NOTE: I am putting my weekly sermons on the church website. It will be on for two weeks (usually posted on Friday) and then placed in the Archives area by date. You can download in a matter of seconds.

Let me know what you think. The church Email is: SLUMC@att.net, Phone: 480.895.8766

September 1, 2002
Sermon: "A Bush, A Prophet, and God"
Scripture: Exodus 3:1-15
Reverend Larry Gerber

The identity of Israel's God as the singular
unrivaled deity of ancient Israel is the central
tenet of Old Testament faith. The fact that
Israel had a monotheistic religion, mandating the
worship of only one God when all of its
neighbors had pantheons of dizzying proportions,
is a theological distinction of the most
incredible kind.

On a bumper sticker recently, I saw: "God doesn't call the qualified, he qualifies the called." This is the type of religion that has come down to us since the Old Testement times. God called Moses, a rather unqualified person to be the leader of God's people. He couldn't speak without stuttering, he had killed an Egyptian. He had excuses after excuses , but, God continually wiped away any excuse that Moses came up with. He simply said that he had called Moses, and that he would qualify him.

In his book, The Call: Finding and Fulfilling the Central Purpose of Your Life, Os Guinness reviews the theology of call and just what is involved when one is called of God. Guinness describes the call of God as "the truth that God calls us to himself so decisively that everything we are, everything we do and everything we have is ... lived out as a response to his summons and service." There are two dimensions to the call of God, the first being our essential role as a disciple of Jesus, and the second being the call to function in the church and the world using the gifts God has given us. When we are faithful to these two callings, God is glorified.

After I was given a second chance through the cold steel grey eyes of Dean Kinser, during my freshman year at Arkansas College (now Lyon College), I decided to start going back to church, and went to the altar to dedicate myself to God in the spring of 1963, at the age of 19. My grades needed to improve, or I would be sent home. My life needed to get some priorities. If I was going to get my degree in Business and Economics, and get a job in the business world, making lots of money, I needed to search my sense of direction, and I needed to get serious. It was nearing the end of my first full year in college. I needed help. I needed a sense of direction!

I searched the scriptures, and found these words, from II Timothy 2:14, "Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman who needed not be ashamed." I went to my typewriter, typed those words out in capital letters, and stapled them to the center of my bulletin board that was on the wall right in front of my study desk. I would read that scripture every morning upon rising, and every evening upon retiring. It was one of the main stays during the next 3 years of my college experince, and it still applies to my everyday life. I must study to show myself approved unto God, a workman who needeth not be ashamed.

Quakers believe that the Spirit of God is present within every person. Each person has, therefore, a fragment of God's wisdom, which should be listened to and respected. The fullness of the Spirit's guidance is discerned when everyone's wisdom blends together to produce a decision that each person can affirm - in short, when consensus has been reached. Often, the solution is a higher synthesis of the various views, "a case where two and two make
five."

-Frank Rogers Jr., "Discernment," Practicing Our
Faith (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers,
1997), 111. Used by permission of John Wiley &
Sons, Inc.

In each of our lives, we must discern that which God has in store for us, and then we must pray about it, and act upon it. We also need others to help us along the way.

Moses felt very alone. God called him. He claimed "not qualified". God said that he was not to worry, he would get his brother Aaron to be the mouth piece. God would lead him, he would not be alone. the people would follow him, etc. God made Moses a prophet, and then God showed him a burning bush that was not consumed. And God said "I will be your God. You are now qualified. It's your turn."

Something that is only one of its kind out of three billion is unique - to say the least! In the Exodus text, we run across a bush, a prophet and God - all rarities for a specific reason.

For those who don't have a life, a new time-waster is emerging on the Internet, a game called "googlewhacking," the invention of some search-obsessed fans of Google.com, the search engine that can quickly scour the length and breadth of the World Wide Web.

The object of googlewhacking is simple enough - even an Internet neophyte can play. A participant types two words into the Google search line with the hopes of pulling off a single search result.

Try, for example, the phrase "burning bush."

Results: Google displays results 1 through 10 of about 324,000. That's a long way from a googlewhack. In fact, we missed by 323,999. The result we are looking for is labeled "Results 1 through 1 of 1."

How about another phrase from today's Scripture lesson: "the Perizzites." Surely that pair of words is obscure enough.The results are better, but still no googlewhack. The search engine gives us "Results 1 through 10 of about 12,800."

Googlewhacking is more difficult than it looks, according to the Reuters news service. Google's massive database updates constantly, thus making the solitary search result more and more elusive.

How surprising then, to find three googlewhacks in Exodus 3! First, of course, is the bush itself, burning but not burning out. It was for this very reason that Moses stopped to investigate. Moses saw in the bush something unique that called out to him.

Truth is, there are no doubt plenty of such burning opportunities in our own lives - moments presented by God to grab our attention-deficit minds and cause us to wonder and ponder what God is up to. When such moments occur, they should be to us as they were to Moses, "holy ground." Out of these events, we should be able to hear God calling our name, even
as he called out to a renegade shepherd: "Moses, Moses!" (3:4).

That God singled out Moses suggests the second googlewhack of this text: Moses himself. Of course, Moses thought God had it all wrong. In his own eyes, Moses saw himself as a backslidden sinner, a fugitive from the law, a man of flawed character, a man with a past, a skeleton in the closet and a bumbling fool. "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?" (v. 11).

But God saw in Moses, like he sees in us, something special. God is able to see the googlewhackiness in all of us, even when we ourselves are blind to it. In God's eyes Moses gave him search results 1 through 1 of 1.

Not that we are always anxious for this assignment. Moses reveals his reluctance when he asks the question, "But suppose they do not believe me or listen to me ...?" (4:1). God responds by turning Moses' staff into a snake, and then back again.

Then Moses admits that he has "never been eloquent, neither in
the past nor even now." He describes himself as "slow of
speech and slow of tongue" (v. 10). God instructs him to use
his brother Aaron as his mouthpiece.

Sort of like the patient asked the psychiatrist: "How is it
that when I say I talk to God, you call it prayer; but when I
say God talks to me, you call it a hallucination?"

From Moses and Jesus to Socrates and St. Augustine, and Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., the similarity and individuality of the voice within is
"definite, identifiable, believable and compelling."

Point is, God equips us when he calls us. He does not select us and send us to crash and burn. Although we may not have the natural desires,convictions or qualifications to do God's work in the world, although we may not seem suited for God's service, God addresses us, invites us, challenges us and empowers us to do his mission in the world.

To be God's googlewhack is not about us. It's all about God.

To ease the stress, God reassures Moses: "I will be with you" (v. 12). I will stand beside you. I will never let you go. The God of Moses' father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, promises to go with Moses right into the courts of Pharaoh and beyond.

Enter the third googlewhack: God himself. The Lord reveals his personal name to Moses, "I AM THAT I AM." I AM ONE THROUGH ONE
OF ONE. There's no one like me! I am the one with the power to create, the one who causes everything to be. I am the God who will be present in ways to make possible what is not otherwise possible. I am the very power of newness that will make new life available - available for Israel outside the deadly confines of Egypt. This God, "I AM THAT I AM," is the God of power, faithfulness and eternal presence.

"Study to show thyself approved unto God..........." was just the beginning of my changing lifestyle as a second semester freshman. Little did I know that God was calling me to something other than a degree in Business and Administration, and lots of money. I was running scared and turned to God in desperation, to save myself from myself. I was not qualified for anything but failure, but God rescued me. He said that he would be there for me, and that I was not alone, He would empower me, .....

The three googlewhacks in todays scripture can be summed up in this way:

The uniqueness of God is calling to the uniqueness of human beings, to enter the uniqueness of everyday, sacred moments in the service of the Holy.

Our mission, like that of Moses, is to liberate people from bondage. The call comes to us every day as God declares us to be one in a billion, and to engage in a sacred and life-saving mission that can only be done the way we can do it.

Today we will encounter a googlewhack moment offered by a googlewhack God to a googlewhack believer.

Let's take off our sandals: We're on holy ground.

Sources:
Brueggemann, Walter. "The book of Exodus." The New
Interpreter's Bible. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994, 714.
Harpur, Tom. "Sometimes, inner voice has something to say."
The Toronto Star Web site, March 28, 1999.

Let me know what you think. The church Email is: slumc@direcway.com, Phone: 480.895.8766