Turning Aside

Moses’ encounter with the burning bush is one of the more famous epiphanies in all of Scripture.

My guess is that even people who are unfamiliar with the larger arc of the story of faith and religious history might have heard of it.

But in all the times I have imagined the scene—all those times I’ve filled in the gaps between the words of the passage and the musings of my own mind—I never considered the possibility that arose as I meditated on the reading this week.

What if Moses hadn’t turned aside?

Even though the bush was burning without being consumed—a strange vision to be sure—Moses could have just kept tending his father-in-law’s sheep and kept on going.

And yet, the reading is clear—Moses says to himself, “I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up.”

And it is only after Moses decides to stop and look more deeply that God issues the call that will shape and define the rest of his life.

“When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush.”

The results of this call and Moses’ response to it are well documented throughout the rest of the Book of Exodus and throughout the rest of the Biblical books that make up the Torah.

Another sermon might highlight the particular circumstances of Moses’ call—how he was born a Hebrew, escaped Pharoah’s murderous, baby-killing scheme only to end up being raised in his household, and then found himself tending Jethro’s sheep in the wilderness because he killed a fellow Egyptian and fears reprisal.

We would be well served to explore how Moses’ call to participate in God’s salvation aligned with the specificities of his life experience and required him to face his greatest fears and trust completely that God’s power and grace would be enough to see the people he led through the trials of the Exodus, the complaining and travails of the wilderness, and all the way beyond into the promised land.

But today, I want to focus on the fulcrum of Moses’ story—namely his turning aside in wonder to draw closer in curiosity to what God was doing.

Many people I have served over the years, both inside and outside of congregational life have longed for a big sign from God that would allow them to have clarity about the direction of their life.

In the story of the burning bush, they have seen a template that makes the still, small voice and the daily manifestations of God’s presence seem unremarkable and unreliable in comparison.

And as someone who seeks to be faithful to God’s call wherever it leads, and who longs for such unmistakable guidance in my own life, I have great compassion for this desire.

But in my experience, God’s voice and direction are rarely shouted from the tops of the mountain and are rarely—if ever—made plain in dramatic and grandiose ways.

Instead, the call of God more often comes to us when we, like Moses, choose to turn aside from a rote and programmed approach to life, and take time to be curious about what is happening right beside us.

It is not that our routine and schedules are bad for us—they help organize life and allow us to thrive and grow if we don’t permit them to stifle our curiosity and ability to turn aside when necessary.

The flower that grows in the spaces between the cobblestones—the eyes of the beggar we might choose to ignore as a fellow human being—the tones of hurting or helping that arise in a conversation.

Each of these—and myriad other experiences—could be vehicles of God’s call to us, if we but turn aside and pay attention to them.

Perhaps God is calling the one who turns aside to the flower to keep struggling for life and light even though the odds feel stacked against you.

Perhaps God is calling the one who meets the eyes of the beggar to find ways to affirm your common humanity and to work for a world where the gaps between haves and have-nots give way to the Beloved Community.

Perhaps God is calling the one who hears the hurt in their friend’s voice to reach out in love and accompany them in their pain, or to finally accept the help and accompaniment that their friend wishes to offer to them.

If we do not make the choice to turn aside—physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually—then we may never hear the call that God is making to us.

Being called is a fundamental part of our baptism into this one, mystical Body of Christ with many members.

But too often, we can forget that this call comes in the middle of everyday life, and we can lose the practice— that children innately have—of turning aside in wonder and expecting God to be there, willing to meet us.

We come to church and worship in order to stay in this practice of turning aside, and to remember how ordinary elements like bread and wine can be channels of the extraordinary—how flawed human beings can also be redeemed channels of the divine—and how words spoken and sung can be the very voice of God to us.

Dear siblings in Christ, I encourage you to turn aside this week and be open to however God might be calling you.

Be on the lookout for this call, and if you hear it, take time to pray about it, share it with a friend and companion, and explore following it here in community.

By turning aside and paying greater attention, we open the locked doors of our hearts to being influenced by the greater will of God.

And whether that call will lead us to strive for liberation like Moses, to “Rejoice with those who rejoice, [and] weep with those who weep” like St. Paul, or to “deny [our]selves and take up [our] cross and follow” like countless disciples of Jesus—we know that the God of our ancestors—the great I AM—will be with us on the journey.