Lent 3C – March 20, 2022
St. Paul’s, Bellingham – Lent 3C – March 20, 2022
Exodus 3:1-15
The Rev. Rachel Endicott
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.
When Israel was in Egypt’s land,
let my people go.
Oppressed so hard they could not stand,
let my people go.
Go down, Moses,
way down in Egypt land
Tell ‘old Pharoah
let my people go…
I don’t know about you, but the opening verse of this African American spiritual, first published in 1872, is one of my favorite spirituals. The passages we heard this morning from the book of Exodus, among others, always brings it to mind. And this spiritual has meanings apart from strict biblical reference. Many slave-holders in the American South, outlawed the song because it beaconed freedom for the slaves. And I believe that the call still rings true to those who are oppressed today.
For those of you who were attended church here at St. Paul’s last week, remember how we heard several different passages from Genesis concerning Abraham. We heard one as our Old Testament reading and another which was a paraphrase in our Godly Play storytelling demonstration about the Great Family, a story that while centered around Abraham and his extended family, also reminded us today that we are his great-great-great-great (and add a few more greats) grandchildren.
Today, we move from the stories of Abraham in Genesis. We bypass the early portion of Exodus, where Joseph and his family, God’s people have found themselves in Egypt. At first, it is a place of refuge from famine and disaster, a place where they are treated well and respected. But then, we ominously read [Exodus 1:8], “a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.” And it all goes downhill from there. By the time Moses is placed in the river as a baby to save his life, then as a young man has to flee to Midian, life is terrible for Moses and for the Israelites. And, yet at this very worst time, God makes God’s-self known. God communicates with Moses, strangely enough not from a cloud (as in other places like on the Sunday a few weeks ago when we celebrate the Transfiguration story and hear the parallel story of Moses on Mt. Sinai), but rather from a burning bush. Perhaps this curiosity is why Moses says that he must go and see this strange sight.
And go he does, coming face to face with God who calls to him, “Moses, Moses!” And he is told that the land on which he is standing is holy, sacred land. And it is only after that that God announces that he is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, then we find Moses moving to a place of fear. We’re told then that he hid his face because he was afraid to look at God.
As this conversation continues between God and Moses, we should pay attention to several things:
- God is a God of observation and compassion. God has noticed that his people are oppressed and mistreated. He has compassion for their suffering. I keep thinking that this may be one reason why the slaves were drawn to this story and even in current-day, people who are oppressed find not only the miraculous redemption from a place of oppression and slavery, but just as importantly a God who notices and is compassionate.
- Secondly, at some level Moses not only represents a conduit between God and him, but between God and all of God’s people. He is a child of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who talks on behalf of all the other of God’s children to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
- Lastly, much of the conversation is actually about relationships and community. The “misery of my people” is about people plural, not simply about Moses only. The promise is about bringing “the people” out of Egypt. And the conversation about how the people who will follow Moses should know that this is due to the power and might of the right God which is why it is important that Moses becomes the one who knows the right name of God, so he can tell the people who are to follow him.
For us today, I’m wondering how well we are doing in giving thanks for having a God who loves us? One of the questions my spiritual director often asks me is “where have you seen or experienced God lately?” And it’s often in others, in community, in nature – all the bigger community of that which God has created.
How well, too, are we doing as we work together as a people? Although we don’t hear it in the reading today, we know that God’s people became cranky and complaining. They murmur in the wilderness even when God brings about their release rom slavery through Moses’ leadership. His compassion brings them out from under Pharoah’s control. I wonder where we have not worked well as a community? For me, as your Interim Rector, it is not helpful when people send unsigned letters. It is both not respectful, and if I choose to read them – the Bishop never does read unsigned letters he receives – it doesn’t allow for me to follow up with you. Are there places where people who are part of this community have hung back and let others shoulder the lion’s share of the work? Your vestry, the staff who work their butts off to achieve the mission and ministry of this congregation, and the leaders of the ministries of the church need your help. Being church, being community isn’t a spectator sport. We are to work together, journey together, pitch in together, treat each other as YOU would want to be treated and as God would hope his people would treat one another.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t at least mention one other thing. Here we find the utterance of God’s name, “I am who I am”, or maybe even better as “I am who I will be” as the Hebrew has a more profound sense of the eternal nature of God than in English.2 The Tetragrammaton, YHWH, is found here in the biblical text and then goes on to be used 6,000 times as the Scriptures continue.3 Prior to this, other names of God were used, among them El or Elohim. We are finally told that this is ONE God who will go with us for eternity.
So, like last week with Abraham, we are invited into the joy and wonder at being part of the Great Family of God. We are reminded of our connections that go back to time immemorial, to the Israelites, to those over the years in many times and places, including to the slaves in the United States and their descendants today, and to all of us in the present who are together the Children of God.
When Israel was in Egypt’s land,
let my people go.
Oppressed so hard they could not stand,
let my people go.
Go down, Moses,
way down in Egypt land
Tell ‘old Pharoah
let my people go…
Amen.
1 wikipedia – Go down Moses.
2 What God Means by "I AM WHO I AM" in Exodus 3:14 (biblestudytools.com)
3 What God Means by "I AM WHO I AM" in Exodus 3:14 (biblestudytools.com)