Look Closer

It was a rock like any other rock. Well it had seemed that way anyway. A small jag poking through one of the sides of Bulldog Gully was all that could be seen as John Deason and Richard Oates turned their cart through the gully on the road between Moliagul and Dunolly. Just as they were passing the rock one of their wheels scraped against it, causing the cart to tip. One of the men looked around and saw a glint beneath the mud. Perhaps this was not a rock like any other rock.

Scrub fires were common in that part of the country. The tinder dry shrub under a blazing sun and the south-westerly winds blowing in from the desert made them a regular sight for the shepherd. The fire at Horeb was a fire like any other fire, if only a bit smaller as it seemed to be confined to just the one bush. Not really worth noticing then, it wasn’t going far. But then the something twigged in the shepherd’s brain and he looked again. Perhaps this fire was not like any other fire.

In our reading on Sunday we heard from Luke 13:1-3 where a group of people came to ask Jesus about current events. It says now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. Jesus answered, "Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! Lots of stuff happens around us, and not all of it has a spiritual meaning. Sometimes the things that are significant to God aren’t the things that we expect: not all “Acts of God” are what they seem. When Elijah heard from the Lord it was not in the great wind, the earthquake, or the firestorm but in the gentle whisper. I am convinced that an act of God is not a natural disaster; rather it is what the Church does in response to one. The Act of God is not the bushfire: it is the volunteers distributing water, blankets, food, clothing, prayer, and hugs. God is seen in the everyday activities of ordinary people; sometimes in extraordinary circumstances.

Moses was minding his own business, and his father-in-law’s sheep, when God came to him. Maybe God had tried other things in the past and it took the not-so-burning bush to grab Moses’ attention, but even in that I don’t think there was anything truly spectacular in what God did. Unlike the epic cinema of the 1950s I don’t think there was an angel quire, or even a noticeable “presence of the Spirit” that the Charismatics might describe. I think Moses was just walking past, saw the bush, gave it a second glance, and then went over to have a sticky. It was then that God smiled, whispered “got him, yes!” to the pre-incarnate Jesus, and sent His Voice to speak with Moses just as His Voice had walked and talked with Adam.

Have a look at the passage, what is the first thing God says to Moses? He says Moses’ name. And Moses responds with “ye-ah...what?” Only then does God tell Moses to take his shoes off and proceed to introduce Himself. That is when Moses looks away in fear: before then he was quite happy to look at a strangely-burning-yet-not-consumed talking shrub. If we take the time to look for the wonder in the mundane we may find ourselves standing on holy ground.

I don’t know how it was with you, but with the generations that are young today, those called X and Y, (remember there is Z and now Alpha behind us), spirituality is carried in many “ordinary” things. Younger Christians, some of whom are heading for fifty, hear from God in songs on the radio, in films that aren’t specifically about Christian themes, or even in conversations with their mates. Sunsets and mountain lakes are still stunning us with God’s presence, but then sunsets happen daily, and mountain lakes have been around for as long as there have been lakes and mountains. You shouldn’t have to find the Virgin Mary in a piece of toast to know that God wants your attention: just look closer at ordinary things and you may well find that God has been trying to catch your gaze for a while.

Messers Deason and Oates were eventually paid £19,068 for their nugget, “The Welcome Stranger” which at 2283 troy ounces (70.558 kg in new money) is the largest alluvial gold nugget found anywhere in the world. It had been buried less than two inches below the soil. This was not a rock like any other rock, but it took someone to look directly at it to see that. What treasures might we find, what words might we hear if we bother to give a second glance or look just beyond the surface of the everyday?