The You Tube Video of this is http://youtu.be/WJm1XMxcYrw
A
Reflection for XII Pentecost (Proper 17) All Saints’ Episcopal,
Southern Shores, N.C. August 31, 2014 Thomas E. Wilson, Rector
The
Old Man and the Burning Bush
I
was not here last week as Bob Morisseau was with you and in the
sermon he preached to remind us that the life that does not end is
the deeper life in the spirit. I was hearing in different words that
same message while I was at the Dream Group Leader Intensive Training
as we saw each moment, awake or asleep, as the gift of God’s spirit
being present with us. It is a matter of opening one’s eyes to see
all things in a different way. I wrote a reflection, and then
distilled it in a poem, which I called “The
Old Man and the Lake”,
about taking a canoe out on the lake and looking at the event through
the eyes of prayerful creative imagination. I have posted that
experience on my blog: http://pasontomstomes.blogspot.com/. I want
to ask your indulgence and try that process again as we look at the
Moses story for this week and see it again through the eyes of
prayerful creative imagination. I call this “The
Old Man and the Burning Bush”.
The
Old Man woke up too early in the morning, put on his sandals, went
outside the tent as part of the ritual of growing older, did his
business, scratched, and spit. There was still more time before
having to relieve the night shepherd and, when dawn came, to move
those lousy, stinking sheep to find some new pasture in God-forsaken
Midian. He was never going to feel at home in this place. “Don't
get me wrong”, he thought, “My father-in-law, Jethro, is a good
man, even if his superstitions just rub me the wrong way.” “It is
all a crock”, he thought, “for you are born, you slog
through most of life, you have a few nice moments, and then you die.”
The Old Man wished he could believe the stuff that Jethro
babbled about being descendants of Abraham, but he had seen
plenty of religion – too much of it.
He had been born years and years ago, and the story he was told was that his mother had pulled him out of the bull rushes and called him “Moses”, which meant in Egyptian, “coming out of the water”. He actually believed that story for a while until he overheard some of the kitchen help suggest that his mother had a fling with the Babylonian Ambassador and probably came back home with a bundle and made up that story of calling him Moses to cover up the scandal. They laughed as they noted that everything that is born is coming out of the water when it breaks in labor. He had confronted her, but she kept to the story that he was a product of a chance encounter when she was taking a bath in the Nile, and he was probably a Hebrew of the tribe of Jacob or Israel. He had said, “Thanks a lot, Mom! I had seen the Israelites, and a scruffier group of misfits I have never seen before. There was one woman who was a wet-nurse that felt some affection for me, and there were two playmates, Aaron and Marian. However, when I was five your brother forbid me to associate with those ragtags. The wetnurse, Arron and Marian spoke a strange language and mumbled a lot to their God - fat lot of good that did them!”
He had been born years and years ago, and the story he was told was that his mother had pulled him out of the bull rushes and called him “Moses”, which meant in Egyptian, “coming out of the water”. He actually believed that story for a while until he overheard some of the kitchen help suggest that his mother had a fling with the Babylonian Ambassador and probably came back home with a bundle and made up that story of calling him Moses to cover up the scandal. They laughed as they noted that everything that is born is coming out of the water when it breaks in labor. He had confronted her, but she kept to the story that he was a product of a chance encounter when she was taking a bath in the Nile, and he was probably a Hebrew of the tribe of Jacob or Israel. He had said, “Thanks a lot, Mom! I had seen the Israelites, and a scruffier group of misfits I have never seen before. There was one woman who was a wet-nurse that felt some affection for me, and there were two playmates, Aaron and Marian. However, when I was five your brother forbid me to associate with those ragtags. The wetnurse, Arron and Marian spoke a strange language and mumbled a lot to their God - fat lot of good that did them!”
 |
| Marc Chagall's Reflection of Moses and the Burning Bush |
He
remembered that language was similar to what the people in Midian
spoke, and they were some of the same racial stock, but the
Midianites had copper and trade whereas the Israelites had
nothing but sorrow. The ruling elite of Egypt had Gods and Temples,
and it seemed that their God's smiled on them.
He remembered going to school where the other kids saw him as a half breed, but he learned what life was like with the elite. He was always on the fringes, the outside of the crowd, a visitor tolerantly endured for hospitality's sake. It changed that night when he had enough of being an outsider and went out to the worksites on the fringes of the palace grounds. It seemed the place for him to go, an outsider going to the fringes. There he came across an overseer whipping a man who wasn't doing enough work. He went up and stopped the beating. The overseer muttered something about not listening to a half breed. Something snapped in him and he took out all his frustrations on the overseer and ended up killing the man, then burying the body to hide the crime. Of course, nothing stays hidden and he had to run for it, ending up in God-forsaken Midian. There he tried to get by, but was always the outsider on the edge of the crowd. He had no real home, no real family, and no real God. The only place where he could kick off his sandals and relax was inside his tent out in the wilderness.
Today the herd was close to Mount Horeb, and in the predawn light he searched for the stragglers of the sheep. Suddenly, the predawn light was a lot brighter and that did not make sense, but out of the corner of his eye he caught the sight of a bush burning. “That is where the light is coming from”, he surmised. He turned aside and approached the bush; it was on fire but it was not burning up. “This does not make a lick of sense”, he thought. “Flames need energy to consume, and here the energy is not being consumed; it is like the fire is independent of needing anything else. This has to be a dream or a demon possession; no God worth its salt would be out here when it could so easily be in a Temple being worshipped with pomp and circumstance.”
He remembered going to school where the other kids saw him as a half breed, but he learned what life was like with the elite. He was always on the fringes, the outside of the crowd, a visitor tolerantly endured for hospitality's sake. It changed that night when he had enough of being an outsider and went out to the worksites on the fringes of the palace grounds. It seemed the place for him to go, an outsider going to the fringes. There he came across an overseer whipping a man who wasn't doing enough work. He went up and stopped the beating. The overseer muttered something about not listening to a half breed. Something snapped in him and he took out all his frustrations on the overseer and ended up killing the man, then burying the body to hide the crime. Of course, nothing stays hidden and he had to run for it, ending up in God-forsaken Midian. There he tried to get by, but was always the outsider on the edge of the crowd. He had no real home, no real family, and no real God. The only place where he could kick off his sandals and relax was inside his tent out in the wilderness.
Today the herd was close to Mount Horeb, and in the predawn light he searched for the stragglers of the sheep. Suddenly, the predawn light was a lot brighter and that did not make sense, but out of the corner of his eye he caught the sight of a bush burning. “That is where the light is coming from”, he surmised. He turned aside and approached the bush; it was on fire but it was not burning up. “This does not make a lick of sense”, he thought. “Flames need energy to consume, and here the energy is not being consumed; it is like the fire is independent of needing anything else. This has to be a dream or a demon possession; no God worth its salt would be out here when it could so easily be in a Temple being worshipped with pomp and circumstance.”
Then
a voice, familiar and yet hard to place, says, “Moses, the one who
comes through the water.”
The
Old Man says, “What?”
The
voice replies, “Take your sandals off!”
The
Old Man says, “I didn’t get to be an old man by taking my sandals
off where the ground is hot and scorpions hang out, just because a
bush gives me advice.”
The
voice saiys, “I am the God of your fathers.”
The
Old Man asks, “Which father? The Babylonian ambassador of the one
night stand, or Jethro my father-in-law, or some nameless Hebrew
slave? I don’t have a father worth having!”
The
voice says: “I am your father; I am the ground of your being, I am
Being itself. I am who I am, and I was who I was, and I will be who I
will be. I have been speaking to you all of your life, but you have
been so full of bitterness, that you would not listen, or even hear.”
Moses
sighed, “I thought the voice was somewhat familiar.”
The
voice continues, “Wherever you have been, I have been. Every step
you have taken has been on Holy Ground. You would not listen or even
hear that I am your true home. You are invited to take off your
sandals and make yourself at home with me. I need you to pay
attention as you walk with me; each step will be a return to your
deeper self and to your people and to my people and will be a walk
with them in my path to a new home. I will take you again out of the
water; I will walk with you through the deserts and accompany you in
the wildernesses. Come follow me and I will set you free. Now, on the
first step of this journey go to Pharaoh and say to him; ‘Set my
people free.’”
So
the Old Man left that place, walking on sacred ground wherever he
went for he was now going home.
Let
me distill this reflection into a poem in the French Pontoum form. I
have gleaned eight phrases from the reflection and placed those eight
phrases into sixteen lines in four stanzas.
The
Old Man and the Burning Bush
The
fire is independent of needing
Speaking
to you all of your life
Coming
out of the water when it breaks
But
you are so full of bitterness
Speaking
to you all of your life
You
would not listen, or even hear
But
you are so full of bitterness
That
I am your true home
You
would not listen, or even hear
That
I am your true home
Tell
Pharaohs to set my people free
Egypt
had Gods and Temples
Coming
out of the water when it breaks
Tell
Pharaohs to set my people free
The
fire is independent of needing.
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