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June 7, 2002
The Call of Moses at the Burning Bush
Delivered September 8, 2002
by Pastor Werner De Jong
Text: Exodus 3:1-12
Main Idea: God chooses to cooperate with us in fulfilling his purposes for humanity. In order to do so God first must get our attention and reveal himself to us. Our weakness is not an obstacle to this call, for God promises to be with us.
Purpose: To challenge the listeners to pay attention to the ways in which God is calling us to fulfill his purposes. To encourage the listeners that God chooses to use ordinary, frail human beings to accomplish his purposes; we can do what God asks of us because God promises to be with us.
Introduction: In last Sunday's Labour Day sermon we talked a lot about the subject of work. One of the points we made is the remarkable fact that God chooses to work in our world to accomplish his purposes by cooperating with us. In spite of his infinite power and majesty and glory, God's determined method of operating is to call weak, frail human beings, to work together with him.
This morning I want to elaborate on this surprising plan. Today's scripture reading is a crystal clear example of God's deliberate intent to strike up a divine-human partnership. It is the awe-inspiring story of God calling Moses at the burning bush to return to Egypt and deliver the descendants of Abraham from bondage. For God had heard the Israelites in Egypt groaning under their slavery. When they cried out for help, their appeals rose up to God, who took notice of them and remembered the covenant he had made 400 years earlier with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
So God appeared to Moses as fire in a desert bush. During that remarkable encounter God announced to Moses, in two strikingly different ways, his plans to rescue Israel. First of all the voice from the bush declared: "I have heard their cry...and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians." Moses must have been greatly relieved to hear those words. He had tried to help his people once, he had tried to intervene on their behalf when he saw an Egyptian beating up on a fellow Hebrew, but he had failed miserably. He had carefully looked this way and that to ensure no one was looking, and then killed the Egyptian and vainly attempted to hide the evidence by burying his body in the sand. But unknown to him there were witnesses to the event, and Moses was forced to flee Egypt and live in exile in the lonely wilderness as a shepherd. So when God announced that he himself had come down to help his people, Moses must have eagerly welcomed the announcement. Until, that is, God proceeded to restate his plan: "I have heard their cry...I have come down to deliver my people," he said, but almost immediately he added, "I have seen how the Egyptians have oppress them, so come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt." With those words Moses' joy must have dissipated as quickly as air escapes from a burst balloon.
When we think about God's two announcements, we may ask ourselves if there is any discrepancy between them. Which is it? Is God going to deliver the people, or is Moses? There can be only one answer to this question: In God's mind God was going to help the people, God was going to do the work, but he was going to do it in partnership with Moses, by cooperating with him.
The amazing thing here is that God surely could have liberated Israel on his own. He didn't need any outside help. But that is not how God chooses to work, and who are we to question God? God's plan was to call a man to assist him, not just any man but a man whose life to this point had been a conspicuous failure. Moses was born of a slave people, raised to high position, well educated in Pharaoh's courts and capable of great things. But his career had ended in ruin with the murder, and for the last forty years he had been an unknown and forgotten man. And suddenly to this failure of a man came the call of God to deliver his entire people.
All we can say about that is that God's ways are not our ways. When we choose someone to be on our team, we choose the best. It begins at a young age. When children are chosen as captains to pick who they want on their team, they invariably begin with the most athletic and end with the most uncoordinated. We used to do it when we played road hockey. I definitely didn't want to be picked last! And when I was captain, I always started with the best goal-scorer. We as adults do it too. When we hire people, for example, we naturally look for the candidate with the most education and experience. We don't want to take a risk on losers. But not God. The All–Powerful–One chooses to cooperate with those whom others dismiss as unimportant. Who else but God could come up with such a plan to redeem the world?
There is a clear lesson here for us. None of us is too weak or insignificant to be considered potential partners by God. In fact, those traits would seem to be our very best qualifications. For in the language of the apostle Paul, God uses the weak to shame the strong and the foolish to shame the wise. So as we go on now to consider how God calls people to cooperate with him, don't automatically assume that you couldn't be that person. You are that person. Your very thoughts of your own inadequacy indicate that you are precisely the person God is looking for!
The Burning Bush: God Gets Our Attention: Having established the truth that God chooses to cooperate with people like you and I to accomplish his great purposes, can we learn anything else from our text that may help us understand and fulfill our own calling? Can we say anything that will help us be more faithful to our great calling to be co-workers with God?
I think we can, and in order to do that I'd like to go back to the beginning of our text. Moses was deep in the wilderness tending the flock of his father-in-law Jethro when he saw the strangest sight–a bush was on fire. This by itself was not entirely unusual, for lightning sometimes ignited the desert shrubbery, or sometimes other shepherds would have a fire. But the most peculiar thing about this fire is that it did not consume the bush. Although the bush was blazing it was not burned up.That goes completely against the laws of nature. Any time I have had a campfire, once the fire has died out, most of the wood has gone up in smoke. But this bush didn't. What could it mean? Many scholars have attributed deep symbolism to this bush that burned but would not die. According to one commentator, the most popular explanation is that the burning bush was a symbol of Israel's slavery in Egypt. Although the Hebrews experienced many fiery trials there, they continued to exist undiminished. Like the bush they too remained intact. That is a very intriguing explanation, there may well be something to it, but I wonder if sometimes we who like to study become so captivated by symbols and mysteries that we overlook the obvious. Was not the primary purpose of the burning bush simply to get Moses' attention? Was it not God's way of saying to Moses, "Here I am?" Perhaps that point is too obvious, for not one of the commentaries I read suggested it. But how does our text present the story? We read that when Moses saw the bush that blazed without being consumed he said to himself, "I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up." It obviously captured his attention. And when the Lord saw that Moses had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, "Moses, Moses!"
It may be obvious, but sometimes the obvious needs to be stated. Before God can cooperate with a person God needs to get that person's attention. In curiosity Moses turned aside to look at this oddity, but the real miracle he encountered was the presence of the living God. God captured his attention and proceeded to communicate with him.
When we ask why God chose to stimulate Moses' interest through the burning bush, instead of some other means, then it is legitimate to wonder about its potential symbolism. But in addition to this it is also fair to ask: How else was God supposed to get Moses' attention, if not in some dramatic form? Day in and day out for forty years Moses had gone about business as usual, rising early to lead his animals to pasture, and returning late in the evening. It is safe to assume that during this time he didn't have any direct communication with God. His spiritual senses must have been dulled. Moses didn't have a Bible, like we do. Not a word of it had yet been written. He didn't have a community of faith to teach and instruct him. He lived a rather lonely existence in the wilderness, together with his family. His father-in-law Jethro was a Midianite priest, but he could hardly be considered a worshipper of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It is safe to say that Moses had no writings and no people who could instruct him in the ways of the Hebrew God, whom he had heard talked about in Egypt. So God captured his attention by appearing to him directly. Of course it didn't have to be out of a burning bush, but that is what God decided to do, and it obviously worked. Moses turned aside from his well-established routine and God then was able to call him to deliver Israel.
The same principle concerning God's call holds true for us. In order for God to cooperate with us, which we have already established that God wants to do, in spite of our weaknesses, God must also attract our attention. That of course raises the question: How does God get our attention today? How does God communicate his desire to partner with us in accomplishing his great purposes? To the best of my knowledge he hasn't appeared to any of us out of a burning bush, or some similar miraculous phenomenon. At times we may wish that he would do so. We may think, "If only I had an experience like Moses, look out, if I received a sign like that I'd be a much better follower of Christ." But Jesus himself played down that kind of thinking. On one occasion the scribes and Pharisees approached him and said, "We wish to see a sign from you." At this point, according to Matthew's gospel, Jesus answered them: "An evil and adulterous generation asks for a sign, but no sign will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah" (12:38-39). When the same question is asked in Mark's gospel, Mark records that Jesus "sighed deeply in his spirit" and said "Why does this generation ask for a sign? Truly, I tell you, no sign will be given to this generation" (8"11-12). In Jesus' parable of the rich man who refused to help the beggar Lazarus at his gate (Lk. 16:19-31), the rich man dies and goes to Hades, and Lazarus dies and is carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. At one point in the parable the rich man begs Abraham, "Please send Lazarus to my father's house to warn my five brothers about this place of torment....Surely if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent." But Jesus has Abraham reply: "If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, (a reference to the Jewish scriptures) neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead."
This last reference is particularly applicable. Jesus says in effect, "People who have the scriptures don't need signs in order to believe." In other words, if their hearts are so hardened to God that they cannot hear the Scriptures, their hearts will remain hard even in the event of a miracle. That seems relevant to our question. How does God get our attention? Is it not through the Scriptures? Do they not tell us the ministries which God calls us to? For example, do we need to wait for a burning bush before we begin to care for those who are in bondage, for those who are suffering, for those who are hungry, for those who are oppressed? Through the Scriptures God calls us today as clearly as he called Moses, through the Scriptures and through the words of those who teach the Scriptures God tries to get our attention. It is God who gave us his word to study and it is God who instituted gifts of teaching and preaching–therefore we can surely say that when God's word is faithfully spoken and communicated, whether from the pulpit or somewhere else, then God himself is communicating with us, and trying to get our attention. Isn't that the very reason why churches still endure the "foolishness of preaching" after 2000 years, because we believe that in the act of proclaiming the Word God is speaking to us, provided the preacher doesn't invent his or her own teaching but faithfully passes on what God has revealed? That is at one and the same time the greatest privilege as well as the greatest responsibility and burden that is placed on preachers, to be faithful servants of God's word. I hope you don't think me arrogant when I say that God tries to get your attention, and my attention, our attention as a church, every Sunday morning through the proclamation of his word. Of course as good Anabaptists we must add to all of this our distinctive teaching that the Scriptures are best interpreted within the community of believers. It is a necessary safeguard against preachers who play fast and loose with God's word. It also reminds us that God tries to get our attention when we discuss the Scriptures together, after hopefully having studied them privately at home.
You are standing on holy ground: God reveals himself to those he calls: Let's move on now from this point. In God's encounter with Moses, not only did God want to get Moses' attention: If he and Moses were going to work together, Moses needed to know something about whom he as God was. So when Moses approached the burning bush, God immediately began to reveal himself. "Moses, Moses," God called out. Here already is a revelation. Even if Moses knew very little about God, it is clear that the opposite was not true. The God-of-the-bush was intimately familiar with Moses, for he called him by name. The God whom Moses was called to partner with already knew him. Surely we can state this as a general principle: God knows those whom he calls, he knows us intimately. He not only knows our names, he also knows our strengths and our weaknesses, our successes and our failures, our convictions and our insecurities. God knows everything about us, and still he chooses to call us. Surely God is full of grace, that he would call frail humans like you and I and grant us the privilege of working alongside him to fulfill his eternal purposes.
But we must add to this revelation. When God called to Moses, Moses answered "Here I am." Then God said, "Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing on is holy ground." This command served to inform Moses that the real wonder he was encountering was not a bush that refused to burn up, but a holy God who was unlike any other. Taking off one's sandals then is similar to what taking off one's hat is today, it was a token of respect and submission. Because of the presence of this holy God even the very ground Moses was standing on was made holy. Before Moses was commissioned God wanted to be sure that Moses knew he was holy, separate from all others, above all creation, worthy of every human effort to honour and respect him.
This too we need to know if we are going to cooperate with God. We are not called to enter into an equal partnership; we are called to serve the Holy One who demands and is worthy of our highest reverence and worship. We are called to serve the very Creator of heaven and earth. If we hope to work together with God we must always do so deferentially. God will not cooperate with those who refuse to take off their sandals and humble themselves before him. God will not cooperate with those who approach him flippantly and treat him like another buddy. If we are going to cooperate with God, then we must knowingly and joyfully join in the chorus of the angels who surround God's throne: "Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God the Almighty, who was and is and is to come" (Rev. 4:8).
God's revelations to Moses do not end here. For he said further: "I am the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob." On account of all this Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. But at least he had this comfort: this awesome, fearful Presence burning in the wilderness was the same God who had shown compassion to the generations of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And the burning Presence immediately let him know that he was still a God of compassion, for the next thing he said was this: "I have observed the misery of my people...I have heard their cry...I know their sufferings...I have come down to deliver them." This revelation was absolutely vital for Moses to hear. The God who frightened him was also the God who cared about his fellow Hebrews, he cared about justice, he cared about protecting those who couldn't protect themselves. And once Moses knew this, God was finally ready to the call to him: "So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt."
Surely this event shows how important knowledge of God is to our call. Once we know the things that are on God's heart, we know the kinds of ministries he wants to work on together with us. And once again, it is primarily through the Scriptures that we learn who our God is. This text alone teaches us that God is the God of justice, mercy and kindness who cares about the sufferings of people. Therefore should we not be engaged in ministries of justice, mercy and kindness? Should we not care about the sufferings of others? It is clear from this reading that "business as usual" is not permitted for those who have come to know God. By the very knowledge of our revelation of our great God we are mandated to a new, costly way of life in the world.
God will be with us: Before we close we must also say this: Because God's plan is to work together with us, we are never alone when we engage in acts of service, no matter how difficult they may be. Moses was very reluctant to answer God's call, saying "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh?" Moses was astonished that God should call a person like him. Who was he to help his people, he who had failed so miserably before? We may ask ourselves the same question: Who am I to work together with the living God who made heaven and earth? Who am I, a fearful, insecure person to bring healing and hope to others? God, surely you've revealed yourself to the wrong person. But in reply God's response to us will be as simple to us as it was to Moses: "I will be with you." We must always remember this flip-side of what it means to cooperate with God. We are not called by God to serve alone, we are called by God to work together. And with God cooperating with us, we need not ask, "Who am I?" We need simply say, "With God by my side, I can do anything." Or in Paul's words, "I can do anything through Christ who strengthens me."
Conclusion: As we conclude let us remember once again that God calls frail, ordinary human beings like you and I to partner with him to accomplish his purposes. What a tremendous privilege! God wants to work with us, God is constantly trying to get our attention, God has revealed himself to us as a holy God of compassion who cares for others. So let us dare to listen to the call of God, and let us find courage in the tremendous truth that God never calls us to work alone, but always together with him, as a team. This is the comforting promise Jesus gave to his disciples: "And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age."