© Rev. Lance Carrithers, all rights reserved.  Permission required to copy any portion of this message by any means. Email for permission: lance@firstchurchdc.com

"A Job to Do"

Exodus 3:1-15

        The call of Moses.  Most of us know the story. Either we learned it from our Sunday school teachers, or we got from Cecil B DeMil’s extravagant movie with Charlton Hesston.

          The plot is the same. Moses and the burning bush. God’s unmistakable voice, calling to Moses. Moses answering the bush. The voice in the bush telling Moses to remove his Sandals, for he was standing on holy ground. Moses hiding his face.

          I wonder when Moses awoke that morning, as he was getting ready for work...I wonder what was going through his mind. Probably things that go through most of our minds when we get up and prepare to go to work. Some of it no doubt had to do with career and woulda, coulda, shouldas. After all, Moses had seen it all. Destined as a baby to be killed with all the other Hebrew boys. Sent afloat in the Nile only to be pulled from the water by a Princess. Raised in the royal household, nursed by his own birth mother.  Lived the life of a prince.   Interesting how things can turn around. 

          In fact, there were more life’s turns in store for Moses.  Sticking up for a Hebrew man, killing an Egyptian.  Then, a life on the run, exiled from his home and his family. It all had come to this: Working for his wife’s dad in a low-wage job. Things sure would have been different back in the palace. Things should have not come to this. But then again...things could have been worse.

          Maybe he had on his mind the chores for the day. Where he would take the flock? The grass was growing thin; he’d have to move them up to higher ground. Wonder how the grazing is up on the mountain slope? Surely there would be water there. He would have to check that out today.

          I guess I’m trying to say that it’s not too far of a reach to suppose that Moses’ mind was far from God that morning as he dressed for work. He probably had a hundred other things on his mind as he ate his breakfast and gave his family a quick kiss goodbye as he headed for the door. Wasn’t thinking at all where his journey would take him that day, how his life might be changed.  

          Nah—Moses was just another man with a job to do.  As he took his staff in his hand, and began to herd the sheep up to Horeb to graze, it probably was just another day on the job. Another day like the one before it and the one before that.      Moses worked through his day as he always did, I suppose.  Herded his father-in-law’s flock and tended them the best he could, as he always did.  Everything was typical, ordinary, usual. Until he saw the smoke...

          Fire! That could be dangerous. Perhaps it seemed like a small fire, something that could be put out. As Moses’ attention was focused upon the fire, he notices something--the first unusual thing about a otherwise ordinary day.  The fire didn’t spread, nor did it consume the brush fueling its flames. The bush was one fire, but the source of the flame appeared to be coming from something else.

          How strange. Moses stepped in for a closer look. Indeed, the bush was not consumed by the fire. As he stared in wonder, the second unusual thing occurred in what was quickly becoming much more than an ordinary day on the job.  The bush spoke. It called Moses name. Not once, but twice. Moses! Moses!

          Moses responded. The way I suppose any of us would respond if we heard a fiery bush calling our name. A bit afraid. A bit astonished. A bit confused. Was the desert sun getting to him? “Uh....I’m right here!” Moses stammers.

          “Stop where you are!” the bush commands Moses. “Take your sandals off. You are standing on Holy Ground. I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob."

          And with that information, Moses begins to more fully comprehend that this day was no longer going to be an ordinary day at an ordinary job.  Moses hides his face, for he was afraid to look...at the very face of God.

          Is it so unreasonable to believe that your encounter with God, that you will be ushered into the presence of the Holy when and where you least expect it, when your mind is distracted and burdened? Thinking about your tasks for the day, perhaps filled with resentment over lost opportunities or even thanksgiving that things are worse than they are.  Is it unbelievable to think that you could come face to face with God.....on an ordinary day, in an ordinary place...even the place where you work?

          Where do you stand as you go about your ordinary day’s work?   Before a room filled with desks? By a patient’s bedside?  Are your boots planted in the dirt or on a concrete floor?  Where do you stand?  Do you stand behind a counter? In a courtroom?  Do your bare feet hold you up in front of a washing machine or kitchen sink? Where do you stand? In an office?  In a sales lot or on a sales floor?   In a pulpit?

          Wherever we stand...we might consider that it too, could be Holy Ground.    (Of course, in our culture, one is perhaps at risk of being found sitting rather than standing on Holy Ground!) Either way, the possibility is that we may find ourselves on Holy Ground, in the presence of God, in the midst of our ordinary work day.  Have you given consideration to that?  That God may very well call us, come to us, and change our lives forever, in the workplace?

          You see, this is the most astounding thing about this story.  We hear the story and we think, “well, sure…it was MOSES, afterall.  No wonder God wanted to get his attention, because God was going to use Moses.  MOSES!”  But you understand…Moses wasn’t MOSES when he saw the burning bush.  He was just a man with a job to do.  Ordinary man.  Ordinary job.  And until we get that point—we will fail, everytime, to see the really magnificent thing.  That we, ordinary women and men, might be called with a very special job to do!

          What if Moses’ story sounded something like this?

          He bounces from one place to the next, one dead-end job to another. One day he meets a young woman and decides to settle down. They start a family and her daddy offers him a job at the tire store.  He’d have to start out in the shop.  It’s dirty work, but it was a job to do.  And thankful for someone giving him a job, he begins his new life.

          That morning at breakfast, Mo is thinking back to those glory days on the football field. Man, he could have had a career with a pro team. He would be living large in a big house with a bank account that would have kept him for the rest of his life.

          As he kissed his wife goodbye, he was already thinking about the shop. Another day of fixing flats and mounting tires. Just another day on the job.

          Until God gets his attention.   I don’t know how that might happen. I simply have faith that it could happen.  God gets his attention, and gives Mos another job to do.  God’s work.  Important work. 

          I don’t know how it might happen, I just have faith that it could happen, in fact, has happened.  Is happening.  God getting our attention when our minds are filled with everyday concerns, when our hands are filled with the tools of our work, when our feet are, we think, planted firmly on the ground. And as God speaks to us, we find ourselves standing on holy ground. And God’s voice sets our heart to beating faster, causes us to draw our breath a bit more rapidly.  Gives us a new job to do. 

          After all, God has a way with ordinary men and women.  On ordinary days.  Doing ordinary things.   God has a way….that is….well, extraordinary!  

When it happens, how will we respond?