Reflection: A
Burning Bush Reading: Exodus 3: 1-15
Moses had had an amazing life. Born to Hebrew slaves in Egypt at a time when an edict had been issued that all newborn Hebrew boys were to be killed, his mother devised a plan to save his life. He was rescued from the River Nile by Pharaoh’s daughter, and brought up as a prince in Egypt. When he was a young man, he saw one of his fellow countrymen being ill-treated by an Egyptian. Moses resorted to violence, killed the perpetrator, and then became a fugitive. This seemed to be the end of the road for one who, a short time previously, had had the world at his feet. Now he would end his days, or so he thought, as a shepherd in the wilderness of Midian
One day, however, after many, many years, while he was tending sheep that didn’t even belong to him, but rather to his father in law, (how are the mighty fallen!) something very strange happened. Out in the wilderness with the sheep, he saw what seemed to be a bush on fire, but it was not burning up. Out of the bush God spoke to him, first of all calling him by name and alerting him to the fact that he was on holy ground. Then, as he had done with Jacob, he identified himself. Through this vision, God had a very specific commission for Moses, namely that he, God, had seen the misery and had heard the cries of suffering of his people in Egypt and that he was going to rescue them. The person he had chosen to lead this rescue operation was Moses. If Moses’ life had been eventful before this, it was as nothing compared to what he would experience from now on. His best work, at the age of eighty, was only just beginning. This is what everything in his life had been leading up to. He protested with all sorts of excuses, but God was not going to take ‘No’ for an answer.
God used a bush engulfed in flames but not burnt up to attract Moses’ attention. He needed to use something dramatic, otherwise Moses would not have taken any notice. His life was taken up with the daily routine of minding sheep and he wasn’t expecting it to change. We can become so used to our surroundings, to the traditions of our faith, to the way things have always been, that sometimes God has to use unusual means to attract our attention. We can be so blind or hard of hearing. Even when we are alerted, it takes us a while to recognise that we are on holy ground and that God has something very important to say. And when he says it, often we don’t want to hear, because either it will move us out of our comfort zone, or we feel inadequate and afraid, not up to the task. What we are doing, as Moses did initially, is that we are looking to our own strengths and attributes rather than to the One who has promised to equip us with all and more than is necessary. All that he asks of us is a willing obedience.
There have been many throughout the centuries who have picked up the mantle of Moses, people like Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Jean Vanier, Bob Geldof. God has used them to highlight the conditions of his suffering people, and to lead these ‘little ones’ out to new freedom and dignity that is their God given right. They have dreamed dreams and seen visions and then had the faith and the courage to translate them into action. What about us?