June 9, 2019 Genesis 3 and 4
A Story of God’s Love for God’s People: The Call and Commissioning of Moses
The Rev. Martha M. Shiverick Riviera Presbyterian Church
We left Moses last Sunday as a young adult safely living with his wife’s family in Midian. My guess is that he thought he had been blessed with a pretty good life considering what his family was going through back home in Egypt. He was working in his father-in-law’s livestock business had at least one son already while the other Israelites were groaning under the oppression of their slavery.
And, while watching his in-laws flock one day, an angel of the Lord appeared to him on the mountain (sound familiar…. these angels have a way of appearing at the oddest times and places!) and the Lord appeared to him in a flame of a bush… a bush that was flaming but was not being consumed. And God introduced himself to Moses saying, ‘I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses had the reaction we all probably would have in this situation… he hid.
And even though Moses is cowering and covering his face from God, God continues with God’s message and agenda. God has heard the cries and moans of God’s people and knows their suffering and is going to deliver them from the Egyptians to a land of milk and honey. And God is sending Moses to do that.
And poor Moses thought that this was a task that he certainly was not prepared to do. He was a nice guy…. he tried to break up fights between fellow Israelites and met his wife while helping her and her sisters fetch water at a well…..but the wonderful parts of his life that he enjoyed were not due to his skills or abilities, but the abilities and skills of others. After all, the fact he was even alive and not thrown into the Nile as an infant was due to the smart planning of his mother and sister. He had to flee Egypt because he killed an Egyptian and only enjoyed this peaceful life of freedom in Midian because of the generosity of his wife’s family. So his response to God was an honest one: ‘Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?’
Old Testament Scholar Terrence Frethem describes that a typical call narrative throughout the Bible involves certain elements. First there is a theophany or a divine appearance. And in the story of Moses’ call we have the angel of the Lord and the Lord their-self appearing as a burning bush. Second is the introductory word. And in this story, God calls Moses by name and then introduced God’s-self as the God of Moses’ ancestors… of his father, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The third characteristic is the divine commission. God calls people for tasks. Moses is to bring the Israelites out of Egypt. Forth is the objection by the person being called…. They cannot do the task. Moses felt ill-equipped. And then God reassures the person as God did to Moses with the reassurance that God would be with him. Moses differs from other people called to be the messenger of the word of God, in that Moses continues to argue and object to and with God about his call to be a prophetic messenger.
After God answers Moses first objection that he is unworthy with the answer that God will be with him, he is still not assured he is really up for the task. He then questions God. Honestly, I cannot believe he had the audacity to question God, but then again, I guess we all do every day. (God why do you do this… God why do you let these things happen…) It seems Moses feels he does not have enough information about God and asks him his name. God answers, ‘I am who I am’ or as Hebrew Scholars say should be more correctly translated, ‘I will be whom I will be’. As a side note here, the name was revealed to Moses as four consonants YHWH in what we call Tetragrammaton. We have added the vowels in-between the consonants to make the name Yahweh which has been used by scholars for God’s name in the past century and a half.
But having a name for God, does not settle it for Moses who poses a third objection saying that the people will not listen to Moses or believe him. And here his fears are great. Not only is he worried that Pharaoh and the Egyptians will not listen to him BUT also his own people. Why should they risk the little safety they had and follow a man they did not know? And God answers him that God… the I am who I am… will provide signs to make Pharaoh and the people listen to him. This is when he gets what seems like his magic tricks that turn his staff that turns into a serpent, his hand leprously white, and water from the Nile into blood. These God says will force the people to listen.
But Moses is still not convinced he is Yahweh’s person for the task and he states his fear again that he is incompetent. He says he is not eloquent and never has been. And God again reassures Moses that God will be with Moses, that God gave humans their voices, and that God will be Moses’ voice. Even then Moses cried to God to send someone else. And it says that God was getting quite frustrated with Moses as you can well imagine, but God agrees that Moses’ brother Aaron will go with Moses and help him. Not only will God be with Moses but so will his brother who is a better orator.
And then, finally Moses agrees…. leaves with his wife and son for Egypt and he and his brother rally the Israelites saying that they, through God, are going to work for their freedom. And the Israelites bowed down and worshipped God.
This is the story of the calling of Moses but it is really a story of all the faithful. We are not given our faith to sit and be placid. Moses wanted to remain in his nice little home back in Midian with his wife, son and generous father-in-law. And, contrary to what the prosperity preachers would like to have us think, there is nothing in the Bible that says that our faith is supposed to make us comfortable. God loves us, yes…. but as God’s people and recipients of God’s mercy and grace, we have joined a little band of people who do God’s work. We are called like Moses into God’s discipleship. We are called to be God’s hands, feet, and messengers, doing God’s will.
And Moses had all the excuses for not doing what God had called him to do. And I don’t know about you, but I resemble some of those excuses a little too well. There were people better equipped than he. It really wasn’t what he was planning to do with his life. He did not really know God that well, he was feeling spiritual but not religious and was not ready to take up that strenuous a calling. He was really not a public speaker or a person others looked up to so it would really be better if someone else was called on to do this work. He just wasn’t feeling the calling to it.
But God called. God was not going to let Moses decide what it was he felt called to do….God, not Moses, did the calling. And God promised Moses that he was not alone, that God would be there with him, that God would equip him for the job, and that God would give him people to help him in the areas he had no skill. And you get the feeling that if Moses had continued to list his excuses, none of them would have changed the outcome of the story. God calls and we are to answer.
So the question for us is where are we called? We are called here of course, to this lovely air-conditioned sanctuary which is decorated to make this summer a fun and lively experience of the Book of Exodus. We are called to love each other and to be there as family for each other in our times of need. But God calls us out of our comfort as well. God hears the cries of God’s creation and God’s people and calls us to be the people to restore shalom. Here in South Florida we can hear the cries of God’s people. The youth in the immigration detention center in Homestead cry out for their parents, the hungry and homeless in our community cry just to be seen, the children at Francis Tucker Elementary School cry for equality in education, the High School students from Marjorie Stoneham Douglass cry for gun reform, and the earth in which we live cries for sustainability and health.
We might think these issues are too big for us. Surely there is someone more qualified and a better equipped to do God’s work…. And just as Moses had all the excuses in the world for not answering God’s call… we can make them up as well. But God will continue to call. And God does not call us to these tasks alone but in solidarity with one another. We are called to do God’s work.
So, my dear Riviera family… God has heard the cries of God’s people and we are tasked with the work that needs to be done.
And we have done God’s work. On Monday the students at Frances Tucker Elementary School were given a book from us to read over the summer. For some, it will be the first book in their personal libraries. This week we handed out groceries to people from our food pantry without questioning them as to who they were or why they needed it. This week we planted fruit trees in our yard and talked to the CCC children about the importance of planting trees as a way of caring for our world.
But God stills hears the cries of God’s creation. And God calls us into further action. Today you will hear from Karen Picciano about gun regulation and asked to sign a petition for a ballot initiative. This week we learned about the lack of funding for the detention center in Homestead holding the thousands and thousands of immigrant children. And we have the opportunity to ask questions about what we should be doing and what our government is doing about this at the Town Hall meeting to be held here a week from Tuesday.
Dear Riviera family… God is calling us. And we must answer. Amen.
