Exodus 3:1-15 (NIV)
Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.” When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!” And Moses said, “Here I am.” “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” Then he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God. The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.” But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” And God said, “I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain.” Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?” God said to Moses, “ I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘ I am has sent me to you.’ ” God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.’ “This is my name forever, the name you shall call me from generation to generation.
Matthew 16:21-28 (NIV)
From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life. Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!” Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.” Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done. “Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”
What does God have to do to get your attention?
This week the lectionary has us continuing with our Old Testament hero, Moses. And Moses' story is never boring. Saved during his newborn days by a combination of his mom's creativity and good luck, Moses had a rather charmed life growing up with Egypt's royals.
That is, until the very first time he faced controversy and acted out. He saw an Egyptian beating an Israelite slave, and killed the Egyptian in anger. This was the first time he ever broke out of his privileged life as the Pharaoh's adopted grandson, and tried to stand up for his oppressed neighbor. But as soon as word of what he did got out, he fled.
Sometimes it's easier to go into denial than deal with the consequences of our actions. Moses is a lot like you and me.
So now he's built a whole life for himself out of his denial. He's run away, and in his hiding place he's married to the daughter of a priest, with a son and a nice gig tending to his father-in-law's farm. Why get out of denial when it's made him as good a home as he's ever had? He knows perfectly well that he's an Israelite by blood, he knows that he's left all of his kin behind, suffering, but he hasn't given them a passing thought since he took off. He's very comfortable where he is.
I may have used this phrase from the pulpit before, but we people of God have a saying: we're here to comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable.
And afflicted he shall be. But first, God has to get his attention.
Meanwhile, some thousands of years later, a thirty-something-year-old teacher is trying to explain the game plan to his disciples for what must be the hundredth time by now. And they still don't get it. Droves of other people get it. So many people understand who this teacher is, and how important his work is, that he hasn't had a minute to himself in nearly a year. He's surrounded by people who can hardly wait to see what comes next, so vigilant that they miss nothing. But the twelve men closest to him don't get it. They're distracted. And he has to get their attention.
Comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable.
It wasn't even the sight of a huge fire feet away from him that pulled Moses away from what he was doing, it was his bizarre observation that the fire wasn't causing any damage. And finally, a man on the run is brought back home, and finally a man in denial is facing the truth.
What does God have to do to get your attention?
Lashing out against one of his best friends and telling him he may as well be Satan--he may as well be an enemy to him--might not have made Peter very happy, but it got his disciples to listen, if only for a moment, to the truth.
It's not easy to embrace God's plan for our lives, or God's call on us, especially when we always imagined our stories playing out rather differently. Jesus' disciples are a lot like you and me.
Much as we'd like to spend all of our time sitting at our teacher's feet, soaking up his wisdom, happy and comfortable, we're called to do more. Even Jesus' adversary could sit nearby, sharing in a common meal while contentedly listening to parables all day. Even Jesus' adversary can settle for a comfortable relationship with Jesus. We may as well be such an adversary if we're not willing to do the hard work of God.
What does God have to do to get your attention?
From the moment Moses saw that flaming shrubbery onward, his life was never comfortable again. He had to go back to the new Pharaoh and go head to head with a regime that was good to him. He had to stand by his word, and face an army. He had to take the Israelite's away from the only home and work they ever knew. Ironically, while lost and wandering for years on end in the desert, the Israelites complained that they were comfortable being slaves, and they fought, pleaded, and protested to Moses to just turn around and take everyone back to Egypt. What's the point of being free when your freedom comes with so much responsibility? The Israelites would rather just live with a broken, unjust system than take on the very hard work of change.
The Israelites are a lot like you and me.
Comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable.
After all the years of grueling work he did, Moses never even got to see the promised land. In fact, the Israelites wandered in the wilderness for so long that very, very few of the people who left Egypt actually saw this journey through all the way to the end in the promised land. It was their children, and even their grandchildren, who got to benefit from the Exodus. That's how it works most of the time--we plant the seeds so someone else can benefit from the garden.
What does God have to do to get your attention?
Despite 50 years of dwindling numbers in our churches, we Christians are still in the majority among practiced faiths. Wherever you go, especially here in the United States, you're likely to find other Christians. It can be easy, and tempting, for us to settle for comfortable--a comfortable relationship with Jesus, a comfortable affiliation with a local church, and a comfortable Sunday morning routine. Comfortable. And distracted.
What distracts us? What comforts are we afraid of giving up? What stops us from taking up the cross, as Jesus says we have to do if we want to be true disciples? What makes us settle for something easier?
Jesus isn't the only thing we think about. And rightly so. We have families, and friends, and jobs, and mortgages, and student loans, and PTA meetings, and conferences, and errands, and plans. Getting through even the daily grind of all of our responsibilities can be enough to distract us, and enough to push Jesus off to the side.
And sometimes, we start worshipping Jesus the idea. Jesus the name. Jesus of our prayers. Jesus of tradition. Jesus of stained glass window art.
But not Jesus the real person. Not Jesus our Savior. Not Jesus, our advocate, our best friend, our everything. We lose focus.
What does God have to do to get your attention?
Nobody's angrily called me Satan recently, and if I see something on fire I'm much more likely to call the fire department than wait for it to start talking to me. Be that as it may, we can hear about the major moments in this Living Word and not realize that God is constantly breaking through, perhaps in more subtle ways, in our own narratives. To borrow a line from our friends in the United Church of Christ: God is still speaking.
How is God speaking to you? What is God saying to you? What has God done to break into your life and call you to action? How has God gotten your attention?
If you sometimes struggle to find where God is working in your life, try looking among the least of these--your neighbor who needs your help, your fellow disciple, your fellow child of Israel, is the very reflection of God. When you help that person, you serve.
And there are lots of people who need your help. The people who receive our Food for the Needy donations need your help. The families still affected by the flooding in Penn Yan in May need your help. Our local charity partners--the Living Well, the Middlesex Friendship House--need your help.
And that's just scratching the surface.
Listen to the voice of God, and don't run away if you hear him. God is still speaking.
What does God have to do to get your attention? Maybe he just did.
Amen.
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