Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are!
Sermon
The Divine Salvage
First Lesson Sermons For Sundays After Pentecost (Middle Third)
Moses was a master of masquerade! He lived a good portion of his life in disguise. From the time he was three months old he went into hiding. At three months he was placed in a basket among the Nile reeds.
The infant princess Elora Danan, in the movie Willow, was placed in a basket made of river sticks which quickly became a boat. The little boat was pushed off from the shore seconds before the Queen's death dogs converged on the child's caretaker. Her basket was an escape to a safe land. Moses' basket, though, was no escape boat. He was not meant to escape from Egypt, at least not yet.
Neither was Moses' basket a permanent hiding place. He was placed in the basket to be found at the right time. So he was disguised for that timing. His sister Miriam watched to see who would discover her little brother and when. Moses at three months was disguised as an Egyptian.1 It was an Egyptian princess, belonging to the house of Pharaoh, who found him. She knew he was a Hebrew infant, but perhaps she accepted him partially because he was disguised as an Egyptian. Every year Egyptians had a festival where they fashioned boxes and baskets and placed likenesses of their gods in these vessels. They were floated down the Nile in a candlelight procession. And there was baby Moses like a little Egyptian god caught up in the reeds.
For all of his youth Moses was disguised as an Egyptian, even while his mother was paid to be his nursemaid. There in Pharaoh's house he lived in the lap of luxury. He enjoyed all the benefits the household of Pharaoh had to offer.
It was as an adult that Moses finally became troubled at living a disguise. His turmoil became public when he saw an Egyptian beating one of his people, and Moses reacted violently. He killed the Egyptian, which meant he had to go into another kind of hiding, hiding as a fugitive, to avoid his own death. His adopted Egyptian grandfather had no mercy for Hebrews, not even one who had been raised as his grandson.
As a fugitive, Moses' masquerade took on another layer. The Hebrew, raised as an Egyptian, now married a Midianite. He hid among the herds and probably learned how to handle and to trade camels. He lived in the house of a priest of yet another religion. There he had a family and named his first son "Alien There." It was perhaps a lonely existence, but Moses was a master of masquerade.
It was there in the hiddenness of being a fugitive that Moses met that other hidden one: the living God. We're told later in the account of Exodus:
Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father-in law, the priest of Midian. And he led the flock to the back of the desert, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him as a flame of fire from the midst of a bush. So he looked, and behold, the bush burned with fire, but the bush was not consumed.
-- Exodus 3:1-2 (NKJV)
God, whose name was yet unknown, and thus in some sense was as hidden as Moses who tended Jethro's flocks, appeared in the disguise of a burning bush. The God with no name called out the man's Hebrew name, "Moses, Moses." Even dressed as a Midianite, hidden far out in the
wilderness, Moses was found and identified directly by God. Yahweh had flushed Moses out of his hiding for a purpose. God had plans and instructions for this prophet in hiding. The plans and instructions were straightforward: God wanted Moses to stand in public where the Hebrews and Egyptians could see and hear him saying: "I speak for the God of the Hebrews. Let my people go!"
God called Moses, the man of masquerades and hiding, to do something that was completely uncharacteristic for him. That would be like asking the church monotone to be the soloist the first Sunday of every month. Or convincing "Jane," who breaks out in a cold sweat every time she speaks in public, that she needs to start doing the children's sermons every Sunday. Or buying a pretty pink apron for "Don" to persuade him to be the cook at our next church supper, even though he has never touched a pot in his life. There are some things we are not meant to do, and don't want to do!
But there are other things we don't do because we are afraid. I don't accept requests to serve on financial committees because I am afraid my lack of math skills will show up. I've even had nightmares about missing a whole semester of high school math classes, and not realizing my negligence until the day before I had to sit the final exam.
Moses had skipped out on Hebrew classes his whole life. But God now calls him to the powerful court of Pharaoh to speak to him as a Hebrew for the Hebrew people. Harry Emerson Fosdick wrote:
Fear imprisons, faith liberates; fear paralyzes, faith empowers; fear disheartens, faith encourages; fear sickens, faith heals; fear makes useless, faith makes serviceable -- and most of all, fear puts hopelessness at the heart of life, while faith rejoices in its God.2
Carl Sandburg put years of research into the publication of his volumes on the life of Abraham Lincoln. One reporter asked him, "Mr. Sandburg, what are you going to do now?" His response was, "I think now I'd really like to find out who this fellow Sandburg really is."3
God, in the disguise of the burning bush, called Moses to the public court of Pharaoh to be himself. In essence Moses was being told, "You have done enough research on the Egyptian strengths. You have sufficiently studied the dwellers in the wilderness where I will bring my people in the future. It is now time to come out and be one of my own people."
Douglas John Hall has written:
The world's suffering is not going to be engaged by people in designer jeans frolicking and posturing in the wilds of Colorado in search of "the meaning of life" (their own!). It will only be met, and transformed, by those who take up the invitation to "come and die."4
Moses had lived the Egyptian life of designer jeans. He had searched for the meaning of his life in the Sinai wilderness. God was now giving him an invitation to come and die for Him.
Ecclesiastes tells us there is a time to be born and a time to die. There is a time to seek and a time to lose. There is a time to be silent and a time to speak. For Moses there had been a time of disguise. God wanted Moses disguised at three months of age to protect him. As an adult, Moses' hiding among the Midianites was effective. But now it was time to stop the masquerade.
There are times when we hide from the hurt that our neighbors are experiencing. There are times when we turn away from the rotten stuff that's going on around us. There are times when we make excuses for not finding and caring for those who have real needs in our community. But life is too short to keep on hiding. It's too short to keep turning away, too short to come up with new excuses. We only have so many years to live to the glory of God. There comes a time to come out of hiding. Dr. Ervin Staub, a teacher at the University of Massachusetts who studies people who reach out and help others who are going through terrible times, says, "One person can greatly influence others by action or passivity" and so it is important to "create a climate where passivity is not okay and where bystanders are also evil."5
There's a burning bush out there that's telling us to get over our fears. The flame convicts us to be who God made us to be: to speak up, to reach out, to cry with someone. To be afraid to make a difference for God would be like going through life and never seeing a burning bush. Paul spoke powerfully about how limited our lives are if we hide from God. If we live our life disguised in the flesh and never claim the full, exposed life of God's Spirit, we deny our inheritance, even our identity.
If you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, "Abba, Father."
-- Romans 8:13-15 (NKJV)
So walk in the light -- of a burning bush!
Tempe Lee Fussell
____________
1. Martin Buber, Moses: The Revelation and the Covenant (New York, N.Y.: Harper & Row, 1946), p. 35, note 35.
2. Quoted in The Living Pulpit: Faith, April/June 1992, Vol. 1, No. 2 (Bronx, N.Y.), p. 25.
3. Quoted by Howard W. Roberts, U-Turns Permitted: God's Grace for Life's Journey (Louisville, Ken.: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1990), p. 115, note 9.
4. Douglas John Hall, "Suffering: The Badge of Discipline," in The Living Pulpit: Suffering, Vol. 4, No. 2, p. 21.
5. Quoted by Sara Nuss-Galles in her article, "Truth Be Told," in Drew Magazine, Summer 1997 (Madison, N.J.: Drew University), p. 45.
The infant princess Elora Danan, in the movie Willow, was placed in a basket made of river sticks which quickly became a boat. The little boat was pushed off from the shore seconds before the Queen's death dogs converged on the child's caretaker. Her basket was an escape to a safe land. Moses' basket, though, was no escape boat. He was not meant to escape from Egypt, at least not yet.
Neither was Moses' basket a permanent hiding place. He was placed in the basket to be found at the right time. So he was disguised for that timing. His sister Miriam watched to see who would discover her little brother and when. Moses at three months was disguised as an Egyptian.1 It was an Egyptian princess, belonging to the house of Pharaoh, who found him. She knew he was a Hebrew infant, but perhaps she accepted him partially because he was disguised as an Egyptian. Every year Egyptians had a festival where they fashioned boxes and baskets and placed likenesses of their gods in these vessels. They were floated down the Nile in a candlelight procession. And there was baby Moses like a little Egyptian god caught up in the reeds.
For all of his youth Moses was disguised as an Egyptian, even while his mother was paid to be his nursemaid. There in Pharaoh's house he lived in the lap of luxury. He enjoyed all the benefits the household of Pharaoh had to offer.
It was as an adult that Moses finally became troubled at living a disguise. His turmoil became public when he saw an Egyptian beating one of his people, and Moses reacted violently. He killed the Egyptian, which meant he had to go into another kind of hiding, hiding as a fugitive, to avoid his own death. His adopted Egyptian grandfather had no mercy for Hebrews, not even one who had been raised as his grandson.
As a fugitive, Moses' masquerade took on another layer. The Hebrew, raised as an Egyptian, now married a Midianite. He hid among the herds and probably learned how to handle and to trade camels. He lived in the house of a priest of yet another religion. There he had a family and named his first son "Alien There." It was perhaps a lonely existence, but Moses was a master of masquerade.
It was there in the hiddenness of being a fugitive that Moses met that other hidden one: the living God. We're told later in the account of Exodus:
Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father-in law, the priest of Midian. And he led the flock to the back of the desert, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him as a flame of fire from the midst of a bush. So he looked, and behold, the bush burned with fire, but the bush was not consumed.
-- Exodus 3:1-2 (NKJV)
God, whose name was yet unknown, and thus in some sense was as hidden as Moses who tended Jethro's flocks, appeared in the disguise of a burning bush. The God with no name called out the man's Hebrew name, "Moses, Moses." Even dressed as a Midianite, hidden far out in the
wilderness, Moses was found and identified directly by God. Yahweh had flushed Moses out of his hiding for a purpose. God had plans and instructions for this prophet in hiding. The plans and instructions were straightforward: God wanted Moses to stand in public where the Hebrews and Egyptians could see and hear him saying: "I speak for the God of the Hebrews. Let my people go!"
God called Moses, the man of masquerades and hiding, to do something that was completely uncharacteristic for him. That would be like asking the church monotone to be the soloist the first Sunday of every month. Or convincing "Jane," who breaks out in a cold sweat every time she speaks in public, that she needs to start doing the children's sermons every Sunday. Or buying a pretty pink apron for "Don" to persuade him to be the cook at our next church supper, even though he has never touched a pot in his life. There are some things we are not meant to do, and don't want to do!
But there are other things we don't do because we are afraid. I don't accept requests to serve on financial committees because I am afraid my lack of math skills will show up. I've even had nightmares about missing a whole semester of high school math classes, and not realizing my negligence until the day before I had to sit the final exam.
Moses had skipped out on Hebrew classes his whole life. But God now calls him to the powerful court of Pharaoh to speak to him as a Hebrew for the Hebrew people. Harry Emerson Fosdick wrote:
Fear imprisons, faith liberates; fear paralyzes, faith empowers; fear disheartens, faith encourages; fear sickens, faith heals; fear makes useless, faith makes serviceable -- and most of all, fear puts hopelessness at the heart of life, while faith rejoices in its God.2
Carl Sandburg put years of research into the publication of his volumes on the life of Abraham Lincoln. One reporter asked him, "Mr. Sandburg, what are you going to do now?" His response was, "I think now I'd really like to find out who this fellow Sandburg really is."3
God, in the disguise of the burning bush, called Moses to the public court of Pharaoh to be himself. In essence Moses was being told, "You have done enough research on the Egyptian strengths. You have sufficiently studied the dwellers in the wilderness where I will bring my people in the future. It is now time to come out and be one of my own people."
Douglas John Hall has written:
The world's suffering is not going to be engaged by people in designer jeans frolicking and posturing in the wilds of Colorado in search of "the meaning of life" (their own!). It will only be met, and transformed, by those who take up the invitation to "come and die."4
Moses had lived the Egyptian life of designer jeans. He had searched for the meaning of his life in the Sinai wilderness. God was now giving him an invitation to come and die for Him.
Ecclesiastes tells us there is a time to be born and a time to die. There is a time to seek and a time to lose. There is a time to be silent and a time to speak. For Moses there had been a time of disguise. God wanted Moses disguised at three months of age to protect him. As an adult, Moses' hiding among the Midianites was effective. But now it was time to stop the masquerade.
There are times when we hide from the hurt that our neighbors are experiencing. There are times when we turn away from the rotten stuff that's going on around us. There are times when we make excuses for not finding and caring for those who have real needs in our community. But life is too short to keep on hiding. It's too short to keep turning away, too short to come up with new excuses. We only have so many years to live to the glory of God. There comes a time to come out of hiding. Dr. Ervin Staub, a teacher at the University of Massachusetts who studies people who reach out and help others who are going through terrible times, says, "One person can greatly influence others by action or passivity" and so it is important to "create a climate where passivity is not okay and where bystanders are also evil."5
There's a burning bush out there that's telling us to get over our fears. The flame convicts us to be who God made us to be: to speak up, to reach out, to cry with someone. To be afraid to make a difference for God would be like going through life and never seeing a burning bush. Paul spoke powerfully about how limited our lives are if we hide from God. If we live our life disguised in the flesh and never claim the full, exposed life of God's Spirit, we deny our inheritance, even our identity.
If you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, "Abba, Father."
-- Romans 8:13-15 (NKJV)
So walk in the light -- of a burning bush!
Tempe Lee Fussell
____________
1. Martin Buber, Moses: The Revelation and the Covenant (New York, N.Y.: Harper & Row, 1946), p. 35, note 35.
2. Quoted in The Living Pulpit: Faith, April/June 1992, Vol. 1, No. 2 (Bronx, N.Y.), p. 25.
3. Quoted by Howard W. Roberts, U-Turns Permitted: God's Grace for Life's Journey (Louisville, Ken.: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1990), p. 115, note 9.
4. Douglas John Hall, "Suffering: The Badge of Discipline," in The Living Pulpit: Suffering, Vol. 4, No. 2, p. 21.
5. Quoted by Sara Nuss-Galles in her article, "Truth Be Told," in Drew Magazine, Summer 1997 (Madison, N.J.: Drew University), p. 45.
