Exodus
2:11-3:12
11 One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and saw
their forced labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his kinsfolk.
12 He looked this way and that, and seeing no one he killed the Egyptian and
hid him in the sand. 13 When he went out the next day, he saw two Hebrews
fighting; and he said to the one who was in the wrong, "Why do you strike
your fellow Hebrew?" 14 He answered, "Who made you a ruler and judge
over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?" Then Moses
was afraid and thought, "Surely the thing is known." 15 When Pharaoh
heard of it, he sought to kill Moses. But Moses fled from Pharaoh. He settled
in the land of Midian, and sat down by a well. 16 The priest of Midian had
seven daughters. They came to draw water, and filled the troughs to water their
father's flock. 17 But some shepherds came and drove them away. Moses got up
and came to their defense and watered their flock. 18 When they returned to
their father Reuel, he said, "How is it that you have come back so soon
today?" 19 They said, "An Egyptian helped us against the shepherds;
he even drew water for us and watered the flock." 20 He said to his
daughters, "Where is he? Why did you leave the man? Invite him to break
bread." 21 Moses agreed to stay with the man, and he gave Moses his
daughter Zipporah in marriage. 22 She bore a son, and he named him Gershom; for
he said, "I have been an alien residing in a foreign land." 23 After
a long time the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned under their slavery,
and cried out. Out of the slavery their cry for help rose up to God. 24 God
heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob. 25 God looked upon the Israelites, and God took notice of them.3:1 Moses
was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; he led
his flock beyond the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2
There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush;
he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed. 3 Then Moses
said, "I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the
bush is not burned up." 4 When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to
see, God called to him out of the bush, "Moses, Moses!" And he said,
"Here I am." 5 Then he said, "Come no closer! Remove the sandals
from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground." 6
He said further, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God
of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid
to look at God. 7 Then the Lord said, "I have observed the misery of my
people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their
taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, 8 and I have come down to deliver
them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and
broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the country of the
Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the
Jebusites. 9 The cry of the Israelites has now come to me; I have also seen how
the Egyptians oppress them. 10 So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my
people, the Israelites, out of Egypt." 11 But Moses said to God, "Who
am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?"
12 He said, "I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you that
it is I who sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall
worship God on this mountain."
I
wonder, what are you afraid of? Some people are scared of heights, never
wanting to go more than a few steps up the ladder, staying away from the
windows on the upper floors of office buildings, choosing an aisle seat on
the plane, riding the entire time with their eyes closed and a death grip on
the arm rest. Others are scared of snakes. Once there was a snake in the middle
of the dirt road in front of my dad’s house. He went inside and grabbed he only
gun in the whole place, a single-shot .22 pistol and what few bullets he
actually had, then proceeded to walk out to the road (a safe distance from the
snake), where he would fire a shot, reload, and fire again, in repeated
attempts to kill the snake. My grandma heard the commotion from her house, so
she came out the screen door, grabbed a broken pecan limb off the back steps,
and walked barefooted right up that snake in the middle of the road, where she
took the wide end of that stick and mashed the snake’s head right off the rest
of its body. She then took the stick and, with a flick of her wrists, threw the
snake’s body in the woods, looked at my dad and said, “You can go on back in
the house now, son.” Some folks are scared of snakes.
Of course, some folks are scared
of spiders, not wanting any of those eight legs to come close, hyperventilating
when they walk through a nearly invisible web. Then there are those of who are
scared of clowns…I don’t think I need to say anything else about that. The
comedian Jerry Seinfeld once noted that more people were afraid of public
speaking than they were of death, saying, “According to most studies, people's
number one fear is public speaking. Number two is death. Death is number two.
Does that sound right? This means to the average person, if you go to a
funeral, you're better off in the casket than doing the eulogy.”[1]
What are you afraid of?
To tell the truth, the thing that really
scares me isn’t at the top of a ladder, it doesn’t have scales or multiple
legs, and it doesn’t even come with a white-painted face or a rainbow wig. No,
what scares me is the thought, the remote possibility, that I may wake up
tomorrow, and the last twenty years of my life would have all been a dream, and
I’m fifteen, having to face and relive a past that only feels like someone
else’s story these days. To go back, to unwind the clock, to face, once again,
the uncertainties of the road ahead—even with the knowledge that it can and
will likely all shake out right in the end—that’s still frightening to me. I
wonder if it was frightening for Moses, the call to go back, to confront his
past; I tend to believe it was.
You know, we sometimes forget the details of Moses’ story, remembering
only the broad, sweeping points highlighted in technicolor by Charlton Heston
and Cecil B. Demille. Yes, Moses was placed on the water by his sister when he
was an infant to protect him from the murderous order of Pharaoh; yes, he was
drawn from the water (hence his name) by Pharaoh’s daughter and taken into her
home, but he was nursed by his own mother, raised knowing his Hebrew heritage,
which would have been made all the more obvious as he grew and looked less and
less Egyptian. It’s why we heard in the text read earlier that “One day, after Moses had
grown up, he went out to his people and saw their forced labor. He saw an
Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his kinsfolk. He looked this way and that,
and seeing no one he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.”
Moses
knew who he was, the people from which he came, so when he saw an Egyptian
beating one of his own people, Moses murdered the Egyptian and buried his body
in the sand. I suppose he believed he had gotten away with it, because we’re
told “he went out the
next day, he saw two Hebrews fighting; and he said to the one who was in the
wrong, ‘Why do you strike your fellow Hebrew?’” He buried the dead Egyptian in the sand and
apparently slept soundly that night, because he was under the impression no one
knew what he had done. In fact, Moses got up the next day, took a stroll and
came upon two other Hebrews fighting and decided he’d be the voice of reason in
the conflict, but instead, one of the Hebrews asked, "Who made you a ruler and judge over us? Do you
mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?" Then Moses was afraid and
thought, "Surely the thing is known." The jig is up! The cat’s out of the bag! Moses had
been seen, and what’s more, those who had witnessed what he had done were
spreading the word. And it wasn’t just the Hebrews, because “When Pharaoh heard of it, he
sought to kill Moses.”
Why did Moses, the adopted son of Pharaoh’s
daughter, try to hide his sin? Why wouldn’t he just run to the palace of the
Pharaoh and throw himself at the ruler’s feet to beg for forgiveness? Surely
this thing would be found out. Surely Moses’ crime couldn’t go unnoticed. He
had to know that, right? Then again, it is our darkest sins that we believe go
unnoticed. It is those sins we keep to ourselves, those that we believe never
see the light of day and the vision of others that we are somehow able to carry
with us, out into the full light of day, having hidden them in our hearts, in
the convenient sands of the past. But even those sins are found out, for the
root of sin is our selfishness, a selfishness that denies our culpability, a
selfishness that clings to our own claims of innocence, a selfishness that
seeks to speak over the still, small voice…the call of God—that selfish root of
our sin inevitably betrays us, and the sins we believe to be hidden, forgotten,
or unknown, find their way out of the darkness and into the light. Once there,
rather than repentance or sorrow, they create within us that most dangerous of
drives: fear.
When Pharaoh hears of Moses’ action, he seeks
to kill Moses, so what does Moses do? Seek legal action? Confess and plead for
forgiveness? No: “Moses fled from Pharaoh.” He was afraid, and his fear drove him into the
wilderness, eventually to Midian, where he finds for himself a new life. He marries
Zipporah, one of the daughters of Reuel (also called Jethro), a priest of
Midian, and she bears him a son whom he names Gershom (a name that reminds
Moses of his present situation as a stranger in a strange land).
We’re told at the end of chapter two that “After
a long time the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned under their slavery,
and cried out. Out of the slavery their cry for help rose up to God. God heard
their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
God looked upon the Israelites, and God took notice of them.” Moses has been in Midian,
with his wife, son, and new family long enough for his sins to be forgotten,
long enough for the Pharaoh who had sought to kill him to die. Moses had
seemingly outlived the consequences of his actions, and he had successfully run
away from it, finding himself settled down, safe, comfortable, secure, and far
away from the bloody sands of Egypt. No doubt Moses had all but put Egypt, his
crime, and even his people out of his mind…until one day, when he “was
keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; he led his
flock beyond the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.”
Just another day keeping the sheep, a day like
so many before it. Moses goes out and comes up to Horeb (also called Sinai),
the mountain of God. It was called that, because the people in Midian believed
God lived on that mountain; it was quite common in the Ancient Near East to
believe that gods resided on mountains, specifically at the top of a mountain.
It makes sense, really. After all, not everyone is going risk climbing to the
top of the mountain to prove whether a god was up there or not. Mountains were
(and are) quite intimidating, especially when cast against the arid landscape
of Midian. So, when Moses approaches Horeb, he knew he was approaching the
mountain of God. Maybe that’s why the “burning bush” was so intriguing to
Moses, knowing that this was on a holy mountain and not some simple brush fire
on some old regular hill.
Of course, many of us know the rest of the
story: “Moses said, ‘I
must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not
burned up.’ When the Lord saw that he had turned
aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, ‘Moses, Moses!’ And he
said, ‘Here I am.’ Then he said, ‘Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your
feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.’ He said further,
‘I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God
of Jacob.’ And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.” It turns out that this bush
that blazes but is not burned up was God’s conduit, the presence of God, and
through it, God calls to Moses. Moses has a close encounter of the divine kind,
and I suppose for all the fear it raises in him, still, there is a sense of awe
and wonder, to be in the presence of God, to hear this voice, calling from this
miraculous site, on the mountain of God no less! Sandals and shoes are too profane
for this moment, for this place, and Moses’ face too unworthy. This is the very
presence of God, and Moses has been called out by name.
This is a
rapturous moment indeed, but this divine voice that calls to Moses is not just
the miraculous product of space and time, not the affirmation of a moment of
worship. No, in this call is God, and God has a hard word from Moses: "I
have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry
on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have
come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that
land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey…The cry of
the Israelites has now come to me; I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress
them. So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the
Israelites, out of Egypt." I don’t doubt that as soon as God mentioned
the word “Egypt,” Moses heart began to race, his palms sweat, and his knees
became weak. “Egypt? They know what you did there…Egypt? Surely by now they had
forgotten all about him, right? Egypt? Would they still say as one did all
those years ago, ‘Who made you a ruler and judge over us? Do
you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?’”
To go back to Egypt was to go back to face his
past, his sins, his reputation, all that he had sought to leave behind, all
that he had run from out of fear, all that he had hoped was lost and forgotten.
But God calls Moses out of the bush, “I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the
Israelites, out of Egypt.” I mean,
can’t you just hear the shakiness in Moses’ voice when he says to God, "Who am I that I should
go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?" Perhaps this is humility, but maybe more so, it’s
the response of a man who had hoped to never face his sins again, the question
of a man whose past had just slipped from the table of his memory only to be picked
up off the floor and placed in front of him once more. Pharaoh…Egypt…surely
they’d remember. Surely they’d be waiting. Surely his sins were not as far as
he had hoped they would be. Even so, God calls, "I will be with you;
and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you: when you have
brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain."
I don’t know about you, but I like to live my
life on a one-way rail, with little need to go backwards, little need to
revisit what has happened before. The present merely exists as a step towards
the future, so each day becomes what I hope is a higher step towards a better
tomorrow. The past is gone; entangled in the fabric of space-time, unreachable
from this present moment, guarded by the cosmic speed limit of light itself. So
I don’t worry about the past…and if you believe that, well then, I’ve got some
magic beans you need to check out too!
The past lingers with us, haunts us,
especially those sins that we buried in its sands. Time and distance only
momentarily ease our minds, creating a false sense of security in the present.
And just when we think it’s let us go, just when we believe that we’ve overcome
our sins on our own…God calls. God calls, and we are forced to deal with what we’ve
done, who we were, and how we’ve gotten to where we are now. God calls, and
those secret sins we believe to be hidden from the rest of the world begin to
see the light of day, and it frightens us, creates within us the anxiety of
uncertainty, because what we had once thought was long forgotten is still very
much alive—even if it’s only within our own souls.
But I don’t believe that God calls us to
confront our past to shame us. God doesn’t call us to confront our sins to tear
us down and leave us wrestling with our own self-worth. No, because God didn’t
whisper the words “Pharaoh…Egypt” into Moses’ ear to watch him squirm in the
anguish of an imagined torture and execution. No. God called Moses to confront
his past, his sins, so that God could remind Moses "I will be with
you…”
That despite all that Moses was, all that Moses had done, God was still calling
him. No matter the depth and darkness of that sin, God was still calling Moses,
and God was still with Moses.
God calls us to
confront our past so that we may see the goodness of God in our present, so
that we may see the depth of God’s grace throughout our lives, so that we may
know that God is not kept from us no matter how hard we may try to keep
ourselves from God. God calls us to confront our pasts, and it’s a disruptive
call, one that threatens all we have made for ourselves, a call that risks so
much, a call that could very well end all that we have. Still, it is God who
calls, and it is God in that call, speaking to us, "I will be with you.”
What are you afraid of? If it’s something
you’ve long since buried, something you believed to be forgotten in the past,
know this: God calls you to confront it, and no matter how disruptive it may be
for you, God promises to be with you—in the midst of it all. Amen.
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