Exodus
3:1-15
This morning I’m starting a sermon
series based on the Old Testament readings assigned for the next several weeks,
following the life of Moses through the books of Exodus and Deuteronomy. Obviously, a lot will be left out. We will, however, look at some of the
highlights, things that would come up if Moses were being interviewed by Terry
Gross or writing his autobiography.
Moses was not exactly the founder of the nation. In some ways, for that you have to look back
centuries earlier, to Abraham and Sarah, nomads with whom God established a
deep and lasting relationship meant to continue throughout history, or to
Joshua, Moses’ successor who would lead the tribes of Israel into the land
where they would settle and become established.
But Moses was the one who led them out of their dire situation in Egypt
where they were slaves facing genocide.
Moses was the one who delivered God’s laws to them to preserve the
unique relationship he had offered to Abraham and to create the just society
that would later be proclaimed over and over again by the prophets and which,
as Christians, we declare was secured by Jesus not only for them but also for
all people – even the descendants of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites,
the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.
Moses’ story begins before the
incident of the burning bush. It begins
with the Pharaoh’s fears that the Hebrews were becoming too numerous and that
they would come to outnumber the native Egyptians (does that sound familiar?)
and ordering genocide against them. Male
Hebrew babies were to be killed at birth.
The book of Exodus tells us that this was foiled by midwives who refused
to go along with the plan, and by mothers who found ways to protect their
babies. One of those was Moses’ mother,
who put him into a waterproof basket and floated it in the general direction of
the Pharaoh’s daughter when she was bathing in the Nile. This girl picked Moses up and took him home,
begging her father to let her keep him, like a stray dog. That was how he came to be raised in the
palace, and how he later came to be in a place where he saw an Egyptian soldier
mistreating another Hebrew, so that Moses rose up and killed him, and then fled
into the Sinai desert to escape punishment.
Remember that. Moses began life as a survivor of
injustice. The great lawgiver was once a
fugitive from the law. We’ll come back
to that.
In the desert, Moses made a life for
himself. He met a woman named Zipporah,
whom he married, becoming one of her father’s herdsmen, and having a son named
Gershom, which means “sojourner”. It was
Moses’ reminder that he had been, in the familiar English wording, “a stranger in a strange land” [Exodus
2:22].
Again, one of the key things about
the story of Moses’ life is that that it included a wide variety of experiences
that the people as a whole would pass through over the centuries. Slavery and attempts to wipe them out; life
with power and privilege; loss of prestige and home, with exile and the attempt
to establish life again far away, asking “How
can we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?” [Psalm 137:4] – these were
all part of Moses’ personal history as well as the subsequent history of his
people.
So, looking at this one moment at
the burning bush, a pivotal moment in human history as a whole, we see a
fugitive encountering God and being told he had no business seeking safety in
the desert. We see someone who had
escaped a failed effort to establish justice on his own being sent back by God
to try again, but this time to do it in God’s name and on God’s orders, and
with God’s help. He tried to get out of
it, and gave God perfectly good reasons why he shouldn’t be asked, and the Lord
would have none of that. Today’s reading
doesn’t recount the entire discussion, but you can and should read it for yourself. But it was an argument that Moses lost.
“Moses
said to God, ‘Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites
out of Egypt?’ He said, ‘I will be with you; and this shall be the sign
for you that it is I who sent you: when you have brought the people out of
Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain.’” [Exodus 3:11-12]
Centuries later, the prophet Elijah
would be on the run from King Ahab and Queen Jezebel, and would flee to this
same wilderness where he, too, heard from God, asking,
“‘What
are you doing here, Elijah?’ He answered, ‘I have
been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your
covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I
alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.’ Then the Lord said to him,
‘Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus; when you arrive, you
shall anoint Hazael as king over Aram. Also you shall anoint Jehu son of Nimshi as king over Israel;
and you shall anoint Elisha son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah as prophet in your
place. Whoever escapes from the sword of Hazael, Jehu shall kill;
and whoever escapes from the sword of Jehu, Elisha shall kill. Yet I will leave
seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every
mouth that has not kissed him.’” [I Kings 19:13]
It’s the same message
Moses got: “You do not belong here where it is safe. You belong where there is trouble. Now go!
And, by the way, you only think that you’re alone.”
That message, that commission, comes
to God’s people over and over again.
Whenever we are at ease, whenever we have gone beyond a short breather,
whenever we think that we are in the clear, God says, “Go back! There are people who need you.” Whenever we get the idea that the mission is
beyond us, God says, “No kidding. That’s
why there will be others, and why I’m sending my own help.” Put it this way: not even Moses was up to the
job of being Moses. Moses became Moses
because he trusted God’s promise, “I will
be with you.” [Exodus 3:12]
Mind you, that is the same promise
that Jesus gave his disciples when he sent them out into the world that had
killed him and would kill some of them, too – sent them out to teach his ways
of reconciliation and forgiveness and peace, sent them out to change the world
for good. He said,
“And
remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” [Matthew 28:19]
God’s people are
always being sent into hopeless situations and always being sent to helpless
people, because that is God’s way. But
if you have known the power of God in your own life, surely you know it is
there for others, too. Remember
that. Moses began life as a survivor of
injustice. The great lawgiver was once a
fugitive from the law.
Through Moses, God gave his people freedom from slavery, and
through Jesus he would give his people freedom from slavery to sin and
death. Through sending Jesus’ followers
with the news of that freedom, all kinds of hopeless and helpless situations
come to good resolution, when they are faced squarely and with faith that God’s
will is for people to be free from all that holds them back from becoming the
people they are created to be in the first place. It’s with the testimony of our own lives that
we bear witness to this truth. Remember
that. Moses began life as a survivor of
injustice. The great lawgiver was once a
fugitive from the law.
Good news:
“The
people who sat in darkness
have seen a great light,
and
for those who sat in the region and shadow of death
light has dawned.” [Isaiah 9:2, Matthew 4:16]
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