Divine promises and unyielding imperatives
This passage is hands-down my all time favorite bible passage. And no, it’s not because it talks about Moses taking off his shoes. Although, I really do like that part. This is my favorite passage because it is so rich in imagery, so captivating in the way the story is told, and yet when we linger in the text we find the message both comforting and disconcerting all at the same time.
Today we hear God boldly proclaim, “I have 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. I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to being them up out of the land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey.”
Those must have been incredibly hope-filled words for Moses. After all Moses was one who was moved by the misery of others. Moses was one who understood that caring for others can be costly and risky. We can remember back earlier in the Exodus story Moses saw first-hand the oppression of the Israelites, he saw their suffering and he was filled with compassion for them. In fact, he was so moved by their situation that in a moment of rash thinking, he murdered one of the Egyptian task masters. It was his compassion for the Israelites that led to his misguided murder of the Egyptian. That certainly doesn’t excuse his behavior, but it is clear that Moses is moved by the Israelites’ suffering.
I can only imagine that for a person so concerned about the wellbeing of others, Moses must have been excited to hear God’s plan. It must have been a source of comfort and hope to know that God sees what Moses had seen, God hears the cries Moses has heard, and that God is indeed concerned about the Israelites. What an incredible message this voice from the bush proclaims! God cares about Israel, God cares about justice, God cares about standing up for those who cannot stand up or speak up for themselves.
Not only does God see and hear and care but God has chosen to act! The oppression of the Israelites has moved God to act on their behalf, to bring about their liberation. God will do for the Israelites what the Israelites cannot do for themselves. In a striking passage, God announces that God is on the move. God announces that God is not a detached observer of creation and humanity. Instead, God announces the present activity of God in the very midst of the creation God has made. God has decided to be physically present in the midst of the Israelites’ suffering. And not only to be present but God has chosen to act decisively to counter their current situation.
It’s a message filled with divine promise that shows God remembers the previous promise made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God will be faithful to the promises God has made. God will indeed make the Israelites into a great nation, who will live in the land God promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the Israelites will be a blessing to others. It’s a message filled with the divine promise to be present and active in lives of the Israelites.
It’s a divine promise that’s made not only to the Israelites but to us as well. The God we worship today is the same God that appeared to Moses in a burning bush. Today if you are feeling captive to the demands of work or school, if you feel enslaved by addictions or bad habits, if you feel defined by broken relationship or past mistakes hear these words of hope. God says “I have seen your misery, I have heard your cries, and I am concerned about your suffering.”
The same God who saw, and heard, and was concerned about the Israelites situation, sees and hears, and is concerned about our sufferings. The same God who could not remain detached from their lives as an aloof and distant observer, is not detached from us either. God powerfully announces God’s presence in our midst. God has decided to act to bring hope and healing and liberation to our current situations. And that is indeed good news.
As we like Moses, stand amazed in the midst of such powerful divine promises, the rest of the divine message is just as startling today as it was to Moses. God says, “So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”
What? Me? Us? Hold on a sec. I thought God was going to be the one dealing with Pharaoh and the one to deal with the messy business of bring out the Israelites. I thought it was God who was going to bring liberation and freedom in the midst of such powerful forces of oppression. In the same message where we witness the incredible divine promise that God has chosen to act, we’re given the unsettling news God has chosen to act through human agents. What began as a divine promise has turned into an unyielding command. Go. I am sending you.
It was as unsettling for Moses as it is for us and Moses had the same reaction we so often have. Me? Who am I to go? Like so many of us, Moses felt completely inadequate to be the one through whom God’s plans would be carried out. Moses would have been all for the promises God makes. Moses would have been all for God bring about an end to the Israelites suffering. He would have been excited to hear that God was planning to liberate them from the oppressive rule of Pharaoh. But this whole business about involving Moses in the plan was really rather disconcerting.
Surely God saw and remembers that incident several years back with the Egyptian guard Moses killed. Surely God knows that Pharaoh had tried to kill Moses before and certainly would try again the moment he got a chance. Surely God knew that Moses didn’t have any qualifications for this task! God couldn’t really want to put such an important task in the hands of Moses of all people and so Moses cries out, Who am I to go?
And we ask that same question all the time when God calls us to do something. Who am I to go? I couldn’t possibly do that! Doesn’t God realize how messed up my own life is? We find all sorts of ways to explain our inadequateness to God. We find all sorts of ways to tell God how we fall short, how we aren’t the right person for this job.
God’s response to our concerns is the same as it was to Moses, “I will be with you.” God knows the gifts of Moses and the faults of Moses. God knows what Moses is capable of but God doesn’t reassure Moses that he’s good enough for the job or even that he’s capable of completing the task set before him. Instead, God promises to be with him. God promises Moses and us that in the divine calls placed on our lives, we do not go alone.
We’re reminded that the success of the Israelite’s liberation, and the divine calls placed on our own lives does not rest on Moses abilities or our own. It’s not about what Moses is capable of, it’s not even about what we’re capable of. The success of the divine plan rests on what God is capable of. And God is capable of might acts, even when working through broken human vessels like us.
God bringing the Israelite’s to freedom is amazing in and of itself. But it’s even more amazing because God chooses to bring it about through a person like Moses, a person who had such a questionable past, a person who had made so many mistakes. Moses probably would have been content to live out the rest of his life hiding in the backside of the dessert. But God has different plans and the intrusive divine call is enough to dislodge Moses from his comfortable hiding place and propel him into risky territory.
God is active throughout human history. God is active bringing about hope and healing, and freeing us from the things that hold us captive, be they work or school or political oppression. What an incredible God we worship, who does all that! We worship a God who sees, and hears, who cares and who acts. We worship a God who performs miraculous feats everyday, through the lives of ordinary broken people, just like us.
Even in the midst of painful broken situations, we live as people of hope. We live as people of hope because God knows our situations and is concerned about our suffering. We live as people of hope because we know God is able to bring healing in even the most dire of situations. And we live as called people. People who have been called and claim by God, people who don’t have to rely on our own abilities but people who trust in the might power of the One who called us. Thanks be to God!
Amen.
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