One of my favorite plays is “Harvey” by Mary Chase. I’ve seen it stage, on TV and in movie. It is a delight in any medium, more than a delight; it is a challenge, a challenge to our unimaginative, prosaic, living ruts. You may recall that this play is about Elwood P. Dowd, an eccentric, drinking man whose closest friend was an enormous rabbit called Harvey (who was unseen for the most part by anyone but Elwood.) In fact, because Harvey was unseen, yet so real to Elwood, his family hired Dr. Chumley, a psychiatrist, to cure Elwood and rid the family of Harvey’s embarrassing presence.
Being a good psychiatrist, and therefore open, Dr. Chumley had a spectacular conversion. Now I don’t mean a Christian conversion, but a conversion nonetheless. In one scene, Dr. Chumley says, “Fly-specks. I’ve been spending my life among fly-specks while miracles have been leaning on lampposts on 18th and Fairfax.” Eighteenth and Fairfax is where Elwood had originally met Harvey, the rabbit.
Then later, after further talking with Elwood, the doctor bursts out in a magnificent crescendo of joy, exclaiming: “To hell with decency I’ve got to have that rabbit.”
The dull-minded, unimaginative, dead-spiritual will immediately conclude that the psychiatrist was as sick as the patient, that both had lost touch with reality. But wait. Maybe, just maybe, you and I are a lot like Dr. Chumley — living among fly-specks where there are miracles leaning against lampposts…right on our own corners, right on the corner of Highland and Central, or Perkins and Poplar.
Moses discovered that - not on a street corner, but in an even-more pedestrian place out in the pasture where he was keeping the sheep of his father-in-law. That’s a bi part of the meaning of the story of the burning bush…that there are miracles where we have been seeing fly-specks, or whatever matter-of-fact, prosaic part of our life we have given in to.
Let’s move in behind the dramatic, and seek lessons for us who have not been confronted by any literal burning bushes lately, and who have not heard any verbal pronouncement of our name by God? What are those lessons?
There are at least three of them. I name them now; then we will look at each of them.
One: God appears in the ordinary.
Two: To hear God, we have to be silent.
Three: When we are in God’s presence, the ground on which we stand is holy.
Lets consider these lessons.
GOD APPEARS IN THE ORDIANRY
Nothing exciting is going on for Moses. What He is doing is matter-of-fact daily work. Look at verse one: “Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian; and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.”
Nothing out of the ordinary — just doing his work when God appeared.
Edmund Burke, the 18th century political philosopher, turned a marvelous phrase to express a solid truth: “History is full of momentous trifles.”
Isn’t that a marvelous insight? What a marvelous insight!
“momentous trifles…” – ordinary events shot through with extra-ordinary meaning.
It will help us to do a kind of flash-back in our mind upon Moses. Remember that he is now an old man eighty years of age. We don’t normally look for revolutions in people’s lives when they’re that age. Nicodemus asked Jesus, “Can a man be born again when he is old?” We know it’s possible, but it’s highly improbable. Moses was old, And you remember he had made an effort to work out his own program of freeing Israel, but that had failed. His had been a very disappointing experience. The liberation of Israel had been a dream that flamed in his life. And you can imagine that all during those years in the palace as a young boy, and then in the university, he looked forward to the time when he would be in a position of power, and he could set his people free.
We talked last week about his first confrontation with the tragedy of slavery. An Egyptian task-master was beating a Hebrew slave. Moses lost his temper. In his hot anger, he killed the offender. He dug a grave in the sand, put his victim in it, and covered him; and went back to the palace.
No doubt as he returned to the palace, he believed that the blow that he had struck was just. And I have an idea that tumbling around in his mind was the thought that he had taken the first step in the emancipation of his people.
Then, a second confrontation took place. He saw two Hebrews in hot contention. He wanted to be the reconciler, the redeemer, so he urged them to stop their fighting because they were brothers. But that interference was not welcomed. Instead, one of the Hebrews turned upon him and said with a biting sarcasm: “Who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?
Now this contemptuous response on the part of a brother Hebrew was a revelation to Moses. His dream began to die. Hope for delivering his people began to wilt. He realized that his leadership was not acknowledged nor accepted, and that his effort to come to the defense of his people was not the least bit appreciated.
So, that caused him to flee to Midian. And that is where he’s been for forty years. His life has become routine. We don’t know whether the dream continued to live within him or not. If it did, it was way, way down deep in his consciousness – certainly not anything that he wrestled with from day to day – probably noting that caused him to lose sleep. He had become comfortable in his life as a shepherd.
So, there he was in Midian. His life had become routine – a keeper of the flock of his father-in-law, leading the flock to the west side of the wilderness – and then it happened. There it is in verse two: “And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush.” God appears in the ordinary.
Now a second truth.
TO HEAR GOD SPEAK, WE HAVE TO BE SILENT.
Ervin Langmuir, an executive with General Electric, talked about the research laboratory at General Electric. He said: “We can’t plan discoveries. We can only plan for work that might lead to discoveries. You can’t know everything that is going to happen, and it is many of those unexpected things that are most likely to prove useful.”
What is true in scientific research is true in Christian experience. You can’t plan a spiritual discovery – you can only put yourself in a position that might lead to discovery, and that’s what Moses had done.
There is a beautiful and telling commentary on Moses’ life in Midian in the names he gave his children.
Moses called his first-born, Gershom, which means “a stranger here.” Moses called him that, for he said, “I have been a so-journer in a foreign land.”
Do you feel the pulse of that – depression is there, the weight of an over-whelming loneliness. I can imagine that the confession of his fathers was often on his lips - yet he felt he had no abiding city out there under the silent stars, he was a stranger and pilgrim on the earth.
Then came his second child. He named him, Eliezer, which means “My God is my help.” Obviously, the depression and the loneliness had somewhat lightened, because he had found a way to live by faith in that place of so-journ. The lesson? Be faithful to God where you are. Know with Moses, “My God is my help” and God will come. When you least expect him, he will come for God comes in the ordinary. It’s interesting that in the Bible and in Christian literature, the desert or the wilderness is always the place, seemingly, - where one hears God. Poets have written about it. The silence of the mountains:
I have an understanding with the hills,
At evening when the slanted radiance fills
Their hollows, and the great winds let them be,
And they are quiet and look down at me.
Oh, then I see the patience in their eyes
Out of the centuries that make them wise.
The silence of the mountains.
And the silence of the morning:
I met God in the morning
When the day was at its best
And His presence came like sunrise
Like a glory in my breast.
Now I’m aware of the fact that the silence we need in order to hear God speak is not a silence that may ours from going into the desert or into the wilderness. “Most of us do not have the luxury of a lot of time alone. That does not diminish the need to be silent, or the fact that we must be silent in order to hear God speak. The silence we need is not necessarily withdrawal, but centeredness. It doesn’t mean that we are uninvolved; it means that we are involved with our souls centered, and our hearts quiet, in order that in the place where God speaks - that is in our hearts - we can hear him. To hear God speak, we have to be silent.
GODHAS TO GET OUR ATTENTION HE PRESENTS HIMSELF TO US
Get the picture clearly in your mind. Moses is walk in along old familiar paths. He’s probably been there hundreds of times. By chance, he lifted his eyes, and he beheld a rather strange sight on the mountainside. He saw a bush there that seemed to be on fire. He watched it expecting it to crumble into gray ashes. But to his amazement, it burned on. That got Moses’ attention. Do you want to read it there again? Verse two: “An angel of the Lord appeared to him out of a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush; and he looked, and lo, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed.
Now comes the important part of the story. Don’t stop with the burning bush. Don’t let that be the center of your attention. Read verse three again: “And Moses said, ‘I will turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.’”
It is then, when God has gotten Moses’ attention that God presents himself to Moses. We must read verse four again: “When the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, ‘Moses!’ and he said, ‘Here am I’.”
Now there are all sorts of ways that God gets our attention and we don’t have time to talk about all of those ways. And you may think it strange that I present the way that I’m about to present – the way of God getting our attention. I want to focus on the tragedies of life – for those things that we, at once look upon as tragedy, but find in them the face of God. It is as though in these tragedies, we’re meeting God on the backside of the desert. Let me say plainly that my point is not that God brings these tragedies – the point is that God uses tragedies to get our attention.
Now there are all sorts of ways that God gets our attention. I’ve known some couples ho have given God their attention when their first child was born. The miracle of birth, their responsibility as parents, the binding of their lives in the event – all combine to call their attention to the fact of God and their need to be in relation with God.
I’ve known a few people…very few and I’m sorry for that, but a few for whom good fortune has caused them to see God’s spirit moving in their lives. Not long ago, a man in my congregation, though an almost impossible set of circumstances, was offered a job that he had wanted for a very long time, but had given up on. That got that man’s attention and God presented himself.
Unfortunately, for most of us it takes tragedy to get our attention. For those things we at once look upon as tragedies, but find in them the face of God. It is as though in these tragedies we are meeting God on the backside of the desert. Let me say it plainly now. God does not bring these tragedies; God uses these tragedies to get our attention. And he often presents himself in the midst of tragedy.
Friends of mine in California called recently to share the news of their first grandchild that was born that morning. They broke into sobs as they shared the fact that the little boy was Down Syndrome.
I immediately started trying to call the father. It was the next night that we made contact. I don’t know how much I ministered to him, but he certainly ministered to me. They had had two days and nights of crying and praying and looking at their lives. This young man said, “We’ve decided that God has entrusted us with a gift – and that He will give us what we need to rear this special child.”
They named him Adam. And in Adam, God had gotten heir attention and presented himself to Mark and Gail.
So, you see, God has to yet our attention before He can present Himself to us; and the way He gets our attention is so varied, so miraculously varied. He’s always looking for that opportunity to present Himself which comes when you give Him your attention, when you turn aside to see whatever burning bush is there. Who was the poet what stated it so pungently?
Earth’s crammed with heaven
And every common bush aflame with God.
But only he who sees takes off his shoes.
The rest stand ‘round and pick blackberries.
God has to get our attention before He can present Himself to us. And that leads us to the final lesson in this burning bush story.
II
WHEN WE ARE IN GOD’S PRESENCE
THE GROUND WHEREON WE STAND IS ALWAYS HOLY,
AND WE HAD BETTER TAKE OFF OUR SHOES
God had to remind Moses of that. Look at verse 5: “Then God said, ‘Do riot come near; put off your shoes from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is Holy Ground.’
This is a beautiful symbol still widely practiced in the East. When you enter a temple, a palace, or even the private apartments of a house, you take off your shoes.
I think I will never forget my first visit to the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, the magnificent mosque built over the rock where Abraham offered his son Isaac as a sacrifice, and where Mohammed is said to have ascended. Everyone took off their shoes on entering. It was a sign of reverence. No one ever enters a Mohammedan mosque with their shoes on.
I see two practical leadings for us here. One, God is not someone you can be “chummy” with. One of the glaring limitations of many modern expressions of the Christian faith is that God is domesticated, reduced to a good friend next door - or upstairs who is always there to attend not only our needs but our wants.
Inevitably, this God is pictured as the one who guarantees success and happiness. And when you carry that superficial understanding of who God is to its practical bottom line - only the “healthy, wealthy and wise” must be on good terms with him. What does this say to the poor, the desperately ill, and the oppressed? The idea of a chummy God who will give us everything we want if we will practice positive and possibility thinking long enough and hard enough is not Christian. It may be good psychology for some — but it’s incomplete Christianity.
You can’t take the mystery/y out of the faith. You can’t chart the workings of God on a computer or with a slide rule. The stance of faith is to live in the tension that comes from the experience of the immanent God, as Jesus pictured him: Abba, Father - Daddy the experience of the mystery of a transcendent God, the Holy Other “whose thoughts are not our thoughts and whose ways are past our finding out.”
Now the second practical. The rationale for taking off our shoes when we enter the temple is that they have dirt and dust on them. The place and presence of God is not to be defiled. Again, it is a symbol, but powerful in the reality it suggests. The relationship God demands with his people is expressed in covenant, “I am the Lord your God; consecrate yourselves and be holy because I am holy.” (Lev 2:44).
Here is where the transcendent and the immanent come together. In Exodus 29, God called Moses to the mountaintop and made one of the most remarkable promises in the Bible: “I will consecrate the tent of meeting and the altar and…I will dwell among the Israelites.” (Exodus 29:44-45 NIV).
What a staggering thought. The sovereign God of the universe promising to dwell in the midst of his people.
That’s a central theme throughout the Scripture. John put it this way in his gospel: “The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us.” (John 1: 14). The Greek word for dwelt literally means to “pitch a tent.” So now in the new covenant through Christ, God comes to “pitch his tent” among his people. That’s who God is, eternally, beginning with the old covenant in Genesis and Exodus and concluding with the new covenant that He made in Jesus Christ, and going on in that Apocalyptic vision which we find in the book of Revelation, how it will be at the end of time: “The tabernacle of God is among men, and he shall dwell among them, and they shall be his people.” (Revelation 21:3).
By pitching his tent in our midst, God becomes present with us, identifies himself with us and the reality is that God is here. But…and this is the big condition: God demands something in return for His presence among us. If He is to identify with us, we are to identify with Him, so He commands us, “be holy because I am holy.” The reason we take off our shoes when we are on holy ground is because they are dirty.
The problem with too many of is that we want God, but we don’t want God on his terms. This is what Wilbur Rees put in a sarcastic way:
“I would like to bury three dollars' worth of God, please.
Not enough to explode my soul or to disturb my sleep,
But just enough to equal a cup of warm milk or a snooze in the sunshine.
I don’t want enough of Him to make me love a black man, or pick beets with a migrant.
I want ecstasy, not transformation; I want the warmth of the womb, not the new birth.
I want a pound of eternal in a paper sack.
I would like to buy three dollars' worth of God please.”
(Wilbur Rees, “Three Dollars Worth of God,” When I Relax I Feel Guilty. Tim Hansell, Elgin Illinois; David C. Cook Publishing co., 1979, p. 49, Quoted by Charles R. Swindoll, Improving Your Serve, p. 29).
But God doesn’t come in a sack. We can’t have just a part of Him. If we are going to have Him at all, it is on His terms. And His terms are for us to be holy as He is holy.
So what lessons have we in the burning bush? At least these:
God appears in the ordinary
God has to get our attention to present himself to us.
In God’s presence the ground on which we stand is always holy.
Now don’t get too preoccupied with the burning bush. Keep your mind on what it teaches and remember when God wants to reveal himself to us, and old bush will do.