Sunday Homily - March 24th, 2019 - "But, God..."

Moses and the Burning Bush

I.

There are some stories that are just so good,
 that you don't have to add too much modern commentary to them.

We have one of those stories this morning,
 and perhaps you would permit me to tell you the fuller story
  before we go into detail about what the Spirit is saying to us this morning.

And the story I'm referring to is none other than THE central redemption story
 of the Old Testament,
  a redemption story that is so powerful and influential
   that it becomes the foundational story of a people,
    an enslaved people that find liberation through the love and grace of God Most High.

And that story is the story of the Exodus of the people of Israel,
 led out of Egypt by the God who loved them and chose them to be a light to the nations.
  And the person God accomplishes this through is one of the most recognizable names
   in all of the Bible:
    Moses.

But,
 there is ALWAYS an origin story that goes along with the mythos of the man
  and it has SO much to teach us about God
   and how God's grace is beyond our imagining.

So, before we just assume that Moses was just the perfect person to fulfill God's deliverance,
 the mighty liberation of the people of Israel from the hand of Pharaoh,
  the one who, by the power of God, bid the sea to part,
   the one who beholds the bush that is burning, yet not consumed:
    Let's take a step back for a moment
     and remember how Moses got here.

Flash back a few years.

Before Moses was born,
 a new Pharaoh rose to power in Egypt,
  a Pharaoh who did not remember the friendship of previous pharaoh's
   with Israel himself,
    also named Jacob, son of Isaac, son of Abraham.
    [Exodus 1]

This Pharaoh feared how populous that the descendants of Israel had become,
 and enacted harsh labor on them to subjugate them.
  The Pharaoh even went so far as to issue the command
   to kill all male babies born to Hebrew women.
    A command that heroic Hebrew midwives didn't listen to,
     saving many who may have otherwise died.
     [Exodus 1]

Moses was one of those babies.
 But, as babies go,
  you can't keep babies hidden.

So the mother of Moses hides him in a waterproof basket,
 and puts him into the waters of the Nile
  hidden in the reeds
   with Moses's sister watching over him.

Then, what should happen, but Pharaoh's own daughter should appear,
 walking along the riverbank with her attendants,
  and she discovers Moses.

She immediately realizes that it is one of the Hebrew boys,
 and she looks at him, wailing and crying,
  and the Scriptures say that Pharaoh's daughter felt sorry for him.
   Immediately, Moses's sister volunteers to go and find a Hebrew woman
    to nurse him for Pharaoh's daughter,
     and that nurse just so happens to turn out to be Moses's biological mother
      who had hidden him away in the first place.
        Moses's life was spared.

Moses then grows up in the house of Pharaoh,
 lives as an Egyptian,
  and yet we find that Moses is fiercely loyal to the Hebrew people
   his people.

Even so far to take out his anger on an Egyptian slavedriver
 who was beating a Hebrew earlier in the day.
  Moses kills the Egyptian when he thinks no one is looking,
   but he is found out.
    Pharaoh attempts to kill Moses,
     and Moses must flee as a fugitive out of Egypt into Midian
      where he then dwells, marrying Zipporah, and living as a shepherd.

Moses.
 An Egyptian by schooling, an Israelite by blood.
  A fugitive killer who has to flee from Egypt.
   A shepherd of animals in a foreign land.
    Moses even names his first-born son "Gershom,"
     which literally means, "I'm have become a foreigner in a foreign land."
     [Exodus 2]

That's the same Moses that we join today
 as he is walking near Mount Horeb,
  shepherding the flocks of his father-in-law.

II.

And Moses,
 seeing the burning bush,
  the bush that was on fire yet not being consumed,
   basically says,
    "What the heck is that?
     I think I've been out with the sheep too long,
      But I'm definitely checking this thing out."
      [Exodus 3]

And when the Lord saw that Moses turned aside,
 that Moses was paying attention to the Angel that had been sent,
  God calls to Moses BY NAME!
   "Moses! Moses!"

Moses, realizing that a powerful presence was summoning him,
 replies with awe and a little bit of terror,
  "Here I am."

And God says,
 "Come no closer, and remove your sandals. The place in which you stand is Holy.
  I am the God of your father, of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob."

And Moses is terrified!
 He hides his face from God,
  and perhaps wonders if his time has come
   where God who is perfectly just comes to enact recompense on him
    for the sins of his past.

But instead, God enacts no final judgment on Moses.
 Instead, Moses is called to go back to Egypt
  to be the vessel of liberation of Israel
   by the power of the Most High God.

God has seen the agony,
 the misery
  the hurt of Israel
   and has not been far away,
    but instead has come down to deliver Israel
     into a peaceful land that The Lord has set aside for them.

And MOSES,
 the Hebrew raised as an Egyptian,
  the fugitive, fleeing for his life,
   the foreigner living in a foreign land,
    MOSES is the one who will accomplish that!

Buuuuut,
 Moses has some understandable resistance
  to going along with God's call.

"Who am I, God, to go back to deliver Israel?"

And God responds,
 "I will be with you, and the sign for you
  is that Israel will come to worship on this very mountain."

Moses isn't done, though.
 And he also knows a bit about weaseling himself out of these kinds of commitments.
  So, Moses does something that, culturally, could have gotten him into a lot of trouble:
   he asks for God's Name.

You see, in the Ancient Near East, to know someone's name
 or to know a God's name
  meant that someone had power over that person or that god.
   Hence why you hear over and over in the Old Testament
    about "invoking the name" of the Lord, or of foreign gods and idols.
    [The Rev. Dr. Becky Wright: notes on the Old Testament Survey 2015]

Moses thinks he has a surefire way of getting out of this,
 so he says,
  "Suppose I do go to Egypt and say that I've come in the name of the God of their ancestors,
    whose name do I give them?

And then one of the most important revelations in the history of the world happens
 right in front of Moses
  probably to his utter astonishment:
   God gives Moses his name!
    A name so holy that in all of our Scriptures history,
     even when you read this name in the Hebrew of the Old Testament,
      it is written without vowel sound markings
       so that the name is not even known how to be spoken.

And our English translation simply reads, "I AM that I AM."
 This is the Lord's name for all generations,
  and this is the name Moses is sent in
   to deliver the Israelites.

Buuuut,
 our Holy Scriptures this morning don't have the full account
  of Moses's conversation with God!

Moses STILL resists God's call on his life,
 perhaps still doubting that he is the right person to do this.

And he fights against God a little.
 In Exodus 4, he will go on to bargain with God,
  with things like,
   "But God, what if the Israelites don't believe me?"
    "But God, I'm not good and speaking and have never been eloquent. I can't speak for you."
     "But God, please please send someone else."

Moses argues for 2 chapters of the book of Exodus!
 He argues for so long with God
  that God got a bit impatient with Moses's obsession with his unworthiness
   his own need to NOT be chosen by God to fulfill the will
    of the Lord Most High.

Buuuut,
 eventually, Moses goes back.
  And, I would imagine, Moses had no idea
   what kind of vital legacy that he would leave
    all because he [eventually] said "yes" to God's call on his life,
     even though it took a lot of discussion
      in order to get there.

III.

Y'all, if God chooses people like Moses,
 a Hebrew raised as an Egyptian,
  a fugitive killer that has to flee a country,
   a foreigner in a foreign land,
    then that should tell you that God must look at people
     a little differently than you or I might.

And, maybe the scarier and more exciting thing about God's call
 is that it may happen upon the more unlikely characters
  that come to your mind.

And one of those unlikely characters, I would wager,
 is none other than the person in the mirror:
  YOU!

In Christ Jesus, all are called to repentance and return to the Lord,
 and for you who are baptized, you are commissioned to tell the Gospel
  of the Lord's work wherever you may go.

And so often are also bargain and resist God, don't we?
 "But God, what if people don't believe me?"
  "But God, whose name do I give people?"
   "But God, I'm not good at talking to people."
    "But God, please please please send someone else."

And God comes back each time,
 and says, "I will be with you to deliver you,"
  "I will perform signs, so that they may believe ME."
   "I will accomplish what I have purposed."

The thing about Moses's call that is so important for us to ponder
 is that Moses was not an obvious holy person
 who was an easy pick that WE would say,
  "Oh yeah, Moses is the perfect person to go to Israel."

No! That's not how the story goes!
 Moses WAS NOT who we would pick.
  If you read the rest of the story of Moses in Exodus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy,
   you will discover that Moses WAS NOT perfect.

And yet, God called Moses
 and accomplished through Moses the liberation of a people,
  established the Israelites as a people,
   and revealed that the Lord Most High is the only God.

You also, friends, are a called people.
 Beckoned by God, and commissioned to be the vessel of liberation
  for countless people assailed by Satan, sin, and death.

The challenge for us, friends,
 is to recognize that we can only say "But God," for so long
  until we are ultimately sent.

Because when God calls you,
 even when we resist, fight, and run away,
  eventually, mysteriously, supernaturally,
   we are sent,
    whether we like it or not.

Where in your lives today
 have you been saying, "But, God..."?
  Spoiler alert for you all here:
   that may be God's call to you.

In the name of the + Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.