#WatchAndPray Lent reflections - Week 4: Monday
Week 4: Quiet
This week we consider moments in the lives of the prophets when – even amidst terrible suffering and oppression – they encounter the divine presence.
Black Spirituality is ancient, and in many ways can be related to the themes and worldviews of the Hebrew prophets we will encounter this week.
Prayer for the Week
God of our wilderness and despair, when our chaos is too loud to hear you, lead us to the quiet place. Open the ears of our hearts to hear you in the deepest of ways. Amen.
Moses in the wilderness
Week 4: Monday
Reading
Exodus 3.1-12
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 Horeb, the mountain of God. 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. Then Moses said, ‘I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up.’ 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.’ Then he said, ‘Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.’ 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.
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, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the country of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. The cry of the Israelites has now come to me; I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them. So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.’ But Moses said to God, ‘Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?’ He said, ‘I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain.’
Reflection
Moses is the model upon which all within the prophetic tradition in Scripture is based – even Jesus. We know the general story of Moses, and we place him within the political and economic situation of his time, but we must pay attention to the deep quiet within the text.
Moses spends his most powerful moments in the wilderness, or on a mountain top, alone with God.
In Exodus 3 he moves beyond the wilderness, and there he encounters God in the presence of a burning bush. At this point Moses is a shameful man, and in many ways someone who is lost and confused. But in this quiet moment, he comes to see what he never had before. He comes to learn the divine name, shared for the first time in Scripture. His path – and the path of God’s people – is changed for ever.
Watch
When and where have you felt God moving you beyond your comfort zone?
...and pray
for the curiosity and courage to seek God outside the ordinary.
Copyright © The Archbishops’ Council 2024.