Moses and the Burning Bush – Frank Wesley
Theological Truth: God calls us to be a living sacrifice, not a burnt offering.
Come Holy Spirit, and kindle in us the fire of your love. Send forth your Spirit and we shall be created, and you shall renew the face of the earth. Amen.
Bishop Mark is fond of reminding the clergy—particularly as Holy Week approaches—that God calls us to be a living sacrifice, not a burnt offering. It’s a great line strengthened with abundant proof. The issue of clergy burnout is a real and prevalent phenomenon. This is not a cry for help, honest! Cara and I receive abundant care, support, and encouragement from this congregation. (Thank you very much!) But it is helpful to be reminded from time to time that we are ministers, not messiahs. Jesus has already saved the world. God is not glorified, and the Kingdom comes no closer by clergy burning up or flaming out.
The same holds true for all of us. God calls us to be a living sacrifice…but not a burnt offering. We need this reminder today more than ever because our media-soaked lives put us at significant levels of stress and risk of burnout. Did you know that following the news can be traumatizing? Yes, you probably do! But it’s been scientifically proven. A study by UC Irvine researchers after the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing showed “that six or more daily hours of exposure to media coverage of the.…bombings in the week afterward was linked to more acute stress than having been at or near the marathon”? (source). Spending over six hours per day watching the news was worse than being at the actual event.
If you think six hours sounds like a lot, take a moment to calculate how many hours of media you’re exposed to every day. TV, radio, newspapers, podcasts, social media, email newsletters, text messages from friends, phone calls from relatives. Six hours a day sounds low! We are likely to be under more stress than the people nearest these traumatic political events. I’m not suggesting that we disengage entirely, but I do want us to remember that God calls us to be a living sacrifice, not a burnt offering. (And that cable news shows are not healthy candidates for constant companionship!)
Moses knows about being a living sacrifice rather than a burnt offering. His first encounter with the Lord provides the model for this way of faithful living. “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. Then Moses said, ‘I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up.’” The fire of God’s loving, liberating, and life-giving presence burned in the bush, but it didn’t burn up the bush. Moses learned to live like that, too. Not perfectly, and not immediately, but eventually Moses shined with the radiance of God without flaming out.
How did he do it? Think about the wick in an oil lamp. I remember camping with those as a child. I was fascinated by how the wick didn’t burn down in the same way that a candle wick does. The oil or the kerosene is what’s burning. Its flame provides light and warmth. The role of the wick is to be a conduit drawing and providing the path for that combustible power. I picture Moses serving as a metaphorical wick in God’s lamp lighting the way to freedom for his oppressed people. Moses becomes the vehicle through which the power of God flows, igniting and leading the way to liberation. Rather than being inflamed with the cause or burned out by the effort, he does his part and allows God to do the rest. Moses stays in his lane and remains engaged, walking humbly with God without trying to be God. By doing so, he becomes a living sacrifice, not a burnt offering.
In a hurting world crying out for justice and seeking relief from modern day pharaohs, how can we “wick” the Spirit rather than burn up like kindling? First, like Moses, we must seek God’s presence. Notice that as soon as Moses turns towards God, God recognizes him. God guides him to safety. By listening to God, Moses comes close, but not too close! God assures him that he hears, observes, knows, and is moved by the cries of his people. In our day to day lives, we too can pray and listen with the hopeful expectation that we are known, we are called, we are being guided to that holy ground of God’s abiding presence. We too are standing on holy ground if we take the time to look and listen.
Second, we can trust God’s assistance in removing the obstacles that separate us from fully surrendering to the Almighty. That’s what he does by telling Moses to remove his shoes. He’s inviting him to remove any false sense of separation or misleading self-dependency, and to surrender himself to God’s care. Frederic Gros is a philosopher who writes about the joys of walking. He observes, “To walk without even the necessary is to abandon yourself to the elements. When you do that, nothing counts any more…Nothing but a full and wholesale trust in the world’s generosity, which satisfies the heart, because it makes us totally dependent on an Other.” (A Philosophy of Walking, p 57). By taking off his shoes, Moses isn’t only being obedient, he’s giving up the necessary, abandoning himself, and becoming totally dependent on God. He is fully immersed in God, like a wick in oil. Nothing to block the flow of the Spirit’s illuminating fire.
How can we fully immerse and totally surrender ourselves? Try this spiritual practice. When you wake up in the morning (and throughout the day) take a big breath in and as you exhale pray these words: “Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit, for you have redeemed me O Lord, O God of truth.”
As we approach the halfway point of Lent, perhaps the difference between salvation and a self-improvement project has become increasingly obvious. Maybe we are more aware that repentance isn’t an “I can” approach (as in “I can work harder, I can be better”) as it is an “I can’t” admission (“I can’t be perfect; I can’t save myself, but God in Christ can.”). Giving up all the chocolate in the world won’t save us. Being fully immersed, totally surrendered, completely committed (even if only momentarily and intermittently) is what saves us. When we recognize that and admit our helplessness to secure it on our own, then the Love of God made known in Jesus Christ rushes into our opened hearts. Then we can dwell in him and he in us. We more fully give up ourselves to his service. We become the wick of God’s oil lamp, fully immersed, burning brightly without being burnt up. We become a living sacrifice, rather than a burnt offering.
Come Holy Spirit and kindle in us the fire of your Love. Send forth your Spirit and we shall be a living sacrifice rather than a burnt offering, giving ourselves to you and you working in us for the life of the world.
