Exodus 3:1-15
Romans 12:9-21
Matthew 16:21-28
One of the stranger things that I’ve experienced as a pastor is when I’ve been talking to someone and they begin swearing or cursing, and then they either remember that I’m a pastor or find out that I’m one. You can tell by the look on their face that they feel like they’re a kid caught with their hand in the cookie jar. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to swear,” they confess. The funniest time this happened, someone swore, then began to apologize and in their apology, swore again. We both laughed at the absurdity of it. My usual response to this is something like, “you don’t have to apologize to me. I’ve heard all of those words before. Take it up with the Lord. It’s the Lord’s name you’ve taken in vain, not mine.”
Why do we feel guilty for the things that we have done that are wrong? In part, it’s because deep down inside, we as human beings know that there are moral rights and moral wrongs. We may not know what the right thing is in a given moment or situation, but we do know that the world was created as a moral place, a holy place, and that we each are called to live moral and holy lives, even if that is not what our life looks like right now. That the moral life, a holy life, is our ultimate purpose.
This is what our readings are about this morning. The Old Testament lesson is God’s call to Moses to lead his people to freedom out of Egypt: “Go tell Pharoah…let my people go.” You probably know Moses’ story from reading the Bible, or Charlton Heston’s movie The Ten Commandments, or the movie The Prince of Egypt. Here is a quick summary: Moses was born to a Hebrew mother (the Hebrew people were the ones enslaved by the Egyptians). Because of Pharoah’s order that all of the Hebrew baby boys be killed, Moses’ mother puts him in a papyrus basket and floats him down the River Nile, and she prays to God that someone will rescue him.
In an act of God’s providence, Pharoah’s daughter sees the baby Moses floating in the basket on the Nile River and takes him as her own son. So, this son of slaves grows up as a prince, until one day when he’s older he sees an Egyptian slave master abusing a Hebrew slave. Full of anger and vengeance, he kills the Egyptian slave master. Moses ends up fleeing Egypt and wanders around the desert until he gets married and begins working for his father-in-law. One day while he’s working for his father-in-law tending sheep in the mountains, God comes to him in a strange encounter.
The strange encounter begins with Moses seeing a burning bush, full of flames, but the strange part is the bush is not burning up. When Moses sees this, he goes to look closer. Then God calls to him, “Moses, Moses!”
“Here I am,” Moses responds.
“Don’t come any closer,” says the Lord, “take off your scandals. The place you are standing is holy ground.” The Scripture says that Moses hid his face, “because he was afraid to look at God” because God’s presence and holiness is so powerful that no human being can look at God and live.
God and Moses continue to talk. God wants Moses to go back to Egypt and free his people, the Hebrew people from slavery. Tell Pharaoh, “let my people go” is God’s command to Moses. Moses protests that he’s not good enough, that God has the wrong person, and that Moses doesn’t know what he’s doing. But God doesn’t give in to Moses’ protests. God’s promise is “I’ll be with you.” When Moses finally seems to accept God’s command for his life, Moses asks one final question. “Suppose I go to the people of Israel. Suppose I say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you.’ Moses asks God. And suppose they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what should I tell them?”
God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. Here is what you must say to the Israelites. Tell them, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ ”
What is the word from the Lord to us this morning? For me, it’s this: God exists, God is holy, and God asks people to do things.
Another story. When I was in the military and an Army chaplain, one of my responsibilities was to advise commanders on whether they should approve Soldiers’ religious accommodation requests to grow beards for religious reasons. Usually, it was Muslim soldiers or Soldiers who got into Norse paganism. Part of the accommodation request involved an interview where I was supposed to ask questions about how sincerely they held their religious beliefs or if they were just trying to find a way to grow a beard and were using religion to justify it.
I remember interviewing this one Soldier who told me he was a Norse pagan (which is popular today among young men. It’s basically looking to ancient Norse gods from Scandinavia for guidance of morals and ethics, it’s very masculine, very militaristic, and it can become very dangerous when mixed in with racism and anti-semistism.). When I asked what led him to be a Norse pagan, he responded by trying to criticize the church and what his grandparents believed. “Well, I don’t believe in an old man in the sky who created the world, says it’s good, but doesn’t do anything about all of the bad stuff going on.”
“I don’t believe in an old man in the sky either,” I responded. You could tell that took him back.
“What do you mean? Isn’t that what the Bible teaches?” he said.
“Nope,” I shook my head. I paused to let him think. The Christian Scriptures teach that Jesus is Lord and that God is revealed to us in Jesus, meaning we know who God is and God’s character because of Jesus. And in the Old Testament, God’s name is “I AM WHO I AM.”
“Well what does that mean?” he asked.
“I don’t really know, to be honest with you,” I said, but I do know that it means that God is not an old man in the sky or the big man upstairs.
The Christian faith teaches that God created the heavens and the earth and everything you can see and everything you can’t see. God is not up there, or down here, or in this object, or in the woods, sun, or moon. God is the One who says I AM WHO I AM. It can be a confusing phrase to think about, but in part it means that God is the realest, most true, most alive being any of us can encounter.
God exists, I AM WHO I AM. God is holy. The Scriptures this morning point us to God’s holiness. Holiness means something that is set apart or different than everything else and that there is something pure about it.
For Moses, the ground he was standing on was holy. Moses hides his face from God and God orders Moses to take off his shoes because “the ground that he’s standing on is holy ground.” God is there in the most real, true way possible. The Christian faith teaches us that, in the end, the whole world is holy because God is holy and God has created the universe and Christ has redeemed it and there is not a part of the world that is not soaked with God’s presence.
How do you and I experience God holiness’s? The Scriptures teach us there are two basic ways God’s holiness is revealed to us: in a place or in relationships and communities that are ordered in the right way. For place part of holiness, this is the purpose of sanctuaries and churches and things like communion and baptism waters. They show us, point us to, and remind us of God’s holiness. But those things, in and of themselves, aren’t magical and any more holy than anything else. The Psalmist says the whole world shows God’s glory. They point us to God’s presence and holiness.
The second way is what we can call a holy, or a right ordering of relationships. The Scripture calls this neighborliness, justice, righteousness. It’s a you know it when you see it kind of thing. Some of the markers of holy relationships are where people are honored and shown dignity, equality and mutuality – the old school words for this are being brotherly, sisterly, and neighborly, the poor are honored, a right business relationship exists, people flourish and come alive, creation is respected and not abused, where respect is both shown and given.
As Christians, we are called to be holy. The apostle Paul writes about what it looks like to lead a holy life in our reading from Romans this morning:
He begins with what is going on inside of us:
9 Love must be honest and true [be a sincere person who loves and doesn’t hold hate and grudges]. Hate what is evil. Hold on to what is good. 10 Love one another deeply. Honor others more than yourselves [don’t just think about what you need and feel, think about what others need and feel too]. 11 Stay excited about your faith as you serve the Lord [don’t lose heart and don’t let busyness get in the way of what is most important, God]. 12 When you hope, be joyful. When you suffer, be patient. When you pray, be faithful. 13 Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Welcome others into your homes [show hospitality].
Paul then moves into our relationships and interactions with others, especially when they are difficult and full of conflict.
14 Bless those who hurt you. Bless them, and do not curse them [this might be one of the hardest Christian teachings, to bless those who have hurt and wronged us and to do so in a sincere way]. 15 Be joyful with those who are joyful. Be sad with those who are sad. 16 Agree with one another [the Christian ethic is to be agreeable and to maintain the relationship, even when you don’t agree…you can disagree without being disagreeable]. Don’t be proud [check your pride and ego, it’s a dangerous thing]. Be willing to be a friend of people who aren’t considered important. Don’t think that you are better than others.
Paul then addresses our very human tendency to replay things in our mind and to try to settle scores and get even in our favor. We like to win, but the Christian faith isn’t about winning. Paul writes of our Christian responsibility:
17 Don’t pay back evil with evil. Be careful to do what everyone thinks is right. 18 If possible, live in peace with everyone [it may not be possible, but you have to try]. Do that as much as you can. 19 My dear friends, don’t try to get even. Leave room for God to show his anger. It is written, “I am the God who judges people. I will pay them back,” (Deuteronomy 32:35) says the Lord. 20 Do just the opposite. Scripture says,
“If your enemies are hungry, give them food to eat.
If they are thirsty, give them something to drink.
By doing those things, you will pile up burning coals on their heads.” (Proverbs 25:21,22)21 Don’t let evil overcome you. Overcome evil by doing good.
God is and God is I AM WHO I AM. God is holy. And God asks us to do things, mainly to lead a holy and worthy life. The promise of the gospel is that God will be with us like he promised to be with Moses. There is nothing easy about the Christian life. We each have to follow the Lord Jesus and do what our conscience has placed on us, and sometimes that means that we are asked to do very hard things (take up your cross). But the promise of the gospel is that God is with us, and has gone before us and ahead of us. Amen.