Are You Burning Up?

 Romans 12:9-21    Exodus 3:1-15

 August 30, 2008    Season of Pentecost



                 Fire in the belly, trial by fire, walking through
 fire, playing with fire, purified by fire, fire of the spirit.  There
 are so many ways in which the image of fire flashes through our lives.  
 Fire is one of those elements that has a raw power which holds us in a
 certain amount of awe.  We make use of fire, but it can all too
 readily get out of our control.  We cook with fire, warm ourselves by
 fire, we are easily mesmerized by fire.  But do we understand it?  Do
 we understand fire's pull on us?  I love sitting by a campfire, and I
 confess that I am one of those people who likes to take a stick and
 poke around in the embers, moving burning sticks here and there,
 watching the shape of the flames change.  I have seen plenty of
 youngsters who enjoy this as well, though it can be a little
 nerve-wracking to watch some of them playing with fire.  Our
 fascination with fire goes deep.  It touches some part of us that may
 be related to the cave people whose lives depended on keeping the fire
 going to chase away fierce beasts, and keeping warm in the midst of icy winter nights with very little shelter.

                 The folks of Moses' times were better off than those
 who lived in caves, but not by very much.  They also lived pretty
 close to the bone, and fire often kept them warm on a night that
 otherwise would have been uninhabitable.  This makes this morning's
 reading even a bit more curious to me.  Moses knew the benefits as
 well as dangers of fire.  He probably experienced fire in a much more
 visceral way than we do today, since we are a bit removed from it in
 terms of our everyday survival.  (We have tamed fire to a certain
 extent with our kitchen stoves, wood-stoves and
 furnaces.)  So, with all of this in mind - or perhaps ignoring all of
 this, what are we to think about this morning's reading, where Moses
 is confronted by a burning bush that somehow avoids getting burned up
 even though it is clearly on fire?  I imagine that out there in the
 desert there may have been other times when a scruffy and dried-out
 bush would catch fire from the sheer heat of the desert sun or perhaps
 by being struck by lightening.  But this was a different story.  This
 was a whole different scenario.  This was clearly a very different fire.  The fire of God.

                 The closest I can come to attempting to understand
 what the fire Moses saw might have been like, is to remember what it
 is like when I have a burning desire to do something.  That burning
 pushes me into action mostly because I have discovered that if I don't
 act one of two things
 happens:  either I get increasingly uncomfortable with the burning
 sensation at my core, or, even worse, the flame simply dies out.  I
 need to "strike when the flame is hot" so to speak, or the flame no
 longer serves as an incentive or inspiration to me.  On the one hand,
 it can hurt me if I ignore it, which I assume is where we get the
 saying "she was burned," or I can lose the momentum that is a vital part of the creative process of living.

                 When we come upon Moses at the time of this reading,
 he is in a pretty low place, emotionally-speaking.  He has had to move
 his family out into the waste lands, away from Egypt's comforts and
 finery; and he cannot accept that this is his life now.  He has fallen
 from favor and now has to eke out a living watching his
 father-in-law's flocks.  Ralph Milton** wrote a wonderful aggadah for
 us.  It is the story of Moses' internal struggle when confronted with
 God's demands.  As empty and difficult as his life has been, it still
 takes some convincing for Moses to agree that he will do what God asks of him.  Let's listen in:

                 Moses kicked the dry and rocky rubble. He hated the desert.
 He hated Midian where he lived in exile. He hated the sheep he cared
 for, sheep that amazed and amused him with their stupidity.

           "Ha!" snorted Moses. "I'm amazed and amused by my own stupidity."

           A moment of recklessness had brought him to this wilderness.  
 An Israelite slave abused by an Egyptian overseer. In a flash of anger
 Moses killed the overseer. Then, in fear for his life, ran into the
 desert like a hunted coyote.

           Moses hated this dry and lifeless place. He wanted so
 desperately to be back in Egypt, in the palace, eating well-cooked
 food, sipping well-aged wine, exchanging well-phrased witticisms with
 well-dressed courtiers.

           But here he was in this God forsaken desert. No one to talk
 to but the half-witted sheep. Nothing to eat except half-cooked
 mutton. Nothing to drink except lukewarm water.

           Moses felt trapped in this wilderness. He felt trapped by
 Zipporah his wife. He felt trapped by the son he had fathered and
 named Gershom, which means, "I have become an alien in a foreign
 land." For a moment, he hated his wife, his son. Moses hated everything.

           There in the searing desert, Moses wept for all that was
 lost to him, the tears drying instantly in the heat.

           His earliest years had been spent with his mother, Jacobed,
 who told Moses the ancient stories of a chosen people and planted the
 seeds of faith in a God who cared.

           Then he had been taken to live with his adoptive mother in
 the Pharaoh's palace. There the noxious weeds of ambition, pride, envy
 and greed had all but choked the tiny seedlings of faith planted by his mother.

           Now in the heat of the desert sun, Moses struggled to keep
 those seedlings alive. At night he would fanaticize a triumphant
 return to the lush Nile valley - to all his friends in Pharaoh's
 court. But now, in the glaring brightness of noonday he could only
 think of his family, his people, struggling to make bricks for the ambitious, cruel Pharaoh.

           At first Moses tried not to think of his family. He tried
 not to think of the Israelites. "They're slaves," he muttered. "But so
 what? They do all right if they're not lazy. They get enough to eat.
 Anyway, it's none of my business. If I'd realized that sooner, I'd
 still be in Pharaoh's court."

           But the thought wouldn't go away. The seeds of his Israelite
 past were well planted. The seeds of his mother's stories, of a sister
 who had risked her life. And the seeds grew well in the heat of his anger.

           "Why?" Moses yelled out to no one in particular. Or maybe to God.
 "Why does it have to be like this? Why do you let my people be slaves?
 Why don't you do something?"

           The sheep scampered away at his outburst. There was no other
 response.

           In the tent, at night, Moses felt some comfort. Here in the
 tent, he loved Zipporah and his son.

           Moses snuggled closer to Zipporah and tugged the blanket
 over them against the cold. He remembered Zipporah pregnant with
 Gershom, how he felt the child grow and move in her womb as he lay close to her in the night.

           As he drifted off to sleep, Moses half-imagined that he too
 was pregnant with... with something... something God had seeded. He
 dozed and the fantasy, or dream became a memory of twins in a womb, of
 Esau and Jacob struggling, each trying to dominate the other. Now
 Moses was both of them, and one twin was Moses the ambitious courtier
 and the other was Moses the angry slave. And both were struggling
 toward birth. And one would die in the struggle and the other would be
 born. Moses started awake, his hand on his own belly.

           The dream was in his mind the next morning. And the next. He
 almost felt an ache in his belly. Or was it pleasure?

           It was noon. The familiar sun was punishing the earth. Moses
 pulled his cloak around his head against the heat. A crackle broke the
 stillness. Moses turned. A small bush on fire. Not unusual in this
 heat, but then he noticed that the bush was not consumed. It burned
 and burned, and Moses went to have a look.

           "Moses!" The voice was gentle, quiet, strong.

           He stopped. Afraid.

           "Don't come any closer, Moses," said the voice. "And take
 off your shoes. The place where you are standing is holy ground."

           Quickly, Moses fumbled off his sandals. The hot rubble
 burned his feet. He gasped at the pain of it as a woman gasps for breath in labor.

           "Moses! I have seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have
 heard them crying at the hands of the slave masters. Moses, I will
 bring my people out of Egypt. You will go down to Pharaoh and bring
 them out of slavery and into a land that I will show you."

           "But who am I?" said Moses. "I don't know anything about
 this. I'm just a shepherd. Why me?"

           "Moses!" said the voice. "I am with you now. I will be with
 you then. You will bring my people out of Egypt."

           Moses struggled to find his breath. This, he knew, was the
 moment he had dreaded and longed for. Now was the choice, the holy,
 terrifying moment.

           The universe of human soul struggled in the pangs of birth,
 struggled forward, held back, groaned itself to birth and death. All
 that was, held Moses back. All that might be, pushed him on.

           One last breath shuddered, rattled through his body.

           Death. And peace.

           The barely whispered words. "I will go." Moses turned and
 faced the land where he was born.

           There in the desert, the life-destroying desert, a midwife
 God, had loved a prophet into birth.

                      "Go down, Moses,

                                 way down in Egypt land.

                      Tell old Pharaoh,

                                 to let my people go."

                 For Moses, the burning within him was reflected by the
 flames of that bush he found burning in the desert.  For us there is
 often burning as well, a burning to do something or be someone of whom
 God might be just a little bit proud.  A burning to bring to birth
 whatever it is that is growing deep within us, drawing on our hearts
 and souls, yearning to become something of substance.  What is it that
 is growing and burning within you?  What is the flame that burns so brilliantly within you?



 God of flame, inspire us.  May the fire that you spark within us
 breathe new life into our lives.  May the warmth of ideas and
 possibilities surround us as we dream our way into the future.  May we
 respond to the flame, the warmth and the love each day.  Amen.



 **The Aggadah is from Ralph Milton's RUMORS, a free Internet 'e-zine'
 for Christians with a sense of humor." To Subscribe:* Send an e-mail to:
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