Sermon title

Our Burning Bushes

Exodus 3:1-15

Are you one of those people who rely upon signs from God to live your daily life? If something doesn’t work out, do you take it as God’s will that it wasn’t supposed to happen? Or if something does work out, is that God’s stamp of approval? Or maybe you’re one of those who yearns for a burning bush but it seems you only ever find the pile of ashes of a sign that was once there, but is no longer.

I think we’ve all probably hoped for burning bush discernment to some degree. Some of us reserve this for the really big things in life like job changes or marriage. We enlist our friends and family to pray that God will show us the answer. Some of us might argue that God is in every detail of life and there’s nothing too small for God’s guiding hand. If you need toothpaste and have always been a Colgate user, and a box of Crest Multi-Care Whitening toothpaste falls off the shelf as you go down the aisle at Harris Teeter, then it’s God’s sign to you that you should switch from Colgate to Crest! Don’t laugh! Some of us do this and who’s to say whether it’s a God-thing or simply a random event?

Are you a burning bush seeker? How do you know when the burning bush is God, and when the burning bush is … well, just a burning bush? I think Moses would have loved a copy of The Idiot’s Guide to Burning Bushes if there would have been a Barnes & Noble close to him in Midian.

Moses escaped to Midian after he killed an Egyptian.[1] I can’t help but wonder if Moses was searching and asking all kinds of questions about his life as he arrived. While his biological mother nursed him, Scripture doesn’t tell us if he had any contact with her after he was weaned. And what about his father? We know very little about him. Do you think he wondered about his parents and felt a little lost in life? He wasn’t an Egyptian yet he wasn’t really a true Hebrew either. Once he got to Midian, he was a prime-target for a burning bush moment. He was family-less, identity-less, and direction-less.

There in Midian he settled into an ordinary life. He had an ordinary job – herding sheep. He met and married an ordinary woman. But the questions must have persisted: Who am I? What about my Mom and Dad? Do they want me or love me? Am I to be stuck being a shepherd for the rest of my life? And if there is a god, how come this god allowed things to get so screwed up in my life?

Have any of these questions ever been your own? The specifics may be slightly different from those of Moses but seeking direction … looking for the burning bush that will help us make sense of the nonsense of life … is not unique to Moses.

This week on Tuesday I went to the mailbox and the cover of Newsweek has these words, “Spirituality In America.” 79% of the 1004 Americans that Newsweek surveyed say they are “spiritual.”[2] People here in this country are seeking God to find direction for life. That’s a good thing! We are a nation that wants to have “burning bush” experiences! If you’re among those 79%, and I’m guessing you are given the fact that you’re here this morning, here’s some tips.

First, pay attention. Notice in our text that Moses was out doing his ordinary things in life, keeping the sheep, when he saw something. Something was a little different and he said, “I must turn aside and look…”[3] Moses could have gone on and ignored the bush. He could have tried to reasonably explain what he saw. But he chose to investigate things further and he paid attention to what was happening.

How much of life do we miss by not paying attention? How many burning bushes do you think we miss? How much wisdom and wonder do we sacrifice merely because we do not listen? How often is God trying to break through, but we are too distracted to take note? One preacher writes, “I stay so busy sometimes I wonder if I would see it…so focused on my list of things to do that I would not notice a burning bush until I was scorched by it. So I just hunch my shoulders, keep my head down and mind my own business. A burning bush? I didn’t see it. A burning bush? I haven’t got time.”[4]

Bushes still burn.[5] We lose a job or a parent dies. We get a new job or get married. Conflict erupts in our family or our church family. Reconciliation happens between two bitter enemies. A child fails in school. A full-ride scholarship is awarded. A parent fails in life. Someone gets their act together and really seems to be making a go of things. An old anger that you thought you had under control suddenly reignites into a raging inferno again. Forgiveness comes and you’re so overwhelmed that you don’t know what to do.[6] Countless life experiences that are unusual, or just ordinary, could be the very burning bush God wants us to notice. Are you paying attention?

Second, remember that burning bushes always have an ingredient of relationship in them. God didn’t just Moses for the job he could do. God invited Moses into relationship. Before God told Moses about the job, God reminded Moses of who he was: a man with a connection to God. “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”[7] God didn’t want to simply use Moses, he invited him to enjoy and experience relationship. If it was just a job, then I think Moses would have really quit when things got tough. But because there was relationship with God at stake, Moses continued on.

Do you know why 79% of Americans say they are “spiritual”? It’s because we seek a relationship connection with someone greater than we are. In the same Newsweek survey, the #1 answer people gave to the question, “Why do you practice religion?” was: to forge a personal relationship with God. When you experience burning bushes in life, remember that they are as much about growing your relationship with God as they are about anything else.

Are you looking for a burning bush? Well, we should all get ready because each time we gather around the Lord’s Table, it’s a burning bush moment for us. Jesus reminds us that his sacrifice was for our relationship with God. If we pay attention, and remember the Table’s about our relationship with God, then life … maybe for just a few moments and maybe for the rest of our lives … will make a little more sense. Come to the burning bush this morning.

Amen.

[4] Barbara Brown Taylor, “Uncommon Light,” in Mixed Blessings (Boston: Cowley Publications, 1986), pp. 10-16.

[5] Dan Dick, “Who Am I? Reflections on Being Chosen,” Lectionary Homiletics, August-September 2005, Volume XVI, Number 5, p. 1.

[6] These thoughts have been modified but some of them come from Susan R. Andrews’ sermon, “Do You Dare Turn Aside?” in Lectionary Homiletics, August-September 2005, Volume XVI, Number 5, p. 44.