“A Peculiar Call to Moses” 

A Sermon Preached at First Presbyterian Church 

By Dr. James R. Henery 

Sunday, May 4, 2008 

Moses is on the run.  Remember, he has grown up as an Egyptian, has killed an Egyptian, and now he is out somewhere in the fields.  He’s become a shepherd – a sheep farmer – and that’s where we pick up the story: 

“Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, and he led his flock beyond the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.  There, the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush.  He looked – the bush was blazing; it was not consumed.  Moses said, ‘I must turn aside and look at this great sight and see why the bush is not burned up!’  When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush: ‘Moses!  Moses!’  He said, ‘Here I am.’  He said, ‘Come no closer.  Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.’  He said further, ‘I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.’  Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.” 

A Peculiar Call to Moses. 

This preacher had been volunteering to lead a weekly worship service in a psychiatric hospital.  One day he was talking about believing in God, and he was referring to the story of Moses and the burning bush.  He began to notice one particular patient who seemed to hang on every word, intensely interested in what the preacher was saying.  The service was now over, and the patient, in a corner, was engaged in a rather vigorous conversation with one of the supervisors.  The preacher noticed.  He wanted to find out more.  He was thinking that maybe for the very first time he had really reached one of these patients, and that maybe he could be more helpful – he could do even more!  Finally, somebody appreciated what this preacher had said!  So he walked over to the supervisor and asked, “Was he talking to you about my sermon?  Was it the service?”  The supervisor said, “Well, the one thing that sticks in my mind was that he said, ‘How come he’s out there and I’m in here?’” 

A Peculiar Call to Moses ... in a burning bush. 

Two stories hit me this week.  The first was the death of Albert Hoffman, was one hundred and two years old.  He was credited with creating LSD in 1938.  Hoffman reported then that it resulted in “wonderful visions, full of colors and images” and just a wonderful kind of escape.  Well ... we know the history of LSD and what it did (particularly in the 1960s!).  The other story that surfaced this week was a story that appeared in Jerusalem, with the headline, “Moses high on drugs.”  It seems that an Israeli researcher – a professor of cognitive psychology at Hebrew University in Jerusalem – concluded that Moses was probably high on some psychotropic plant derived from the native acacia tree, which, apparently, can provide or produce some kinds of psychotic visions and hallucinations – such as imagining that a bush is on fire and not burned up.  Thus, “Moses on drugs.” 

Now remember, I choose these sermon topics weeks before I get this information, so it’s one of those amazing, amazing, almost-serendipitous revelations.  This begins my second sermon on the peculiarity of the call to people of faith and spirituality.  Two weeks ago it was about Abraham, who hears the call just as he is about to kill his son, Isaac.  It’s an audible call – and audible moment.  Today, it’s another peculiar call, but it’s visual.  I’m not going to debate drugs or vivid imaginations or divine manifestations, or – as theologians refer to today’s subject – a “theophany” (where God is involved with nature and miraculous kinds of environmental activities).  For us, the burning bush only appears to Moses (or if it will help you this morning, Charleton Heston).  It’s a visual kind of reminder.  But what is profound in this text, with very close reading, is this: not until Moses goes to look at the bush – not until he takes the time to actually observe what has happened – does God speak.  The two events are not concurrent.  It is one followed by the other.  Not until he more carefully looks at what has happened – even with a specific verse (“I must turn aside and look and see why the bush is not burned up”) – does he hear his name called.  Then comes that amazingly consequential, emphatic declaration – the traditional kind of pronouncement – “Here I am.”  Regardless of the miracle or the hallucination or the reality of this particular image, the focus here is on the search.  It is on the discovery.  It’s not the voice.  It’s not the emotional/psychological impact.  It is the awareness that something inexplicable has happened.  He has seen the evidence, and then he hears. 

One rabbi, Lawrence Kushner (not to be confused with Harold, who wrote Bad Things Happen to Good People), in a book titled Eyes Remade for Wonder, analyzes the sequence of this story.  He immediately rejects miracle.  He describes the burning bush as a test to see how Moses pays attention, because Moses watches, then God chooses to speak to him.  The rabbi’s point is this: “The first step of authentic spirituality is becoming aware of the world around us.  Then, after we are aware, we will then see God – we will know God – in the world.” 

Imagine if we could reduce all of our religious and spiritual dogma; if we could minimize all of our dialogue and arguments and opinions and biases and judgments to a burning bush conclusion: that if we were sufficiently aware to really understand and know God in all the craziness of our lives, that all beauty around us and surprises may be, for us, the evidence of a God who is speaking to us; that if we were more observant and reflective, more inquisitive, maybe we would discern and discover God in more places and people than we usually do, because we are then more open to a divine encounter, rather than just another routine meeting or silly conversation.  Perhaps it was not so much a peculiar call – a bush on fire! – but more of an awakening to one’s ability to realize and affirm that divine spark within us that demands patience and introspection, so we can see beyond all the weariness, beyond all the mundane, beyond all the excuses, beyond all the blandness of our lifeless spiritual landscapes. 

The truth is, we don’t see many burning bushes these days unless they are planted in our gardens – the winged euonymus plant.  We – certainly, at least, Presbyterians – are not so very comfortable or at ease with Christians who talk about “conversions” or “hearing Jesus” or God.  In my decades of being a pastor and working with young seminarians, I have served on at least three different presbyteries and their committees for preparation for ministry, where we grill and drill seminarians who want to be ordained.  We also do the same thing on the floor of Presbytery, which is a very awkward kind of situation at times.  Most of the time that we hear about their call, they tell us about some provocative moment in which God spoke to them – even Jesus – in some surprising way.  But I’ve never heard anybody say they saw a burning bush.  They heard and saw other kinds of variations, perhaps.  I’m thinking that I would love to be in one of those groups or gatherings when one of them would say, “I saw a burning bush, and God spoke to me.”  I’m also thinking I will ask one of them, sometime, if they have actually seen a burning bush.  They will likely think, “Oh, it’s one of those old dinosaurs who just want to beat us up a little bit.”  But I like this story. 

My point is: why not?  Why isn’t it possible, without being labeled a theist or a pantheist, to experience God in this creation – in a burning bush or a dogwood or some other incredible creation?  Why can’t we see or experience God in a more subtle and visual way, rather than having this loud, pounding kind of voice?  Finding, discovering, and realizing a faith and a belief in the divine – not in some kind of proclamation or theory or even sermon, but in what we see, in what we visualize, and in what we experience.  The bush was on fire, but it didn’t burn up!  Only then does Moses hear the voice.  Discovering and envisioning God in our surroundings is not just confined to the book of Exodus.  It’s all throughout the Old Testament. 

My Celtic forbears and the founders of religion in Great Britain, as early as the third or fourth century, very much saw God in everything they worshipped and talked about.  The Celtic Cross in front of you is a symbol of God being in the center of all things – that all life is connected. 

In the early fourteenth century, one German and Dominican priest, Meister Eckhart, was known as a mystic.  But he took it too far with the Catholic Church and he was condemned as a heretic, because he wrote such words as these:  “Whoever possesses God in their being has God in a divine manner, and God shines out to them in all things.  For us, all things taste of God, and in all things it is God’s image we see, for God is in all places – in the streets, in the world no less than the Church.” 

For that, he was labeled a heretic and still has not been forgiven and reconciled.  For what?  Finding God in all things, including a burning bush, perhaps? 

What’s your burning bush, and how do you see God?  What is your particular call, beyond an audible kind of statement?  What do you see that reminds you of this being you have placed your faith in?  This morning’s recognition of our International Hunger Award grantees, I think, provides each of us a Moses moment to find a burning bush and discover a wondrous relationship with a universal creator. 

In doing so, we become inspired, we become enriched, we are changed, we are touched by a power, and still more incredulous than all, the bush is not consumed, just our energy to do incredible good where we live and where we love. 

Amen.