Exodus 3:1-15
Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; he led his flock beyond the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2 There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed. 3 Then Moses said, “I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up.” 4 When the LORD saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” 5 Then he said, “Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” 6 He said further, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. 7 Then the LORD said, “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, 8 and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the country of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. 9 The cry of the Israelites has now come to me; I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them. 10 So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.” 11 But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” 12 He said, “I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain.” 13 But Moses said to God, “If I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” 14 God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” He said further, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I AM has sent me to you.'”
Let us pray: God of all creation, alpha and omega, beginning and end. Startle us again with your call that we might remember who you are and who we are called to be. And may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O God, our rock and our redeemer.
I want to start with a funny story. I don’t think of humor as avoidant of the hard things in life, but I think like Anne Lamott said, laughter is carbonated holiness. Along with baptism, meals, prayer, music and other spiritual remedies, it is how we heal.
Many years ago, I asked a man named George in the choir to call me during the children’s message. I added his number to my phone and labeled it “GOD.” Needless to say, when that name popped up on my phone during worship and I showed the kids, they were floored.
The only problem with that was when I forgot about George and the children’s message. Five years passed. I was at the doctor’s office and getting some news that rattled me. Then my phone rang. I said, “Oh that silly thing, I’ll silence it. I am sure it is no big deal.” Lo and behold, it said, “God.” My heart pounded. I showed my doctor. Her eyes widened. I answered. “Becca, this is George. Everything turned out ok.” I said, “So glad to hear it. Listen George, can I call you back?” My doctor said, “You call God George?”
I share that because our lives are frequently interrupted by the call of God. And we are called to see beyond our present moment into God’s burning heart. I know what it means to say this on a day like this one, when many of us are rattled by the news from yesterday and were spiritually exhausted before. God continues to call us despite our past mistakes and our present doubts into a future of freedom beyond what we can see.
Moses was climbing up Mount Horeb with a flock of his father-in-law’s sheep, the ewes clip clopping up the craggy path during a normal day’s work when we might have been trying to avoid the news.
Despite his tender beginnings, floating down the Nile River given up by his Israelite Mother. Despite his royal youth, scooped up by Pharoah’s daughter and raised in his palace. Despite the violent way his royal life came to an end, when he murdered an Egyptian in the street for abusing an Israelite then fled, by this chapter of his life, Moses was playing it small. His great potential as well as his great mistakes were all stuff of the past. But as the saying goes, “Running away from your problems is a race you’ll never win.”
That’s when, though it defied all explanation, God spoke to him from a burning bush. A holy interruption. God had heard the cries of God’s people and was going to set them free. God said, I am sending you to Pharoah to bring my children out of bondage.
Yes, you.
Moses did what you or I might do. First, he doubted himself. Who am I to do this? Then he doubted the voice from the bush. And, by the way, who are you? He might have been afraid of seeming or being crazy, serving a God whom no one had heard of or arriving without the proper divine authorization. Egyptians had many gods so he wanted to know which one this was. Amen-Ra? Isis? Who? The voice responded, “I am who I am.” This God is being itself, the one who brings into being, name above all names, not a regional god with a name and a constituency. Moses flicked his sandals off, stared into a flame he did not understand but could not discount, and heard the call of God.
My grandmother gave me a small blue book by J.B. Phillips that seems to call out from my bookshelf every time I passed it. Its title challenged me then and still does today: “Your God is Too Small.” It is a book about our tendency as human beings to keep God small and safe, kitschy and comfy. Phillips says most Christians fail to invest in an adult-sized understanding of God, and instead go through life encumbered by outmoded thoughts of God.
For instance, some people think of God as a cosmic police officer, lurking to arrest us in our conscience when we do something wrong. Logging our crimes throughout our life like an existential rap sheet, more karma than Christianity. These people believe our crimes will catch up to us and eternal punishment is how God’s justice is served. But that God is too small.
Other people think of God as a wise old man in a rocking chair, tired from the work of creation and dealing with all the prophets, waking up only for crises like football games or floods. This God prefers antique language and dark rooms and stories from the glory days. But that God is too small as well.
Some people think of God not as perfection itself, but as a perfectionist. A cosmic schoolteacher, displeased with anything short of excellence. The voice of God is not a generous flame calling for an end to oppression, nor the voice who said of creation “it is very good,” but this God has the nagging voice of an all-seeing critic. This God oppresses the mind with constant whispers of “not good enough” such that some people live not in perfect freedom but in anxious slavery. So to all of you who think there is a C- written on your soul, or maybe a secret A+, that God is too small.
On and on it goes!
Some people think of God as a stressed-out CEO, triaging our prayers for a clean scan or better relationship to the bottom of the list while being briefed on all the world crises. Other people treat God like an umbrella good to keep around in case of spiritual bad weather.
And still others hold God tightly in a box of their particular beliefs, and over time, this God looks a bit more like a mirror, reflecting the person, than a great mystery or miracle.
In this week’s NY Times article, David Brooks suggests that most people don’t even think of God at all. He describes “a cultural exhaustion, a loss of faith, a rising nihilism — the belief in nothing.”
All of these versions of God are simply too small. We wouldn’t (or shouldn’t) try to squeeze into the clothes we wore in 8 th grade, even though – for me – 90s style is back in. So why do we cling to childhood views of God?
Like God did for Moses, God interrupts us and God speaks to us with an enormous heart for this world.
The poet Elizabeth Browning said, “Earth’s crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God, But only he who sees takes off his shoes; The rest sit round and pluck blackberries.”
Ask yourself, where is God calling me now, at this time in my life? And is my view of God large enough to trust that God could accomplish that calling through me, and through the people God will send along with me?
Or maybe ask the flip side of that question. Are you burned out? If so, here is something surprising I have noticed. Sometimes we get burned out not because we are taking on something too big and failing, but because we are busy with things that feel too minor to matter, and there isn’t enough holy oxygen around to fuel our calling. And sometimes we get burned out because our view of God is too small. Somewhere along the way, we started relying on ourselves alone. Our strategies. Our efforts. Our energies. And eventually we flame out. People do this. Churches do this. Countries do this. Today’s story about Moses invites us to trust a bigger God and pursue a higher call.
Think what you will of David Brooks, but his article went on to lay a big challenge at the feet of faith communities. He wrote, “My guess, and it is only a guess, is that [the] work of cultural repair will be done…by a new generation of [religious] leaders who will build a modern social gospel around love of neighbor and hospitality for the marginalized.” He suggests that cultural repair starts with people like us.
That call still raises the hair on my arms, especially on a day like today. And I believe it. I believe God is calling people like us to set people free from oppressive despair. God is calling people like us to set people free from slavery to technology or the strict codes of diet culture or the sweatshop standards of the workplace or punishing loneliness or the suffocating fumes of violence.
Yes, there are plenty of cultural arsonists out there who only know how to burn things down. Yes, there are plenty of conflict entrepreneurs out there who profit when people fight. And yes, modern Pharoahs are a dime a dozen in our world. But we serve a God who is still leading us toward freedom.
When humanity kept asking God for a business card, a name, a face, a sign, God instead became flesh and dwelled among us. Jesus. The great multiplier. He took small things like yeast and salt and children and a few loaves and a few fish and a horrible cross and a borrowed tomb and regular people and used them to change the world.
I haven’t gotten a call from George in a while, but I can’t begin to count the number of times I gotten a call from one of you, saying, “You won’t believe it … The scan was clear. You won’t believe this. We were worried about getting 60 sweaters for the homeless, we got 90. You won’t believe it, in the middle of the graveside service, a butterfly landed on my shoulder.” But you know what, I do believe it. God is calling us to a bigger and better path, marked by grace and love of neighbor, strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow. Morning by morning, new mercies we will see. And the call continues.
Amen.