BURNING BUSH – a pondering on Exodus 3: 1-15 (4-17)

Arresting attention, the bush burned by the wayside,
impossible to ignore, flame beckoning. A sign of glory.
Tongues of fire, like hands waving to excite our curiosity
“Come Near!”
A way of saying, Come and See”; God’s words of calling us.

An angel appeared in the midst of the fire, becoming flame.
Moses didn’t flinch. In those days Angels were common-place and expected.
Doers of God’s bidding, as they still do today but people have a tendency to rationalize away what they prefer not to understand.

Then God spoke, like a friend hiding in a favourite place, waiting.
“Moses! Moses!” Urgent, eager.
Disturbing too because whenever God calls us by Name it so often means that in some way we are about to change the direction of our life.
– Abraham, Moses, David, Daniel, Mary and Joseph,  Mary of Magdala, Peter, Paul….
The well tried and tested vocational call which is not entirely about doing something but
a recognition that we are called to become someone.
“I call you by Name, you are mine.”
We are more truly children of God who comes to be with us.
“Immanuel”.

“Here I am” says Moses.
God invites him to take off his sandals for the ground is Holy.
It is infused with God’s presence.
This is the language of pilgrimage, an intentional journey to the heart of God.
“Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”

What he hears is that The God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, has a plan,
He has heard His people’s cry. They are burdened and brought low by the oppression of Pharaoh.
“I intend to free them” says God, “and you’re going to help me.”
He then tells Moses his intention.

Despite the heat, a shiver of uncertainty and fear works quickly through him.
He would prefer God to be silent just now.

It does not escape his attention that God is sending him to Pharaoh, in whose family he was brought up. How can he stand against the might of Pharaoh?
Like so many whom God calls to some new task or way of life, excuses are sought and made. Moses stutters his way to a reason why it should be others. “Here am I, send someone else.” 

When I was at School and I hadn’t done my homework, I would make up not one but usually about three excuses, just in case the first one failed. They all failed of course!
It feels a bit like that with Moses. He’s scared of Pharoh;  the people of Israel won’t accept him; they won’t believe God has sent him; he can’t talk eloquently and he stutters; besides which he has a murky past. Oh dear!  
It won’t convince God.

But Moses has a point. He really could imagine the peoples’ reaction when he told them of the bush that burned but was not consumed and of an angel suddenly greeting him from the middle of it; and of God suddenly talking to him;
Surely they would think him either mad or drunk!
“Just tell them that I sent you”.
“But they’ll want to know who you are. What could I tell them. What is your Name?”

Oh, that again! They always want to know so much. “Who are you, Lord?”

Precisely that! I am the Lord who will now give you what sounds a bit like a riddle.
“I AM WHO I AM”. So, Moses was to tell them that I AM has sent him.
God reveals who He IS. He is the One who is. He is the heart of all Being.
HE has brought into being the life of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob, of Moses himself, and of all Creation, including you and you and you ….
The Name of God is forever and He is Lord for all generations. Because God IS, We ARE.

It took a bit more to convince Moses that he was the right person and he probably wished that he hadn’t taken notice of the Burning Bush but he could not deny that God had spoken with him and that God was absolute Being and was with him.

So in everything that followed, Moses could pray as we can pray:

Yours, Lord, is the greatness, the power,
the glory, the splendour and the majesty;
for everything in heaven and on earth is yours.
All things come from you,
and of your own do we give you.

Chronicles 29:14

[Mr G}