It had been a long, hot summer. The windless air was stagnant, refusing to blow in the much needed rain clouds. The blazing sun was burning up whatever sparse grass remained along the hillsides, so the shepherds were forced to wander farther and farther away from home, in search of food for their animals. But it was a summer like any other. The shepherd was tired. He had left his wife and their little boy at home days ago, and he had only his ungrateful goats for company. Nevertheless, the shepherd had work to do, and his family was depending upon him to provide, so he slowly trudged with his flock up the mountain slope.
***
When Moses first met God in a burning bush on the side of the mountain, it was on an ordinary day just like today. He was going about his usual routines when God jolted him into the unexpected. Moses wasn’t looking for God. Moses had a sketchy past, and the Exodus passage suggests that perhaps he had even given up believing that he could make any kind of a difference in the world. He was content with the status quo, going about his work each day and probably trying not to think too much about all the problems in the world- which he could do nothing about anyways. Moses wasn’t looking for God, but God came looking for him.
For generations, God’s people had been living in slavery in Egypt. Being enslaved involves a depth of oppression which few of us in the West can relate to today. Scripture says that the Hebrew’s oppressors “worked them ruthlessly.” Their lives were “bitter with hard labour,” doing meaningless work which brought wealth and power to their oppressors, but gained nothing but suffering for themselves. As a small baby, Moses was narrowly rescued from genocide by a handful of couragous and creative women. The Hebrew people cried out to God to put a stop to their suffering, but God seemed distant, unconcerned by their oppression.
Generations before Moses, God had made a covenant with the ancestors of the Hebrew slaves. God had made a binding promise to Abraham, that his descendents would be as numerous as the stars in the sky, that they would become a great nation, that they would have their own land, and that all the nations on earth would be blessed through them. The Hebrew slaves in Egypt had only a distant memory of that unfulfilled promise. They lived in poverty, in a foreign nation, on a land that was not their own, where they had no rights. Even their very survival as a people was under constant threat. They must have questioned whether God’s covenant promise to Abraham was broken. I bet that God must have seemed to them like a cruel, cold tyrant. Or perhaps, God seemed like nothing more than the distant myth of their misguided ancestors.
But now, finally, at long last, God was about to take action, to free the Hebrews from their oppression! God broke into the ordinary to reveal God’s self to Moses, choosing this broken and humbled man to lead the slaves out of their bondage. But there was a problem– Moses wasn’t feeling like he was up for the job. Rather than rejoicing in God’s decision to free the Hebrews, Moses protested God’s choice of leader. Perhaps he was remembering that failure in his youth, when he had tried once before to take a stand against injustice, but failed to achieve anything, other than soiling his hands with the blood of violence.
Really, Moses was right in telling God that he wasn’t up for the job. But God doesn’t choose people because they are heroes. People become heroes because they are chosen by God in their weakness. God responded to Moses’ protests of inadequacy not by telling Moses that he was capable of the job, or by promising that everything would be okay, or by telling Moses, “don’t worry, I’ll make it easy for you!” Instead, God promised God’s own presence would “be with” Moses. Moses wasn’t going to have to do it alone. The job was doable, because God was at work.
God made God’s self known to Moses, before Moses was ever capable of approaching God. In the burning bush story, God did something surprising by telling Moses the name of God. In Hebrew culture, names had a great deal of significance. A name not only identified someone, but a name told a little story about a person’s character to convey who that person was. The name God shared with Moses was Yahweh, which means “I am who I am, or I will be who I will be.”
I AM is a name that defies description. It’s as though God wants to convey that God is beyond anything the human imagination can conceive of. God is limitless and transcendent, impossible for humanity to ever comprehend. But by the very act of telling Moses a name, God shows that that God wants to be known by humanity. God wants to be made known. And God didn’t just want to be made known to Moses. God instructed Moses to return to Egypt and to tell the Hebrew slaves this divine name. God made God’s self known to Moses, in order that Moses can make God known to others.
***
Our theme this summer, “I have seen the wind,” asks us to reflect upon how we have seen God’s Spirit alive and at work in the world around us. I can honestly say that I have seen the wind in many ways over this past year. I have seen God’s Spirit move at TUMC as my family came into this church as strangers a year ago, and now we find ourselves among friends. I saw God’s spirit move when I attended the Mennonite Church of Eastern Canada Conference this spring. Honestly, I was a little surprised that as a newcomer TUMC invited me to represent our congregation as a delegate. I was honoured by the trust you placed in me. I saw God’s Spirit move at the conference as we worshipped together and considered what it means to be a denomination. When you have an extended family of people, people who are different from you, but people who also share many beliefs in common, across lines of generations, across the rural/urban divide, and across lines of culture and ethni
city, you give thanks to God that a denominational structure exists.
I have seen the wind as my family began to find a home here at TUMC. When you come in as a newcomer, and ask questions like “What on earth is borscht” and “how do you make a pie” and “what is the difference between a Swiss Mennonite and a Russian Mennonite,” you feel like someone on the outside looking in. But when people invite you into their homes to eat their pie, or share their memories of growing up in a place like Russia or perhaps Colombia, you being to feel like you belong to a Church, an extended family of God. You being to experience a family you never knew you had.
***
The Hebrew slaves were the family of Abraham, but their family was broken. God sent Moses so that their family could be complete. God desired to be known to the Hebrew people, and to be known in a way that was fullness of life. It wasn’t enough for them to know God spiritually, for God to comfort them while they lived out their sad lives as slaves in Egypt until they could die and finally enjoy peace in the afterlife. God intervened to put a stop to their oppression, so that they could know God in the here-and-now. God wanted to be a living, real part of their extended family. God made God’s self known to Moses, so that Moses could make God known to people who were in need.
Who are the people who are in need in our world today? Our global village? Our friends? We here in this sanctuary? Maybe we’re not slaves in the way the Hebrews were, but I would argue that many people among us nevertheless experience oppression in various forms. We might be enslaved to our desires to have our bodies look a certain way, inflicting suffering upon ourselves in the hope that we can win the approval of Fashion. We might be enslaved by our jobs, needing to work ever longer hours, for ever lower wages, trying to stay ahead of our ever growing debt. Or perhaps we are enslaved by our own affluence, being trapped in our normal rhythms of daily life so tightly that we are prevented from seeing all the possibilities around us for making a difference in the world.
As Mennonites, all of us are privileged with a long lineage of persistent faith in the face of adversity. We carry within our tradition the memory of suffering, which makes us able to empathize with the present suffering of others. We find in our own woundedness the grace of God’s Spirit to offer healing to a wounded world. We are privileged in our weakness.
Moses was entrusted by God with a huge responsibility, despite his weakness and even his ineptitude. And Moses often experienced discouragement and failure when he finally did lead God’s people. Moses was understandably reluctant to take up God’s call of responsibility. But Moses was given hope for his journey in the promise of God’s presence. Even in his failure, his weakness, his loneliness, and his fear, God was present.
May we too embrace the call of Moses, to know God, and to make God known in the world. May we be freed to learn from our failures. May God be revealed to the world around us through our lives. And may we experience the joy of knowing that God’s presence with be with us on our journey.
Amen.