Scripture: Exodus 3: 1 – 4: 23
Video of the sermon here (from 41:30)
Audio of the sermon here
John Gardner, the American writer and author of The Art of Fiction once said that in the whole world of literature there are really only two plots:
A person goes on a journey or an adventure.
A stranger comes to town.
The journey might be more metaphorical than physical. It might be a journey of forgiveness, or an inner journey of growth.
The stranger might not necessarily be a person, it could be a thing, an animal, a disease even.
Provided you’re not too literal about it most stories will fit into one or other category. Films, TV, novels are full of variations on these themes.
Another way we might break these plots down is as follows:
A person goes looking for trouble.
Trouble comes looking for a person.
The first is the hero who sets out to slay the dragon, the detective driven by their quest to solve that murder, the person who is determined to overcome any obstacle to achieve their dream. Such a person really embraces the idea of being the hero. Presented with the opportunity for growth, or change, they grab it.
The other is the reluctant hero, the one who starts out quite happy with their life as it is, thank you very much. They’d rather get a knight to slay the dragon, leave solving that murder to the police – it’s their job and, besides, murderers are dangerous. Normally circumstances drive them to act. Trouble comes looking for them. Something happens and they’re forced to deal with the consequences like it or not. Presented with the opportunity for growth or change, normally at first, they’ll hide or resist.
You might remember earlier this year we started on the Covenant History section of the Community Bible Experience. We looked at Genesis stories of Noah and the ark, and Joseph, his brothers, his dreams and his rise to power in Egypt.
Underlying all this is a promise that God had made to a man called Abram…
The Lord had said to Abram,
“Go from your country, your people and your father’s family.
Go to the land I will show you.
“I will make you into a great nation.
And I will bless you.
I will make your name great.
You will be a blessing to others.
I will bless those who bless you.
I will put a curse on anyone who puts a curse on you.
All nations on earth will be blessed because of you.” (Genesis 12: 1-3)
Abram’s story probably fits the person sets off on an adventure type story.
The covenant history section is about how that promise of blessing a family or a people, not for the sake of it, but for the purpose of blessing the whole world is worked out in the stories of different people and groups. Some are the driven, eager, willing heroes. Others, most actually, turn out to be the more reluctant type. All of them are flawed. But that’s a matter for another day.
For the next two weeks we’ll be with a character who takes up a sizeable chunk of our Bibles. Moses.
Moses is one of THE key figures in the Bible. Only two people are mentioned more often that Moses. Want to guess who they are? Jesus (1281); David (971); Moses (803).
The first 5 books of the Bible are sometimes called The Books of Moses and Exodus to Deuteronomy largely tell his story.
But going back to the types of stories, which type of hero is Moses?
Is he the willing, eager adventurer, who goes looking for trouble?
Or is he the reluctant hero who finds trouble comes looking for him?
It depends where you look. Moses was born at a bad time. When we left the story a while back, Jacob had taken his family down to Egypt. His son Joseph had been sold into slavery in Egypt, but risen to prominence, becoming one of the leading figures in the land, second only to Pharaoh. He saved not just Egypt but his own people in a time of famine. He made up with his brothers and the whole family went down to Egypt.
But by the time Moses is born, that’s all forgotten. Abraham’s descendants are multiplying, this gets noticed and the Pharaoh at the start of Exodus views them as a threat. So, Egypt enslaves them and sets them to forced labour.
But still they multiply. So, Pharoah orders that all male Hebrew babies be put to death.
Moses’ mother refuses to comply. First, she tries to hide him, then, when that starts to prove too difficult, she places him in a basket on the Nile where he is found and rescued by Pharaoh’s daughter. He is raised in the palace with his own mother as a nurse.
Time passes, Israel are still enslaved, and one day Moses sees an Egyptian mistreat a Hebrew slave. At this point Moses is the person who goes looking for trouble. He is very much the willing saviour and goes charging in and kills the Egyptian. But later, when he tries to settle a dispute between two slaves, he realises this has not made him as popular as he thought. Whether he’s just seen as the posh boy at the palace, or another reason, his people are not rallying to him. They say are you going to kill us like you killed that Egyptian?
He realises what he’s done has become known and he runs into hiding. He goes to Midian, gets married and settles down. Meanwhile the people of Israel still suffer in slavery. It’s like God has completely forgotten them and all the promises made in Genesis have been forgotten. Moses started off as very much the willing hero, ready for the fight. But he fails miserably. That’s where we picked up the story.
Moses has become a shepherd. He’s looking after his father in law’s sheep. It’s a fairly barren territory, and his job largely involves scouting for spots where there may be some decent pasture, even for a short period.
Then one day he is out and something odd happens. He sees a bush on fire.
In one sense that is probably not that uncommon a sight. It’s a hot dry environment. That’s quite literally what Horeb means – dry, barren, desolate. The kind of place where bushes might catch fire.
But Moses notices something odd… the bush is not burning up. So, he decides to take a closer look.
Moses could easily have walked on by. Reflecting on this story, rabbis have sometimes asked if others had passed that bush and didn’t notice?
Some have speculated that this is not the first time Moses has been this way and the bush had been burning for a long time waiting for Moses to notice it. Who knows?
In later years he might have thought he’d have saved himself a lot of trouble if he ignored it. His life would have been very different.
That dryness, barrenness, desolation, I wonder if that says as much about Moses and where he finds himself emotionally as well as physically? Does the environment reflect his mood?
Was there a sense in which from birth he’d been considered special. The way he was spared, the kind of upbringing he had… surely, he had some kind of purpose?
But time passed and here he was, alone, far from his family and people. At the end of chapter 2 he has a son and calls him Gershom, because he is an outsider in a strange land.
But even in that place of dryness, barrenness, desolation God had not forgotten him. In fact, that becomes the place where God encounters him.
When God sees he’s got his attention, that Moses has stopped to look, God speaks to him from within the bush.
Moses, Moses!
Moses replies Here I am.
Do not come any closer! And take off your sandals! The place you are standing on is holy ground.
By now Moses would quite reasonably have been asking what on earth is going on? Who is this? The answer comes quickly….
I’m the God of your father. I’m the God of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob.
Moses tries to look away. But God calls him in.
And it’s here we learn two things about God. One is that he is interested in the world. He cares about the world. Particularly those on the wrong end of power in this world. And he is active in the world.
I wonder if, when Moses heard God say who he was, if he was thinking about time you showed up. Where have you been all this time. All those promises you made way back when. So how come their descendants are being treated so badly? Have you no idea what’s going on? Don’t you care?
If so, he gets his answer…
I have seen how my people are suffering in Egypt. I have heard them cry out because of their slave drivers. I am concerned about their suffering. So, I have come down to save them from the Egyptians…
God does care about the world he created. God sees injustice. God hears the cry on those on the wrong end of oppression. One of the things we encounter a lot in scripture, God’s generally not on the side of the powerful. God cares about those on the wrong end.
God cares about injustice – whoever the perpetrator is.
God cares for the victim – whoever they are.
We can’t just plonk there are then into here and now. If we do that, we bypass so much else of what is revealed in scripture – and most importantly we bypass Jesus and all he teaches us.
This is important as we consider some of the other bits we’ll touch on in coming weeks. We need to tread carefully. We always should, but even more so in the current climate. If we are using scripture to demonise or dehumanise one group of people today and absolve another, we’re not using it well. We’re abusing it.
So, God is a God who cares about and is active in the world. But the passage says something else about God. He works through people. And in this case, it is Moses.
Look at all the active verbs here…
I have seen.
I have heard.
I am concerned.
So, I have come down.
I will bring them up.
I will bring them into
Israel’s cry for help has reached me.
I have seen how the Egyptians treat them.
There is no doubt this is God’s project, God’s rescue and deliverance. Maybe Moses thought about time. But God’s not finished…
So now, GO!
I am sending YOU to Pharaoh.
I want YOU to bring the Israelites out of Egypt.
I have come down… now you go.
People sometimes wonder why, with so much evil in the world God doesn’t do something about it. I’m not offering this as a complete answer. But it could it in part be because human partners are harder to come by? How many are keen, willing eager adventurers seeking trouble. Far more of us are the more reluctant hero, who find trouble coming looking for us.
I’m sure God could do it all by himself. May God could just zap the bad guys, but aside from the question of where he would stop, it would appear God chooses not to work that way. God placed the care of his world in the hands of people and God takes that seriously. God doesn’t give us the opportunity to abdicate responsibility.
There was a statement by the 4th/5th century theologian Augustine which sums up so much of the Biblical narrative….
Without God we cannot, without us God will not.
We’re pursuing a story of God’s longings to bless the world, God’s purposes, God at work in the world. And without God so many endeavours fail horribly. So often in the narrative characters, including the biggest heroes, try to take matters into their own hands and invariably it ends badly. Without God we cannot.
But equally without us God will not. God works through people who will join in with what he is doing.
But far more often than not, God winds up drafting those who will do it. Amongst the lead characters in the Bible there are very few volunteers. There are very few eager heroes. Very few of the people who go looking for trouble. Ther are a lot more reluctant heroes – the ones whom trouble comes looking for them.
And that’s the category Moses fits into. We sometimes think of him as a great towering hero of the Old Testament. I mean, in Hollywood he’s played by Charlton Heston! But in reality, he is insecure, uncertain, unprepared, unworthy, un-whatever-else-you-care-to-mention. He needs tons of reassurance. CS Lewis once described himself as the world’s most reluctant convert. Moses would beg to differ.
Maybe there had been a time when Moses believed in himself, when he would have been the eager adventurer. Failure and years in the wilderness had hit him hard.
He sees himself as a nobody. Who is he that he should go to Pharaoh and demand the release of his people?
He lacked knowledge. He wasn’t smart or wise enough. What if they ask me what your name is? What do I say then? What if they ask awkward questions? I’ll look really stupid.
And never mind Pharaoh. What if the people won’t listen to him? It’s a question of effectiveness. They hadn’t followed him before. And back then they at least probably had some idea who he was. What chance has he got now, when he’s been away so long no-one will have a clue who he is?
And he doesn’t have the skill set. He’s never been eloquent. He’s never been able to think on his feet and offer the clever response.
And then we get to the heart of it. Could you not just send someone else?
I’m not sure you have to be thinking in terms of great big spiritual endeavours to acknowledge that many of us feel like this faced with many of the challenges of life. We might not have all his hang ups, but I suspect that one of the reasons this story is preserved for us and one of the reasons it resonates is because many of us recognise something of ourselves in Moses.
In many ways his reluctance is a good sign. People who desperately want power don’t always use it well. In many ways it is better to be led by someone who has to be persuaded to do it. The certainly seem to be God’s choices more often than not. There are very few eager heroes in the Bible. Certainly, amongst those who make it.
But Moses does have two things on his side. He has a curiosity. He could have easily just passed by. Bushes catch fire in the wilderness all the time. What was so special this time? But he turned aside to look. Woody Allen once said 80% of success is showing up. There are times the life of faith can be difficult. We can go through dry, barren spells when we feel forgotten, useless, disillusioned, disappointed. God can feel distant and we can become apathetic about things like prayer that connect us to God. The main reason Moses encountered God was because he turned aside to look.
And ultimately he was honest with God. Even when the answer is But I don’t wanna! It doesn’t mean God lets him off the hook, but God can handle his honesty.
But as I touch this down, we return to the God at the centre of the story. It’s interesting how God deals with Moses and his objections. As Moses protests, I’m not able to do this, God doesn’t say don’t be silly, of course you are. God doesn’t say It doesn’t matter. God doesn’t say Don’t worry – I don’t call the equipped, I equip the called. (Another well-worn preachers’ phrase. Not saying it’s untrue, but it’s not what’s going on here).
God doesn’t just zap Moses with all he needs to do the job. He doesn’t alter Moses’ self-awareness so that he felt competent. God doesn’t alter any circumstances that made it easier than it looked. God doesn’t tell him to stop being so defeatist and start thinking positively. God didn’t even guarantee him quick success. Quite the opposite in some ways.
God simply offered him his presence and asked him to trust that would be enough. What matters is not what Moses was or is, but that God is able. God’s promise is always to the inadequate. Cos none of us get it right all the time. And none of us can do it on our own.
Without God we cannot. Without us God will not.
God’s self-revelation is important. He was the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. A lot of water had passed under the bridge since then, but his promises still stood and weren’t forgotten. They had all faced seemingly impossible odds, but God had brought them through. God was still the God who calls into the unknown, keeps his promises, however unlikely they seem, sticks with those who tried and failed and can take even unpromising material (I mean, there is not a lot of go and do likewise to be found in Jacob) and work through them.
Then he reveals himself as I am who I am. I will be who I will be. In every place, every circumstance, he will be. Nothing we face will catch him out. He never burns out, never reaches the end of his resources, he will be there, he will be with Moses (and with us), being whatever is necessary in different contexts to achieve what he has promised.
He is still the God who overcomes the powerful. No more powerfully do we see that than in Jesus, who goes to the cross and endures the worst the world can offer yet emerges in Resurrection.
But without us he will not.
Whether or not we’re the hero who goes looking for trouble, it will come looking for us. But even if we turn out to be reluctant heroes, even if we feel we don’t have the resources to face it, even if we’ve tried and failed before, God will not give up on us. We will never be left alone. He will be what he will be. And if we trust him, ultimately, he will be enough.
paper dolls 