More Moses
Our lesson for Sunday is still the good old Sunday School bible story of Moses and the Burning Bush (scroll down) and, God help me, I'm still fixated on it. Just a thing or two this morning. Looking at clipart for the story, I was taken with one because it surprised me that the bush is so much smaller than I imagine it to have been in the mind of whoever first told the story. Well, tradition says it was Moses himself and I reckon that's as good as anybody, since we have no idea who the original human author was, J-writer, E-writer, JE, P (no, not P) who knows, I don't and neither do you.
Most of the clipart renditions have a towering bush and a cowering Moses. One I really liked is magnificent stain-glass window style, but it has a sign on it: "The Burning Bush."
Well, duh - -. I selected the other one because of the surprisingly small bush, and Moses has just taken off his sandals, and Moses looks more curious than awed. God and Moses didn't get along as chummily as God and Abraham, because Moses, raised a prince of Egypt, was nobody's obeisant dummy, and he never hesitated to speak up. Well, otherwise we wouldn't have as great a story, would we.
I like that Moses listens to God's call and then challenges, "Well, I dunno. Great attention grabber with the fiery shrub and all, but who are you anyway?" And the answer, "I'm whoever and whatever I say I am." So, Moses' comeback, "Nah, I don't think so, I'm not a great speaker. I'm kind of a loner. I like it here just me myself alone following these sheep around." And God starts to negotiate, "Hey, no problem. I'll call your brother Aaron to do all the talking, and you'll get the credit." Finally, I don't know, Moses lets himself get talked into it and this becomes one of the great old campfire stories for evenings in the wilderness those forty years.
Part of my intrigue with this story, intrigue now, for long years it was more chagrin than anything because in my Time a group imagined renaming God Sophia (Wisdom), is that God tells Moses his name. Name. Moses: "whass yo' name anyway?" God: "Who, me? Name of eeYeh esherrr eeYeh". Which, I don't think Moses gets it, is rather sarcastic: "I Am whoever and whatever I say I Am. Call me y'VAH for short".
Poor Moses, to me it's always Poor Moses: instead of sheep, for forty years he has to deal with a bunch of constantly dissatisfied whiners and grousers who, like the sailors in the Santa Maria with Columbus, just want to rise up and throw him overboard. And then to cap it all of, if you know the story, out of what seems pure pique, y'VAH tells Moses he can't finish the journey with the other folks, etiologically remembering some long ago slight.
Anyway, here we are.
Exodus 3:1-15 (NRSV)
1 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. 2 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.
3 Then Moses said, “I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up.” 4 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.” 5 Then he said, “Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” 6 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.
7 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, 8 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. 9 The cry of the Israelites has now come to me; I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them. 10 So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.” 11 But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” 12 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.”
13 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?” 14 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.’” 15 God also said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you’:
This is my name forever,
and this my title for all generations.
Most of the clipart renditions have a towering bush and a cowering Moses. One I really liked is magnificent stain-glass window style, but it has a sign on it: "The Burning Bush."
Well, duh - -. I selected the other one because of the surprisingly small bush, and Moses has just taken off his sandals, and Moses looks more curious than awed. God and Moses didn't get along as chummily as God and Abraham, because Moses, raised a prince of Egypt, was nobody's obeisant dummy, and he never hesitated to speak up. Well, otherwise we wouldn't have as great a story, would we.
I like that Moses listens to God's call and then challenges, "Well, I dunno. Great attention grabber with the fiery shrub and all, but who are you anyway?" And the answer, "I'm whoever and whatever I say I am." So, Moses' comeback, "Nah, I don't think so, I'm not a great speaker. I'm kind of a loner. I like it here just me myself alone following these sheep around." And God starts to negotiate, "Hey, no problem. I'll call your brother Aaron to do all the talking, and you'll get the credit." Finally, I don't know, Moses lets himself get talked into it and this becomes one of the great old campfire stories for evenings in the wilderness those forty years.
Part of my intrigue with this story, intrigue now, for long years it was more chagrin than anything because in my Time a group imagined renaming God Sophia (Wisdom), is that God tells Moses his name. Name. Moses: "whass yo' name anyway?" God: "Who, me? Name of eeYeh esherrr eeYeh". Which, I don't think Moses gets it, is rather sarcastic: "I Am whoever and whatever I say I Am. Call me y'VAH for short".
Poor Moses, to me it's always Poor Moses: instead of sheep, for forty years he has to deal with a bunch of constantly dissatisfied whiners and grousers who, like the sailors in the Santa Maria with Columbus, just want to rise up and throw him overboard. And then to cap it all of, if you know the story, out of what seems pure pique, y'VAH tells Moses he can't finish the journey with the other folks, etiologically remembering some long ago slight.
Anyway, here we are.
Exodus 3:1-15 (NRSV)
1 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. 2 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.
3 Then Moses said, “I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up.” 4 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.” 5 Then he said, “Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” 6 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.
7 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, 8 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. 9 The cry of the Israelites has now come to me; I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them. 10 So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.” 11 But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” 12 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.”
13 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?” 14 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.’” 15 God also said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you’:
This is my name forever,
and this my title for all generations.