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It seems most everyone knows something of the story of Moses and the burning bush. Disney even got into spreading the story in their animated film, “The Prince of Egypt”.
Moses, escaping Pharoah and Egypt was minding both his own business and his father-in-law’s sheep when he came across a burning bush. Strangely the bush was burning but not being consumed by the fire. God then spoke to Moses out of the bush to call him to lead his people out of Egypt and slavery.

Most Christian commentators say this is the dramatic story of Moses’ call to lead his people after negotiating with God as God spoke through the bush. After a few years of wandering in Median, marrying, and shepherding, Moses was called back to his people in Egypt. We know the rest of the story including the miraculous escape through the Red Sea (actually Sea of Reeds) that left the Egyptians treading water.

I find it interesting from time to time to read Jewish Commentators on Old Testament texts. They are often a fresh and new voice on something I have long read and studied. With the burning bush I discovered ancient Rabbis said the burning bush was not a bush at all but Moses very life. In it Moses saw who he used to be, passion he once had, what he was running from, the destiny he left behind in Egypt, and he saw the self that once burned for his people.

These rabbis said Moses then saw the fire had not gone out. Moses, then, drawn back to himself, back to the heart and heat of the fire that once defined his destiny. Moses realized he needed to return and lead his people to freedom.

When I was doing clinical work at the Hawaii State hospital to receive my certification, a reporter from the Honolulu Star Advertiser decided to interview four of us in this program. There were two women on track to become Episcopal priests, myself, and a man studying to become a Roman Catholic priest. When it came to me the reporter asked, “What prompted you to become a Lutheran pastor?” My response was, “Well, I saw this burning bush”… She included this in the article, but somehow did not report on the rest of what I said. Thinking of the ancient rabbi comments on the burning bush, maybe my response was less a joke than I originally thought.

Have you ever seen a burning bush? That is, have you ever seen or been aware of something calling you back to who and how you once were that then somehow propelled you forward into something new; perhaps even something you once thought you had left behind?

What passion once drove you but now is seen only in life’s rear-view mirror? Perhaps it was a passion best left in the past. Maybe, instead, it is something that needs to return and drive you to some needed good for yourself or some other(s).
It is so easy to get distracted by much in life. Like Moses it is also easier, if not easy, to move on to something safer with less struggle. God doesn’t usually call us to the soft stuff. We are pretty good at heading there on our own. And, it would seem, if God does call us to escape it is only for a bit of respite to return and engage those passions to which God calls us. Even Jesus got away at times but was soon back at it. Sometimes his passions followed him thwarting any effort to get away.

The church has retreat centers, camps, and other places of getting away but for a moment to once again engage God’s call through our passions. One of the reason Lutherans and others emptied and ended monasteries is that many functioned as life-long escapes from much that was frightening and burdensome for some.

Seek out your burning bush. Take time to look back upon who you were and who you have become and are becoming. Look into the mirror, literally, so you can look yourself in the eye should you discover something that stirs a passion in you. Ask others who once knew you and know you now. Playing with fire one can get burned. One can also find themselves burning with a passion that God can speak through, call you, and sustain you as you follow that call.