It's odd how the scripture readings for the past several weeks have all focused on callings. . . .

1) The burning bush

I always thought of the burning bush as the miraculous messenger, the medium through which the voice of God is heard and the call is revealed. It's something so foreign, so out of this world, so beyond what we ordinary humans experience that this must surely have been something very special. But some interpreters see it a little differently.

Philo was a first century CE Jew who lived in Alexandria, Egypt. A philosopher, theologian and prolific writer, he produced three independent commentaries on the Torah. Christians would soon become attracted to his thinking because of the allegorical interpretations he gave to Jewish scripture. We do not know whether Philo knew about Jesus, since he never wrote anything about him, but later church leaders would cast Philo as a Christian theologian and some would even refer to him as a Bishop.

In his work THE LIFE OF MOSES, Philo writes the following about Moses and the burning bush:

For Philo, the bush itself was the message; it was a symbol for the future of the community.

This reminds me of a much later text from the prophet Isaiah in which the prophet, speaking for God, says,

This is one of my personal favorites of scripture, it's a special text because I discovered it at a time in my life when I was struggling with whether or not I was acceptable, whether I belonged here or not. And in a private moment when I was sitting alone in my dorm room praying and haphazardly leafing through the Bible to find some words of inspiration I suddenly felt overwhelmed with a sense that I was completely acceptable and loved by God, created exactly as I was meant to be. Just then my eyes came to rest on the words of Isaiah 43.

I have only now come to realize that that was my burning bush. That was my revelation that God was not only with me at that moment, but would always be with me. I think that's what Moses needed to know before he could say yes to the calling that he was being given. I think that many of us have seen our own vision of a burning bush, though we may not have thought of it in those terms.

There is a familiar passage from Alice Walker's book THE COLOR PURPLE in which one of the main characters, Celie, says;

Sometimes I think we miss the miracle, we fail to recognize the vision we've been given, because it isn't what we expect. We expect a miraculous sight, a sudden parting of the clouds, a deep, resonant voice, clear and unambiguous instructions about what we should be or do - but that isn't it! It's about knowing that you're not alone; you're connected to God, to others, to yourself in a deeply miraculous way, and you belong here - that's the Holy Ground we are meant to walk upon. There are burning bushes around us every day.

2) Gods hears suffering

Moses' calling also revealed something important about God. Most of the gods that people worshiped required sacrifices to keep them happy and to persuade the god to do something you wanted. The gods were localized and each had their own territory, their own sphere of influence, and their own demands that needed to be appeased. When you traveled to a foreign land it was always a good thing to get to know the local deities, just to be on the safe side.

The One who spoke to Moses was different. It wasn't sacrifice God was after, it was justice for the oppressed, freedom for the enslaved, dignity and integrity for all people. This God hears people suffering and responds with liberating power. This is the God who, when someone is weeping in despair, tastes the salt. This mysterious, enigmatic God of the cosmos is a God of compassion and justice. This was a radically new way of understanding and knowing God.

Social justice and equality are not tangential concerns for Jews or Christians, they are an essential part of the way in which God is incarnate in the world.

3) God's name

Moses, knowing that just returning to Egypt means great personal risk to himself, obviously wants to know just exactly who it is that is going to be with him, empower him, work through him, if he is to challenge Pharaoh and lead the people into freedom. So he does what any good liberator would do, he asks what God's name is.

In the text there are three distinct Hebrew names for God that God tells Moses. The first is I AM WHO I AM. The second is simply I AM, kind of a shortened nickname for the first name. And the third is Yahweh which means The One Who Causes To Be. All three of these names are variations on the root word in Hebrew which means to be. But there are many possible ways of translating this.

The earliest translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek, the Septuagint, translates this name for God as "the One who is." This emphasizes God's essential unity and was a favorite way of referring to God for Philo. Other interpreters emphasized God's essential freedom by translating God's name, "I will be who I will be." I like this translation because it also implies that God is not finished or completed yet, there is yet more of God to be discovered. One could even say that God is still in process, still evolving in a continuing creation with the world.

Contemporary author Lawrence Kushner says that the Jewish name for God is unutterable not out of a pious regard for the holiness it evokes, but simply because, as he puts it, "you can not pronounce all the vowels at once without risking respiratory injury." He goes on to write,

So the name of God leads us into silence. It leads us into being itself. It calls us to the home and the life that we carry within our own breath. Is it any surprise that so many spiritual traditions in so many different times, places and cultures have found within meditation, the silent focusing on ones own breathing, inner peace, compassion and power?

So let me close by offering these simple words by the Indian mystic Kabir:

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 God 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 God saw that Moses had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, "Moses, Moses!" And he said, "Here I am." Then God said, "Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground." God said further, "I am the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham and Sara, the God of Isaac and Rebekah, and the God of Jacob and Rachel." And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.

Then God 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 Caananites, 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?" God 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 God's name?' what shall I say to them?" God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM." And God said further, "Thus you shall say to the Israelites, I AM has sent me to you.'"

God also said to Moses, "Thus you shall say to the Israelites, 'Yahweh, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham and Sara, the God of Isaac and Rebekah, and the God of Jacob and Rachel, has sent me to you': This is my name forever, and this is my title for all generations."