I was thinking today about the story of Moses and the Burning Bush (found in Exodus 3). At this stage of his life, Moses had fled from the life he’d known in Egypt – a Hebrew child raised among the privileges of the Egyptian royal family – and was living a quiet existence in the land of Midian. He had married a local woman named Zipporah and was helping tend his father-in-law’s sheep in the area around Mount Horeb. The story, though, gets interesting once you begin to poke around a bit among the details of the narrative.
Moses was tending sheep in a region not known for its lush, green pastures. These animals were prone to wander, seeking out tufts of grass or tender new leaves wherever they might be found. It was while following around behind a meandering herd of sheep that Moses spotted a bush on fire. At that point, he stepped off the rocky path in order to investigate. Why? He did so likely for reasons more practical than theological, because a brush fire out in a breezy, desert setting could be life-threatening both to Moses and his herd. But the point is: he stopped where he was going and stepped in a new direction – and that made all the difference in the world.
Taking the first step of faith is almost always a step in an unexpected direction – a step off the well-worn path, away from the crowds, in a direction different from the typical ways of the world. This is because God is in the world, but not of the world. God is almost always found off the path – somewhere over there – a place we see from the corner of our eye, or sense with a feeling in our gut or a tweak in our conscience.
To step off the path faithfully might mean that you go out of your way to listen to someone else’s story – especially someone whose life experiences are different from yours, whether that involves issues around race, economics, sexual orientation, age, or physical capacity. It means that you are attentive to someone or something outside yourself, like Moses was attentive to a burning bush by the side of the mountain path. And this attentiveness takes time. (You will only notice that a fire is not consuming a burning bush if you stand and study it attentively for more than a few minutes.)
Once you’ve stepped off the path to listen, to be attentive, to be faithful, don’t be surprised if the second step of faith sends you right back onto the road you’d just be traveling. God doesn’t pull us off the beaten path to keep us isolated in safe, spiritual cul-de-sacs (or secluded away inside climate-controlled worship centers that resemble shopping malls more than places of sacraments and prayer). God pulls us off the road long enough to give us what we need for the journey ahead, so we can re-join life’s traffic patterns and get busy in the places where God needs us to be.
The distractions of life today pull us forward in routines that penalize us for slowing down, for breaking our routines, for daring to consider anyone’s story in place of our own persistent self-narrative. God’s burning bushes still grab our attention from the side of the road and speak to us today about justice, holiness, and new directions of faithful living. And the good news is that the God of this very day is still setting things on fire – lighting sparks in hearts – placing burning calls upon our spirits. – Randy Bush