Exodus 4:10-17
10 But Moses said to the LORD, “My Lord, I’ve never been able to speak well, not yesterday, not the day before, and certainly not now since you’ve been talking to your servant. I have a slow mouth and a thick tongue.”
11 Then the LORD said to him, “Who gives people the ability to speak? Who’s responsible for making them unable to speak or hard of hearing, sighted or blind? Isn’t it I, the LORD? 12 Now go! I’ll help you speak, and I’ll teach you what you should say.”
13 But Moses said, “Please, my Lord, just send someone else.”
14 Then the LORD got angry at Moses and said, “What about your brother Aaron the Levite? I know he can speak very well. He’s on his way out to meet you now, and he’s looking forward to seeing you. 15 Speak to him and tell him what he’s supposed to say. I’ll help both of you speak, and I’ll teach both of you what to do. 16 Aaron will speak for you to the people. He’ll be a spokesperson for you, and you will be like God for him. 17 Take this shepherd’s rod with you too so that you can do the signs.” (CEB)
“…With All My Wonders: Moses at the Burning Bush,” Week Four
The video clip of the eighth grader was actually filmed completely silent—the only sound is the music that acted as the clip’s soundtrack. With tears rolling down his cheeks, the boy held up to the camera index card after index card that told his story of being bullied in school ever since the first grade. He showed, on camera, the scars on his body from when he had tried to cut himself, he rattled off all of the immature, hurtful names he had been called, he wrote how he was so, so sick of building himself up only to be torn down again, and again, and again, and the clip simply ends with him saying, “But I’m not going anywhere, because I’m stronger than that, and I have a million reasons to be here.” And the clip fades to black. He posted the clip to the website Youtube in August, and now, six months later, as of yesterday, it has received nearly 9,250,000 hits, it had inspired a slew of responses from other people, telling their stories in the same way and reassuring this boy, whose name was Jonah, that there are people out there who do care about him, and who are grateful to him for having touched their hearts and lives. There is no explaining how something goes viral on the internet in today’s day and age. We can call it coincidence or dumb luck as much as we want, but when something speaks to our souls, to the essence of who we are, you will be amazed at how quickly it will carry. Indeed, it is the only way, I have to think, that any of us would be Christians today—because of how a divine word has spoken to each of us.
This week marks the final week of the four-week sermon series that we are walking through together. This series, “With All My Wonders,” will travel verse-by-verse through the story of Moses at the burning bush in the third and fourth chapters of Exodus. It is, I pray, a spiritually fulfilling segue from the Christmas season into Lent, for Lent always begins with the story of Jesus being called and then sent into the wilderness, just as Moses was—called by God here at the wilderness of the burning bush, and then sent to the wilderness of Egypt—a land he had not lived in for forty years. Remember where this story is in the chronology of Exodus—it is not that Moses is a native Midianite, called by his own God. No, Moses is a Hebrew child raised as an Egyptian (in the royal family, no less), but then he is cast into exile for murder, and he finds the beginnings of his redemption not in the glory of his former royalty, but in the fire of the presence of God. The first week, we explored the fundamental character of God, how a God of only a small, select people could become a God of all people, and then, we took on the job of actually trying to name such a universal, all-encompassing, all-everything deity, which was God’s response to Moses’ first weak excuse to not answer his calling to return to Egypt and free the Israelites from slavery. Last week, we heard Moses’ second excuse—the “what if they don’t believe me” excuse, and this week, we hear Moses’ final excuse—the “I can’t speak well enough” excuse.
Speaking well—everybody says that speaking in public is the most common fear that people have, even more common than a fear of death. If that is so, then Moses has lots of company. But if it is so, then why do we use our memories and spend our energy to make sure that the greatest sayings of our leaders are immortalized? Everyone, when they hear “I have a dream,” can think of Martin Luther King, Jr. “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country,” John F. Kennedy. “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall,” Ronald Reagan. And we always search for the next big saying, the next sound bite that will be immortalized for generations to come. There are people who, as part of their jobs, parse through each inaugural address, each State of the Union speech, looking for what will be that memorable quote, that quote that you hear it and you immediately associate it with a person. But for all of that work, usually, the things that people see, the things that do go viral, that spread like wildfire, are the things we never thought would appeal to so many people across such a wide spectrum.
And that’s how it is for Moses. The quote we probably associate with Moses is, “Let my people go!” You hear someone say it, and that is who your mind jumps to. It almost was not like that, though, because Moses simply does not think he is capable of creating immortal words—only mortal words. And at this point, he is right—Moses’ final plea to God, “O my Lord, please send someone else,” it really sounds like begging! That’s what it sounds like—Moses is out of excuses, and all that is left for him to do is beg God not to do it. These are not immortal words from Moses, they are very, very mortal words instead. And that is what we ourselves use, 99.99% of the time—mortal words. It’s the small talk we make to a coworker in the hallway, or the chatter over the phone at lunchtime, or even, honestly, most sermons here, at church. Now, sometimes I definitely wish that my words would never be remembered—last week, when I mentioned how I was reading the local paper—and then I ad-libbed the line that I read the paper because I was in it—most of you got the joke, that it was because the paper did a very nice piece on the church a few months ago. But one person said to me afterwards, “At first I was thinking, “He was in the paper? Oh no—did he get arrested? What did he get arrested for?!”” Now you know why I always preach with a manuscript, because otherwise I would accidentally lead folks to believe that I have a rap sheet! Again—sometimes you want your words to be mortal, to have a finite lifespan. This is why Moses makes such a wonderful main character for us—his excuses, weak as they may sound to us now, are probably some of the exact same excuses that we would make in his shoes! Or, in his bare feet, since he removed his footwear back in the previous chapter. It is probably embarrassing for Moses that his excuses are immortalized in Scripture, but it makes him much more human to us.
The very existence of Scripture, though, proves to us that though our words may last only for an instant, they can affect an eternity. We are called by God, and by Christ, to spread the Gospel, to witness to our communities, to offer our testimony to those who will listen. And nothing short of that will do. God has heard our excuses, God has heard our pleas to be sent to do something, anything, else. God has heard the uncertainty of our hearts and the doubt still in our souls, the doubt we have not for Him, but for ourselves, and to that God has said, “Who made you the way you are? Who gave you words to speak? Wasn’t it me,” as though we had forgotten! The problem is…sometimes, I think we have. Either we do not realize the power our words as Christians have—that when we speak as Christians, others will often see us as representing the entire Church—not just this congregation, but the entire Christian Church. Martin Copenhaver, a United Church of Christ pastor in New England, says that he would often tell people he just met for the first time that he was a lawyer—which was his wife’s occupation, so he could plausibly handle a casual conversation about the law if need be. Let me tell you, I did the exact same thing in seminary—I would tell people I was a graduate student in history, or archaeology, or Middle Eastern studies. I got very creative with my lies. But we are called instead to be creative with our truths—with God’s truths.
In that regard, Moses had it easy—God gave the staff Moses carried the capacity to perform all God’s wonders.
There is no such staff for us.
There is no burning bush.
As St. Teresa of Avila said, Christ has no hands but yours, no feet but yours. And right now, God has no voice but yours.
Who made man’s mouth? Who made us deaf, mute, seeing, and blind?
It was your voice who did.
It is you!
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Eric Atcheson
Longview, Washington
February 12, 2012
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