August 30, 2026 - Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost: Look more closely. What do you see?

August 30, 2026   14th Sunday after Pentecost
Ladue Chapel Presbyterian Church
Psalm 23; Exodus 3:1-8a
“Look more closely. What do you see?”
Anne Peacock

Exodus 3:1-8a
Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; he led his flock beyond the wilderness and came to Mount Horeb, the mountain of God. 2 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. 3 Then Moses said, “I must turn aside and look at this great sight and see why the bush is not burned up.” 4 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.” 5 Then he said, “Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” 6 He said further, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. 7 Then the Lord said, “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, 8 and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey…

Last year a group of us went forest bathing. This Japanese practice, called Shinrin-yoku, is a sensory immersion in nature offering space for prayer, silence, reflection, and healing. We each chose a small, scrolled-up piece of paper tied with a ribbon. Inside was a message to reflect on then or to open later. I forgot about this scroll of paper but found it just a few weeks ago while struggling to come up with a title for today’s sermon. Untying the ribbon and reading the message, the sermon title was revealed! It says, “Look more closely. What do you see?” Artist Georgia O’ Keeffe says, “Nobody sees a flower – really – it is so small it takes time – we haven’t time – and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time.” Moses had time!! Besides being a professional sheep herder, I’m pretty sure that Moses was a professional forest bather! Living and working alone in the mountains for 40 years after running from Egypt, he likely spent lots of time studying the movements of clouds, smelling herbal aromas and wild onions, noticing even the tiniest flowers, and of course counting sheep.

The Hebrew word for shepherd shares a root with the word for companion, or close friend. The LORD was Moses’s shepherd and companion, even if Moses wasn’t ready to be acquainted with him. Might God have tried to get Moses’s attention earlier? Perhaps he waited until Moses was open to seeing and hearing him. God is patient and persistent when we don’t answer – even if it takes 40 years!

The word professional originally had a very different meaning. At its root, a professional is one who makes a profession of faith – faith in something larger and wiser than him or herself. Away from the bustle of the marketplace, experiencing a slower way of life and rhythm of walking, listening to the music of the birds and sheep, insects and wind; noticing the beauty of nature…maybe Moses learned to be more deeply aware, and perhaps God was preparing the soil of his heart to be open to God’s call.

When I was a student at The College of Wooster, my piano professor invited Steve and me to dinner and greeted us outside. Mid-sentence, his face immediately turned, and his nose shot upward and dramatically sniffed the air. With great delight he exclaimed, “Do you smell the mock orange?” This reminds me of what a wild creature might do. In his book “The Wisdom of Wilderness,” Gerald May speaks of wild creatures as being “completely, totally themselves. They do not pretend to be anything else.”

He goes on to share a time when he observed a stag in the heart of Washington DC. As the deer nipped at branches and nibbled at grass he frequently stopped and stood still for a long time. “In these extended stillnesses he was smelling the air, listening to the sounds, looking, seeing all around and feeling the ground beneath his hooves.

The vigilance of the deer is not only to detect danger, but also to detect goodness: food, companionship, water, sunlight, shade, and sky. To do this well (the deer teaches) we must take many times to stand very still in the midst of what we are doing. Lift our head, look, see, and smell what is around us, perk our ears, listen and hear, in a stance of openness to God to learn how to be who we really are and to receive God’s invitation.

There is a saying, “When the student is ready, the teacher appears.”  How about: “When the pilgrim is ready, the way appears.” I like to think of Moses as a pilgrim preparing for his call to return to Egypt, confront the Pharoah, and lead the Israelites to the promised land. We are all on our own pilgrimage. But to journey towards new life, it’s up to us to notice God. In Phil Cousineau’s book “The Art of Pilgrimage,” he states that many pilgrimages begin with the calling of a dream. But there is another call, “the one that arrives the day when what once worked no longer does.” It arrives in various forms – an itch, an offer, a ringing, an inspiration, an idea, a voice, a knock, … even a burning bush.

The nature of fire is an image for the heart. I wonder if God’s voice burned within Moses’s heart, awakening his senses? Are we awake enough to notice the fire of longing; of God’s love? There are times in our lives when we overlook rather than look. We miss hearing God’s voice or seeing our own burning bush. I will never forget the time I argued with God while walking a labyrinth. A labyrinth is an ancient tool to still the mind and open the soul. It is a path for pilgrimage which symbolizes the spiritual journey. While slowly moving around the turns of the path, I heard God say, “Find your voice.” I wasn’t quite sure what to do with that message, but I walked it again the next day to hear more. This time God said, “Go back to your music.” I laughed at God and, thinking I knew best, said, “That would be great, but I’m okay where I am.” I was minding my own path; not ready to follow God’s path for me. Somehow God found a way. Music, a piece of me that had been hidden for so long, was bursting forth. I had no choice but to gradually uncover that gift from God and allow it to shine. Moses had many gifts which were hidden while shepherding yet later uncovered when fulfilling his call; he demonstrated the capacity to wait patiently in Egypt for God to act. He trusted in the outcomes, took risks and spoke truth even when it was not understood or heard.

Gregory of Nyssa, one of the most influential philosophical theologians for both the Eastern and Western traditions, describes the transformation taking place in Moses. “After he passed some time in this kind of life as a shepherd, an awe-inspiring theophany occurred. A theophany refers to an intense manifestation of the presence of God that is accompanied by an extraordinary visual and multi-sensory display such as a burning bush. Other examples of theophanies include the appearance of God at Mount Sinai in cloud, lightning, and thunder, the liberation of the Israelites at the parting of the Red Sea, and the Pentecost story.  A Buddhist koan practice calls these moments “un-understandable” and invites us to meditate on things that don’t make rational sense, such as a bush that is never consumed. Christians may then go beyond the surface of scripture, allowing the text to come alive and God’s message to break through.

Gregory of Nyssa continues his story of Moses’s theophany: “At high noon a light brighter than the sunlight dazzled his eyes… ‘I will go and see this great sight.’ As soon as he said this, he no longer received the marvel of the light with his sight alone, but (which is most astounding of all) his hearing too was illuminated by the rays of light. The light’s grace was distributed to both senses, illuminating the sight with flashing rays and lighting the way for the hearing of undefiled teachings.”

The form of Jewish mysticism called Kabbalah is often referred to as the soul of Judaism. In this practice, mystics specifically seek the ecstatic experience of God, not merely knowledge about God. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote, “Mystics want to taste the whole wheat of spirit before it is ground by the millstones of reason.” All people can be mystics and have experiential connection with God if we remove our shoes and take off whatever stands between ourselves and God’s love. God does not come to us because we dared to look – God has been here all along.

“The voice from the mountain forbade Moses to approach the burning bush burdened with lifeless sandals,” as Gregory of Nyssa describes them. (The symbolism of the sandals is that of where one’s feet have been and are going.) The fact that Moses’s sandals were ‘lifeless,’ suggests that Moses, like all of us, exists in a state of lifelessness. Moses must remove the ‘lifeless sandals,’ to experience the living God.”

Much of my life I didn’t feel, see, hear, or fully experience the life I was living. I was also wearing “lifeless” sandals. Only until I awoke to God, turned aside and followed his voice, did I find true joy. How did God awaken me? A longing summoned me to pray by listening in the silence and, through this silence, a path was illuminated that I yearned to follow. I continue this path because in my heart it feels right and I trust my heart’s voice. Spiritual practices such as the Prayer of Awareness, as John Philip Newell says, “allow us to wake up to what is already there.”

When I visited my dying father we listened to his favorite music, sang hymns, and shared a Prayer of Awareness. I asked him, “What do you see?” and thought maybe he would say the clock on the wall, but he closed his eyes and responded with words I can only describe as coming from an un-understandable place, or as the Celtics would say, “a thin place,” where the veil between heaven and earth is lifted. When I asked my dad, “What do you hear?” he said, “laughter and cheering.” I asked my father if he would like to be in this place; he paused, then said, “Yes.” This journey with Dad was a pilgrimage and we were on sacred ground. When asked, “What is the deepest meaning of pilgrimage?” the great Buddhist Vietnamese monk, Thich Nhat Hahn answered, “The capacity to return home from a sacred journey and recognize your own back yard as sacred ground.”

Had Moses forgotten about the Israelites during his 40 years of self-exiling and shepherding? If so, God reminded him when he revealed himself to Moses. God told him he has seen the misery of his people, God heard their cry, God knew their sufferings, and God called Moses to help deliver them from the Egyptians toward new life.  Moses argued with God thinking, who am I to be charged with this task?  God persevered and Moses finally saw him, heard him, and responded, “Here I am.” Barbara Brown Taylor says, “What might we be commissioned to do if we paid closer attention to God?”

Before we enter into a Prayer of Awareness, I would like to share Lynn Smith’s description of her floral arrangements. She says they “depict God speaking to Moses through the beauty of nature and the power of fire, giving him strength to lead his people forward, and as a reminder that in the darkest of days, the Spirit is there to guide us, warm us, and lead us if we just listen.”

• First we will take one minute to hear with the ears of our heart. The sound of the chime will begin and bring us back. Notice your breath and the sounds of traffic on Clayton Road. Listen more deeply. What do you hear?
• We will now take one minute to see with the eyes of our heart. You may wish to gaze at the floral arrangements, the burning bush artwork on the front of the bulletin or simply close your eyes. Look more closely. What do you see?

May you carry Jan Richardson’s Blessing at the Burning Bush in your heart as you journey along your pilgrimage. God will be with you.

You will have to decide if you want this—
want the blessing that comes to you on an ordinary day
when you are minding your own path,
bent on the task before you that you have done
a hundred times, a thousand.

You will have to choose for yourself
whether you will attend to the signs,
whether you will open your eyes to the searing light, the heat,
whether you will open your ears, your heart
to the voice that knows your name,
that tells you this place where you stand—
this ground so familiar and therefore unregarded—
is, in fact, holy.

You will have to discern
whether you have defenses enough to rebuff the call,
excuses sufficient to withstand the pull of what blazes before you;
whether you will hide your face,
will turn away back toward—
what, exactly?

No path from here could ever be ordinary again,
could ever become unstrange to you
whose seeing has been scorched beyond all salving.

You will know your path
not by how it shines before you
but by how it burns within you,
leaving you whole
as you go from here
blazing with your inarticulate,
your inescapable yes.