The following Sermon was prepared for St Bede’s and St Luke’s for the 16th Sunday of Year A, 17 July 2011. Scriptures readings:
Exodus 3:1-12
Romans 8:18-25
Matthew 13:24-30,36-43
Can you see the burning bush?
In a great piece of Scripture today we meet Moses on the Mountain, in an encounter with God. I want to challenge us to learn from this passage that we need to open our eyes to what God is doing for this story is unfolding daily in our lives; but we too often miss it.
And so I ask you – Can you see the burning bush? If you can, humble yourself before God and listen because he is speaking to you. If you can’t; stick around and allow the Holy Spirit to open your spiritual eyes to God’s truth.
On a lighter note : ”if you haven’t got shoes on your can’t run away especially across the hot sand of the dessert so maybe God is saying that we must be brave and stay close enough to listen.”
I want to turn to Romans 8:18 – as a starting point – where St Paul says – “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed”. I wonder if Moses would have agreed?
Moses had been out in the deserts of Midian for sometime tending sheep for his father in Law. This same Moses, who many years ago had been raised in Pharaohs household as a prince, part of the Egyptian royal family. Genesis 46: 34 b tells us that “all shepherds are abhorrent to Egyptians. The Greek word tôw˓êbâh is the word used to describe
a disgusting thing, abomination, 1A in ritual sense (of unclean food, idols, mixed marriages). 1B in ethical sense (of wickedness etc).
From prince of Egypt to an abomination – what a fall for the man.
And there in his misery he was trudging around the hills far from home.
Exodus 3: “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.”
Of course he didn’t know then that it was the mountain of God. For him it was mount Horeb or kho•rabe from the root word khor•baw meaning wasteland.
I am sure he had been there before, and now in his wanderings he had returned to a place far from home and a wasteland, the last place that he expected anything good to happen.
Have you been there? Have you in your spiritual pursuits trudged through wastelands of prayerlessness and faithlessness feeling lost and alone and fallen...
Look out for there is a bush and it is burning!
Our text says: Genesis 3:2
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.
Have you seen a fire burning through the veld or a forest; it’s all flames and you have to watch it for a while before you see the leaves consumed, a casual glance will not show you what Moses saw.
God is light and he shines all around us, but we have to tarry, we have to stick around we have to look intently to notice him in the ordinary. Fires burning bushes is not extraordinary, People walking alongside us is not extraordinary, words of truth are to be heard in speech and song and sermon. But a fire that does not rely on the fuel of wood and leaf to burn – now that is something special, a kind word spoken with enough patience that you will hear, that is extraordinary, a persistent and caring loving voice that speaks into your heart at every opportunity and does not need to be gratified by your response, does not need its ego fed by your attention, that is extraordinary and that is the voice of God coming from the bush!
Genesis 3:2
3 Then Moses said, “I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up.”
Take the time this morning to investigate why God’s love for you is real, take the time to hear Him speaking to you in song and liturgy and word, take the time to turn aside from your thoughts and your activities and listen to God in the wilderness that is your life, in the ordinary that is not ordinary; if you look closer. In the love of a friend or a spouse, in the patience of a loved a one, in the caring of a stranger, in the prayers of a Christian – God is burning - in a flame of fire – will you stop and look for him today?
Genesis 3:4
4 When the LORD saw that he (Moses) had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!”
God has your name on His lips and he wants to call out he is waiting for you to turn aside – to consecrate yourself and listen to him.
Genesis 3:5 And he (Moses) said, “Here I am.” 5 Then he (God) said, “Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.”
When God speaks it is not from a distance but it is into his presence that he calls us; into the very presence of the divine we can come and speak with God, but we need to make ourselves holy we need to put off our sinful self and enter God’s presence in humility, and penitence and devotion and thankfulness….
Can you see the burning bush – for God is calling to you out of it and saying draw near I will speak to you.
I love the way that God introduces himself to Moses- for he introduces himself in that which was known to Moses, Genesis 3:6 - 6, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”
As a young boy Moses had learned of his ancestors Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. This was not strange to him. Yet he had not expected to find God here… here far from his people, alone and feeling worthless – Moses encounters God and He says to Moses – remember who you are a child of the line of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.
I don’t know what was going on in Moses head out there in Median but I am sure that he thought that he had lost any chance of being remembered as a child of Abraham…….
But God says remember who you are…
Today he says to us remember who you are:
A child of God most high purchased with the blood of Jesus… Today God says that he is the Father of Jesus Christ who gave his life for you and me so that we can be saved. Today God introduces himself to us as the God and Father of our saviour – and in stating who He is he reminds us who we are; he reminded Moses of who he was - I am the God of your father – you are a child of Abraham.
- 6 He said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”
Moses must of thought - Wow here I am forgotten by my people and an abomination to the people that I call my family and here God appears and says “remember who you are” offspring of Abraham to whom the promises were made – offspring of Jacob to whom the promises were made – offspring of Isaac whose people reside in Goshen of Egypt – the people of Moses birth…the people who taught him of this God.
Do you remember in the Lion King that that was the turning point for Simba Mufasa’s words- “Remember who you are…”
Can you see the burning bush? – can you hear God’s voice? – for he is speaking to you, remember who you are.
“And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.”
In our sinfulness we hide ashamed for when we do not live as those called by Christ we hang our heads as those without much value…
But God looks past that!
Genesis 3:7
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.
God takes Moses straight back to his mission for life, remember back in Egypt
Exodus 2:11 “One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and saw their forced labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his kinsfolk. 12 He looked this way and that, and seeing no one he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. 13 When he went out the next day, he saw two Hebrews fighting; and he said to the one who was in the wrong, “Why do you strike your fellow Hebrew?” 14 He answered, “Who made you a ruler and judge over us?
That wasn’t the response he had expected – he thought that killing the Egyptian would bring him favour with his kinsfolk – he thought they would see him as their saviour –
But alas.. when we do things our way and not God’s way we will not succeed.
But God looks past that too..
Here in the barrenness of the wilderness in the extraordinary of the revelation of God through the ordinary that is not ordinary, God reminds Moses who he is, he reminds us who we are, he reminds Moses who God is and sends him straight back to work, forgiving him of his error and re-instating him for the purpose for which he was born.
In your brokenness and emptiness in your state of being consumed by your earthly woes – The God of the Heavens wants to reinstate you, he wants to put you back in the fray, he wants to send you back to set His people free.. for God has heard the cries of the world in their desperate labour to meet the requirements of this world, for which they toil in vain for purses with holes in and for things that moth and rust destroy – but God has heard their groaning and Christian he wants to send you to preach his message of Good news for the captives and those who are heavy burdened.
He said to Moses -
“ 10 So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.” 11
In Matthew 28:19 and 20 He says to us 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”d
Christian are you paying attention to the burning bush this morning.
But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”
Is that us – is that our response too….?
12 He (God) 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.”
And didn’t they do just that for it was on Mount Horeb that We know as Mount Sinai that God gave his ten commandments.
Hebrews Chapter 11 from vs 23 says: “ 23 By faith Moses was hidden by his parents for three months after his birth, because they saw that the child was beautiful; and they were not afraid of the king’s edict. By Faith When Moses had grown up he killed the Egyptian because he witnessed the humiliation of his people, 24 By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called a son of Pharaoh’s daughter, 25 choosing rather to share ill-treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. 26 He considered abuse suffered for the Christh to be greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking ahead to the reward. 27 By faith he left Egypt, unafraid of the king’s anger; for he persevered because he saw him who is invisible. 28 By faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood, so that the destroyer of the firstborn would not touch the firstborn of Israel.j
Will you by faith accept your Baptism,
Will you by faith stand up against what is wrong in this world?
Will you by faith participate in the Eucharist as the ongoing commemoration of the Passover, the commemoration of our salvation through Jesus Christ?
Will you in the words of Romans 8 22 – “ you who have the first fruits of the Sprit groan inwardly while we wait for adoption the redemption of our bodies – for in hope we are saved..”
Will you look hard enough to see the burning bush –?
Will you humble yourself and seek the Lord who speaks to us..?
In conclusion
This truth has been sowed into our lives, but as our Gospel for today stated – the devil has sown lies in among the truth...
In our lives he has confused us that the creation of God is here by chance, he has told us that bushes are just bushes and flames are just flames –
But the self help books and the magazines and the heroes of this world - they burn up– the worlds lies consume people – God truth speaks and heals it does not destroy – it is the devil that seeks to destroy – but God through Christ seeks to prosper us...
We need to know the difference between the lies and the truth – we need to strengthen ourselves to hear the truth and grow strong – for in the end God will consume the lies and the falsehood – but the bush – we the church we will endure. For we are the burning bush to the world, we are the place where God calls his people to be holy and hear him speak and to send them out to preach the Good News. We are his Church and we have a mission..
Can you see the burning bush?
Will you respond today to the love of God and live to his praise and Glory!
Will you be a burning bush for others as you share the love of God and his truth to the world?
Moses Did! And I pray that you will too. Amen.
Exodus 3:1-12
Romans 8:18-25
Matthew 13:24-30,36-43
Can you see the burning bush?
In a great piece of Scripture today we meet Moses on the Mountain, in an encounter with God. I want to challenge us to learn from this passage that we need to open our eyes to what God is doing for this story is unfolding daily in our lives; but we too often miss it.
And so I ask you – Can you see the burning bush? If you can, humble yourself before God and listen because he is speaking to you. If you can’t; stick around and allow the Holy Spirit to open your spiritual eyes to God’s truth.
On a lighter note : ”if you haven’t got shoes on your can’t run away especially across the hot sand of the dessert so maybe God is saying that we must be brave and stay close enough to listen.”
I want to turn to Romans 8:18 – as a starting point – where St Paul says – “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed”. I wonder if Moses would have agreed?
Moses had been out in the deserts of Midian for sometime tending sheep for his father in Law. This same Moses, who many years ago had been raised in Pharaohs household as a prince, part of the Egyptian royal family. Genesis 46: 34 b tells us that “all shepherds are abhorrent to Egyptians. The Greek word tôw˓êbâh is the word used to describe
a disgusting thing, abomination, 1A in ritual sense (of unclean food, idols, mixed marriages). 1B in ethical sense (of wickedness etc).
From prince of Egypt to an abomination – what a fall for the man.
And there in his misery he was trudging around the hills far from home.
Exodus 3: “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.”
Of course he didn’t know then that it was the mountain of God. For him it was mount Horeb or kho•rabe from the root word khor•baw meaning wasteland.
I am sure he had been there before, and now in his wanderings he had returned to a place far from home and a wasteland, the last place that he expected anything good to happen.
Have you been there? Have you in your spiritual pursuits trudged through wastelands of prayerlessness and faithlessness feeling lost and alone and fallen...
Look out for there is a bush and it is burning!
Our text says: Genesis 3:2
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.
Have you seen a fire burning through the veld or a forest; it’s all flames and you have to watch it for a while before you see the leaves consumed, a casual glance will not show you what Moses saw.
God is light and he shines all around us, but we have to tarry, we have to stick around we have to look intently to notice him in the ordinary. Fires burning bushes is not extraordinary, People walking alongside us is not extraordinary, words of truth are to be heard in speech and song and sermon. But a fire that does not rely on the fuel of wood and leaf to burn – now that is something special, a kind word spoken with enough patience that you will hear, that is extraordinary, a persistent and caring loving voice that speaks into your heart at every opportunity and does not need to be gratified by your response, does not need its ego fed by your attention, that is extraordinary and that is the voice of God coming from the bush!
Genesis 3:2
3 Then Moses said, “I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up.”
Take the time this morning to investigate why God’s love for you is real, take the time to hear Him speaking to you in song and liturgy and word, take the time to turn aside from your thoughts and your activities and listen to God in the wilderness that is your life, in the ordinary that is not ordinary; if you look closer. In the love of a friend or a spouse, in the patience of a loved a one, in the caring of a stranger, in the prayers of a Christian – God is burning - in a flame of fire – will you stop and look for him today?
Genesis 3:4
4 When the LORD saw that he (Moses) had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!”
God has your name on His lips and he wants to call out he is waiting for you to turn aside – to consecrate yourself and listen to him.
Genesis 3:5 And he (Moses) said, “Here I am.” 5 Then he (God) said, “Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.”
When God speaks it is not from a distance but it is into his presence that he calls us; into the very presence of the divine we can come and speak with God, but we need to make ourselves holy we need to put off our sinful self and enter God’s presence in humility, and penitence and devotion and thankfulness….
Can you see the burning bush – for God is calling to you out of it and saying draw near I will speak to you.
I love the way that God introduces himself to Moses- for he introduces himself in that which was known to Moses, Genesis 3:6 - 6, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”
As a young boy Moses had learned of his ancestors Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. This was not strange to him. Yet he had not expected to find God here… here far from his people, alone and feeling worthless – Moses encounters God and He says to Moses – remember who you are a child of the line of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.
I don’t know what was going on in Moses head out there in Median but I am sure that he thought that he had lost any chance of being remembered as a child of Abraham…….
But God says remember who you are…
Today he says to us remember who you are:
A child of God most high purchased with the blood of Jesus… Today God says that he is the Father of Jesus Christ who gave his life for you and me so that we can be saved. Today God introduces himself to us as the God and Father of our saviour – and in stating who He is he reminds us who we are; he reminded Moses of who he was - I am the God of your father – you are a child of Abraham.
- 6 He said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”
Moses must of thought - Wow here I am forgotten by my people and an abomination to the people that I call my family and here God appears and says “remember who you are” offspring of Abraham to whom the promises were made – offspring of Jacob to whom the promises were made – offspring of Isaac whose people reside in Goshen of Egypt – the people of Moses birth…the people who taught him of this God.
Do you remember in the Lion King that that was the turning point for Simba Mufasa’s words- “Remember who you are…”
Can you see the burning bush? – can you hear God’s voice? – for he is speaking to you, remember who you are.
“And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.”
In our sinfulness we hide ashamed for when we do not live as those called by Christ we hang our heads as those without much value…
But God looks past that!
Genesis 3:7
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.
God takes Moses straight back to his mission for life, remember back in Egypt
Exodus 2:11 “One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and saw their forced labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his kinsfolk. 12 He looked this way and that, and seeing no one he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. 13 When he went out the next day, he saw two Hebrews fighting; and he said to the one who was in the wrong, “Why do you strike your fellow Hebrew?” 14 He answered, “Who made you a ruler and judge over us?
That wasn’t the response he had expected – he thought that killing the Egyptian would bring him favour with his kinsfolk – he thought they would see him as their saviour –
But alas.. when we do things our way and not God’s way we will not succeed.
But God looks past that too..
Here in the barrenness of the wilderness in the extraordinary of the revelation of God through the ordinary that is not ordinary, God reminds Moses who he is, he reminds us who we are, he reminds Moses who God is and sends him straight back to work, forgiving him of his error and re-instating him for the purpose for which he was born.
In your brokenness and emptiness in your state of being consumed by your earthly woes – The God of the Heavens wants to reinstate you, he wants to put you back in the fray, he wants to send you back to set His people free.. for God has heard the cries of the world in their desperate labour to meet the requirements of this world, for which they toil in vain for purses with holes in and for things that moth and rust destroy – but God has heard their groaning and Christian he wants to send you to preach his message of Good news for the captives and those who are heavy burdened.
He said to Moses -
“ 10 So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.” 11
In Matthew 28:19 and 20 He says to us 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”d
Christian are you paying attention to the burning bush this morning.
But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”
Is that us – is that our response too….?
12 He (God) 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.”
And didn’t they do just that for it was on Mount Horeb that We know as Mount Sinai that God gave his ten commandments.
Hebrews Chapter 11 from vs 23 says: “ 23 By faith Moses was hidden by his parents for three months after his birth, because they saw that the child was beautiful; and they were not afraid of the king’s edict. By Faith When Moses had grown up he killed the Egyptian because he witnessed the humiliation of his people, 24 By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called a son of Pharaoh’s daughter, 25 choosing rather to share ill-treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. 26 He considered abuse suffered for the Christh to be greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking ahead to the reward. 27 By faith he left Egypt, unafraid of the king’s anger; for he persevered because he saw him who is invisible. 28 By faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood, so that the destroyer of the firstborn would not touch the firstborn of Israel.j
Will you by faith accept your Baptism,
Will you by faith stand up against what is wrong in this world?
Will you by faith participate in the Eucharist as the ongoing commemoration of the Passover, the commemoration of our salvation through Jesus Christ?
Will you in the words of Romans 8 22 – “ you who have the first fruits of the Sprit groan inwardly while we wait for adoption the redemption of our bodies – for in hope we are saved..”
Will you look hard enough to see the burning bush –?
Will you humble yourself and seek the Lord who speaks to us..?
In conclusion
This truth has been sowed into our lives, but as our Gospel for today stated – the devil has sown lies in among the truth...
In our lives he has confused us that the creation of God is here by chance, he has told us that bushes are just bushes and flames are just flames –
But the self help books and the magazines and the heroes of this world - they burn up– the worlds lies consume people – God truth speaks and heals it does not destroy – it is the devil that seeks to destroy – but God through Christ seeks to prosper us...
We need to know the difference between the lies and the truth – we need to strengthen ourselves to hear the truth and grow strong – for in the end God will consume the lies and the falsehood – but the bush – we the church we will endure. For we are the burning bush to the world, we are the place where God calls his people to be holy and hear him speak and to send them out to preach the Good News. We are his Church and we have a mission..
Can you see the burning bush?
Will you respond today to the love of God and live to his praise and Glory!
Will you be a burning bush for others as you share the love of God and his truth to the world?
Moses Did! And I pray that you will too. Amen.
