news: the God who calls you from the burning bush promises you that wherever you go with a heart on fire for what is good and right, you can be sure that the one whose name is I am who I am is with you. 5