“Freedom Starts with a Fire” A sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Benjamin Boswell at Myers Park Baptist Church on August 30th, 2020, the Twenty-fifth Sunday of COVID-19 from Exodus 3:1-15

It all started with a fire. When was seventeen years old, my brother Andrew and I went to a Christian youth revival at Independence Arena, now called “Bojangles’ Coliseum.” The revival was called “Acquire the Fire” and it was sponsored by Teen Mania Ministries and their founder, evangelist Ron Luce. My brother and I went with the youth group from our church and we were energized by loud music from Christian rock bands like Audio Adrenaline and The Newsboys. We sang the Sonic Flood song “Light the fire, in my weary soul. Fan the flame, make my spirit whole.” When the altar call came my twelve- year-old brother Andrew was the first to respond, and I was so moved by his decision that I followed right behind him. Together on the floor of the Coliseum we made a profession of faith and we dedicated our lives to following Jesus, but neither of us with any idea where it would lead us.

My faith has changed in tremendous ways since “Acquire the Fire”, but I’m not so cynical as to discount the fire of the Spirit that ignited me that day with a powerful sense of calling—a calling I did not understand at the time—a calling I have been trying to figure out, and discern, and live into ever since. It was a calling that led me into my first career as an infantry officer in the US Army because I wanted to help and protect people and serve the cause of freedom. I remember the military imagery Ron Luce used at “Acquire the Fire” to describe the “spiritual warfare” we were engaged in, appealed to me. He said, they were trying to “raise up an army of young people who would change the world for Christ.” It’s not hard to imagine how a young and impressionable white boy from a rural community who was enamored with police offers, and aspired to become a soldier, might get the wrong idea.

When I was seventeen I had a lot in common with Kyle Rittenhouse, the white boy from Antioch, IL who drove to Kenosha, WI armed a semi-automatic weapon and opened fire and killed two people who were peacefully protesting the murder of Jacob Blake at the hands of the police. As the saying goes, “The shooter may have been apprehended, but the killer is still at large!” I must wonder, “Who’s the real killer?” Kyle Rittenhouse was certainly no innocent child. He is a terrorist and is actions were calculated and horrific, but what are the forces that took a young white boy from Illinois and transform him into a murderer?

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We know about his obsession with the police, his involvement in their cadet program, and his passion for the “blue lives matter” movement. We know about his love for guns and the Confederacy. We know about his hope to be a combat Marine. We know about his admiration for the President. And we know about his desire to be a vigilante protecting local businesses. All this alone would have been enough to radicalize a young white boy for violence, but what I am curious about is his faith—his spiritual and moral formation.

I want to know who his pastor is, what church he went to, and what sermons he heard growing up, because just like with Dylan Roof, somewhere along the way we failed this child. We did not train him up in the Lord. We failed to teach him how to love his neighbors. We failed to teach him the truth about Jesus and justice—God and peace. We told him a lie about God and country. Now you might be thinking, “Kyle Rittenhouse is a deranged extremist and a mentally ill lone wolf. What does he have to do with me? It’s not my fault he loved the police, listened to Trump, got a bunch of guns, and then killed a couple of protesters. It’s sad and tragic, but what does it have to do with me?” You’re right. What Kyle Rittenhouse did is not our fault, but he is our responsibility. Hear that again: It is not our fault, but it is our responsibility. He’s not a lone wolf. He’s our son, he’s the kid down the street, our daughter’s boyfriend, the boy in our neighborhood, at school, or church, the kid on the football team. He’s just another white boy growing up in America, and that means he is our responsibility. We cannot turn away and say that he is somebody else’s problem.

Kyle Rittenhouse was raised in a specific American tradition—one that masquerades as a form of Christianity but has nothing in common with Christ. It is a tradition that conflates faith in Jesus with faith in America—a tradition that confuses freedom in Christ with freedom for violence and war. And as followers of Jesus, it is our responsibility to stand against anything that misconstrues the mission and message of our faith. In their book, Taking America Back for God, Andrew Whitehead and Sam Perry define Christian Nationalism as “a cultural and ethnic framework that idealizes a fusion of Christianity with American civic life, and assumes nativism, white supremacy, patriarchy, and heteronormativity, along with divine sanction for authoritarian control and militarism.” This week the Vice President appealed to the deadly tradition of Christian Nationalism in a speech where he butchered Hebrews chapter 12 and rewrote his own version of the Bible where he replaced Jesus with America and the cross with the flag, proclaiming, “So let’s run the race marked out for us. Let’s fix our eyes on Old Glory and all she represents. Let’s fix our eyes on this land of heroes and let their courage inspire. And let’s fix our eyes on the author and perfecter of our faith and our freedom.”

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The only faith in the Veep’s translation of the Bible is to idolize America and worship the flag. It’s the equivalent of telling the Hebrew people to idolize Egypt and worship the Pharaoh, or idolize Babylon and worship Nebuchadnezzer, or idolize Rome and worship Caesar. This is Empire Christianity at its finest, the epitome of Christian Nationalism, and it is the tradition of enslavers and occupiers. The Christian Nationalism that undergirds the Vice President’s blasphemous use of Hebrews 12 is the answer to a stunning question posed by scholar William Cavanaugh at the beginning his book Theopolitical Imagination: “How does a provincial farm boy become persuaded that he must travel as a soldier to another part of the world and kill people he knows nothing about?”

We could ask a similar question, “How does a white boy from Antioch become persuaded that he must travel as a vigilante to another state and kill people he knows nothing about?” It all starts with a perverted vision of faith and freedom. Who we put our faith in and what we mean by freedom will determine whether our path leads to violence and death or justice and life. Have we put our faith in God or the Empire; God or the emperor; God or Pharaoh; God or Caesar; God or King, God, or the President? Are we perusing freedom from the Empire or freedom for the Empire? The biblical tradition of Israel, Jesus, and the early church was always about faith in God against the Empire—and freedom from imperial power, not the other way around.

In the biblical tradition, freedom always starts with fire. Elijah called down fire from heaven. Jeremiah said there was a fire shut up in his bones. Malachi prophesied about the “refiner’s fire.” John the Baptist said Jesus would baptize people with fire. The church was born from the fire of the Spirit that descended upon the apostles. Freedom, liberation, deliverance, and salvation always starts with fire. “It only takes a spark…” the old campfire song goes, “to get a fire going…that’s how it is with God’s love!” God’s love is an all-consuming fire hell bent on freedom and release. The story of God, and God’s people, is a story of liberation, and it is a story that begins with fire—the fire of a burning bush that was not consumed.

Moses was already a free man living in Midian when he saw the fire. He had a nice life as a shepherd, a new wife named Zipporah, and if he played his cards right he would inherit a good portion of his father- in-law Jethro’s land. Moses lived a truly pastoral life, and could have lived out the rest of his days in peace and freedom tending to his goats and enjoying his wife, far out on the reach of Pharaoh, in the wide open space outside the empire of Egypt. Moses wanted nothing to do with Egypt; he had bad history there. Remember, Moses was a killer. He saw an Egyptian police officer beating up a Hebrew slave and he killed the soldier and hid the imperial agent in the sand. Moses he was wanted for murder in Egypt by the Pharaoh!

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But Moses had put all that behind him and was living a peaceful life—that is until he saw the fire and had an encounter with YHWH, “I AM that I AM;” the God of existence itself—Creation and New Creation—Life and Liberation—Faith and Freedom.

The encounter would change Moses life and the world forever, but it all started with a fire—a fire that Moses refused to ignore. A fire Moses investigated. Scripture tells us when Moses saw the fire he said to himself, “I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up.’ And when the LORD saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, ‘Moses, Moses!’ God did not automatically speak to Moses out of the fire. It wasn’t until God saw that Moses had changed his course in life to investigate the fire that God called his name. God’s calling was a response to the redirection of Moses’ steps and his specific attention to the mystery of the fire. There are fires burning all over our nation right now. Fires in California because of centuries of ecological disaster and devastation. Fires in Kenosha, WI, and other major cities as a result of centuries of racial injustice and oppression. The fire talks, it speaks, it has a message. Fires are an expression of pain—the pain of the land and the pain of the people. Creation is groaning and people are groaning. The earth is crying out and oppressed people are crying out.

Dr. King said, “Riots are the language of the unheard,” and the same is true of fire. Fire is the language of the unheard. Fire is an expression of the pain of the unseen, unheard, unknown, and unloved. The question is, “Will we turn aside like Moses and look at this great sight—the pain of our world on fire? Or will we walk by and ignore the burning bush?” As the chorus to the famous Billy Joel song goes “We didn’t start the fire. It was always burning since the world's been turning.” But the second part of the chorus is just as important. “We didn't start the fire. No, we didn't light it, but we tried to fight it.” We didn’t start the fire—it’s not our fault. But we tried to fight it because it is our responsibility. Moses turned toward the fire, he made it his problem, and he took responsibility for the fire, and in the fire he found his calling. The fire is not our fault, but it is our problem. It is our responsibility. It is our calling. And it is our vocation. What we fix our eyes on matters. The American rulers want us to look at flag and the fireworks, but God wants us to look at the fire.

God’s first words to Moses out of the fire were about the suffering of his people. God’s first words out of the fire were about the oppression of Israel at the hands of the Empire. God’s first words out of the fire are words of compassion and deliverance—faith and freedom—life and liberation. The bush was burning because God was fired up about the oppression of God’s people!

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God said, “I have seen their affliction, I have heard their cries, I have known their suffering, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians.” God said, “I have seen, I have heard, and I have known their pain and this burning bush is—this fire—is symbolic of their afflictions.” Every time we turn to see, hear, and know the pain, suffering and oppression of others, we are standing on holy ground. God told Moses, “I have seen, I have heard, I have known, but can you see it Moses?! Can you feel it Moses? I need you Moses! I choose you Moses! I want you to help deliver my people.”

In verses 9 and 10 God makes a radical and decisive break in the pattern of speech. That break must have stunned Moses when he heard it and all of Israel every time it was reiterated throughout history— in the wilderness, in exile, in Galilee, at the Last Supper, and at every Passover celebration for the rest of time. God said, “I have seen how the Egyptians oppress my people, so Moses I’m sending you to Pharaoh to bring them out of Egypt.” Moses must I thought God was going to tell him how God was going to save them, but instead he said, “I’m sending you!” Suddenly God’s pious promise was transformed into the rigorous demand— “Come and Go!” In one brief utterance, God’s grand intention of liberation became a specific human responsibility; a human obligation, a human vocation, a human calling, that demanded a response. God’s strategy for the liberation from Egypt and for the liberation of all people from the terrifying dehumanization of empire is “You—I’m sending you!” It was a strange strategy to send a tongue-tied sheep herder with no experience, no leadership skills, and no military training, back into the biggest, “baddest” empire on earth where he was wanted for murder to help deliver a people who didn’t even know him. Excuse me! What kind of strategy is that!

We must admit, this is a massive intrusion by God. Exodus has suddenly become a human enterprise. Liberation it seems is not just the work of God—it is the work of human beings. Deliverance is not just a divine prerogative, but a human responsibility. Like Jesus said to the disciples who wanted to send hungry people in the desert away to get food for themselves—, “You feed them.” Here God said to Moses, “You go to Pharaoh. You tell him the Hebrews are not his slaves but my people. You tell him that they are leaving. You tell him the oppression is over. You tell him that time’s up! You tell him the violence is going to stop right now. And you tell the people I observed their oppression and I’m fired up about it. I’m burning up bushes! I’m recruiting shepherds as leaders! You tell them I have seen, heard, known their suffering and come down to free them! No Moses, I know their suffering is not your fault, but it is your responsibility! Now stop feeling sorry for yourself, and let’s get to it!”

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Moses’ encounter with God is a reminder that we cannot encounter God and not be changed. We cannot encounter God and not receive a new calling and a vocation. We cannot encounter God and be given responsibility. We cannot encounter God and not see or hear about the oppression of God’s people. We cannot encounter God and not be compelled to intervene on behalf of their liberation and deliverance. Every encounter comes with a call to see, hear, and know the oppression of God’s people— to come down and to do something for the sake of ending oppression and slavery—liberating from bondage—delivering hope of a promised land and a new future. We cannot avoid the call, the demand, the obligation, the summons. We can deny the call or reject the vocation. We can abdicate our responsibility, but we cannot pretend that we haven’t been called to see the fire, and hear the suffering and oppression of God’s people, and go do something about it.

Freedom always starts with a fire and we are all called to be liberators. We are all called to see, and hear, and know the affliction, oppression and suffering of our neighbors and do something about it. God set a bush on fire to get Moses’ attention and to call him to become a liberator of his people, and it is not a coincidence that God would literally lead the people out of Egypt with a pillar of fire. Freedom starts with a fire. Moses turned to look at the fire. What will we do? Will we see the fire, hear the cries, and know the pain? Will we go and help? Love does not ignore a fire. Love does not ignore pain and suffering. The fires burning in California are not our fault, but they are our responsibility. The fires burning in Kenosha, WI and other cities are not our fault, but they are your responsibility. Now the question is, “Will we ignore the fire? Will we walk by? Or will we turn to look at that great blazing sight, listen for our calling, and live like our nation is burning? Will we pray, and march, and teach, and give, and sing, and love, and vote like our world is on fire?” Amen

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