Resisting Anxiety

September 28^th, 2014         “Resisting Anxiety”    Rev. Heather Jepsen

Exodus 16:2-15 and 17:1-7

          This morning we return to our sermon series on Moses and the people of Israel.  In the previous weeks we have read and studied about Moses’ birth, his call to ministry, the celebration of the Passover, and the journey through the Red Sea.  Today we find the Israelites in a place where they will be for forty years; wandering in the wilderness.

          Because we had guest speakers last week, our readings for this morning cover the lectionary for last Sunday as well as this Sunday.  The stories are very similar.  The Israelites have left behind the Egyptians and the Red Sea and they have begun wandering in the wilderness.  Because of their sinful nature, this is something that they will do for a generation, forty years.

          The people have needs, they are hungry and thirsty.  Their immediate “go-to” plan to fulfill these needs is to complain.  In chapter 16 we find the people hungry and they are complaining against Moses and against God.  “If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt when our bellies were full.  You have brought us out here to kill us with hunger!”  It seems to have only a taken a few hours for the Israelites to forget how bad things were in Egypt.  All they can think of was their supply of meat and bread, and not the steady stream of abuse that went with it. 

          God promises to feed the people and two miracles occur.  First quail come and cover the camp.  This will provide meat for the people.  The accompaniment to their meal will be “Manna”, so named for the play on the Hebrew words for “What is it?”, “man hu “. This seems to be a sweet bread like substance that appears on the ground each morning.   

          When God declares that he will give the manna, he also remarks that this is to be a test.  People are to gather only what they need for the day; no more, no less.  As everyone gathers the food and it is measured out, everyone ends up with just the right amount.  Those that gather more have just enough for their family, and those that gather less have just enough for theirs.  The people are to eat the manna for each day and rely on the Lord to provide food for the next day.  Those who ignore the commands of God and hoard the manna, find the stashed away food wormy and inedible.  On the day before the Sabbath, an extra portion is given so that both the heavens and the people may rest on the Sabbath day. 

          In chapter 17 we find the Israelites facing a similar problem, this time it is thirst rather than hunger.  Once again the people fight with Moses and with the Lord; “Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?”  This time God commands Moses to strike a rock with his staff, and water will flow from the rock for the people to drink.  Moses does so, but he is not happy about it.  As he said, the people are nearly ready to kill him.  He names the place test and argument because already the people are doubting the presence of the Lord.  Clearly it’s going to be a long forty years!

          As modern readers I think we have a really hard time identifying with the Israelites in these stories.  “What in the world is their problem?” we ask.  “Why are they always complaining?”  I think many of us think that the Israelites live in a time of miracles; with the person of Moses as their leader, and with their food and water coming directly from the hand of God in miraculous, unbelievable ways.  How could they doubt the presence of God?  How could they forget where they had come from?  Why can’t they see how good they have it?  “If I was there,” we say to ourselves, “I wouldn’t have had any trouble believing in God’s power.  I wouldn’t complain like they do.”

          You know what I think friends?  I think we are a lot like the Israelites!  We are in a very similar situation.  We are surrounded by miracles, the hand of God is clear and present in our lives, and yet we complain against the Lord and we continue to grumble and ask for more.  Just like the Israelites, we don’t rely on God to give us what we need.  Let me explain.

          The major problem we find in this story is anxiety, and it is one that we Americans really struggle with.  In fact, some theologians argue that anxiety is the root of all sins.  We are anxious people.  We worry about our time, our space, our ability to exist.  We say we trust in God to provide these things for us but we don’t really.  You can see that in the way that we try to provide all of these things for ourselves.  For example, I trust in God to give me my daily bread, and yet I hoard food like there is no tomorrow.  My family could eat from my cupboards for a month.  Just like the Israelites, I am busy hoarding wormy manna.

          We are anxious about our very existence.  In a great lesson from “The Thoughtful Christian” theology professor Ted Peters writes:

“We are anxious over space and time.  We need space and time; otherwise we are nothing.  If someone takes away our time, we are dead.  If someone denies us space, we cease to have existence.  When someone cuts in front of us while in line for the checkout counter at the supermarket or cuts us off while driving on the freeway, we can feel the anger beginning in our toes and racing throughout our entire body.  Why?  Because that person has denied us our space, and, if we hastily look at our watch, we are feeling cheated out of some of our time.  That line cutter has refused to acknowledge our presence, refused to acknowledge our identity.  He or she has stolen our space and our time.  To lose that acknowledgment of our identity elicits a fear that we have ceased to be, that we are closer to nonbeing.  A part of us wants to kill the interloper in order to demonstrate that we are present, that we have the power of being within ourselves.”

Sound familiar?  We are super anxious about protecting what we need, about food and time and space.  Anxiety in itself is not necessarily a sin, but it is a rich soil in which sin can grow.  Anxiety leads us to acts of aggression and violence.  Suddenly “love your neighbor” becomes “push your neighbor out of the way to get what is you need.”

          The Israelites were anxious.  They had been living in an anxiety producing climate and place where their time and space, their very existence, was constantly under threat.  They are used to receiving food in a way that encouraged them to hoard, to be greedy, to be anxious, and to be afraid.  Now the Lord is trying to teach them to receive food in an entirely different way.  A way that trusts, a way that is open-handed and free, a way that assumes there is enough time and space, enough food for everyone.  How hard would it be to take only what we need for today, and trust that God will provide what we need for tomorrow?

          As people in America, we are surrounded by a great wealth of blessings.  Much more wondrous than manna or water from a rock are all the goods and services that are right at our fingertips.  Spending time in Africa really helped me gain some perspective on this.  Each morning as I brush my teeth I marvel at the ease in which I have obtained a tooth brush and tooth paste.  In fact, I even have extra brushes and paste in the cupboard should I drop mine in the toilet.  If I were to drop all my toothbrushes in the toilet, I could go to the store in 5 minutes and buy another toothbrush for very little money.  The tap water that comes out of my bathroom sink is clean and drinkable.  The fact, that I even have a sink is a miracle.  The fact that there are 4 sinks in my house is incredible, beyond belief. 

The blessings that have come into my life directly from the hand of God are beyond count.  And yet, like many Americans, I worry I won’t have enough.  I worry that God won’t provide.  I am tempted to complain, and I ask God for more than what I need.  I am no different than the Israelites in the wilderness, blind to what I have and always asking for more.  We share the sin of anxiety.

The message of this reading to us and the message of the gospel as a whole, is to let that anxiety go.  As people of faith we are called to trust in God to protect us, trust in God to provide for us, trust in God to fulfill our needs for today.  Jesus teaches us to pray “Give us this day our daily bread.”  We are to ask for what we need for one day, and let God take care of the rest.  Don’t try to hoard your manna, it will just get wormy.

Today I want to encourage you to be aware of all the miracles that surround you: from toilet paper in the bathroom, to a car to take you wherever you want to go, to a safe road to drive on, to the abundance of food at lunch.  Look, open your eyes and look, at all God has given you.  Enjoy it, say thanks, and don’t worry about tomorrow.  Resist anxiety.  God will provide.  I promise.  Amen.

 

         

The Journey through Chaos

September 14^th, 2014    “The Journey through Chaos”    Rev. Heather Jepsen

Exodus 14:10-31

          This morning we continue our journey with Moses and the people of Israel.  Last week we read about the institution of the Passover, the slaughtering of the lamb, and the power of God to smite the first born of the people of Egypt.  It was a tough lesson which put us on uncomfortable ground.  But the God of Exodus has a tendency to make us uncomfortable, and maybe that is a good thing.

          Today we continue the story.  After the plague that kills the firstborn, the Israelites loot Egypt and flee the land with the spoils.  They are on the run when Pharaoh changes his mind.  Maybe he realizes it was a bad idea to let his entire slave work force escape, or maybe he figured that after the death of his child there was little more the Israelites’ God could do to harm him.  Either way he cries out, “After them!” sending his army of horses and chariots after the crowds of people traveling on foot.

          The Israelites find themselves stuck; the vast expanse of the sea in front of them, the angry armies of Pharaoh behind.  Remember, these soldiers all have suffered a loss with the plague of the first born and I am sure they had a pure desire for vengeance as they chased down the Israelites.  They don’t simply want to bring those people back; no, they want to kill them.

          The Israelites see them coming and they are afraid.  They cry out in fear “Why is this happening?  If you would have left us alone in Egypt we would have been ok, but now we will certainly die.”  They are mad at God and mad at Moses, and I can certainly understand their position.  What kind of salvation is this; to be brought out into the desert to be slaughtered?

          Moses sounds like every good pastor and hospital chaplain when he tells them to calm down.  “Do not be afraid, stand still, God will be here to deliver you today.”  God then gives the instructions, “lift up your staff, stretch out your hand, and the seas will be divided”.  God will make a way where there is no way.

          The power of the Lord surrounds the people.  An angel of God moves from leading the group to the back end along with a glowing pillar of cloud.  God goes between the Israelites and the Egyptians, providing cover as the people spend the night walking through the sea.  I imagine it was a difficult journey fraught with fear.  People would be treading through the muck and mud of the sea bed, staring at the water on both sides, probably unable to swim and afraid of what might happen if the power of God were to fail and the waters come crashing in.

          As night passes, so do the people and in the morning the armies of Pharaoh head down the same path.  You can walk through the muck of a sea bottom but you can’t drive a heavy chariot through it.  The wheels get stuck, the Egyptians are trapped, and at God’s command Moses releases the waters and the men of Egypt are drowned.  It is a second plague of death as the text tells us that “not one of them remained.”

          This is a great story about the power of God, a pivotal story in the Jewish faith.  This is their resurrection story, their birth out of death, their baptism in the waters of chaos, their moment of new life.  I have a tendency to get stuck in the same place I got stuck in last week, “But what about the Egyptians?”  But that is probably not the appropriate question for the text today.  Today is all about the Israelites.

          Though this is clearly a story about the nation of Israel, it also is a wonderful story about us, about our own lives today.  This is the story of all of us, as we struggle with hardship, as we wrestle with death, as we travel through scary places, and emerge on the other side reborn.  So, let’s back up and tell it again.

          I love that the people wander till they get stuck.  I think we do that all the time.  All of us have a tendency to wander through life until we find that we are stuck.  Can’t go forward, can’t go back.  We get stuck, and then we find God.  It’s not until we notice our need, that we find our faith.

          Often something terrible is happening in those stuck moments.  For the Israelites, it was a mob of blood thirsty Egyptian warriors that was the problem.  For us maybe it’s a cancer diagnosis, the loss of employment, the death of a beloved family member; you get the idea.  Something awful is happening and in the midst of it we say the same thing the Israelites do.  “What the heck God!?!  Why are doing this to me?  Why can’t you just leave me alone?!?”  

          If we are lucky, we have a Moses with us; a pastor, a family member, or a good friend, who goes with us on the journey.  They say to us, “Do not be afraid, stand still, God is with you.”  We may or may not hear what they say, we probably aren’t listening, aren’t even able to listen.  But the fact that someone is there with us matters.  Moses is there to hold our hand. 

          “Come on” Moses, or your pastor, or your friend says “let’s go this way.”  And they gesture off to a frightening and unimaginable path.  They point the way through a place that seems closed, unpassable, definitely not the way to go.  And you have no choice, because you’re stuck, and you really aren’t thinking clearly, and they are holding your hand.  And so you step out with them, into the un-passable path and the two of you journey together. 

You travel together through surgery and chemo and radiation.  You travel together through job applications and rejections.  You travel together through watching your loved one slip away and die.  You travel together and sometimes your feet get stuck in the mud, and sometimes you are so afraid by the landscape around you that you can hardly move, and sometimes you just stop and stare, or you just sit down on the path and break down and cry.  But Moses is there, and he picks you up. “Keep moving” he says, “It’s dangerous to stop here.  We can’t stop here.”

          The Israelites traveled all night through a dark and fearful place and so do we.  God is with us, God goes before us and behind us.  God is in Moses, or the friend that holds your hand.  But we have to take the steps ourselves.  You have to make the journey with your own two feet.  And it is not easy.

          But finally, you get across.  The Israelites made it to the other side, and eventually so do we.  We beat cancer, and slowly our body recovers.  (Or we don’t, and we experience a different sort of journey).  We find another job, or a way to live differently.  Our loved one dies, and we figure out how to begin our life again.  Like the Israelites, we are born again, a new people, baptized in suffering and chaos.

          We look back, the path is closed, and the threat is gone.  The Israelites looked and saw the threat vanquished, “Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore.”  Even if they wanted to go back they couldn’t, the way is shut.  So too, we look back, and see that the threat is gone for now.  And like the Israelites we come to the same conclusion, “So the people feared the Lord and believed in the Lord and in his servant Moses.”  (Or whoever your Moses was.

          This is the journey of faith; the big one.  And I can promise we will all take this road at least once, if not more than once in our lives.  The comfort is that God is with us, God also takes the journey.  God goes before us and behind us, a cloud of protection.  When you are on this road, God has your back.  And often, God gives us a Moses, a person to hold our hand and to show us the way. 

          Some Christian traditions talk a lot about being born again.  You come to faith in Jesus Christ, and experience a re-birth.  I think that can be true for some people.  But for most of us, being born again looks a lot more like a Red Sea Journey.  Just like our first birth involved pain, sweat, tears, and probably some fear.  So too does our re-birthing in the faith.  It’s scary.  But this is what makes us who we are. 

          So, thanks be to God for faith, which helps us move our feet for each step, even when we can’t think or see or hear anymore because we are so consumed with fear and grief.  Thanks be to God for the end of the journey, when we finally emerge on the other side, re-born in suffering, stronger than ever; people ready to begin life again.  And thanks be to God, for Moses, for our pastors, for our friends; for the ones who hold our hands and point the way through chaos.  May God be with us as we travel.  Amen.

Not Passing Over

September 7^th, 2014        “Not Passing Over”      Rev. Heather Jepsen

Exodus 12:1-14

          This morning we continue our story of Moses and his journey with the people of Israel.  As usual, the lectionary readings skip around a bit and leave a lot of the story out.  Last week we read about Moses at the burning bush and the call of God telling him that he had been chosen to lead the people of Israel out of Egypt.  This morning’s reading jumps ahead to the very night that the people will flee.

          Many of us have already read this story or perhaps watched one of the many movie versions.  We recall that prior to this point; Moses had been in conversation and even argument with Pharaoh.  Nine plagues had been brought upon the people of Egypt as signs of God’s power and might.  From hail to locusts, blood water to boils, frogs to gnats, the people have suffered, and yet Pharaoh has not relented.  Finally God brings the final plague, death.

          Our reading this morning consists entirely of the instructions from God to the people of Israel for the celebration of the Passover.  This is a liturgical event, a religious ritual, and it is important that things be done just so.  There is to be one lamb per family, a sacrifice of great value in this agrarian culture, and each family is to slaughter the lamb that night.  They are to roast it in its entirety and consume it all.  Moreover, they are to take the blood of the animal, and smear it around their door as a sign of their faith.  To our modern senses, this is a gruesome and barbaric task.

          I have never liked this reading, and I have managed to “pass-over” it many times in the lectionary and yet this week I couldn’t get away.  If I had any sense I would have skipped it and picked something out of my folders of past sermons.  I certainly had an excuse with two funerals and a stomach bug to deal with this week.  And yet, I could not get this scripture out of my head.  It bothers me, it makes me uncomfortable, it does not feature a God I particularly like . . . how could I not preach on it?!?

          And yet, what do I say?  As per my personality, let’s just tackle the hard stuff head on.  You know what is awful about this passage?  Our God, the God of love, is suddenly the God of death.  Yahweh, the bringer of death, not on the guilty or cruel, not on the rapists or killers, no – this is Yahweh who brings death to children.  Later on we read “At midnight the Lord struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the prisoner who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of the livestock.  Pharaoh arose in the night, he and all his officials and all the Egyptians; and there was a load cry in Egypt, for there was not a house without someone dead.”  Sure, some of the firstborn would have been older, but many would have been children.  I can only think of my firstborn child, and wonder how that would ever be just, how that would ever be right.

          Sometimes I think I must not understand this text because I come from a place of privilege.  Perhaps if I came from a race and culture that had been kept down for centuries then maybe I would read this differently.  Perhaps, if I had been oppressed in Egypt, perhaps if my children had died from being treated as slaves, perhaps if I was beaten on a regular basis, I would find justice here.  Perhaps, I would understand then.  But of course I am not in that position, so I don’t understand, and I don’t like this God.

          It is clear from the story that the God of Exodus is not a God to be liked.  This is no “buddy Jesus”, this is not your friend.  This is a God of awesome power and might, a God to be feared.  You can see that in the way the Israelites are told to celebrate the meal.  This is no thanksgiving dinner where you take your shoes off, relax a bit, and loosen your belt buckle as you sit at the table for hours.  No, this meal is eaten on the run.  Your sandals are on, your staff is in your hand, you gird your loins, and you eat that lamb as fast as you can, for the God of death is coming and you better be ready to move when he says move.

          Of course, this isn’t just a story of death; it is also a story of redemption.  The blood on the mantel is not so much a talisman to keep death away; as it is a sign helping the people remember who they are.  God knows who the Israelites are, he’s not going to kill their children, but the people themselves need to remember.  The blood is a sign of their protection, their safety, a reminder of the promise of God to love and care for them.

          In fact, this whole passage is about memory.  It is an annual celebration for the people to remember who they were and who they are.  They are the chosen ones, brought out of Egypt with much pain and hardship.  Theirs is a nation that is born in suffering.  And this is a new birth as God declares that this is now the first month, the beginning of the months, this is the time to celebrate.  God tells Moses and Aaron to re-start the calendar; this is a new year, a new beginning, a new act of creation.  God is re-making the nation of Israel and history begins again this day.

          In this reading, God is clearly laying out the liturgy of the people.  This is a ritualized act of the faith that is to take place at home as a family.  The people are called each year to re-enact this night of haste and anxiety, this night of horror and fear.  The people are reminded that they should never get comfortable in the place and culture in which they are a part, but they should remember that they are always separate, always chosen.  The people are to remember that theirs is a God of death as well as a God of life, to not get so comfortable that they forget the destructive power of their God.

          As a modern, Christian, interpreter, we could simply ignore this text.  We could brush it aside as a tale of people who are not us, a tale told a long time ago.  It would be easy to pass this over as it certainly reflects the ideals and notions of a religious culture that are no longer our own.  Or, we could choose not to pass over.  We could haul this text out in the light, as I have done today.  We can poke the scary parts and see if they still have the power to make us jump; and we can pull out the gems and see if they can still give us inspiration.  We can continue to find our own story here.

          For the story of Exodus 12 is not so different from a certain story that we tell every spring.  Here you find a slaughtered lamb, the death of an innocent, the birth of a people out of bondage and into life.  Is the story of Jesus’ unjust death on the cross so different?  Is the story of the birth of our own faith not the same?  Is there not one God we worship in both Old Testament and New?

          Perhaps it would be good for us to take some of the same lessons from this reading as the Israelites were called to take.  Maybe we should live life with a little more respect for our God and God’s awesome and frightening power.   Perhaps we have become too relaxed, assuming that our God is only some distant benevolent being who really has very little power.  We would do well to remember that old Ann Weems poem which suggests that we come to church in crash helmets and get strapped into our pews for fear of the awesome God whose name we invoke.

          And perhaps we shouldn’t be so comfortable in our daily lives that we all too easily sit back and loosen out belt buckles.  Maybe we should be more aware of the world around us, of the threat of death not just to ourselves but to the thousands of innocents we share this planet with.  Perhaps we should eat with our car keys in our hand, ready to dash out the door, should our Lord call us to action.

          These are hard lessons for us, and one of the many reasons we would be more comfortable just leaving the Bible closed on this chapter.  And yet I can’t do that, I can’t pass this over.  For that would be easy, and whoever promised you that faith would be easy?  Amen.

The Call of Moses

August 31, 2014            “The Call of Moses”      Rev. Heather Jepsen

Exodus 3:1-15

          This morning we continue our story of the journey of Moses and the people of Israel.  Last week we discussed the birth of Moses and the miracle of his survival.  As we examined his circumstances we found a kernel of hope for the suffering we experience, as well as the realization that even the littlest things we do can make a big difference.  Today we will continue to discover the ways that God works in our lives.

          Similar to the story of Jesus, the story of Moses leaves out all the good parts, those awkward teenage years.  Right after Moses is named by the princess, the story fast-forwards to the time when Moses has become a grown man.  Seeing a Hebrew slave being mistreated, Moses kills an Egyptian and then flees the country.  (We often forget that he was a murderer.)  Now Moses is on the run, in hiding with the tribe of Midian.  He is a desert dweller, with a wife and a family.

          This morning’s reading covers very familiar territory.  One day Moses is out herding sheep when he spies a strange sight, a bush that is on fire and yet does not seem to burn up.  Moses turns away from his task, turning toward the bush and suddenly is confronted with the voice of God.  Moses is in a holy place.  This God tells Moses that he has been chosen to lead the Israelites out from under the hand of Pharaoh, and understandably Moses balks at such a call.

          Like many stories within the Bible, even though we can tell it by heart, the story still has the power to surprise or touch us with elements we hadn’t noticed before.  That happened for me this week in three places.

          The first thing that struck me this week was that when Moses first meets God, God says to him, “I am the God of your father.”  I think we always gloss over that line, since that is a common thing for God to say, but I realized that this would have been particularly striking for Moses, because Moses didn’t know his father.  We talked about his origin story last week, and by the time Moses was weaned, he was brought to the home of the Pharaoh. 

So say, Moses was exposed to his parent’s religion until he was about 3 years old, and then he was Egyptian all the way.  Moses would not have known the God of this father.  I think sometimes we think of Moses as being a Hebrew his whole life but he wasn’t.  Moses would have physically been a Hebrew, but socially and spiritually he was an Egyptian.  He looked so Egyptian that when he first ran into the desert to hide, the people who found him referred to him as an Egyptian, not a Hebrew. 

To think that Moses has very little and perhaps no experience at all with this God, really puts a different spin on the story.  No wonder he asks what this God’s name is.  No wonder he is so reluctant to undertake such a task.  No wonder he needs his brother, a priest, to help him.  Although his story will become one of the greatest tales of God and man, when it begins, Moses has no idea at all about this God or this faith.

Another part that really struck me this week was how God tells Moses immediately to take his shoes off.  “Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.”  What does that mean?  Why would you do that?  Now I love bare feet as much as the next guy.  In fact, I almost always have bare feet at home and folks often catch me with bare feet in the office.  But how do bare feet connect with holiness?

I looked around this week but could not find a lot of scholarship studying bare feet and holy ground.  In fact, it appears that even when priests went into the temple they kept their shoes on.  And this is not quite the foot washing, bare feet moment we find in the New Testament.  This seems like a unique request of Moses, and I am curious what God was after.

My best guess is that God was looking for vulnerability.  In a lot of ways our shoes separate us from the world.  They can be good protection when walking outside or even inside when walking through that dreaded Lego pile, but they separate us from the earth and from ourselves.  Reflexologists will tell you that feet are powerful and important and that most of your body is connected to specific areas of your feet.  Perhaps God wanted to be more connected with Moses.  Or perhaps God wanted Moses to be more grounded.  Either way, this story gives a new twist on what it might mean to bare your sole to God.

Of course the third thing that caught my attention this week was God’s name.  I am always intrigued by the name that God offers for God’s self here in the scriptures.  Who are you?  “I am who I am” or “I am what I am” or “I will be what I will be” the translations are as numerous as the meanings we can find in this name.  Clearly our God’s identity is fluid and hard to pin down.  God is what God needs to be as the circumstance demands.

This week I was thinking about a God whose name is “being-ness”, a God whose name is “I am”.  So often in our modern culture we identify with “doing-ness”.  I am a pastor, I am a mother, I am a harpist, I am all the things that I do.  We are less comfortable with “being-ness”.  I am, period.  Even though our God is about to do an amazing thing, to liberate the people from Egypt, God identifies not as action but as self.  God doesn’t have to do anything to be defined, God just is.

As a busy person, I strive to have moments when I don’t have to do, but I can just be.  I often find that in those quiet spaces of just being I am closer to God.  I guess it should be no surprise that our God, “I am” connects best with me when I simply “am.”  It’s like that old joke on how we were created as human-beings and not human-doings.

We find Moses this week staring at a strange sight, a bush that burns without burning.  He is encountering a God he doesn’t know, standing on sand and rocks with his bare feet.  A God whose name is simply “being-ness”.  And moreover, this God is telling Moses that he is the one to lead the Israelites from Egypt, he is the one to face off with the Pharaoh, he is the one to speak the words of God.  Moses will respond like any of us would, “I think you have the wrong guy!”

But of course, God doesn’t ever have the wrong guy or gal.  The promise God makes to Moses in this situation is simple, “being-ness”.  “Being-ness” will be with Moses from here on out and that is enough.  That is all it takes.  That simple presence is enough to get Moses back into Egypt and out again with thousands of people at his heels.

It’s a humbling story isn’t it?  And yet I believe that many of us will experience moments like this as well.  God calls us to look away from the world, to turn aside and see.  We take our shoes off, get vulnerable, bare our soles, and God calls us to some strange and outlandish task.  And we stammer and struggle and say no.  And God says don’t worry, “being-ness” will be with you.  You already have all you need to do this. 

You know what’s cool . . . God believes in Moses.  Moses doesn’t even know God, may not be sure he even believes in God yet, but God believes in Moses.  God believes that Moses can do this thing.  And what’s extra cool about that; is that God believes in you.  Right now today.  God believes in you, even if you aren’t sure you believe in God.  God is confident that you can go out into the world and do the things God is calling you to do.

Today I invite you to turn aside and look.  To find God in a burning bush.  To take your shoes off and get un-comfortable.  To ask questions, hear answers, and just rest in “being-ness”.  God believed in Moses, and God believes in you.  That means anything is possible!  Amen.