A Fire That Consumes

Jeremiah 11:1-8, 14-17

I talk a lot about Moses’s experience with the burning bush, one that burned yet was not consumed. It was the call of Moses and thus the beginning of the Exodus from Egypt. Yet, in today's reading from Jeremiah the people are threatened with a far different image. Says Jeremiah, “The Lord once called you, ‘A green olive tree, fair with goodly fruit’; but with the roar of a great tempest he will set fire to it, and its branches will be consumed” (Jeremiah 11:16). The sinfulness of the people had transformed God’s presence from a sign of grace—indeed, a miracle––into an image of judgment. The flame by which God had promised salvation was now a portent of God’s coming wrath.

This is a tragic turn of events. But as theologians have pointed out, God’s grace is but another side of the same coin as God’s judgment. Without one, there is no reality to the other. God expects justice, and God will and does hold God’s people accountable for it. But God remains faithful to the promise as well. The fire that consumes will again be the fire that saves. How we respond to God’s call, God’s will, matters. But God remains active in the process.

Prayer: Lord, help us to accept your judgment, turn from our sins, and live according to your will and by your grace. Amen.

Getting Our Attention

Exodus 3:1-5

I’m not sure it had ever occurred to me, but when Moses first sees the burning bush it causes him literally to change direction. “Then Moses said, ‘I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up’” (Exodus 3:3). The trajectory his life was leading Moses away from where God needed him to be. He was herding the flocks of his father-in-law, which in and of itself was not a bad thing. But God wanted him herding the people of Israel instead, and with a “great sight” God got Moses’ attention and eventually got him back to Egypt.

I was working for a large insurance company in San Antonio, Texas when God got my attention and sent me off to seminary in Virginia. What I was doing, the trajectory my life was taking, wasn’t wrong, but it wasn’t where I needed to be. And while I never saw a “bush that burned but was not consumed” I did finally get the message by other means. Maybe you know what I’m talking about. Maybe at some point in your life God has pulled you out of the fast lane, or away from the drive thru, or off of a side street and compelled you to change direction, to go where God needed you. A colleague of mine once said that for him the sense of call had always been clearest in hindsight. It was when he got somewhere and looked back that he was able to see that God had indeed been at work in his life. Whatever the case, no matter the circumstances, God is at work fitting individuals into roles and tasks for which they are suited so that the work of the coming reign may go on. Don’t be surprised if, after being jarred by some “great sight”, you find yourself changing directions and doing things you have never thought about doing. It may be God calling.

Prayer: Lord, open our hearts and minds to what you are doing in our midst that we may respond with faithful discipleship and may give ourselves to your work. Amen.