The Readings: Exodus 3:1-12; Hebrews 12:18-29; Luke 10:17-24
From today through Pentecost in the Old Testament readings the Lectionary offers a collage of moments in the LORD’s long project of liberation and renewal. Today, the call of Moses, which Gregory of Nyssa (4th Century) recognized as analogous to the Annunciation, pairing Moses’ “yes” with Mary’s “yes.”
The reading might suggest something about our individual vocations, captured in Bianco of Siena’s “Come down, O Love divine” (15th Century):
Come down, O Love divine,
seek thou this soul of mine,
and visit it with thine own ardor glowing;
O Comforter, draw near,
within my heart appear,
and kindle it, thy holy flame bestowing.
O let it freely burn,
till earthly passions turn
to dust and ashes in its heat consuming;
and let thy glorious light
shine ever on my sight,
and clothe me round, the while my path illuming.
And so the yearning strong,
with which the soul will long,
shall far outpass the power of human telling;
for none can guess its grace,
till Love create a place
wherein the Holy Spirit makes a dwelling.
And the reading might suggest something about the LORD. This, from Ellen Davis’ Getting involved with God:
“If, as I suppose, God is drawn to Moses because of his capacity to be derailed for the sake of the things of God, then this also reveals something to us about God. Here I think we are close to the heart of this first revelation at Horeb (Sinai). At Sinai, God is revealed as a deity who jumps the track, a God who gets derailed for the sake of the things of humanity, for the sake of the people Israel.”
With Jacob at Bethel 