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Scripture:  Exodus 3 1-6 
Moses and the Burning Bush

Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.  There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a
bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up.  So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.”   When the LORD saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the
bush, “Moses! Moses!” And Moses said, “Here I am.”  “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.”   Then he said, “I am the God of your father, [a]  the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.

Meditation: "Take Off Your Shoes" 

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This was a pretty big day for Moses, who up until this point had been somewhat of a drifter, somewhat of a lost soul He started his life in a wicker basket floating on the river, and it seemed like he never really found his rightful place, never felt at home anywhere
and even self-described himself as being ‘an alien in a foreign land.’ Until that is this day, when he was out wandering with his father-in-law’s sheep, and has an encounter with God, in which his life’s purpose and true calling is revealed to him.

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When Moses saw the bush on fire, he went over of course to check it out, and he hears God calling out to him, telling him to, “take off his sandals, for the place where he was standing was holy ground.”  This direction to remove his shoes was in conformity with
what was well known to Moses, for, being brought up in Egypt, he would have known that the Egyptian priests observed this very custom in their temples, as an acknowledgement of the holy presence that surrounded them. Moses being quite blown away by this revelation responded by not only removing his shoes, but also by hiding  his face, a sign that he understood the power and gravity of what was happening.

Have you ever had such a moment in your life, a moment where something struck you or resonated so strongly that you just knew something out of this world had taken place ? Have you ever lie Moses, stood on holy ground? Off course you have. Holy ground is all around us, it is anywhere and everywhere God’s presence resides.

We just like Moses sometimes have to become aware of it. Now this resonates with me because these last couple of weeks I was feeling a bit disgruntled after hearing about my son Chad and his wife Melissa’s honeymoon trip to Portugal . I shared with some of you how the pictures I was being sent and the descriptions I was hearing of such an incredible place left me feeling less than
appreciative of my own surroundings and what seemed to be a lack of any sense of holiness in my day-to-day settings. Lets’ face it, the country of Portugal with its ancient stone villages, timeworn churches, rolling hills and coastal beauty, most certainty gives
way to a unique sacredness. Its rich cultural and historical heritage, without a doubt embodies a timeless serenity that oozes with the feel and presence of God which Chad and Mel were certainly a witness to.

Another friend of mine traveled to Calgary this summer and took a six day horse back riding tour up to the top of a mountain to camp out in a cowboy lodge , again I heard about the profound natural beauty, the grandeur of the rugged peaks and serene
landscapes and how they evoked a sense of awe and reverence, a place where the divine seemed to touch the earth, creating the feeling of deep connection to something greater than oneself.

Why is it we can more easily feel or see the sacredness in a heightened situation or the holy in a special place but not so much in the ho hum of our daily existence?  Is it possible that the ground is always holy but our awareness of it only kicks in after we
choose or allow ourselves to see it ? Could it be though that that we miss the forest for the trees? That we’re too busy looking for the burning bushes, the shooting stars, the breathtaking beauty that we miss the fire and light hidden everywhere in the normalcy
of our everyday coming and going?

Maybe we can’t even think about or feel that sense of holiness or sacredness when we are not really open to truly living a Life in spirit. And It could very well be that being in tuned to the holiness around us may take some unlearning on our part of what we
have been conditioned to believe. Without a doubt, science that we were taught throughout our school years formed in a large way how we feel about the world, how we perceive the world, how we view and perceive space, and how we relate to all of that as
a whole and what we can or cannot perceive, how we have grown up to perceive certain things and not to perceive others becomes what we believe.

 

The great irony of this is now spiritual indoctrination has been taken out of classrooms. There is a strong material identity being imposed, reinforced by the media, social media, advertising, newspapers, magazines, tv and film, and we lose touch with the sustaining qualities of spirit. Our awareness of such things dwindles. To bring spirituality back into education, we must radically alter the way science is actually taught. There needs to be an  openness to the awareness that the sciences are in no way incompatible with a sacred world, a world in which matter, mind and spirit were never separate in the first place, and we need to rediscover our own traditions of how to connect the mundane world with that inner world of things not seen but felt.

Within this wonderful universe of which we are a part, there is so much more than meets the eye. The problem is when our frame of reference originates with us rather than with God. There is tremendous vitality, energy and spirit circulating around us at all
times waiting to be activated. How we do this is to appreciate the sacredness of the world not merely as a nice idea or even as a belief but as a feeling not just in our minds but in our hearts, and in the very cells of our bodies. Even maybe especially after five
plus years of school in theology, learning from the wisest theologians, scholars and professors, not leaving any stone unturned I can say that our faith need not be a complicated one. We don’t need the answers to all questions and that we grow where
we are loved not where we are merely informed. Ad we are all loved.

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Just like Moses, we need to remove the barriers and pretenses that prevent us from being connected and trust in the calling of God’s spirit that will plant us in the right place; barefoot and vulnerable, yet firmly rooted. It’s up to us, to tune into the sacred or settle for the secular. 
All Glory be to God

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