Should We Stop Waiting For Miracles And Start Listening To God?

So Moses gets the heck out of Egypt, luckily, or maybe not luck, finds his way to his original birth community, finds a leader in Jethro, a priest of the Midianites, and a wife who is a son of the priest, Zippara, and now he's gonna settle in for a nice easy life.

Right?

This will be nice and easy, especially for a guy who doesn't have confidence in how he he speaks and talking people into things.

This is nice and easy until God comes for him.

And it's not just some simple little message that you can go, oh yeah, maybe he didn't, you know, maybe that wasn't God.

No, we got a bush that's on fire, but it's not burning up.

It's grabbing his attention.

There's nothing else that he can do but sit and listen to this.

I wonder if you were to ask by a small child, maybe a child named Amelia, maybe not.

Why is the bush burning?

What would you say?

No, really.

We were dealing with this on Friday night.

It was question after question, and that was one of the questions.

Can I challenge you to how about this one?

Why is she putting her baby in the basket and sending it down the river?

What do you tell young five-year-olds?

We like to think that these are children's tales because we've known them so long, and yet when you really look at them, like, my goodness.

And here's this fantastic thing: this burning bush that isn't actually burning, this miraculous tail.

And it's interesting to me.

Am I fading in and out?

It's interesting to me how we get hung up there.

You know, this amazing story about how God comes to Moses and in turn comes to us, inviting us into life abundant, life that is rich, life that is with God.

In this case, a pathway with uh cultural justice.

He's gonna be freeing the Israelite people.

So he's getting invited into this pathway, and we read this story, we tend to get hung up on the burning bush.

All right, my life's difficult.

God, you can send me a burning bush.

Let me know for sure what I'm supposed to do.

Have you said this?

Where is my burning bush?

You know, I'll follow.

Sure, I'll follow you, God.

Just give me a burning bush so I know I'm not being silly over here.

Right?

And we we kind of submit this economy to God.

You give me miraculous proof, then I'll do whatever you want.

Who has said this?

Liars.

We've all said it in some unique way.

Just give me some evidence, God, and of course then I'll follow.

But we so we get hung up on this burning bush.

Maybe we want a little FOMO.

You know, we wish we could get that burning bush.

This theme that we're working through over these next few weeks, this journey to faith, it starts last week when we're talking about how we're a little bit like Moses' basket, where we're being kind of pushed down the river with all the different currents and flows, and for us in life, the influences that happen around us, the things that can get hold of us sometimes.

And we talked about how some of those are macro things where we're challenged to go live out a life of justice, and if it means sacrifice, maybe even danger.

But we also talked about the micro things.

Stuff like, how many cookies is too much, God?

When have I shortchanged myself?

I want to be clear about that from last week, by the way.

Cookies, I believe, to be a gift from God.

And add to the richness of living here, as it as with all food.

I think the challenge is knowing when we move from the the richness of this gift that life offers to I need this.

I need this, I need this coffee, I need this sugar.

That's when it becomes a conversation, and that's when we start to understand versus sometimes, these false gods that get hold of us, right?

And and start grabbing on to us, sometimes to small degrees, sometimes to big degrees.

And in the midst of that journey, we're navigating all of that, God comes to us and God says, Hey, I want to show you a better way.

I want to show you where you might go to live a life that is more bountiful, more rich.

It's a way that's grounded in faith in God's presence and God's power.

It's a way that's grounded in God's justice and equity for all.

It's a way grounded in love for all of God's children, all of God's creation.

It's a way of commitment and often a way of sacrifice, but to a higher way.

This is what God offers to us in place of these other false gods that we sometimes get attached to.

But like Moses, sometimes we find that way a little too difficult.

Even though we know the blessings God has for us, we know we have felt the blessings God have for us.

Still, when God comes to us and says, I want to show you an even better way, we we fight it a little bit.

Have you heard about the uh five excuses of Moses?

We dealt with those a little bit in Bible study just last Wednesday.

The five excuses of Moses, the different things he comes up with to say, wait a minute, God, do I really need to go to the highest king in the land and tell him to free all the Israelites?

Do I really need to do this?

He starts with that question of who am I?

What's this insignificant person?

Have you ever said who am I?

Then he goes, Who were who are you?

I mean, you're you're God, you know?

Maybe you ought to take care of this, God, right?

You you got all the power, all the omniscience, I'm the omnipotence.

Yeah, maybe you ought to take care of it.

Or there's another one of the excuses.

What if they don't believe me?

I'm gonna stick my neck out, look a little silly if I'm out there talking about how we're supposed to free these Israelites, and then nothing happens.

Then the famous one from Moses, I am not eloquent.

I am not eloquent.

I lacked the necessary skill set to get this done.

Have you said that one to God?

And then the last one.

Send somebody else.

Just pure unwillingness.

Thank you, God, for the offer.

I'm going to move on.

We probably say that more than we're even willing to accept.

But here's what's amazing about this passage: this at least 3,000-year-old story about our relationship with God.

Because God has answers for each of these.

When we talk about who am I, well, God's answer is I will be with you.

In a way, it doesn't matter who you are, because I am with you.

The power is with the power is with God.

When we say, Who are you?

God says, I am who I am.

I am coming as the character of justice, the character of love, the presence of all of these things.

But you need to bring me.

When we say, what if they don't believe me?

Well, God in this passage provides the signs that gives Moses what Moses needs to be able to be credibly.

And then God takes responsibility for the result, making sure that things happen.

When we say I am not eloquent, God says your mouth, but me.

I gave you the faculties you have but me.

I know what you are capable of.

And when we say when we say send somebody, yes, God grudgingly sends Aaron along with Moses, but he also cautions against missing the blessings of being that instrument.

That instrument to be is able to do what God would have them do, what we would do with God.

Yeah, we want to focus on this burning bush a lot.

And we want to focus on why God doesn't seem to speak to us like that.

But we get in danger of missing this brilliant deconstruction of why we don't experience the full blessing that God wants for us, the life that God sees for us.

I think this is what is meant when we say that God is coming to us with a better way.

Amidst our lives of competing influences, the little voices that tell us we need something more than we need God, the bigger voices that tell us we're not worthy or we're not safe.

God comes and says, Let's do this.

Let's go and be the blessing.

Today is communion.

As you are in your time of reflection, leading up to communion in your time of partaking, let's try to move past the need for the burning bushes and to look for how God is trying to reach us.

That invitation to a life abundant comes to us in many, many ways.

Let's not the let's not wait for the miraculous way at the expense of missing God's real communication to us.

As you come forward today, ask yourself how is God coming to you and how might you respond?

Amen.