Sermon 31st January 2016

Today, one of our Lay Readers, Simon Brindley, continues our study of Bible faith-heroes. Today, we look at Moses. The reading is from Deuteronomy 34. 

Moses

Continuing with our series of great figures from the Bible, I have chosen Moses and I did so for a number of reasons, which I shall mention as we go along. I can’t possibly hope to do this great figure justice in just over 15 minutes but I hope to at least remind us of at least some of the main events, issues and challenges of his life and ask what God might be saying to us today as we think about them.

The story of Moses begins in Egypt because he was born when the Jewish people were living there. You may remember Joseph had brought his father and brothers and families down to Egypt during a time of famine and the people had stayed and for some time prospered in Egypt. By Moses’ day however, perhaps 400 years after the time of Joseph, they had become enslaved by the Egyptians. And they were getting so numerous that Pharoah feared they might revolt. So he ordered all newborn Hebrew boys to be killed. Moses’ mother hid him in a basket in the reeds at the edge of the River Nile – hence the term “Moses basket” that we still use today – where he was found by Pharoah’s daughter and eventually brought up as an Egyptian. Apologies if you have heard this story before but in 1970 when asked on a British Forces radio inter-schools’ quiz show in Germany at the age of 12 or 13 who was found in the bulrushes, I answered, like the rabbit caught in the headlights, “err Samuel?”. And I was the school chaplain’s son! I have recovered from the embarrassment, I think, but I don’t think I have ever quite forgiven myself. There’s the first reason why I needed to choose Moses. I am still working on the subject!

And Moses grew up in the Egyptian royal household. When he was an adult he saw the Hebrews being forced to do hard labour and he saw an Egyptian kill a Hebrew slave. So Moses killed the Egyptian and buried his body and then had to flee when he realized the next day that some Hebrews knew exactly what he had done. Hardly the most auspicious start you might think for a great man of God.  And ironic, you might think, for the first recorded event in the adult life of the man later to be given, directly from God, the commandment, “Do not commit murder” to be to kill someone. There is too much to cover today to look in great detail about what that commandment means but enough to say that there appears to be a clear distinction in the Old Testament between lawful and unlawful killing and I believe its clear that Moses had committed a serious crime that day. Enough perhaps to be reminded, as we have been by others speaking about their Biblical heroes in this series, that God is not taking great, extraordinary people and using them. Rather, these are examples of people in all kinds of conditions being used by a great God. I hesitate to say they are people like you and me, as I am pretty sure none of us started adult life killing someone, but you know what I mean…

So, because of what he had done, Moses fled - to Midian - to the East, on the far side of the Red Sea many miles away, and settled there. He married the daughter of Jethro, a priest and had a son and lived in Midian for some years.

One day he was looking after Jethro’s flocks and he took them to Mount Sinai and, you may remember, the angel of the Lord appeared to him like flame in a bush that burnt but did not burn up.  “Moses and the burning bush.” And God spoke to Moses from the bush and called him to go back to Egypt to lead the enslaved Hebrews out of their oppression. And what happens next is very interesting because, despite the fact of the bush that did not burn up and despite the fact that he knew God was speaking to him directly, for some time Moses just started to make excuses, anything it would seem to try to get out of what God has just called him to. “But I am a nobody,” he said. So God spent a long time reassuring him on that one.

Then he said, “But what if the Hebrews don’t believe me when I say God sent me?” So God gave him a miraculous power to thrown his stick on the ground and change it to a snake and gthen back to a stick, so he could later prove himself to the Hebrews. But Moses must have still been unsure because God gave him also the power to put his healthy hand inside his tunic and for it to come out diseased, then back to healthy. And the power to take water from the River Nile and turn it to blood.

What more could young Moses possibly want? Surely the people would have followed him anywhere when they saw that lot! But then Moses made another excuse. “I am hopeless at speaking in public, “ he said. And even when God said he would help him find all the words he needed, Moses said again, “Please send someone else”. And finally God got angry and told him that his brother Aaron could do all the public speaking for him.

And finally Moses agreed to go back to Egypt.

 But what a litany of excuses! And all this from the man who was to become one of the famous names of Jewish and Christian history. I know our particular circumstances today are different, but does any of that ring a bell with you? “Can’t someone else do it?” “Why does it have to be me?”  “I’m really too rubbish to even start…..”

 Particularly if you try to follow what God might want for your life I suspect you will find yourself sometimes thinking you are just not good enough.  You may even find yourself wishing for an easy, quiet life…But again Moses is not an example of God taking a great person and using them.  All these Biblical heroes are examples, rather, of people in all kinds of states and conditions – like we are – being used by a great God. It’s only a small personal example but when I was a teenager and my Mum told a friend that Simon wanted to be a lawyer, the friend said, “Oh, he must love public speaking!” I didn’t. I didn’t dare even to do school plays, ever! I never spoke in public, I was absolutely terrified of the thought. It was only later God slowly gave me what I needed to do this.

But a much better example is this.  A couple of weeks ago I met up again with a woman I know in her late 60’s. Let’s call her Anne although that is not her real name. I have known her about 8 years. She lives a few miles that way.  If you met her you’d think she was an ordinary person, quite quiet and modest. Probably what you would think of as working class. She’s lost a lot of weight recently and decided to have another tattoo. I don’t know all her circumstances but 15-20 years ago she was in a pretty bad way. Broken marriage, two older teenage sons, both taking drugs and making a living of sorts in petty drug dealing. I don’t know all the circumstances, but what really turned Anne’s life around was when she was confirmed in her local church. She eventually became a Reader, like Adrian and Trevor and Adjoa and me. And a gifted churchworker she is indeed. She told me recently her sons had to be almost dragged to her confirmation service. They wanted nothing to do with God, so she put each one under the control of one of her brothers so they would actually turn up. And our great God took an ordinary person in unlikely circumstances and used her… what a great story!

But if I tell you that Anne’s younger drug-taking, drug-dealing son is now, years later, married and moving to a new house with his family and that he is, now, also a Reader in his church, because of what he saw God doing in his mother’s life, you might begin to get an even better sense of what God can do..

And if I tell you that her older drug-taking, drug-dealing son from South London is now, years later, an ordained parish priest leading, with his wife, a growing and thriving congregation of people from a town and a neighbouring township on the East coast of South Africa, I think these facts might begin to speak for themselves. I think it was their Mum’s confirmation service that was the turning point.

People in all kinds of conditions, like you and me, being used by a great God. That’s another reason I chose the story of Moses.

And Moses, from his unlikely beginning, shepherd, exile, murderer, stammerer perhaps, reluctant for sure, went back to Egypt. And after a long period, you may recall, of pleading unsuccessfully with Pharoah and God sending all those nasty plagues culminating in the Spirit of God passing over the houses of the Israelites but killing all the first born sons of Egypt, in events still at the heart of Jewish religious observation today, finally Moses leads his people out of their slavery, hundreds of thousands of them according to Exodus chapter 12. And so he becomes the great leader, the great freedom fighter, freeing his entire people after hundreds of years of slavery and abuse. And he becomes a figure of inspiration, not only in Judaism and Christianity but in Islam and other religions too. Did you know that Moses is mentioned in the Quran for example, more times than any other single individual? And he inspires people throughout history who have sought liberty, from George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, to Winston Churchill and Martin Luther King, to Bob Marley, no doubt to Nelson Mandela and certainly to Barack Obama who described his supporters as “the Moses generation”. So here is another reason why I chose him, as an inspiration to everyone who has tried to fight for freedom for their people from oppression.

Perhaps that on its own might have been enough for one man but you may recall what happens next..

It’s a long story of the Israelites wandering in the desert under the leadership of Moses for many years before finally they enter the Promised Land. I have time to draw out only three further events, one from near the beginning of their journey, one from somewhere in the middle and one finally from the end.

Early on in their Exodus journey, with the Egyptian army hot on their heels, the Israelites come to an expanse of water, possibly the Red Sea itself, possibly a river or lake further north, which looks impossible to cross. They are certain they are trapped and will be recaptured and goodness knows what will happen to them then. But in an event that went on to become one of the key moments in Jewish cultural history, the waters ahead of them part and the Israelites move through the impossible barrier, and the waters close behind them, trapping the Egyptians.

I wonder if you ever get times when everything that lies in front of you looks as if it will be impossible to get through and disaster seems inevitable? It might be to do with your family, a particular relationship perhaps. It might be to do with your work, burdens on burdens piling up and timetables and expectations getting worse. It might be to do with illness or even a death of someone close. If it is a combination of more than one of any of those then disaster might indeed seem inevitable. But the story of The Red Sea parting is the Old Testament reminder that if we put our lives into God’s hands, we will never be far from hope, even when things seem absolutely impossible. Our God is a God of hope and he will and does find a way through even our darkest days. You know the New Testament culmination of this hope. Like me you might even wear a symol of the beginning of those events round your neck. Coming through the Red Sea was in a very real sense for the Hebrews coming through the waters of death.

And you will recall, I imagine, the event from the middle of the Israelite wanderings when Moses goes up to the top of Mount Sinai and is given directly from God the detailed laws, starting with what we know as the Ten Commandments, fundamental rules for the ordering of good society under God. Respect for God, for your own family life, for the lives and families and property of others and all under God. Rules that have been often credited as the basis for the best of modern society. Did you know that Winston Churchill himself described Moses as “the supreme law-giver, who received from God that remarkable moral code on which the religious, moral and social life of the nation was so securely founded and one of the greatest human beings with the most decisive leap forward ever discernable in the human story.”

Moses the law-giver. As a lawyer, who else could I really choose? I think it is only as you get older you realize just how incredible it is to live in a society that is actually governed by the rule of law. Our system is far from perfect, the lack of availability of the courts to those without financial means a growing scandal, but corruption is very low and at the end of the day, the law is what the democratically elected Parliament decides and both the government and we as citizens can be called to account by the courts. There are countless places in the world where that is not the case and I know where I would rather live.

Moses the freedom fighter and Moses the great law giver.

But now just one final point to note from the end of the story of Moses. Just as he nears the end of his journey, just as the Promised Land is actually in sight, Moses dies. God shows him everything but tells him he will not enter it. That will be left to others. So maybe there will be times for us when we have to struggle and fight and work and persist and battle but the fullbenefits of all that will in the end be for others to enjoy, in our families, in our churches or in our communities. That might be the way it might work out for you, but maybe the struggle will be enough and that is what those who come after you will remember.

The full Moses story is much more detailed than I have been able to get across. There are some aspects that are harder for us to understand, that would need much longer to work through, but for today it’s enough to finish with these words from that passage at the end of Deuteronomy:

“There has never been a prophet in Israel like Moses. The Lord spoke with him face to face.”

But don’t forget where and how he began. God can take what little you think you have to offer and he can do great things in your own very different circumstances and lead you through even the seemingly impossible barriers.

Amen