B Pentecost19 2015
October 4, 2015
Readers: Narrator, Pharaoh, Moses, God
Narrator: Now a new Pharaoh [that is, king] arose
over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. He said to his people,
Pharaoh: Look, the Israelite people are more
numerous and more powerful than we. Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, or
they will increase and, in the event of war, join our enemies and fight against
us and escape from the land.
Narrator: Therefore they set taskmasters over them
to oppress them with forced labor. They built supply cities, Pithom and
Rameses, for Pharaoh. But the more they were oppressed, the more they
multiplied and spread, so that the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites. The
Egyptians became ruthless in imposing tasks on the Israelites, and made their
lives bitter with hard service in mortar and brick and in every kind of field
labor. They were ruthless in all the tasks that they imposed on them.
Moses was keeping the flock of his
father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; he led his flock beyond the
wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord
appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was
blazing, yet it was not consumed. Then Moses said,
Moses: I must turn aside and look at this great
sight, and see why the bush is not burned up.
Narrator: When the Lord saw that he had turned
aside to see, God called to him out of the bush,
God: Moses, Moses!
Narrator: And he said,
Moses: Here I am.
Narrator: Then he said,
God: Come no closer! Remove the sandals from
your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.
Narrator: He said further,
God: I am the God of your father, the God of
Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.
Narrator: And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid
to look at God. Then the Lord said,
God: I have observed the misery of my people
who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters.
Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them from the
Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a
land flowing with milk and honey, to the country of the Canaanites, the
Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. The cry
of the Israelites has now come to me; I have also seen how the Egyptians
oppress them. So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the
Israelites, out of Egypt.
Narrator: But Moses said to God,
Moses: “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh,
and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”
Narrator God said,
God: “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.”
Narrator: But Moses said to God,
Moses: “If I come to the Israelites and say to
them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is
his name?’ what shall I say to them?”
Narrator: God said to Moses,
God: “I AM WHO I AM.”
Narrator: He said further,
God: “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I
AM has sent me to you.’“
Narrator: God also said to Moses,
God: “Thus you shall say to the Israelites,
‘The Lord, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and
the God of Jacob, has sent me to you’: This is my name forever, and this my
title for all generations.
+ + +
Grace to you and Peace from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
How many burning bushes have you walked by this week?
There are obvious places where bushes burn, without burning
up: funerals, weddings, cancer treatment centers, birthing centers and hospice
bedsides. And there are less obvious places
where the ground gets hot with holiness...
[Examples of Holy Ground, take shoes
off when talking…]
·
When
encountering someone who is hungry…
·
in
conversation, risk our image to go deeper
·
marriages
are tender
·
a
parent is held together by a thread
·
someone
who was loved is lost, or something hoped for is gone
·
test
result is awaited anxiously
·
job
is hard to find
·
hurt
and pain due to racism
·
seeking
the right path in life…
·
when
we think about the important issues in today’s society: a flood of refugees,
abortion and the death penalty, gun control…
How often might we be walking on holy ground and not be
paying attention? How often is God
waiting right next to us, to be a part of the conversation? All /The /Time.
God often uses strange things to get our attention – to get our
sacred curiosity going. It could be one
of those strange coincidences, or a surprising bit of news, maybe a moment of
sheer awe… We often miss them, but when we stop to look, we encounter the
holy. Look at Moses, he has run away
from his life in Pharoah’s house, the place he grew up after he was rescued out
of the Nile, where his mother had sent him floating in a little boat at three
months old because she could no longer hide him, and she could not hand him
over to be killed like all the other Israelite baby boys. Moses has run away because he killed an
Egyptian. A man who had beat one of his
fellow Isrealites/Hebrews.
Here he is, a runaway and a murder. Now busy tending his father-in-law’s sheep…
when he stops for the bush that burns without burning up.
He removes his shoes like a barefoot runner getting closer to
the earth, more fully in touch with the ground and the creator of it – the one
named I AM.
And on this holy ground, God claims Moses and all Israel,
once again, as God’s own. God has
observed, heard, and knows the suffering of Moses’ people… and God has come
down to bring them up. God recalls the
promise he made to Jacob – the father of the people Israel, and the fathers
before him. God repeats the promise, the
covenant, that this people, are meant for a different land and a different life.
This is the part we skipped between last week’s piece of the
story and this week’s: How did Israel become enslaved in Egypt? Israel came to Egypt as refugees during a
famine. Years before the famine, one of
Jacob’s 12 sons, Joseph, through a series of awful and strange events, landed
as Pharoah’s right-hand man. So Joseph
was in a position to save them from starvation, and to set the Pharoah up with
immense wealth. But now a different Pharoah has come to power, one who does not
remember Joseph. And now God’s people
are being persecuted simply for their difference and their large and growing
number.
The God who delivered on the promise that they would be many,
has come down to bring them up out of their suffering. God responds to the people’s cry by claiming Moses, specifically, to stand on
holy ground. You may have noticed, Moses
didn’t ask for the job, in fact, he protests… Who am I? He says, that you would
choose me? And who are you? That you would choose me!? I’m not special.
But of course, Moses is wrong. God is using Moses’ unique position as a man
scarred by the killing of a whole generation of brothers. Moses, being raised by Pharaoh’s own daughter
must be known in Pharoah’s house in a way no other Israelite is. Moses, in his passionate defense of his
people, killed a man – though there is no sanction of this behavior, God seems
to think that a murder is the right man for the job; Moses’ past does not
determine God’s future for him. God can
use this.
Moses has the fear, the awe, the understanding of The Lord…
and so God finds Moses and uses the brokenness and special blessing of his life
to accomplish God’s good work for the people who are meant to bless the world. This
is who Moses is to God. A beloved child,
with a life uniquely his… a servant to the greater good of God’s will.
But then Moses asks the question we’ve all been asking, “Who
is this God? What name can we give to
the people that they might know who God really is?” God answers with the name “I AM.” Or I am who
I am” or I will be who I will be” or something otherwise impossible to
translate. God is the One who cannot be
defined, but by God’s very existence and action.
We live in a time where believing in God’s existence, much
less trusting this God’s action for us, can feel like a fantastic
leap. It is far easier to trust in
ourselves, believe in our own flesh and blood… we know the formula for a
responsible, successful life. We know
the precise amount of money that will make us happy (they say it’s about 75k
annual salary, by the way). We know many
things collectively through the hard sciences and the social and psychological
research, that we can begin to believe that we have it all figured out.
But holy ground is found where we are more honest than
that. When we name the horrific violence
we perpetrate on one another and the risks we have been willing to take to
segregate and isolate our communities… when we face our fallen humanity,
individually and collectively, …that’s
when we end up walking with Moses on a mountain road herding sheep. Seeking God’s listening ear for our cries.
Seeking God’s freedom from our enslavement.
God
hears us, God knows us, and God sends us. God is so
persistent, that God does stuff like lighting bushes on fire on our paths,
inviting us to stop and hear him say that he has heard our cries! God calls each of us. Some of us, like Moses, are to be his voice
in the room of the powers that be. Some
of us are called to be the witnesses of those who are hurting. Some of us are called to serve the world with
quality, ethical products and services that can alleviate suffering and bring
wholeness… what’s your call?
Where is God using the unique life you have been given, with
all of its strengths and its scars, to call you into God’s work? When people
are struggling with God…or struggling to believe there is a God… How is God
using you? How is God asking you to
remove your shoes and walk the holy ground with them? Sheila (Josh & Adam) came to the door of
our congregation today to bring their whole lives, their struggles and their
joys, to this place. They come with
hands open to receive the Word of God, to learn together with us about what it
means to believe and to trust the great God of ours. And there are lots of people out beyond these
doors who need our witness too. To whom
God might send us to bring them to belief and trust.
And you, Bethlehem, are well equipped to do that. Because you know that God is the God who hears
us, who knows us, who comes down, and who brings us up out of all forms of
slavery, even that of unbelief. And then
who sends us to give that grace to others.
Here we stand, on holy ground. [take shoes off.]
Amen.
For the Sacred Space time today, you
are welcome to take off your shoes with me.
In the narthex there is an invitation to a short prayer walk, for young
and old alike.
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