Holy Distraction, Batman!

There is an Australian saying that goes like this: 

"Head down - bum up." This adage signifies that the speaker is going to keep one's proverbial proboscis to the grindstone, work hard and long hours until the task is completed.

Over the last two years, as some (if not most) employees have worked from home, perhaps promising to keep the morning raids of the refrigerator to a minimum and time spent on social media in check, they have also signed an unwritten personal contract to keep a head down and a rear end up.

So some (if not most) have worked from home, staring at a computer screen until their eyes swam. They've done meetings via Zoom; conferences held through Teams; purchased equipment and supplies through Amazon, and through it all, they've attempted to keep distractions at a distance. 

It's ethical, right? Just keep doing what we've been doing, but online. Just get the task done so we can move onto the next one. 

You can't spell routine without 'rut.'

In my opinion, Moses, in Exodus 3, was very much caught up in the adage, Head down, bum up. 

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. There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within the bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. So Moses thought, "I will go over and see this strange sight - why the bush does not burn up.'

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.'

Now eighty years of age, Moses had been routinely tending his father-in-law's flock, head down, bum up. From Prince of Egypt to Sultan of Sheep, Moses had taken a prodigious demotion, the mundane task of taking care of his father-in-law's flock. Can you imagine what that was like? The humdrum of following sheep across the wilderness: watering them, grazing them, protecting them. Day after day after day.

One day, though, he took his flock to the far side of the wilderness, to Horeb, the mountain of God. Whether or not he knew this was the mountain of God beforehand is up for debate, but for some reason his flocks are grazing on holy hillsides. Whilst the animals munch away, he sees a strange sight: a bush that seemed to be on fire, but it was not being consumed. He even mutters to himself, perhaps this is a sign of the craziness of the rut: "I will go over there to see this thing..."

It was a holy distraction. Moses was well within his rights to simply keep his head down and his bum up, but instead, he does the opposite. He puts his head up and sets his bum down in front of a sight that he would have missed.

It's here that we sometimes miss the third most important word in the narrative (beyond LORD and God)...

When.

It wasn't until Moses made a conscious decision to deviate from the original plan - to work hard, do the task, feed the sheep - that God could see Moses was ready.

When the LORD saw that Moses had gone over to look 

Then God spoke to Moses from the bush.

This holy distraction had caught Moses' attention, but if he hadn't turn aside, he might have missed God's call on his life to do something different.

Over the last two years - well, let's be honest - over the last few decades, Christian churches everywhere have been working really hard, keeping heads down and bums up, to attempt to grow the church. In doing the same things we've always done, whether staring at a computer screen or looking out over a congregation, we hope that in being faithful to the task, we are faithful to the calling. Somehow, if we can just keep going, things will turn around.

And yet, maybe it's at this point in Christian history when it's time to stop putting our heads down, but actually lifting our heads up to see holy distractions. Maybe it's time for us to turn aside from those routine tasks, to go and have a look at these new and creative things that God is doing in the world. Maybe it's from this new 21st century - almost burning bush - that we'll hear God's voice speaking very loudly to us, calling us by name, to tasks unthinkable and untouchable just a few years past.

What will it take for you to lift up your head and put your bum down? What will be your holy distraction to hear God calling you into something new?