PROPERS: 3 LENT, YEAR C
TEXT: EXODUS 3:1-15
PREACHED AT ST. PAUL’S CHAPEL, MAGNOLIA SPRINGS, ON SUNDAY, MARCH 20, 2022.
ONE SENTENCE: The Great I Am still hears the cries of the unfortunate.
The Old Testament lesson today – from Exodus – is one of the seminal stories of the Hebrew Scriptures.
The central figure of the Old Testament, the foundation on which the Jewish faith is built, is Moses. His ancestors had been brought to Egypt by Joseph. He was born to a slave woman, to a people oppressed by the Egyptian overlords. As a newborn, he was rescued out of the bullrushes of the Nile by Pharoah’s family. He was a fortunate child indeed. His mother was chosen to suckle him.
Moses grew up in Pharoah’s household and became a prince of Egypt. But coming to realize his heritage and witnessing an Egyptian beating a Hebrew slave, he lashed out and killed the Egyptian. Fearing that he would be found out, he fled to the Wilderness of Sinai.
There he married Zipporah, a daughter of the priest of Midian – likely representing some sort of primitive religion worshipping a desert God. Moses settled in the desert, raising a family, and tending to his father-in-law’s herds at the foot of Mount Sinai.
Mount Sinai was a mystical mountain. We are unsure to this day exactly peak it was. Tradition has pointed toward one in particular – an ominous, craggy, extinct volcano in the Sinai desert.
In the passage today, Moses is tending the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, at the base of the mountain. But something draws his attention. He sees a bush afire, but the bush is not consumed. So, he goes closer to investigate this mystical sight.
A voice calls to him out of the flame and says that he – Moses – has been chosen to lead the Hebrews out of bondage in Egypt. The voice says that it – God – has heard the cries of the chosen people, and Moses would be sent to free them.
It is then, at that point, that the story reaches its apex. “Whom shall I say sent me?” Moses asks. The voice replies to Moses’ query: “I AM WHO I AM. Tell them I AM sent you.”
The precise translation of that verse has been the subject of much-debate. The Hebrew letters comprise what is known as the Divine Tetragrammaton. To this day, observant Jews will not say it. Christians generally translate it Jehovah or Yahweh. I prefer Yahweh.
“I AM WHO I AM.” What does that mean? Another translation is, “I will be who I will be.” In other words, the divine being, the desert God, the spirit that we worship as the Lord of earth, sea, and sky, will not be put in a box. The Great I AM will be and do whatever pleases the divine nature. See the Book of Job for clarification – or lack of clarification.
However, there is one thing that is abundantly clear in this passage: God hears the cries of the oppressed. And God seeks to send those who would relieve the suffering of the people.
That seems especially applicable today as we look across the globe at Ukraine, and the suffering of women, men, and children who are caught among bombs, explosions, and gunfire. God would send relief. We are the Moses of today. We can and should respond.
Yet, we need not look half a world away to find suffering. Grief, hunger, poverty, homelessness, nakedness, thirst are outside our door.
I am immensely proud of how this congregation responds to needs in our community. As people of faith, we seek to meet people’s basic needs. But God – the Great I AM – continues to hear the cries of people who are lost, hungry, or oppressed.
And that is the same theme we hear in the Gospel – to meet those needs where we can. To visit those in prison, as Deacon Susan will soon be doing with Kairos Outside. To care for the elderly, lonely, and infirmed. We are to cross invisible boundaries which separate us from others, and to set free from chains those who are bound by a history of not being seen – here in Baldwin County and in the hills and hollows of Appalachia.
Here and across the world, God is calling to the Moses of today.
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