A Sermon preached on Lent
III, March 24, at St. Augustine’s Wiesbaden
Exodus 3: 1 – 15, 1 Corinthians 10: 1 – 13, Luke 13: 1 – 9
So,
a Calvinist arrives at St Peter's pearly gates and sees that there are two
queues going in. One is marked 'predestined' and the other is marked 'free
will'. Being the card-carrying Calvinist that he is, he strolls on over to the
predestined queue. After several moments an angel asks him, 'Why are you in
this line?' He replies, "Because I chose it.' The angel looks surprised,
'Well, if you "chose" it, then you should be in the free will line.'
So our Calvinist, now slightly miffed, obediently wanders over to the free will
line. Again, after a few minutes, another angel asks him, 'Why are you in this
line?' He sullenly replies, 'Someone made me come here.’
That sounds like a Catch
22 situation to me, but don’t worry, that’s not how free will works! Let’s talk
about choices. We are all constantly faced with choices: little ones like what am
I going to have for breakfast, am I going to church, or will I go out for a
coffee with friends instead – you all made the right choice today. Then we have
the big, life choices: our career path, relationships, having children. Some
are easy, and some are real struggles.
I think we can safely assume
that the choice Moses was given in this morning’s OT reading was one he struggled
with. You do not expect an encounter with God when you are out grazing sheep in
the middle of nowhere. You do not expect an encounter with God, at least not a
pleasant one, when the reason you are in the middle of nowhere is because you
have fled there after killing an Egyptian overseer. And you do not really want
an encounter with God, especially one in which God asks you to help with something
really difficult, when you have just made yourself comfortable, and married a
nice girl whose father is a priest. Good choice!
But God wants to talk
to Moses and so having got his attention, spectacularly, “God called to him out
of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” (Exodus 3:4) What does
God have to say? God knows that Moses, and Moses’ people have forgotten who God
is, so first God tells Moses: "I am the God of your father, the God of
Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." (3:6) Moses is afraid to
look at God, perhaps also because of his recent past. But God has not finished.
He has not just come to reestablish a relationship, he has a request: “I have
observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt,” God continues, “I have come
down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land
to … a land flowing with milk and honey.” (3:7-8) So far so good. But Moses has
a role to pay in this plan: “So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my
people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.” (3:10)
And this is where
Moses’ struggle really begins. He starts a discussion with God: “Who am I that
I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” (3:11) I sense
both fear and a sense of inadequacy on Moses’ part in this question. God’s answer
is simple: you will have to trust me. “I will be with you,” is God’s promise and
one day, “when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God
on this mountain.” (3:12) Moses’ second objection is that the Israelites won’t
believe him. But God assures him that once Moses reveals who God is, the God of
their ancestors, the God who simply is and called everything into being, they will
follow. And as we know, they did … though as we hear Paul tell us in the
extract from his letter to the Corinthians, not without complaints and backsliding.
God does not promise that it will be easy, just that Moses will get all the
help he needs to complete the task. I should add that the discussion continues
after this passage and that it takes a lot to convince Moses.
Tomorrow we celebrate
the Feast of the Annunciation, commemorating the appearance by the angel
Gabriel to Mary and that angel’s announcement that she would be the mother of a
son, Jesus, who will be called Son of God. (Luke 1:26-38). If it’s an
announcement, does Mary have a choice? I think so, even if again a difficult
one. Like Moses she was not expecting an encounter with God’s messenger, who does,
and is surprised, ‘perplexed’ is the word used in the passage. Like Moses she
has questions. “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” This is both a practical
question and an expression of concern for the consequences for her as a woman
engaged, but not yet married. But faced with both the importance of the task,
and trusting in God’s promise through Gabriel that God is with her and that
nothing is impossible with God, Mary assents and agrees, in faith, to God’s
invitation: "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me
according to your word."
Both Moses and Mary
were afraid, both of them first felt totally inadequate for the task, but after
a struggle, both chose to accept God’s invitation to be an instrument
of God’s saving grace and to trust that God would not only choose them, but
also empower and equip them. This is the same promise that Paul refers to in
his letter when he urges the Corinthians to draw from the source of their power:
"God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength,
but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able
to endure it." (1 Cor. 10:13)
Looking at these
examples, do we really have a choice with God? Yes, we do. God never forces us
to do things. God always asks. Sure, God is persistent because God loves us and
has our best interests at heart. And God has pretty good arguments as we heard
in the two stories. But we can say no. One sure sign that someone is not sent
by God or acting on God’s behalf is if they say that God made them do it.
We are not puppets, we are created in the divine image which includes our ability
and power to choose, even when they are wrong choices.
We may not be
confronted with the sort of invitation that Moses and Mary received. But we are
all invited into a relationship with God that is, I believe, the very purpose
of our creation. And we are all called to be instrument of God’s saving grace:
Like Moses we can help
release the people of this world from slavery and dependence, including the self-imposed,
and from oppression. Like Mary we can be God-bearers, bringing the good news of
God in Christ to the world. Choosing whether to accept this invitation
is our biggest life choice and it is first and foremost one that is good for us.
On last week’s Lenten
walk, Andy read a lovely prayer he had found about God’s created world[1]
and one verse stuck in my mind, because it sums up just why God’s invitation to
us should be so compelling:
In the beginning, Lord
I was alone,
but when I saw you in
the light, I was no longer afraid.
You held out your
hand,
and though I had a
choice
I had no choice,
because to refuse
was to embrace again
the darkness.
Amen.
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