The story of Moses turning
aside to meet God in the burning bush is one that is both well known and well
loved by many people. It is also a story
which has great depth of meaning and can challenge us on many levels.
This morning I want to
explore with you a number of aspects of the story and how they relate to us
today.
First, I want us to consider
the concept of Holy Ground.
Second, to think about, where
it is that we might meet God.
Third, will be to consider
what happens when meet God and how we will most likely respond.
Lastly, we will be looking at
the concept of God’s presence through the lens of Jesus.
So, to the concept of Holy
Ground! When Moses turns aside to see
the burning bush God instructs him to take off his shoes because he is standing
on Holy Ground. I took off my shoes this
morning at the beginning of the worship to get you to think about this idea of
reverence in God’s presence.
Why is this ground Holy? I think that the holiness is not in the earth
itself, the dust and grit and grime, but rather the place is made Holy at that
moment because God is there in a particular way with Moses.
This is an important
distinction to make because I believe that throughout the history of both
Judaism and Christianity we do see a tendency towards idolatry of place.
In the story of the healing
of Naaman the leper by Elisha, which occurs in the second book of Kings, it is
interesting to see Naaman request 2 cartloads of the soil to take home with him
so that he might worship Elisha’s God.
It is as if God is located in the soil itself.
This kind of overplaying of
the importance of land or ground or Holy Space has long been with us. It is not that I think have buildings or
special places in which we believe we encounter is unimportant but I would want
to challenge when we begin to hold on to the Holy Space or Ground over against
the relationship with God, even unintentionally.
Think for a moment about our
own church buildings and the concept of Holy Ground. This morning I was very deliberate about the
acknowledgement of the traditional custodians of the land on which we meet, the
Turbaal people. We have built our buildings
and laid claim to this as Holy Ground over the top of another people, for which
this land itself may have been sacred in some way.
As an aside in this last month it was the anniversary of the pastoral workers
strike led by Vincent Lingiari. A strike
that went for 8 years and led to one of those iconic images that is etched into
our Australian history of the then Prime Minister Gough Whitlam pouring a
handful of sand from his hand into Vincent’s hand. It was a symbolic retuning of sacred ground.
In terms of this building in
which we meet whilst it may carry sentimental and historical value for us as a
sacred space it should also be understood in a broader history of who we are as
Australian people and that we have set this space aside for us to meet with
God. I wonder this morning did you have
that sense of taking of your shoes, did you come expecting that God would speak
to you and call you to ministry or are you simply here going through the
motions? The space only retains its
value if we are expectant and responsive to the God who will send us from here.
As I thought about this
taking off our shoes to enter God’s presence on Holy ground I was struck by me
memories of the times I have been into Mosques to observe Islamic worship. There are rows of racks where the worshippers
place their shoes before entering the worship space. They take off their shoes as they meet with God.
Yet I am also aware that in
their daily prayer, which they are to engage in 5 times each and every day,
people cannot always come to the mosque.
So they take off their shoes wherever they are and facing Mecca pray.
The point seems to be that it
is not the venue itself that is Holy but God’s presence whenever we enter into
it. A concept which I believe we could
learn from.
This leads me from these
thoughts about Holy Ground to what it is that Moses was doing when saw the
burning bush. Moses hadn’t gone to
church; he wasn’t at daily prayer or listening to a sermon. Moses was at work.
He had fled Egypt and was
accepted into the Midianite family that he had come into contact with, marrying
one of Jethro’s daughters. Such was his
place that he was trusted with the flock the family’s wealth.
Moses had not gone seeking
God, no God had come to him in the midst of his mundane and probably quite
difficult task of tending the flock.
When Moses saw the burning
bush he turned aside; he stopped to be with God.
This is a reminder for all of
us that Holy ground is not somewhere we construct like this building but
somewhere, anywhere that God comes to us.
In the midst of our daily
labour whether we are at home or in the community we should be looking out for
the burning bush of God’s presence and we should like Moses be prepared to turn
aside and listen for what God might have to say.
Too often I believe we want
to restrict the possibilities of God speaking to us to church on a Sunday, or
our daily devotionals, or when we are gathered in some holy huddle. But God speaks to us and meet with us
anywhere and when he does God calls us.
This brings me to the third
point about Moses response to God’s call.
Moses response is to question his value, his gifts, his very existence: who am I?
This existential crisis for
Moses is a denial and dodging of God’s call – I’m not good enough, why me, I’m
not holy enough, can’t someone else do it.
I want to share my favourite
story about the burning bush, it is a story told by Timothy Radcliffe, the
former head of the world Dominican order.
"In May 2004 I was taken
to the monastery of St Catherine's, at the foot of Mt Sinai. At 3:30 pm in the
afternoon, when all sensible people are asleep and 'only mad dogs and
Englishmen go out in the midday sun', we walked past the shrine of the burning
bush and climbed the mountain of the Lord... As I walked past the shrine of the
burning bush, I was delighted to notice beside it a large red fire
extinguisher. It looked so old it might have been there since Moses. It seemed
to symbolise our ambivalent relationship to the word that comes from the
burning bush, and the perpetual temptation to quench it."
Timothy Radcliffe "Do Not Put
Out The Burning Bush" in Don't Put out the
Burning Bush ed. Vivian Boland, ATF Press 2008.
I wonder at times whether too
many of us in our ambivalence are carrying a fire extinguisher in fear that the
burning bush of God’s presence might come to us and God might call us to follow
and serve.
Yet for those of us who are
Christians is this not meant to be what we do.
Listen for God and respond obediently to God’s call on our lives – even
when we don’t think we have the capacity to do what God is asking of us.
Every one of us who is
baptised is called into the mission and ministry of Jesus Christ – in our work
place, in our relationships, in our families, in our community, the places
where we can and do meet God.
This brings me to the promise
of God and the conclusion of this sermon.
God’s response to Moses existential crisis and doubt is the promise that
God will be with him. It is a promise
which gives Moses the courage to respond to God’s call.
As Christians reading this
story the idea that God is with us is powerfully altered by the advent of Jesus
Christ who is called Emmanuel – which literally means God is with us.
In Jesus God walks among us
and the promise of the Holy Spirit is that our lives our drawn into Christ’s
life, that he is with us and we are with him.
But more than that, Jesus indicates that we will meet him in poor and
prisoner and the hungry and the sick.
God is with us in each other and in the people in the world around us.
This too is Holy Ground:
people’s lives and their stories. I met
a man in the coffee shop the other day and he shared with me some of his
story. In that moment I knew I was on Holy
Ground, the Holy Ground of his life, and that in our conversation I believe God
was speaking to me.
The story of Moses and the
burning bush takes us deep into our faith and what it means to meet with God,
to listen to God, to respond God and to serve God’s purposes.
We are on Holy Ground now not
because of these walls around us but because here God speaks the good news of
Jesus Christ to us and calls us to go out into the world to meet God again and
again in the moments of our days and our weeks and to respond in faith.
Now in the silence I invite
you to remember God’s presence and listen for what God is calling you to do
this day. Amen.
