Exodus 3:1-15
Psalm 63:1-8
1 Corinthians 10:1-13
Luke 13:1-9
One of the churches I preached in regularly all three years I was in seminary was founded by five World War II widows. They founded that church “behind the scene” so to speak. In those days the church didn’t allow women to do much. They sewed altar linens and kneeling cushions with their own hands. They used their own money to buy bread and wine, prayer books and hymnals. They taught Sunday school, invited people to worship with them, and recruited men who could serve as lay leaders in the church. But they weren’t allowed to serve on the vestry or attend diocesan convention, or have any part in the worship service, because they were women.
By the time I got there in 1998, only two of the original five widows were still living. They sat together on the front pew like they had done for decades. They couldn’t stand behind the altar or in the pulpit, but they sat as close as they could. I was the first woman to preach regularly in that church. Every other week I looked at them sitting tall as they could in their pew with big smiles on their faces. No matter what the lessons were, or what I said, they were always smiling. Truth is, they were both deaf as a post. They never heard a word I said. And what I said wasn’t nearly as important to them as who was saying it. It was the vessel the words were coming from that put smiles on their faces. For nearly half a century those women tended and cared for that little church, long before they could do anything that was NOT behind the scenes. It thrilled them to live long enough to see a woman preach in the church they started. That was a humble beginning for me in this vocation. I learned early on that the messenger has something to do with the message.
Moses was minding his own business tending sheep in Midian. He got curious about a bush burning nearby on Mt. Horeb. The firelight beckoned him closer. He left his sheep and “turned aside” to see this burning bush that was not consumed. Then from the bush Moses heard the voice of God calling him by name and saying, “Come no closer, Moses. Take off your sandals. You are standing on holy ground.”
Moses had fled to that place to escape Pharaoh’s anger at him. One day he saw an Egyptian taskmaster beating a Hebrew slave. He intervened to stop the slave’s suffering and killed the Egyptian. For that Pharaoh wanted to kill Moses. You remember Moses grew up in the house of Pharaoh. Pharaoh’s daughter found him floating in the water as a baby. She sent him back to the Hebrews, to his own mother, to be nursed by her. When he was weaned he became part of Egypt’s royal family until he was grown. Even with that history, Pharaoh intended to kill him for what he’d done. So Moses left that family and found refuge in Midian in the family of Jethro who was a priest. Many years later that Pharaoh died. His son became king of Egypt. The new Pharaoh knew Moses too. It is to this Pharaoh that God is sending Moses to bring the Israelites out of Egypt .
Up until the time Moses saw the burning bush, he didn’t have much of a relationship with the God of his biological ancestors. Maybe his birth mother whispered stories of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in his ear as she nursed him. But he was raised as an Egyptian. Maybe his father-in-law told Moses of the God of Israel. It still makes perfect sense to me that Moses would question God choosing him as a messenger. So he asks God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt.” Moses knew he would put himself in harm’s way by going to Pharaoh. God said to him, “I will be with you.”
Moses barely knew the God of his Hebrew ancestors, the God of his wife’s people. He thought he lacked credibility to be a messenger of the one true God to Israel, the People of God. That’s why he wanted to know what to tell them if they asked the name of the God who sent him.
Moses learns as he follows through with what God sent him to do that God chose him to be an instrument of God’s mercy for the Israelites. The only credentials he had prior to meeting God in the bush was that he once showed mercy to one of God’s people. He killed an Egyptian in the process. You would think God might have taken that into account. But God saw fit to use him an as instrument of mercy, a vessel carrying the message of God’s steadfast love for the Israelites.
Fast forward many generations later. God comes to the earth as one of us in Jesus. He is the next instrument of God’s mercy, the vessel carrying the message of God’s love not just for the Israelites this time, but for the whole world. It is God’s mercy that Jesus is talking about in the parable of the fig tree and the gardener. The gardener (who represents Jesus in the parable) says to the owner (who represents God, the Father), do not destroy the tree for not producing fruit. Let me tend it and nurture it first. Let me be the agent of your mercy before you judge the tree.
All of us, because we have been united with Christ in baptism, are agents of God’s mercy, vessels carrying a message of God’s love for the world – a message that is to be delivered, though not necessarily spoken. The message of God’s steadfast love and mercy for the world God created is a message that lives in the messenger. It’s doing what you can with the gifts you have like those five women did for the church. Not even our sins get in the way of being agents of God’s mercy. In fact, it’s because we have received God’s love and mercy in such abundance that we can be loving and merciful to others.
When I first said out loud to someone that I felt called to preach, I nearly choked to death on the words. How could I be called to preach! I stutter, especially when I’m tired. I put my foot in my mouth all the time. I string words together in an odd way. My family will be the first to tell you how amazed they are that I say such silly things.
Repentance is not just about sin. A big part of the process of repentance is saying NO to whatever we think keeps us from saying YES to being an agent of God’s love and mercy. My prayer for all of us this Lent is that we turn away from all excuses for saying no to being an agent of mercy, and say yes for the sake of Christ’s church, and for his Gospel.
Copyright. 2010. The Reverend Pamela S. Morgan
