March 7, 2010
(Third Sunday in Lent)
(From The Lectionary Page)
The Burning Bush: Beyond Human Imagination
One of the big insurance companies has a TV commercial that I’ve seen a couple of times recently while watching college basketball. In this commercial various people are shown doing something kind for someone else, while being unaware that another individual sees them do it. For example, a man walking past a bus stop sees a woman trying to exit the bus with a baby stroller. He stops and helps her get the stroller down, and moves on. The camera then moves from this action to the face of a man who has been watching, unknown to the man that helped. This second man, presumably moved somewhat by this deed, is then shown moments later at an airport baggage conveyor. He sees an elderly man trying to catch a massive suitcase that has escaped his grasp. He steps forward to grab the bag, and brings it to the thankful man who had missed it. That person then does something good for some stranger, and is seen doing, and so on. The suggestion is that in doing something kind for another, more has happened than the helping person knows.
In part, that is something like what God is telling Moses from the burning bush. If you will respond faithfully to my call to you, more is going on in your response than you can know. The power of God is not evidenced in the same way that human power is seen. It is always more subtle, more surprising. God’s power is as patient as running water cutting through stone, eventually producing a vast, beautiful canyon. It is as persistent as the rising sun each day. God’s will happens, whether we see it or not. The question God poses to Moses today is effectively this: “Will you be part of it?”
I’ve found that a key to understanding this interaction between God and Moses is to consider the point at which they differ, about what is important here. Moses is interested his own deficiency and in God’s methods – in other words, since he doesn’t see how this can work, God needs to tell him how he’s going to pull it off. Then he’ll be more secure with this whole liberation project of Gods. God, on the other hand, while he does end up sharing something of these details in the verses that follow, suggests here that what Moses is interested in is not, in fact, what is important. The primary sign that God offers Moses that his will for His people is being fulfilled, is not the miracles that God will perform before Pharoah. It is not the Passover event, and it is not the parting of the Red Sea for Israel. It is not the sustaining of Israel in the desert with the bread of heaven. These things are not, it seems, the primary evidence of God’s power. At least, it is not what’s important to God. What God promises before all else as evidence of God’s power is simply that He will be with Moses, and that Israel will come to be where God is as well. God’s presence changes everything. There is more here than meets the eye.
When God’s call to us leads us to love and care for those who are crying out to God, there is more to it than meets the eye. It has meaning and purpose that surpasses our knowledge, our understanding. We can’t put our finger on it. And sometimes we even talk ourselves out of such actions, because they feel so foolishly inadequate. In our measurements, the response is too little for the problem. It requires more than we are capable of even touching the surface of, at least in a way that seems meaningful to us. But that’s where we are wrong.
In the television commercial that I mentioned earlier, something was set in motion by the kind acts, some kind of power, that was beyond the person acting. But the limitation of this illustration is that this power, while not measureable by the individual doing the kind deed, it is still measureable by someone. It still produces results that can, in some way, be measured. On some level, it is still about results. God calls to us, however, not because our response will produce the results God wants. These results will happen. It is about our listening, about our being faithful to this God; it’s about our growing in love through loving others. God calls us to be people who hear the outcry of others, because God hears it. Our response to their outcry, however feeble and inadequate, is an act of worship. It can’t be separated from what we are doing here this morning. And we do it, not because it will achieve some result but because God asked us to respond for God’s sake.
The hungry will be fed, the naked will be clothed, and the imprisoned will be freed. That is God’s will, and it will happen, in God’s time. The question is, will we part of it? God is with us. This promise is not in question. But are we with God? When we hear God calling and become part of the incarnation of God’s will, we are, without question, where God is. God is worshipped in this.
