Moses and God

 WE GATHER 

PRELUDE 

BRINGING IN THE LIGHT OF CHRIST 

WELCOME & ANNOUNCEMENTS 

*HYMN There's a Wideness in God's Mercy UMH# 121 

*CALL TO WORSHIP 

L: We are hungering and thirsting for hope and peace. 

P: Come, Lord Jesus, come. 

L: Our hearts long for the nourishing presence of God. 

P: Come, Lord Jesus, come. 

L: Give to us your steadfast presence, that we will have everything we need. P: Open our hearts to joyfully receive your life-sustaining love. AMEN. 

*OPENING PRAYER (IN UNISON) 

Lord, we come to you this day with so many things going on in our lives. Some of these things are wonderful and cause us to rejoice. However, there are far too many things that cause us fear and anxiety. Humbly we wait for your presence with us. Strengthen us to do your will, for it is in Jesus’ Name, we pray. AMEN. 

*HYMN Spirit of God FWS# 2117 v 1, 2, 5 

WE PROCLAIM GOD'S WORD 

CHILDREN’S CHAT 

OLD TESTAMENT READING 

Exodus 3: 1-15 

Moses at the Burning Bush

3 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 Mount Horeb,[a] 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 spacious land, to 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 Now go, I am sending 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 serve God on this mountain.”

The Divine Name Revealed

13 But Moses said to God, “If I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” 14 God said to Moses, “I am who I am.”[b] He said further, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I am has sent me to you.’ ” 15 God also said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord,[c] the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you’:

This is my name forever,
and this my title for all generations.

MUSICAL INTERLUDE AND OFFERING 

NEW TESTAMENT READING 

Ephesians 4: 25-5: 2 

Rules for the New Life

25 So then, putting away falsehood, let each of you speak the truth with your neighbor, for we are members of one another. 26 Be angry but do not sin;[a] do not let the sun go down on your anger, 27 and do not make room for the devil. 28 Those who steal must give up stealing; rather, let them labor, doing good work with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy. 29 Let no evil talk come out of your mouths but only what is good for building up,[b] as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear. 30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption. 31 Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice. 32 Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.[c] 

5 

1 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, 2 and walk in love, as Christ loved us[d] and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

MESSAGE 

"Moses and God" 

Friends, this is the 2nd part of this 6 week sermon series that I’ve put together about this very important, and very multifaceted patriarch of our faith story, Moses.

We’re fast forwarding quite a bit from where we were last week, looking at the earliest months of Moses’ life. In the proceeding years, Moses grew up in the palace as the adopted grandson of the Pharaoh, even though he and everyone around him knew that he was not native Egyptian, he was Hebrew. Mentally, emotionally, and relationally, that was a very tough spot for Moses to be in. Even though he had an unquestionably privileged upbringing, the tension grew in him every year as he saw the Egyptians, his adopted family, enslaving and abusing the Hebrews, his blood family. With a foot in each world, Moses felt himself being ripped at his core until one day, as a young man, he finally snapped. That moment happened when he watched an Egyptian slave master beating a Hebrew. Moses retaliated by killing the Egyptian, and covering up what he did by burying him quickly. But that dark moment caught up with him fast, and when he realized the folks around him knew he killed a man, and that they could use that information against him–and even worse, that some people were now afraid of him–he ran. He skipped town, abandoned both of his families, and built up a quiet existence as a shepherd. He even got married and had kids of his own. He wasn’t royalty anymore, but he was free, he was safe, he had a clean slate, and he wasn’t going back.

It’s at this point in Moses’ narrative that we finally meet the most important force in his life, a force that’s been quiet for a while: God. This sounds absurd to our sensibilities, as people who go to church, and especially as folks who know how the story ends, but Moses knew nothing about God. The only spirituality he had any exposure to was the polytheism of the Egyptians, which meant little to him growing up, and nothing to him now. Unfortunately, the same was true for his Hebrew blood family, still enslaved in Egypt. There had been a strong connection between God and Moses’ ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, But that connection was severed when the slavery began. The Hebrews didn’t know who they were anymore.

The first thing Moses learns about God is that the Divine doesn’t do anything halfway. The Holy gets Moses’ attention by setting a plant on fire. Apparently Moses is a bit of a pyromaniac. Moses finds it incredibly bizarre that the fire doesn’t damage the bush, which is what compels him to go check it out, but then he thinks nothing of it when the fire starts talking to him. Maybe all these years denying his identity and hanging out with sheep have made Moses start to lose it a little, which makes it that much more vital for God to make contact.

And when God does talk to Moses, the Divine relays these pieces of information:

I’m calling you to do big things to bring about justice.

My name is Yahweh.

And I will be with you and everyone you love for all of time.

Next week, we’ll go in depth about the gargantuan task that the Holy laid before Moses in this conversation. But for this week, I want us to stay on this first encounter between Moses and God, this first moment of contact. What God looked and sounded like to Moses, and how Moses talked to God. This was how Moses and God started building their relationship.

This is something we would all benefit from looking at in our own lives–what does God look and sound like to us, and how do we talk to God? Some of you may think “I’ve been on this planet a while, I know how to pray.” But Moses was 80 in this story. You’re never too old, too experienced, or too used to the way things are, to learn to see and hear God in a whole new way.

So, whether you’re also 80, or 8, whether you joined this church decades ago or this is your first day here, whether you have a way of praying that works great for you or you have no real idea how to talk to God, think about it with me. What does God look and sound like to you, and how do you talk to God?

It’s striking in this story that God showed up looking like fire. It’s the same way the Holy Spirit made her first appearance in the book of Acts, as tongues of fire. I grew up with this one image for God, and some of y’all might have grown up with the same image: long white hair, long white beard, white robe, big, booming voice, and sandals. Don’t forget the sandals. We have a lot of influential folks to thank for that image, one of whom is the Renaissance artist Michaelangelo, who painted God to look that way on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. A beautiful work of art from the brush of a brilliant man. That image and sound of God might work great for you, and if so, rock on. But it doesn’t work for me. Best case scenario, it means God looks and sounds like Santa Claus. Worst case scenario, it means God looks and sounds just like my dad (if you ever see a picture, you’ll know what I mean)...and something about God looking exactly like an important person in my life feels like problematic theology, you know?

And I know a lot of other people, whose dads don’t look like Santa Claus, who can’t jive with that image either.For some of us, it’s the image itself that feels like it pushes us away instead of drawing us in. And for some, it’s the characteristics we’ve been taught that long white hair long white beard white robe God has. Some of us were taught that God walks about on the clouds in his terry cloth spa robe and his Birkenstocks frowning at us and tossing lightning bolts. And for many that image isn’t warm and liberating, as God was in the fire before Moses, as God should be to us.

So, what does God look and sound like to you? And how do you talk to God? A number of folks whom I’ve asked this question over the years have told me that don’t associate any kind of human image with the Divine, they imagine the Sacred as a beam of light. Maybe the kind of light that transfigured Jesus, or the light that required Moses to put on a veil after talking to God. When my daughter Lily and I started doing some spiritual art together, she drew God as an orange star.

How do you talk to God? What is your preferred prayer style? It might be on your knees at bedtime, hands folded, head bowed. Or it might be thinking about God on your morning walk. Or yelling your frustrations to God from the inside of your car during rush hour. Do you have another way to pray? I do. I like to talk to God through music. As St. Augustine is credited with saying long ago, “to sing is to pray twice.”

God will look and sound like so many things to you in this life. The light of God bounces off our eyes like light refracting off a diamond, and we catch only a glimpse. Our neighbor, looking at the same light refracting off the same diamond, will see something different, and that will also be just a glimpse. And we’ll find all kinds of different ways to pray, and still marvel at the mystery of the Holy.

Whatever God looks or sounds like to you today, however you talk to God today, God wants us to know the same three things the Divine shared with Moses:

I’m calling you to do big things to bring about justice.

My name is Yahweh, or I am.

And I will be with you and everyone you love for all of time.

Amen.

*HYMN Be Still, My Soul UMH# 534 

WE RESPOND 

JOYS & CONCERNS 

PASTORAL PRAYER 

A prayer:

Lord, in the midst of our hurried and busy lives, please give us the discernment to recognise the precious moments when the divine is breaking through to the ordinary. May we not be so caught up in our own agendas, to-do lists, and worries that we completely fail to see the unusual burning bushes that You plant in our paths. Let us neither be so fixated on our goals for tomorrow nor hanker so much for the blessings of yesterday that we cannot see how You may be wanting to work in and through us today. How often, Lord, do you reach out and issue the invitation and wait for us to join You in the work that You want to see accomplished on this earth, but our eyes, ears, minds, and hearts are too dulled to see, hear, and respond to Your call? Forgive us for our sometimes self-centred reactions when our plans are interrupted or upended by circumstances or people in ways that we do not expect, welcome, or understand. Lord, give us the faith to look beyond the surface of things and give us a holy desire to attend to Your eternal realities. And may we be intentional about acting on the promptings that You place on our hearts, not putting them off till they are forgotten. We pray, Lord, that You will help us, like Moses, to notice the ways in which You may be trying to get our attention. Grant us the will and the faith to stop, to turn aside, and there to encounter You, for where You are, where You speak, where You meet with us, is holy ground.

THE LORD’S PRAYER 

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen. 

*HYMN Take My Life and Let It Be UMH# 399 

SENDING FORTH WITH BLESSING 

POSTLUDE