Pastor Lisa Horst Clark

October 13, 2019

Exodus 3: 1 – 14a

             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. 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. Then Moses said, “I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up.” When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” Then he said, “Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” He said further, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.

             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, 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. The cry of the Israelites has now come to me; I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them. So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.” But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” He 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.” But Moses said to God, “If I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” He said further, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I am has sent me to you.’”

Message

The only time I ever saw a bush on fire I didn’t believe it until the fire truck arrived.  I was in downtown Kirkland, waiting for the light to turn, when I saw what seemed to be smoke, up by the corner of the Kirkland Library.  What threw me off was that it seemed like nobody else appeared to be noticing.  Around me, there were people just nonchalantly walking along, crossing the street, driving their cars, and I was there going, “I could swear that looks like a cloud of smoke billowing from a bush over there.”  But it was just far enough away that I thought, “I must be seeing things; it must be an unusually hazy day or something.”  Because surely, if that bush was on fire, someone would be doing something, right?  And as soon as I had dismissed the thought, and I was going about my business, that was when I heard the sirens coming down the street; the fire engine literally parked in front of the bush, ready to extinguish the spark that had somehow met dry kindling there, even as I had convinced myself it was not smoking just a moment before.  Every pastor dreams of a literal burning bush, and I missed it because I kept waiting for someone else to notice it first.

The scripture says that Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, that he had led his flock beyond the wilderness and there the Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a thorn bush.  He looked and the bush was blazing and yet it was not consumed.  And Moses said, “I must turn aside and look at this great sight and see why this bush is not burnt up.”

We are talking about call this month and today we are looking at Moses