A Bunch of Rocks
Dan Harper
August 30, 2026
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Exodus 3: 1–15 (NIV-UK)
1 Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2 There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. 3 So Moses thought, ‘I will go over and see this strange sight – why the bush does not burn up.’
4 When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, ‘Moses! Moses!’
And Moses said, ‘Here I am.’
5 ‘Do not come any closer,’ God said. ‘Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.’ 6 Then he said, ‘I am the God of your father,[a] the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.’ At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.
7 The Lord said, ‘I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. 8 So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey – the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. 9 And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. 10 So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.’
11 But Moses said to God, ‘Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?’
12 And God said, ‘I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you[b]will worship God on this mountain.’
13 Moses said to God, ‘Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, “The God of your fathers has sent me to you,” and they ask me, “What is his name?” Then what shall I tell them?’
14 God said to Moses, ‘I am who I am.[c] This is what you are to say to the Israelites: “I am has sent me to you.”’
15 God also said to Moses, ‘Say to the Israelites, “The Lord,[d] the God of your fathers – the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob – has sent me to you.”
‘This is my name for ever,
the name you shall call me
from generation to generation.
Did you know that your mobile phone is a very complicated box of rocks?
That is, admittedly, understating several decades of extraordinary engineering. But strip a smartphone back far enough and you find minerals, metals and other materials dug from the earth. Depending on how you count them, dozens of different elements are needed to make the thing in your pocket work.
Which means, somewhere along the line, somebody looked at a rock and thought: we could make this send cat videos around the world.
In our reading Moses is also surrounded by the ordinary stuff of the earth. Rocks, dust, sheep, scrub and a bush.
Then the bush burns.
And suddenly something utterly ordinary becomes the place through which God speaks.
I wonder how often we miss God because we are waiting for something that looks more obviously divine? How often do we miss God’s call because all we can see is a bunch of rocks? Moses doesn't find God in a church, a temple or through some carefully planned religious experience. He is at work, in the wilderness, when something ordinary catches his attention.
That is where expressing God's love begins. Not with having particularly special things, but noticing what God might do with the ordinary things already around us.
Even rocks can become a phone.
Even a bush can become holy ground.
Prayer:
Dear God,
Help us turn aside, pay attention, and discover you in the ordinary stuff of life.
Amen.
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