The Moment

The Sermon Study Guide is here.

Exodus 3:1-6

November 2, 2014 • Portage First UMC

Twenty minutes. That’s what he said it would take: twenty minutes. We were on the island of Patmos, and while our educational touring had taken up the morning, we had the afternoon free while the ship was in port, so a small group of us, including three of us from Portage First, decided to go on a hike. Our speaker, Dr. David deSilva, said there were ruins on the acropolis of Kastelli, at the top of one of the nearby hills, that he wanted to check out and we were invited to come along. So, Rachel and I and Kris Bailey joined Dr. deSilva and his son and another traveler and we headed out. The only problem is that ancient ruins do not show up on Google maps. In other words, we had no idea where we were going. We could see the top of the hill. We could see a church near the top of the hill. But the path to the top of the hill was not clear. Not to be deterred, we headed out and chose a road that looked like it was going up. And it did, for a while, until it came to a “T” and we weren’t sure where to go. We had a 50/50 chance of being right—and we chose the wrong way. After backtracking, we walked for a while longer and found ourselves passing a junkyard complete with chickens and then we came to a goat farm. Surely we must have lost the path, because there were these goats in the way. Dr. deSilva went and asked the farmer, only to learn that the path went through the farm, past the goats, and on up the hillside. Did I mention that it was somewhere around 80 degrees on this particular afternoon? And that the hike took far longer than twenty minutes? Even so, we eventually made it to the top and found the ruins in addition to a beautiful view of the island. There was a small Orthodox church at the top of the mountain, beautifully maintained, which told us that someone makes that journey regularly to worship in this little church. But the view was worth the hike, and when I asked Rachel, at the end of our trip, what her favorite thing was, she said it was that hike. All of the planned things and all of the history and all of the things we learned, and her favorite thing was the unplanned, sometimes directionless hike.

It is often the things we don’t plan that make the most impact on us. It’s been said that life is what happens when you’re planning other things. And sometimes, we hold back from adventures like that because we’re—what? Afraid? Confused? Feeling directionless? We get lots of prayer requests every week for people who need “direction” in life. Maybe what God is calling us to do in those moments is to step out, dare to dream, and see where he might lead us when we put down our maps and plans and schematics. This morning, we’re picking up on a theme we started a month ago, about daring to dream God’s dream for our lives and for our church. It’s not as easy as it may sound, and we need to come, as individuals and as a church, to “the moment” when God steps in and turns things upside down. To sort of explain what I mean, I want to look this morning at the life of Moses, and how he came to that moment in his life.

Many of you may remember Moses’ story, or maybe you’ve seen the movie, but I want to focus this morning on how his story mirrors ours. Not in the details, because I would guess none of us were floated down the Nile in a basket as a baby or raised in Pharaoh’s court. But in the way he grow up, in the way he went through life, Moses mirrors you and me. There are really three stages our lives pass through, and the first we might call “Empire Building” (Slaughter, Dare to Dream, pg. 55). This is the time of life when we are pretty much absorbed by our own wants and needs. We might characterize it as “climbing the ladder.” For most of us, this is about establishing a career, setting goals, getting married and having children, maybe buying a house and so on. For Moses, the first forty years of his life were marked by growing up in a privileged place. He was a Hebrew, a slave, but when the Pharaoh ordered the death of all the baby Hebrew boys, Moses’ mother had put him in a basket and floated him down the Nile River, where Pharaoh’s daughter found him and raised him as her own. He grew up in the palace, and was given the best education, the best luxuries, the best of everything. He seemed destined for greatness; he was a prince of Egypt. At this stage in life, we’re not often asking what God’s will for us might be. This stage is all about “God bless me” prayers. It’s about making our own plans and (maybe) asking God to fit into them. Pastor Mike Slaughter says this stage of life is focused on three A’s. The first is appetite: “I want.” So many people get stuck here, and in our day, we end up in incredible debt because of what we want. Americans today spend $1.33 for every dollar we earn. We become consumed by our appetites. The second “A” is approval: we want to be noticed and, more than that, we want what we do and who we are to be recognized. How many people do you know who spend a lot of time in self-promotion? And today we even have platforms in the form of social media to get our “approval” fix. I know people, and you probably do too, who live and die by how many “likes” they get on Facebook or Instagram. Approval. And then, the third “A” is ambition. This is where it’s really about “God bless me” and nothing else. We become focused on what we can get from God, and it easily becomes all about my health and wealth and prosperity. But Jesus said something different. He said it’s about loving him with heart, soul, mind and strength. It’s not about me; it’s about him (cf. Slaughter 55-57).

So a moment arrives when Moses, sensing somehow that what his step-family is doing toward the Hebrews is wrong, steps in, takes matters into his own hands, and kills an Egyptian. Then he runs into the wilderness. He runs away from everything he knows, and I would imagine that, at that point, Moses probably thought his life was over. There, in the wilderness, he meets a family, marries the daughter and settles down to a life of shepherding, and he probably thought that was the shape of the rest of his life. The second stage in our lives is “disillusionment,” what we sometimes call a “mid-life crisis.” Moses’ mid-life crisis lasted forty years. For forty years in the wilderness, he worked with sheep. And I can tell you firsthand that the Sinai wilderness is not a kind place. It is a desert. There is nothing to see for miles and miles. When we drove across the Sinai peninsula two years ago, I couldn’t help but be amazed at the strength of those, like Moses, who lived and worked there. There is nothing but sand for hundreds and hundreds of miles. Of course, as a shepherd, Moses would have learned the rhythms of the desert. He would have learned where a little winter rain may have caused some grass to grow. And he might have to travel a long way to find it. This wasn’t a “come home at night and tuck the kids in” kind of job. He might be gone for months. But if he was going to survive, he had to know the wilderness (cf. Goldingay, Exodus & Leviticus for Everyone, pg. 15).

Now, can you imagine what he must have thought about in the midst of the desert? Forty years he had to remember what had happened in Egypt, how quickly he had fallen from being a prince of Egypt to being an outlaw. I imagine Moses the shepherd as being disillusioned, convinced that life had now passed him by. The prayer of this stage of life is, “God save me.” Some of you may have prayed that when you lost a job, or when you lost a spouse through divorce or death, or when someone very near to you died unexpectedly. It happens when our assumptions about life are shaken to the core. When I graduated from seminary and began serving as a pastor, I thought I had it all figured out. I had been equipped with all this knowledge and Biblical grounding, and everything seemed clear, straightforward. At the ripe old age of 25, I had certainty in my faith and clarity about what life would hold. I’d like to go back and laugh at that young man now, because it didn’t take long before those certainties gave way to some measure of disillusionment. One of the youth in my first appointment attempted suicide. A young man contracted a serious disease and died when he was 37 years old, leaving behind a young widow and two young daughters. People who lived so close to Jesus got cancer or had tremendous challenges in their lives. 9-11 happened, and terrorism became a fact of life for all of us. And I’ve watched as Christian people have treated each other with contempt and unkindness. I’ve gone through my own heart surgery and a cancer scare with my dad, and I can tell you that now, at 47, I have more questions about God and my faith than I’ve ever had in my life. Disillusionment is a stage we all pass through, a time when we cry out, “God save me.” But if we don’t pass through it, we can never get to the third stage, to the moment when everything changes. And that’s where we find Moses in the passage from Exodus that we read this morning.

Moses is out with his flock, minding his own business, probably continuing to reflect on what brought him to this point in life, and on the “far side of the wilderness,” he arrives at Mount Horeb. There, he sees what he calls a “strange sight” (3:3). It’s a bush that burns but is not consumed. Now, scholars try to explain exactly what was happening, that maybe the sun was reflected off of some red leaves, or maybe what Moses really saw was a Bedouin campfire in the distance. But remember that Moses has walked all over this wilderness for the last forty years. If he says what he saw is strange, then you can bet it was strange. It’s not something ordinary; he would know if it was (cf. Kaiser, “Exodus,” Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 2, pg. 315). This is something he’s not seen before. A bush that is burning but somehow not consumed. And more than that, he hears a voice speaking to him through the bush, calling him by name. Because of Moses’ experience, we can call this third stage, the one that is meant to last the rest of your life, “Fire.” Pastor Mike Slaughter points out that the bush not being consumed reminds us that what happens in this moment is meant to burn within us for the rest of our lives (59). It’s meant to direct us, not consume us. We can allow that fire to burn in us, knowing we won’t be burned up. We’ll be driven by a passion that we cannot explain any other way than the fact that God put it there. Our prayers at this stage are not “God bless me” or “God save me” but rather “God use me.”

You see, God has a plan and a purpose for Moses in the last forty years of his life. At age 80, Moses is about to receive a new commission, a job for which everything before has only been preparation. God tells Moses that he has seen the suffering of the Hebrew people—his people—back in Egypt and that it’s time for Moses to quit hiding in the wilderness. Enough preparation, God says! Instead, Moses is being sent back to Egypt, back to the land where, forty years before, he was a man wanted for murder, and there he will bring the Hebrew people out of slavery into a new land and a new way of life (3:7-10). In that moment, Moses’ life changes forever. Up until now, he’s either wandered around a palace or wandered in the wilderness. He’s not had much purpose other than organized leisure and then, later, taking care of sheep. But God has something bigger in mind for him. From this moment on, he will be a leader and he will do God’s work in rescuing the people from slavery.

The moment. For a young boy named Jeremiah, a young priest who was content doing the religious rituals he had learned, God came and said, “I have a message for you to preach, and it’s not going to be easy. But I will be with you, so don’t be terrified.” Don’t be terrified! That’s what God says to him. If God’s telling him not to be terrified, there must be something terrifying ahead, and yet Jeremiah goes. To another young shepherd, writing songs while watching his sheep near Bethlehem, God calls and puts him in a place to deal with a giant named Goliath who was threatening the people. And ultimately, God made the shepherd boy David king. From the shepherd’s field to a palace, because David answered the call of God in a moment. And in Nazareth, God sent an angel to speak to a young virgin, a young woman who was no doubt planning her future and did not have in mind being the mother of the Messiah. And yet, when God called, Mary said, “May your word to me be fulfilled” (Luke 1:38). God comes to us in burning bush moments and, if we open our lives to what God wants to do in us and through us, those moments will change everything.

A “burning bush moment” is a time when God speaks to you in such a way that you know what it is you have to do, who you’re called to be. Now, remember what I shared a month ago in regards to hearing from God. When God is speaking to us, the things he calls us to do will always honor him, bless other people, and bring you joy. If you believe God is calling you to do something contrary to Scripture, or something that will hurt someone else, or something that is contrary to Jesus’ call to love God and love others, then you’re not hearing God’s voice clearly. When God calls us, he will call us to honor him, bless others and experience joy. God calls Moses to free the people from Egypt, to show God’s power over the Egyptian gods. That honors him. And being rescued from slavery blessed the Hebrews, even though they didn’t always think so. And though the next forty years would probably require Moses to down a significant amount of Tums, it also brought him great joy to see the people growing into who God called them to be. A burning bush moment happens when God calls us and gives us a purpose for our lives. And often, that call will be affirmed by others.

Over the last few years, I’ve had some serious doubts about whether or not God was still calling me to pastoral ministry. I’ve wrestled with God, and I’ve wondered if, all those years ago, maybe I heard him wrong. But through lots of prayer, wise counsel with trusted friends and colleagues, and encouragement from many of you, these last few weeks have been a burning bush moment, where I come back to knowing that God has given me this purpose. And God often uses our most painful experiences to either give or confirm the purpose he has for us. Moses is certainly evidence of that, and maybe your life is, too. I’ve known people who, out of their experience with pain and death and grief, have given themselves to helping others who are going through those experiences. Some do that informally, and others are serving in our Congregational Care ministry. Some who have been seized by a passion for those on the underside of life have given themselves to going every Wednesday night behind bars, to share the good news of the Gospel with prisoners, with people most of us give very little thought to. I have to ask you: what’s the purpose God has given you? Not the job you do, though the two may overlap. But what purpose has God given you at this moment in your life? Let me ask it another way: how is God calling you to change the world right where you are? You see, I’m not content to just get by, to let my life rush by and someday wonder what I did with all the time God gave me. Like Moses, I want to “turn aside” and see what God has for me, what God’s purpose is for me.

Today is All Saints Sunday, when we remember and celebrate those who have gone before us, who have pointed us in some way toward Jesus, or helped us dream about God’s purpose for our life. And the folks we have remembered today each had a sense of what God had called them to be and do, but that didn’t come easily. For most if not all of them, it came through struggle, wrestling with God, because God most often speaks through our difficult times. And on this day, I also remember the saints who have spoken God’s truth to me even when I didn’t want to or had trouble hearing it. When I was in that stage of praying, “God bless me,” a dear saint named Esther reminded we senior high Sunday School class members every week that Jesus loved us and that he had a plan and call for our lives. When I was in that “God save me” stage, God used wise friends to keep me stay focused and remind me that “this too shall pass.” And I don’t know that I’m fully in the “God use me" stage. I’m still stubborn and rebellious and far too self-centered, but I do know that when I get those glimpses of God’s purposes being fulfilled through something small I have done, my heart is glad. My heart rejoices. There is nothing else like finding God’s purpose and pursuing it with all your heart. Those saints who have gone before us knew that. And today, that’s my desire, my passion, and my hope for you.

We’re going to look more at Moses’ story next week, but before we leave him this week, I want you to notice God’s strange instruction to Moses while he’s standing in front of the burning bush. God says, “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground” (3:5). This is the first occurrence of the word “holy” in the Bible (cf. Kaiser 316), but to look at the ground, I doubt Moses noticed anything special about it. Just a few minutes before, his sheep had probably walked across that very piece of ground. What made it holy is that God showed up. What set it apart was that God chose to use this place to speak to Moses, to give him a sense of purpose, calling, vision, a dream. It was holy because God was there. And though this is the first time in the Bible where something is declared holy, it’s not the last. Even today, anywhere God shows up, that place is holy. Even in bread and grape juice. This practice we call holy communion is not holy because the bread or the juice is special in some way. They are about as ordinary as you can get. But communion is holy because this is a place and a time and an action through which God has promised to meet us. The question is this: are you ready to meet God? He has promised to be here, in this bread and in this cup. But far too often we just go through the motions. I’m tired of going through the motions, aren’t you? This morning, open your heart to meet God in this bread and in this cup, and this could be your moment.