I confess to a malady known as “tunnel vision”. Tunnel vision is being able to see only what is straight ahead, as if I were going through a tunnel, and there is nothing to see on the sides, only the light at the end of the tunnel. Tunnel vision is not so much a condition of the eyes as it is of the mind. It’s not that your eyes cannot see anything but the end; it’s more that your mind is so set on what’s out there that you pay no attention to what is off to the side. I am told that I have tunnel vision.
She who normally sits at my right hand in the passenger seat tells me that. If we are off to some place unfamiliar, I am so busy watching the road that I may not notice landmarks or signposts that would tell me where to turn, and so she is designated as the navigator. She reads maps and calculates how long before we take the next turn. And when – if you’ll watch my gesturing now – when she announces, “Turn right here” and swings her left hand toward me, that’s when my tunnel vision kicks in. I don’t see the left hand; I only hear the word “right” and I do not interpret right right. I make the wrong turn and am accused of tunnel vision! Right? Right!
But tunnel vision is not merely a malady of the road. It is more than a car-driving problem. Tunnel vision is a life disease. Tunnel vision is a way of living for those of us who we get so settled into life patterns that we miss much that does not fit that pattern. Tunnel vision means that we build our routines and set our paths and never digress. We miss many of life’s riches. I had a friend who lived in Clinton, out in Prince George’s County, but who worked in downtown DC. She knew only one route to take from her home to her office. Now one day that road was blocked by firefighters; the police sent everyone on a detour. My friend knew only one thing to do: turn around and go home. She missed a day’s work and the adventure of the detour because she knew only one way to go. Tunnel vision; she would not turn aside and look for something else.
I can imagine Moses like that. Moses had had a problem back in Egypt, having killed a man on the desert sands. Moses had fled to the wilderness, a fugitive from justice, but he had created a new life for himself. He had married and settled down, and had a cushy job on the family firm. Well, maybe tending sheep does not sound that cushy to you, but it was secure and it was a set routine. Take them out, let them forage, bring them home. It paid the bills.
But one day, out of the corner of Moses’ eye, amid the scrubby plants of the oasis where the sheep fed, he saw something unusual. Flames, a bush burning, but not consumed. Something he could not explain. And for once in his life, young Moses said to himself, “I must turn aside and look at this great sight.” I need to get out of this tunnel vision, because something special is going on. “I must turn aside and look at this great sight.” A bush aflame with fire but not burned up. What is this all about?
And when Moses turned aside to look, he was rewarded with an experience that would not end, with a mission that would direct his life, and with a presence that would stay with him forever. It’s worth it to turn aside from your habits and look if you receive all that – an experience that will not end, a mission that will direct your life, and a presence that will stay with you forever.
I
Moses turned aside to look, and he saw a flame that would not go out in a bush that would not be consumed. Moses turned aside to look, and he had an experience that would not end.
Most of the time we experience the thrill of the moment, but then it’s gone. But not this time; this was an eternal flame in a tree that would persist. People in my hometown spend hundreds of dollars for a ticket to Churchill Downs to see the Kentucky Derby. I’ve never understood that. It’s all over in about two minutes. Others, sadly, pay out huge sums for a bottle of booze or a few puffs of an illegal weed. But that dubious pleasure is also over in a short while. The thrills this world has to offer cost too much and are finished in too short a time. But Moses was on to something; he turned aside to look at what God was doing, and found it would last and last, from here to eternity. A flame that would not go out and a tree that was not consumed.
You know, some of us look at church through tunnel vision. Some of us just do what we do, week after week, Sunday after Sunday, and expect it to be the same all the time. We don’t anticipate anything new out of church; we just want it to be predictable – set, routine, and comfortable. Sorry to say, we wouldn’t know a burning bush if its flames were singing our backs. We don’t expect anything to happen. Every now and again, we who are long-time church people need to turn aside and look at what God might be doing right here among us.
But others of us go to church for the momentary thrill, the immediate but passing experience. Others of us expect church to be the bouncing band, the crashing choir, the peripatetically powerful prophetic preacher, and the thrill of being just a little outrageous. Some folks want church to be a thrill a minute. Fine: let the band bounce, let the choir crash, let the preacher propound positive postulates – but when it’s over, it’s just over! It doesn’t last. It lingers in the mind a couple of hours, but then it’s over. Every now and again, we who are eager for church to be different need to turn aside from the pursuit of quick thrills and look at what God wants to give us that will last and last.
Oh, church of the living God, know in whose presence you live and move and have your being. He is the God who tells us that He is doing a new thing. And so, church of Jesus Christ gathered at Gaithersburg, beware of that tunnel vision that would lead you to expect nothing, see nothing, experience nothing. There is a fire that is burning out there, and a bush not consumed, if you will turn aside and look at this great sight.
And, oh church of the living God, know in whose presence you live and move and have your being. He is the God who is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the ancient of days, the same yesterday, today, and forever. And so, church of Jesus Christ gathered at Gaithersburg, beware of that trendiness, that avant-garde-ness, that would lead you to expect nothing but thrills, for thrills lead to spills. There is a fire that is burning out there, and a bush not consumed, eternal, ongoing, if you will turn aside and look at this great sight.
There is for you an experience that will not end.
II
Now when Moses turned aside and looked at the flame, in and through that flame He heard a voice, and that voice summoned Moses not only to an experience that would not end, but also to a mission that would direct his life. Moses heard that day, standing on holy ground, a summons that would give substance and direction to the rest of his life.
“I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people … out of Egypt.” “I will send you …” And if you read through the next couple of chapters in Exodus, you see that nearly every paragraph begins with the phrase, “But Moses …”. “But Moses said to God, ‘if I come to Pharaoh ..’” “Then Moses [said], ‘But suppose they do not believe me …” “But Moses said … ‘I have never been eloquent …’ “But he said, ‘O my Lord, please send someone else.’” On and on it goes, Moses trying to wriggle out of the mission for which God was calling him. He wanted to stay in his tunnel vision. He wanted to ride in his rut. It might be a rut, but it was his rut, and he liked it there.
I do not need to repeat for you the rest of the story. You know how Moses did accept the mission, how he did go to Pharaoh and command, “Let my people go.” You know about the Passover and the Red Sea, Mount Sinai and the wilderness. You know that this mission absorbed Moses for the rest of his life. It was a compelling life vision, and it all happened because one day Moses was willing to turn aside and look. It changed his life direction.
How important it is for you, church, to turn aside and look at the mission to which God is calling you. How easy it would be to take the tunnel vision route and just do church in negative ways. How easy it would be, brothers and sisters, to sit in this house of worship and denounce the sins of all those other people out there, as if they were somehow different from us! How tempting it is – and there are plenty of churches that do this – to preach negative sermons and teach judgmental lessons and suggest that we have our one-way tickets to heaven, the devil take the hindmost. There are plenty of churches where you can create a thrill by denouncing gay people or zapping the Supreme Court about abortion or ranting about alcohol. Those things might create a thrill for the moment. But God calls us, as He called Moses, to a different mission. God does not call us just to be judges. God calls us to the task of deliverance, to a ministry of reconciliation and redemption. God calls us to rescue the perishing, care for the dying, and snatch them in mercy from sin and the grave. It’s not about negatives and judgment; it’s about a positive response with the mercy of God.
As I have already showed you, Moses resisted for a while this mission of deliverance. He knew it would not be easy. He understood it would be demanding. I wonder if Moses would have been more eager to take the negative route. I wonder if Moses would have preferred to throw stones and hurl invectives. Suppose God had said, “Moses, I want you to preach sermons denouncing Pharaoh. Preach them right here, back in Midian, where nobody but the sheep will hear you.” Would that have been more to Moses’ liking?
Or suppose God had said, “Moses, I want you to go back to your father-in-law and hold Bible studies about sheep-tending.” Well, maybe not Bible studies, because there wasn’t any Bible in Moses’ day! But suppose God had said, “Moses, just go home and gather the brothers and the sisters and talk about how to make one another comfortable”. Would that have overcome Moses’ objections?
Probably so. We church folks like talking to other church folks. We love using the language of Zion here within the church walls. But that is not what God said to Moses. God said to Moses, “Go” God said to Moses, “Go and deliver my people.” Yours is a mission not of sheep-tending or of rhetorical flourishes or of temple-mending. Yours is a mission of deliverance. Go, Moses, go. Go to the last, the least, the lost, and the lonely. Go to those who need to be freed. Go to those who are struggling with sin and show them the way out. Denouncing doesn’t do it. Love them and lead them, Moses. That’s your life mission.
What is your life mission? What are you about? What is this church about? I pray God it is not just about maintenance and not just about comfort. I pray God it is not about negativity or about carping criticism. If you want to thrive personally and if you want your church to thrive, then turn aside and look at the world around you, and let its needs get hold of you.
Turn aside and look at the children and the youth of Gaithersburg, some of them floundering for guidance, and see a mission to bring them out of the oppression of peer pressure. Turn aside and look at the families of Gaithersburg, many of them broken and abused, and imagine a mission for their healing. What a mission that could be! Next week we will have as a guest in this pulpit Dr. Sheryl Chapman, Director of the National Center for Children and Families. She wanted to partner with Takoma Park Baptist Church, where I was pastor, to create a family resource center in a house we owned. She and her workers would staff it; all we had to do was provide the house. But do you know that our trustees would not put up a measly $600 as our share of the fees for a zoning variance? For want of $600 we surrendered a chance to be on mission for families. It has pained me for years that we would not turn aside to look at the mission God was giving us.
Oh, people of God gathered in Gaithersburg – churches do not exist simply to serve the wants and wishes of their own! Let me repeat that! Churches do not exist simply to serve the wants and wishes of their own members! Churches exist to give themselves away! Christians and churches must turn aside and look at the world around them, find their mission and fulfill it. Else they will die a richly deserved death.
Turn aside and look at this great sight. Moses did, and, once his objections were answered, he led a whole people out of bondage into freedom. His life direction.
III
An experience that will not end, a mission to direct your life, and, most of all, a presence that will never leave you. A presence that will stay forever.
As we move through these next few weeks toward the time when your new pastor will arrive, and we start to identify the things we must do to prepare, there are going to be some moments when we think, “We can’t do this.” There are going to be some times when it looks as though the tasks are overwhelming. How do we get the house ready, how do we equip the office, how are we going to respond to all the things he will need? I can tell you that he is already asking for information about how various plans are shaping up, and we are not ready with all of that! How are we going to do all that needs to be done, and how are we going to pay for it? Income and expenditures are just about keeping pace right now, but when a salary is loaded in, what happens then? What if, what if, what if?
Not unlike poor old Moses, and all those concerns he laid out. What if, what if, what if? Among them, “[What] if I come to the [people] and say to them, … ‘God … has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name,’ what shall I say to them?” By what authority and in whose name do we move forward from here?
It’s a good question, because sometimes we try to do everything in our own power. It’s a good question, because sometimes we measure everything by the dollars in the banks and the workers in the ranks. But I want you to know this morning, beyond all doubt, that if you try to do church out of your energies, you will fail. If you try to engage mission out of your own powers, it will vanish. Neither Moses nor we can be what we ought to be if, with tunnel vision, we just press on toward our goals on our own steam.
But God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” I love the sound of it in Hebrew: Ehyeh esher ehyeh – better translated, “I make happen what I make happen”. “This is my name forever and my title to all generations.” The One who makes things happen. Church, if you are empowered by God you can do anything! But if you stick with a tunnel vision, a let-me-do-it-myself outlook, you will fail, guaranteed! The tasks are too great, the enemy is too resourceful, the distractions are too many, and if you do not stay in sight of the Presence, you will fall. Of that I am utterly confident.
And so turn aside and look. Look at what the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob has done. He called out a people and promised them that He would neither fail them nor forsake them. Turn aside and look. His name is I AM.
Turn aside and look. Look at what the God of Moses has done. He brought His people out of bondage and made them free. He can do it again. Turn aside and look. His name is I WILL DO WHAT I WILL DO. Turn aside and look.
Turn aside and look. Look at what the God of Israel has done. He has used not only powerful prophets and solemn sages to teach His truth, but also ordinary sinners and run-of-the-mill citizens. He picked out a fugitive from justice named Moses and made him the captain of a movement. His name is forever and His presence is powerful. Turn aside and look.
Turn aside and look. Look at what the God of the burning bush and the forever fire has done. He has come in Christ Jesus to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. He has come in Christ Jesus so that we might experience Him every day, if we but turn and look. He has come in Christ Jesus to die and rise again so that we might go into all the world and bring good news to everyone. Turn aside and look.
Turn aside and look. For at this Table we see more than simple bread, more than mere wine. Turn aside and look, for at this Table we are fed the grain that never is consumed. We are refreshed with the fiery drink that will never be extinguished. Turn aside and look, for at this Table there is a Presence that will never, never leave us.
“O love that will not let me go, I rest my weary soul in Thee; I lay in dust life’s glory dead, and from the ground there blossoms red life that shall endless be.”
Turn aside and look.
