The Named One (Pentecost 14A)

This is the text of he message I prepared for Stawell Uniting Church for Sunday 3rd September 2023, the fourteenth Sunday in Pentecost Season.

Exodus 3:1-15; Psalm 105:1-6, 23-26, 45b; Matthew 16:21-28

We read in Exodus 3:1 that Moses was keeping the flocks of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian when God called him. Moses was a defeated man, a murderer on the run who is keeping as low a profile as possible beyond the wilderness. He is not working his own flock, or even his father’s generational flocks on family lands, but the mob of his father-in-law and in foreign country. Yet it is when he is in this state, and beyond the wilderness, that we read (in Exodus 3:2) that he comes upon Horeb, the mountain of God where God addresses him personally (in Exodus 3:5) saying that the place on which you are standing is holy ground.

As Christians, or if you happen to be Jewish you will also know this to be true, we know it is no surprise that God’s most precious places, most sacred spaces, are beyond the wilderness. But let’s not get it backwards, as if God has withdrawn from the centre of human activity to go make a place in the solitude: yes there is a religious tradition for that in Judaism, (we see it in Jesus heading out on retreat in several places, notably in Matthew 4), and in Christianity we have a long history of hermit monks and desert, mountain, or ocean rock retreats. But this is not that, God has not withdrawn to Horeb; God has always been at Horeb and humanity hasn’t ever got there.

In this place beyond the wilderness, the place where God is but no-one has yet ventured and found God, Moses hears a thing never before heard by a human: he hears the personal Name of God in God’s own voice. Adam and Eve heard the voice of God, but they never heard God’s name in the garden. Others heard God’s voice give instruction; Noah, Abram, Jacob, Joseph, but never in such intimacy and never did they receive God’s name. And Moses, Moses before he hears The Name, and leading up to this great piece of self-revelation, Moses hears that God has observed the misery of God’s people who are in Egypt, that God has heard their cry, and that God know[s] their sufferings.  He hears that God has come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey. There is hardship in Egypt right now, and there will be hardship in the activity of leaving Egypt and occupying Canaan in fulfilment of God’s promise to Abraham; God and Moses in conversation agree on those two points, but only God seems to have confidence that it will happen. For Moses, the task seems insurmountable, so much so that he doesn’t even know how or where to start. All well and good that God has seen Israel’s suffering, all well and good that God has made a promise to give Israel a bountiful land of their own, but like Moses beyond the wilderness the Israelites in Egypt are demoralised and defeated, working someone-else’s land for no benefit to themselves beyond sustenance. Moses sees the task ahead and he just can’t, he can’t even, even though the picture is grand and it is the God of the mountain, the God of the flaming but not burning bush, who is telling the salvation story. It is then, when all is big and dangerous and too much of both, that God says to Moses, “yes, but I AM”.

From whom do you need to hear the salvation story? From whom would you believe it if it were told to you? From whom do you need to hear that yes your world is big and dangerous right now, hugely dangery in every area, but that The One Who Is, is with you?

Perhaps the usual way, or probably better to say the most popular of several ways of describing what Exodus 3 is on about, is to say that it is the commissioning of Moses. It is the great commission for Moses, go and tell the People of God that the God of the people has heard their distress and is already present to alleviate and restore. Moses is given a mission (go and tell Pharoah and the Hebrews) and a set of victory conditions (get Israel out of Egypt and get them home to Canaan); he is also given equipment (access to God’s Name), and assurance (God will go with Moses). All of that is true, however I think there’s something else going on. So this is not a story of only, but of also; Moses is to get the Israelites out of the foreign place and into the home place, the place that will be named Israel for them; but Moses is also the first to hear the depth of whom God is. Other have heard God’s promise of presence and protection, but none before Moses were told to make that revelation plain to others for others. So Exodus 3 is very much about Moses and God’s call of him to lead the exodus, the ex-hodos in Greek, the way out; but Exodus 3 is also about us in that God’s word to us, distinct from God’s word to Moses, is that God has heard our distress and has plans for our salvation, and that the God who hears and saves is the I AM. In other words, Exodus 3 is a corporate text a group promise, it’s not only about God blessing Moses for Moses and the jobs that Moses has been given.

“Who am I?” asks Moses in Exodus 3:13, “why would anyone listen to me?” And what does God reply? “Moses, you are the one sent by me.” “Okay,” says Moses, “then who are you?” And God says, “I AM, I am what I am, I Will Be, I am The One Who Endures.” God is the one whose identity is beyond question, beyond doubt: God is who God says God is, and no-one can offer a dissenting opinion (as if you could argue that God was something other than what God says). Why do we need to know this? Because this is the one who has heard our cry, and this is the one who is already here with a plan and a promise to deliver us from evil.

O give thanks to the LORD, call on his name, make known his deeds among the peoples, we read in Psalm 105:1. The reputation of God has gone down the ages and in the psalms we often find Judah and Israel looking back to Abraham or Moses, or more recent history, to tell the story of God’s intervention. Glory in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek The LORD rejoice says Psalm 105:3. Yes that verse talks about God’s name, as it should because we are to be specific in our worship and there is only one God who we trust and whom we call upon, the One with the Name, but for me the more important part of this verse is the call to let our hearts rejoice. Why should our hearts rejoice? Well, because the LORD has come through, we have been saved from the distress of foreign taskmasters. What does this mean for us? In Psalm 105:4 we read seek the LORD and his strength; seek his presence continually. That is what it means for us, the God we can name is the God who delivers; who saves, soothes, and salves. This is the one we turn to, and the one we want near. So, get busy in prayer, that what the instruction to seek the LORD is referring to, (inquire of the LORD and His strength is how Jewish scholar Robert Alter phrases this), and remember the wonderful works he has done as we read in Psalm 105:5a. As life goes forward do not forget what God has done for you: do not be like the Pharoah had forgotten what God had done for Egypt under Joseph, and do not be like the wicked kings of Israel and Judah who would forget about God’s deliverance in the days of Joseph, and of Moses. No, remember the wonderful works and seek the LORD, and then be ready when God calls your name and gives you a job.

In today’s reading from the Jesus Traditions we find him at the point where he begins to speak more openly about what lays ahead of him, and the crowds around him, as God’s work draws to its high point. Great suffering is predicted, and unlike the stories of Moses as celebrated by later Israel, God is leading Jesus toward the pain and not away from it. God always heads toward the pain; and since God has always sent the prophets into the place where the greatest pain is, God’s women and men acting with divine agency often move from rest and hiddenness into places of discomfort, even peril. So it’s no surprise to us, really, that Jesus has begun to speak about Jerusalem and suffering, but it comes as a complete surprise to the discipleship mob travelling the road with him. The desire to save your life (Matthew 16:24) is as blatant as it seems in terms of self-preservation: if you wish to keep your head down and avoiding denouncing the injustice around you, you will be safe in this world but you will miss what God is calling you to do and to be, and you will miss out on God’s reward for the good and faithful servant. Moses had been keeping his head down beyond the wilderness, but God’s plan was for him to stand up in Pharoah’s own house and declare God’s judgement upon injustice and God’s plan to set free the oppressed. Moses agreed to go, with the assurance of God’s company, and the system of abuse was overturned. Here Jesus announces his response to universal injustice, and he sets out the consequences for him and for anyone who accompanies him to Jerusalem. This is why we read in Matthew 16:24 that Jesus told his disciples, “if anyone wants to be my follower let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” Jesus is effectively re-issuing the call to discipleship to those already in his posse. “Follow me” he is saying, “but here’s what that now looks like”. It’s no longer about being the student of an itinerant teacher of parables and worker of healings and exorcisms in Galilee; discipleship with Jesus is now about collaboration in taking a prophetic stand against the injustice of the world right in the heart of Roman Jerusalem, and in the Temple, and the very real possibility of crucifixion, a traitor’s or rebel’s death. “Are you prepared to continue to follow,” asks Jesus, “now that you understand what the mission truly is?” We know that Peter voices strong objection, but he submits to Jesus’ instruction to get back into followship (Matthew 16:23), and he remains a follower of Jesus at the front of the crowd.

Where Peter was looking for a victorious outcome in the ministry of Jesus in Matthew 16, so that Jesus’ talk of his own death is scandalous, there is no promise of success even in Exodus 3. God never promises that Moses will prevail, just that God will be with Moses when Moses goes to Pharoah and then to the Hebrews. Jesus suggests at the very least and promises at the very extreme that for anyone who continues along the track of discipleship this will lead to his or her hideous death. But even death as the end of discipleship is death for my sake as Jesus says in Matthew 16:25, and such a death is an entry to a more full life: not that martyrdom leads to a better room among the many in Heaven, but that a life lived on earth with passionate abandon to the call of God in Christ will be a big life.

Give up your multitudes of stuff and your dreams for even more. Give up your thoughts of achieving a seat at the high table in the coloniser’s palaces. Give up your reluctance to look your suffering neighbour in the face, and your learned incapability to be moved by the sights and sounds of her or his oppression. Instead, choose to deny yourself, inquire of the LORD and His strength and thereby remember the wonderful works he has done. Let God call you from beyond the wilderness where you are safe, but useless; or let God call you from the centre of society to a ministry beyond the wilderness: whatever it Is, follow with Jesus to the places where you will see The One Who Is act powerfully. Even if your body and your dreams die, you will see God win and you will see captives eternally set free.

Amen.

The Wise Ways (Pentecost 13A)

This is the text of the message I prepared for proclamation to Stawell Uniting Church and Landsborough Uniting Church on Sunday 27th August 2023. It was my first service in these new (for me) churches.

Exodus 1:8-2:10; Psalm 124; Romans 12:1-8; Matthew 16:13-20  

I may be getting ahead of myself here, but you may as well all hear this rather than me keeping it just for my first Congregational and Elders Council meetings. I am the type of Christian who often prays with questions and then listens with expectation for answers. Sometimes those answers come as ideas in my head, words or pictures or trains of thought.  Sometimes those answers come as voices in my head, and even though no sounds have entered my ears from outside, the internal process of hearing takes place and I get the message that way. Sometimes those answers come as ideas from outside; I am sparked by something that someone says in an unrelated conversation, or I read something in a book or hear it over the media. As a Christian, and therefore as the pastor in this place, I will be asking questions and seeking and then bringing answers. But I urge you not to fear for your new minister, or for yourselves under my care; I am not a cult leader and I never listen alone. This is why as a leader in this community of faith I shall participate in Congregational and Elders Council meetings.

In our story from the Jewish Traditions today, (and by the way “The Jewish Traditions” is how I generally refer to “The Old Testament”), in Exodus we find the Israelites under oppression because the new shift of leading Egyptians are suspicious of them. Joseph the Israelite had been good for Egypt, but his reputation had been lost over ensuing years because his memory had been forgotten, and xenophobia (and megalomania?) has set in. The new Pharaoh is shrewd, but he is too smart for his own good and he has let his personal judgement get in the way of true wisdom, discernment, and understanding. (Characteristics that Joseph had). In the palaces where Joseph once listened to God and then told his Pharoah what God’s wisdom was for Egypt, and Egypt would prosper; this new Pharoah decides by his own wisdom, and Egypt will crash. The midwives in the story are also shrewd, but they use their cleverness for go(o)d; there is a parallel between Exodus 2 and Genesis 1 and Genesis 6 where the good creation is saved from destruction by an ark. On two occasions women acting together and with integrity subvert the evil intensions of a solitary male leader, and on the first occasion those women are also listening for the wisdom and with the understanding of Israel’s God. So, Stawell Uniting Church rest assured that even as your new pastor is not a woman neither is he a Pharoah. I am a person of integrity, of humility, of discernment, and of community. I have listened to the past, and I am listening to God in your company.As we turn to the Christian Traditions (and Damien’s usual way of referring to the Letters part of “The New Testament”) we read in Romans 12 where Paul exhorts the idea of discipleship as a living sacrifice. Now, to sacrifice something does not mean to kill it, it means to devote that everyday item to God’s exclusive use and purpose and make it sacred through this devotion (attention, intention), followed by ongoing and considered use of the item to offer worship. Where a church might have sacred glassware, used only for communion and kept apart from ordinary use (for which there is another set of glassware in the kitchen) so Paul is suggesting that the life of a Christian be set apart for God’s purposes and never again used for our own. Be transformed he urges, in other words be changed and elevated, be sharpened towards the mindset that you may discern what is the will of God what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:2b). To become a living sacrifice is not necessarily about joining a convent, or handing yourself or your first-born son over to the high priest as Hannah did with Samuel, but to commit yourself to seeking the wisdom of God and always and only acting in accordance with that. You still live in the world but you no longer live a world-directed way; you live a God-directed way in the world. So, unlike Pharaoh who did the opposite, Paul encourages us to not think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think, but to think with sober judgement. In other words get into the habit that when facing a decision (be it an actual dilemma or simply a range of possibilities) that you ask God for direction and you then follow God’s direction. Your life is a sacred thing, a living sacrifice, don’t make your decisions alone. That’s pretty simple, in that it’s not a complex idea, but it is difficult in that it’s a pretty challenging way to live your life, and Paul himself suggests that some people in the church are going to be deeper thinkers than others. For some Christians, the greater depth of their thinking is the ministry they offer to the church (it is their service to the body); but everyone has a certain amount of thinking to do, even if that amount is relatively small. Every member of The Church has some thinking to do, and every Christian is accountable to practice thought in ways that bring honour to God as they seek God’s wisdom and guidance for themselves and for the congregation.

In one of the commentaries I read this week (James R. Edwards of The New Interpreter’s Study Bible) the writer suggests that in Romans 12 we get a change in Paul’s writing from theology to ethics, in other words Paul shifts his focus as a writer from describing God to suggesting what the best response should be for women and men to the God we have just named. So, in today’s passage we are invited not only to think about Godly concepts but also to respond in ways that demonstrate those concepts. In other words, your freshly converted mind should lead to new behaviours. One of Paul’s ideas says that since God is generous we should fully engage with the activities of dedication: it makes the best sense, it is the logical action to throw ourselves entirely upon God in our “spiritual worship”, because God is gracious and capable and because God first went headfirst for us in the life and work of Jesus. So, where Christian theology says that God is good, wise and generous, Christian Ethics might say that we should trust God and obey what we hear. If we are listening to God, and checking in with each other, whatever we hear will be good advice and we will be kept safe by The Father while we do whatever it is we’re doing. And yes, “checking in with each other”, because as members of the body we don’t do discernment (or transformation) alone, but with the whole group working together where each brings her or his strength and story to the wisdom project, in which diversity of gifts contributes to unity of purpose (Edwards). The Pharoah in Joseph’s time listened to Joseph and to God; the later Pharoah listened only to himself and he missed out on the wisdom of Joseph, and of God. The later Pharoah almost destroyed Egypt, the earlier Pharoah saw God save it. 

In our reading from The Jesus Traditions (so, Damien’s usual way of referencing The Gospels), Mathew writes of Peter naming Jesus as Messiah. Jesus says that Peter has not worked this out for himself, but that this idea has come via The Father as revelation (Matthew 16:17). In Paul’s words it is prophecy in proportion to [his] faith (Romans 12:6). Whatever else we might want to say about Simon as the Peter upon whom Christ will build The Church, or simply reference Peter’s statement of faith as the foundation (rather than the man himself), or speak of the authority delegated to The Church as a collective to loose, bind, lock, or release, Peter speaks out the wisdom of God because he has listened to God and he can respond to the Spirit when the Spirit moves in him. Surrounded as he was at Caesarea Philippi by the trappings of imperial image-worship, and the competing claims of all of the iconography which could have distracted him, in the wisdom of God Peter has named the true lord, pointing to Christ The LORD (big-T, LORD all in small capitals) and pointing away from Tiberius Caesar, the false claimant.

Across all of today’s readings, and in two ways, we are met with the idea of identity: 1. In the Jesus Traditions we read how Jesus, by the whispered wisdom of God, is identified as the Messiah. This insight, which God spoke to one man standing in an assembly of the faithful so that he would share that wisdom with the group, is the greatest piece of wisdom available: Jesus is Lord (LORD) and if you only know one thing then that is the thing to know. The identity of Christ is shared with us today, Peter has just told us who he is.2. In the Jewish and Christian Traditions we read how The Church, by the written wisdom of the scriptures’ authors, is identified as the carrier of wisdom. There’s singular and plural here, The Church as a group and we as the many members of it working together are they who speak what they hear from God, just as Peter spoke what he heard. Peter spoke into a group, who then went and told; and, like him when he spoke what he heard from God rather than speaking from his own ponderings and formulation, so we remain the carriers of wisdom only so long as we respond collectively. As individuals we can only speak what The Church has jointly discerned from God.

In today’s psalm we read if it had not been The LORD who was on our side…then bad stuff might have happened. The stories from Exodus 1-2 show that even with The LORD on our side bad stuff might happen anyway, but that’s not really where the Psalmist was going. The more important question is whether we are on the side of The LORD, with God in the lead and us responding to instructions. With God on our side the bad stuff will not overwhelm us even if it does happen; the story of the Book of Exodus ends with the Israelites out of Egypt and the arrogant Pharoah mourning his profound losses. In the same way, with us attentive to being on God’s side and taking God’s wisdom as our guidance we will never become entangled in nets like birds (Psalm 124:7). If we get caught up in trouble we will receive wisdom to get out of it, and with the same wisdom we will not have trouble of our own making. Remember how Jesus guided us in prayer, asking “save us from the time of trial, and deliver us from evil.” When we listen to God and follow God’s wisdom we won’t make mistakes. When we listen to God and follow God’s wisdom we will be rescued from the consequences of the mistakes of others, even if those mistakes were made by an arrogant and ignorant Pharoah. Of course we will make mistakes, even as living sacrifices we never listen perfectly and continuously, but even then we will be rescued by the wise and generous God when we return to wisdom in humility, and with expectation of God’s love and generosity we will find ourselves saved again.

Commit your way to the generous and loving God. Surrender to Christ The LORD, the Son of the living God everything that you are holding back. Listen deeply and speak boldly for the entire congregation to hear and learn. That’s what I’ll be doing as your newly installed pastor and your brother in discipleship; I invite you to listen with me and speak to me with the wisdom of God.

Amen.