Exodus 3:1-15 Commentary

From the banks of the Nile to a parched mountain (the literal translation of Horeb), we find Moses settled into the humble lifestyle of a nomadic shepherd just about as far from Pharaoh’s court as humanly possible.  The King James tells us that, as the curtain rises on this scene, Moses is hanging out with some sheep on “the backside of the desert”.  Sometimes you just need the poetry of the KJV!

Out in the middle of nowhere, Moses sees a strange bush, burning but not burning up. In a moment of curiosity that instigates the unfolding of God’s plan, Moses decides to turn aside and investigate further. When God sees that this sight has captured Moses’ attention, God calls out — as Ellen Davis puts it — as one “calling for help … God is calling Moses to help carry the load of human suffering, the suffering of the oppressed.”

God very quickly repeats a sequence of verbs used at the end of chapter 2, that he has seen and heard and now knows the pain of his people in Egypt. So, clearly, God has been holding on to this thought for awhile. Now God calls Moses to participate in the liberation of God’s people. In rapid succession in this morning’s text and even into chapter 4, Moses lays out his objections to this plan:

• Last time he checked, he was on the outs with both the Egyptians and the Israelites
• Moses doesn’t have a script for this proposed moment of confrontation.
• Even if he knew what to say, he likely wouldn’t say it well.
• His own piety and faith commitment includes some glaring sins of omission and outright commission.

The Africana Bible reminds us that this tussle between God’s plan, human resistance and the rollout of Divine Deliverance is “the formational and identifying event for Israel. It became the lens through which Israel interpreted her experiences and the foundation of her understanding of God. Thus the historical event developed into a transcendent moment — one that can occur again and again. And so it does, in the life of Israel and beyond.”

Young people are often looking for God’s plan for their lives to manifest as obviously as a burning bush in the wilderness.  Others find themselves called out when they least expect it.  As the Israelites will say to Pharaoh, “The Lord, god of the Hebrews, happened upon us.”  Like, “there we were, minding our own business on the backside of the wilderness, and God? Well, God just kind of … happened!

Robert Alter writes about Moses, “Alone among the Biblical characters, he is assigned an oddly generic epithet, ‘the man Moses.’ There may be some theological motive for this designation, in order to remind us of his plainly human status, to ward off any inclination to deify the founding leader of the Israelite people, but it also suggests more concretely that Moses as forger of the nation and prince of prophets is, after all, not an absolutely unique figure but a person like other people.”

In that sense, perhaps the beauty of this story lies not in its uniqueness but in its familiarity. God calls inadequate people to do big things. And there’s something about Moses’ story that reminds me of another Biblical story too:

• A messenger of the Lord in a remote place
• Appears to someone with other plans
• To tell them

1) God has created a deliverance plan

2) God wants you to deliver it.

• Those God calls respond with fear and then with curiosity, with some initial resistance that necessitates some miraculous intervention.  “And this shall be a sign to you…”

It just reminds me of something. Do you know what I mean though? The story I’m thinking of?

• A messenger arrives in the hick town of Nazareth
• To a young woman with other plans — namely to get married and live happily ever after.
• But God gives this message:

1) I have created a deliverance plan, Mary.

2) And you will deliver my deliverance.

• And Mary’s curiosity turns to consent. “May it be to me as you have said.”

The parallel of these two stories is not new-fangled. As far back as the 4th century, Gregory of Nyssa suggested that Mary stands in church history as evidence of God’s presence, carrying the Son of God in her womb and yet does not dissolve into ash.

Scholar Ellen Davis elaborates on this ancient insight when she writes:

“The image of Mary, ancient and still fresh, may serve to refresh our reading of Moses’ story, which suffers somewhat from over-familiarity. Mary and Moses have this in common: in the history of the world, they are the two people who have known God most intimately, know God in ways that mortal flesh ordinarily could not tolerate without burning to a cinder.

…God does not take a human being so fully into the divine confidence — you might say, God does not depend on a human being so fully — until Mary conceives by the Holy Spirit. These are the two more-or-less ordinary people in the history of the world with whom, it seems, God has felt most fully at home. Moses and Mary are the ones who made most room in their lives and therefore in our world for God’s dramatically new work of deliverance. Knowingly and willingly, they welcomed God as God is, utterly demanding and utterly loving.”

There is wonder and curiosity in this story of Moses and the burning bush, similar to the wonder and curiosity of the Christ child who enters the world in such a way that almost no one notices but those who do notice, those who are part of the story will find something to treasure and ponder in their hearts, will discern a call on their lives stronger than any self-doubt, will discover a strange story to tell anyone who will listen,.

Because, in the strange and ordinary circumstances of our life, God just, kind of, happens.

Thanks be to God.

Worship Idea

A burning bush in the wilderness is unexpected.  You know what *else* is unexpected? Christmas carols on the last Sunday in August. You could really have fun leaning into this unexpected parallel by placing a Christmas tree in the sanctuary and turning its lights on in the middle of the sermon or ending the sermon with a Christmas carol celebrating the wonder and curiosity of the incarnation.