There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed. Then Moses said, “I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up.” When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.”
It really is a fantastic image.
Like the best symbols, there are many layers of meaning here. For the persecuted church, it is burning but not consumed. In the secular city, it is holy ground. In a rushed time, it reminds us to turn aside and take the time to look. In a time of many tempting choices, it is a story of clear and challenging calling. Looking at this story, we see light and life and rooted fire and the very Word of God spoken to the human heart.
In the spring, our Sunday School did a long project, tracing the Moses story beginning to end. Since then, it seems that the kids have become experts at spotting references to Moses. In the words of prayers and in stories, so many writers and teachers use images of God’s leading light, crossing through waters, and wandering and wondering through deserts. We’ve been finding Moses everywhere. Most recently, it was in the hymn Be Still by David J. Evans.
“In him no sin is found – we stand on holy ground.”
There were bright and shining five-year-old eyes in church two weeks ago when we sang those words, and I knew that something we’d talked about had trickled in. Hallelujah.
Reading the story of Moses’ call again this morning, I’m finding that it isn’t the words that catch me, but the images. I see bright light held in a moment of calling. Light held that others might learn to see the freedom God offers. A tree as a location of God’s love. One life’s calling as a gift to the gathered community.
Maybe it is because we have made such a symbol of this story. Maybe it’s only fitting that I see this symbol in the material things around me this week.
On Sunday, we played with air-dry clay in Sunday School. Just a simple dough made of white glue and cornstarch. (I used this recipe, in case you’re curious.) It has a pleasing soft texture, not too crumbly if you get the moisture levels right. And, unlike salt clay, it is bright white. We used the clay to make candle holders. Over the past few weeks, we’ve been talking about how things grow, and this time, we spoke about light. Some of the kids are ready to talk about metaphor and others aren’t quite there yet, but making candle holders seemed to be a hit with all of them. The clay felt good in our hands. We liked experimenting with making shapes that could hold light. Some of the candle holders went home with the children, and we’re keeping others at the church so that we can put them on the communion table with branches collected from the kirkyard. We’ll light the candles together, and maybe wonder about sharing light that all might see.
The image of a tree also cropped up recently in a small gift I was asked to make. Jewish friends are getting married in October and, when I opened up the invitation to their wedding, a small piece of cloth fell out onto the table in front of me. In the card, there was a simple request – to decorate the cloth and send it back to the couple. They will be sewing all these gift cloths together into a quilted chuppah to be used at the ceremony. The chuppah is a canopy spread over the bride and groom’s heads during the ceremony, representing the home that the couple will create in the community. A lovely simple image.
For my contribution, I chose to stitch a simple tree – just an outline, really – with the word LOVE stitched in the centre of the trunk as if someone had carved it there with a penknife. I added some red buttons, thinking that they looked like roses or maybe apples. Bear fruit and all that. But Blue thought that it might be the burning bush and the red spots might be flames. And maybe that it appropriate, too. I like the idea of LOVE carved into the burning bush. And I like the idea, too, of the burning bush being included on my friends’ chuppah. A small gift from our shared heritage of stories and rich symbols.
May love burn brightly around us all.
May we all craft ways to carry the light.
