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"Have any of you ever gone to look for a job?" I ask the assembled children. My question brings looks of surprise to their faces, along with soft chuckles from the congregation.

"Probably none of you is old enough yet to have gone job hunting," I continue. "But I was looking through the 'Help Wanted' advertisements in the newspaper the other day and decided to circle all the jobs that said, 'Experience required.' " I hold up the results of my work; the children note that nearly everything on the two exposed pages is circled.

"Looking at this, I realized that most available jobs require a person who applies to have some experience. That caused me to wonder what sorts of jobs required no experience, and suddenly I thought of Moses. All of you have heard of Moses, haven't you?" The children respond affirmatively to this question which I ask only to keep them involved.

"Well, God had a special job for Moses and used a most unusual means to get Moses' attention. Moses was out herding sheep and God caused a nearby bush to burn -- only the bush was not destroyed by the fire. Moses saw the flames and noted the fact that the bush didn't seem to be harmed, so he went to investigate. As he approached the bush, Moses heard a voice say, 'Moses! Moses!'

" 'Here I am,' Moses answered, looking around to see who had called his name.

" 'Moses!' the voice went on, 'take off your shoes, for the ground on which you are standing is holy.' Probably Moses couldn't get his shoes off fast enough, still wondering who was speaking to him.

"Then the voice said, 'I am the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.'

"Immediately, Moses turned his face away from the burning bush because he was afraid to look at God. Then God told Moses that he was to go to Egypt to tell Pharaoh to set the Israelites free from their bondage, and that Moses should then lead the Israelites out of Egypt.

"Well, you can just imagine how Moses must have felt. God was asking a simple sheepherder to go tell a king what to do! So Moses asked, 'Who am I that I should go and do this?' And God told Moses not to worry about that, saying, 'I will be with you.'

"Moses thought about this for a moment, then said, 'But what if the Israelites ask me your name?'

" 'My name is Yahweh,' God answered. 'I am the God of your ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and this shall be my name forever.'

" 'Well,' Moses objected again, 'what if they still tell me I did not speak to God?'

"So God asked Moses, 'What is that in your hand?'

" 'It is a staff,' Moses answered. A staff was a very long stick shepherds used in their work.

" 'Throw your staff on the ground,' God commanded Moses.

"So Moses did, and immediately the staff turned into an enormous snake! Needless to say, Moses backed away from it. But then God told Moses to grab the snake by its tail -- and Moses DID, which had to take a lot of courage as big as that snake must have been. When Moses touched the snake's tail, it immediately turned back into a shepherd's staff. God showed Moses how to do a couple of other miraculous things too so he'd have plenty of proof that it was God he'd been talking to.

"But Moses still did not want to do what God asked. After all, Pharaoh was the ruler of Egypt and Moses really didn't want to have to go tell Pharaoh that he'd have to let all his slaves go free because the God of the Hebrew people said so.

"So, Moses said, 'God, I really can't do this for you; I just don't speak well enough to do what you want me to do.' But God told Moses not to worry about having the right words. 'I will be with you and will put the words in your mouth,' God said.

"However, even that did not convince Moses. 'Please,' he said to God, 'send someone else.'

"God's patience ran out with that. It was the fifth time Moses had tried to get out of the work God had in mind for him. God told Moses, 'Your brother Aaron is a good speaker. You may take him with you, and I will give you both the words to say, but you WILL do this. Now go. Your brother is already coming to meet you.' So, finally, Moses did as God asked.

"Now in hearing this story, you might wonder that anyone would say no to God, especially FIVE times. But I think Moses did so because he was afraid to do what God asked of him; he had no experience and he didn't feel as if he could do the job. At times all of us are asked to do things that seem impossible. It may be our parents who ask, or a teacher, or even God. Rather than saying, 'I can't do this,' I think it is important to try, to do the best that we can, and to trust -- just as Moses finally had to trust -- that God will be there to help us do what needs to be done."