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Moses - Ex 2:11-15
Sermons from Commons Church. Intellectually honest. Spiritually passionate. Jesus at the centre. Since 2014.
Last week and then for the next seven weeks, we are going to be exploring the story of Moses. The story that is probably more than any other story, the definitional one for the entire Old Testament. Now don't get me wrong. There are some great characters in the Old Testament. Abraham and David have great stories.
Speaker 1:There are great prophets like Isaiah and then terrible prophets like Jonah, and they are all worth reading about. About. But no single character has as much influence on the shape and the tenor of the Old Testament as Moses. In fact, when Jesus comes on the scene about a millennia after Moses, it is Deuteronomy eighteen fifteen that the disciples call on to reference Jesus significance. In Acts chapter three, Peter gets up, he gives a sermon and he says this, times of refreshing have come from the Lord, For he has sent the Messiah who has been appointed for you, even Jesus.
Speaker 1:Just as God promised long ago through his prophets, for Moses said, and here he quotes Deuteronomy, the Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people. You must listen to everything he tells you. So when Peter wants to show the authority, the significance of the ministry of Jesus, he connects him back to the words and the leadership of Moses. The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your people, says Moses. Now, as Christians, we believe that Jesus, is not only like Moses, but he goes past him in a lot of ways.
Speaker 1:But it helps us to understand the reverence and the deference the Jews afforded to this great character. Jesus was from the line of David, a descendant of Abraham, but he was a prophet. He was a leader like Moses is what they said. And so this is why, even as followers of Jesus, some three thousand years removed from the Exodus, we still find ourselves wanting to go back and return and learn from the story of Moses and be shaped and formed into the people of God. And so last week, we began the story, but we didn't get very far.
Speaker 1:We got to Moses in a basket, and that was hit as a baby. And yet, at least for me, already lots to chew on. We noted the connection that the author of this story makes between Moses and Joseph, the character who comes before him in the story. And he wants to show us, that the Hebrew story, the Jewish story is an unfolding story. It is not a series of unrelated snapshots.
Speaker 1:It is a progressive journey with a thread and a past, and perhaps most importantly, a future. And this is incredibly important because he wants to show us how our past helps us navigate our present. Perhaps, the author thinks, if he can remind his audience that God was with Joseph in his personal slavery. And perhaps his audience can trust that God will be with the Jews in their national slavery. And then perhaps, they can learn what it would mean to truly believe that God is with them in their personal struggle, whatever that is in the moment.
Speaker 1:As Richard Rohr puts it, if you can realize that God is letting this happen to you now, to teach you something, to show you something, to love you in a new way, then you can move from the fixing, understanding, and controlling mode to the trusting, listening, and allowing mode. And then you start experiencing the divine flow instead of stopping it with a no and a question mark. And so remembering where we have been, remembering our past and our history as people of God helps us to see God in the midst of our present wherever we are. But that was last week, and this week, we want to move forward. And honestly, eight weeks is a long series to be stuck in one character here, but the truth is we could spend far far longer with Moses if we had the time.
Speaker 1:We made it to Moses in a basket last week. Today, we are going to move four more verses forward. That's it. And so I would encourage you, as always, if you have time to read through the stuff that we're not gonna talk about on Sunday. Read through, Exodus right through to the end of the Pentateuch, and you'll get great stuff about Moses in there that we won't have time to dig into.
Speaker 1:But this week, we pick up exactly where we left off last week. In Exodus two verse 11, Moses has been picked up out of a basket in the river. His real mother has been hired by Pharaoh, Pharaoh's daughter to nurse him, and he has been brought back to the palace to live in the house of the royal family. And so here we go, verse 11, we read this. That one day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his people were and he watched them at their hard labor.
Speaker 1:Now, let's pause here for a second because this juxtaposition is fascinating to me. Moses is a Hebrew, but he has grown up as an Egyptian. Not only that, he has grown up as the most privileged type of Egyptian possible part of the royal household. And so we wonder, does he even see himself as a Jew at this point? Does he think of himself as an Egyptian at this point in the story?
Speaker 1:He does seem to know that he's a Hebrew, but does he feel like one? Has he gone out to watch his people labor before? Is this something that he does from time to time? Is it something that he does out of pity, out of guilt, simply just fascination? And one of the most intriguing parts of the Old Testament is that as we read, we are generally only ever told what the characters do.
Speaker 1:Very rarely do Hebrew narratives even attempt to tell us why they do what they do. We just don't get internal monologues the way that we do in contemporary writing. And so one of the really important things to do when you read the Old Testament is to wonder about the why. Why does he do this? These stories are very intentionally constructed in a way that is meant to draw you in.
Speaker 1:It's meant to invite speculation. You are meant to wonder. That's part of the point. In fact, one of the most important treasured bodies of work in the Hebrew tradition is what we call the Midrash. In Hebrew, it's actually the Midrashim.
Speaker 1:That's their plural form. Because the Midrash is not a singular work. It's a collection of stories by different authors that speculate about all of these whys in the scriptures. And there's actually two different types of Midrash. Midrash Halakah, which is commentary in the laws, what God said and why he said them maybe.
Speaker 1:And then there's Midrash Haggadah, and that would apply to this passage. It's speculation about the narratives, about the stories, what's going on in the minds of the characters. And so these Midrashim are stories from the rabbis that fill in the gaps in different ways. They attempt to answer the questions and they wonder about the whys. Now, what's really fascinating about Midrash is that the Midrash will often contain multiple stories that fill in the gaps in the story in different ways.
Speaker 1:Almost as if the exercise of asking why was just as important as the answer was to the Hebrews. And so we'll come back to Midrash commentary on this passage in a little bit from now. But, even as we begin, just remember this. It's okay, it's actually good, and it's healthy to wonder about why these characters do the things they do. That's part of engaging the scripture well.
Speaker 1:Your questions are good questions. So let's finish this story, and then we'll do some work here. One day, he went out and he watched his people. And he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own. Looking this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.
Speaker 1:The next day he went out and he saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew? The man said, who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian? Then Moses was afraid and he thought, what I did must have become known.
Speaker 1:When Pharaoh heard of this, he tried to kill Moses, but Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian. Exodus two verses 11 to 15. Let's pray. God, help us this evening to be, overcome with passion for justice. To see wrong and to long for change to come to this world.
Speaker 1:And we wanna be active in our pursuit of what is good. But at the same time, God, we ask that you would help us not to be so impulsive, so eager, so egotistical perhaps, to think that all of our well meaning actions can't cause more harm than good. We long for a just world, but we know that that will only come through the grace and the peace that we see evident in your son. And so for all of the times that we have tried to do good and it has ended in pain, we ask for your forgiveness. But we also ask for your courage to try again, to not give up, to keep engaged with good.
Speaker 1:For all those times that we wanted to do good, but we were afraid. And we stayed quiet, and we watched from a distance and let it happen. We ask again for your forgiveness, But we also ask again for your courage this time to act, to speak wisely, and to engage ourselves in what is just. Help us to learn as Moses learns. Help us to grow as Moses grows.
Speaker 1:Help us to step into our destiny that Moses as Moses was able to. And for the pain and the failure and the scars of our mistakes, we ask that your spirit would come and heal and renew us and move us forward. So that we could begin to work for your good and your kingdom again. In the strong name of the risen Christ, we pray. Amen.
Speaker 1:Okay. Now, here we are with Moses this week, and, this is where we're at in the story. He is born a Hebrew, having been raised in the palace, having murdered an Egyptian, and now having fled into the wilderness. And there's a couple things that we need to talk about here, even before we go forward, even just these few short verses. And first of all, I said this, we've already wondered about Moses coming out to watch his people at work.
Speaker 1:Clearly, he knows that he is a Hebrew. Perhaps because of his appearance, as part of a Semitic tribe, he would have looked different from his Egyptian family. Sometimes people wonder this about adoption. When do you tell your child they're adopted? How do you tell your child they're adopted?
Speaker 1:Our son, Ethan, was born in Canada of Vietnamese descent. There is likely not going to be much secret about his adoption as he gets older. I actually have a friend who adopted his daughter from Africa. And one day, when she was six, they were in the car driving. And, she spoke up from the back seat and she said, dad, how come my hair is curly and mom's hair is straight?
Speaker 1:And he was like, oh, shoot, here we go. Okay. We gotta explain this. And so he began to explain adoption, how she was born in Africa. All of this he had done before, but he goes through, rehearsed it again.
Speaker 1:And she interrupts him and she said, and I quote, actually, dad, I know all that. What I asked was, why is my hair curly and mom's hair straight? Absolutely did not care about adoption or skin color or ethnicity in that moment. This is just a hairstyle question. Alright?
Speaker 1:And he said, talk to your mom about that. So some some adoptions aren't secret. Right? This is how it goes. My guess is it wasn't for Moses either.
Speaker 1:His status as an adopted Hebrew in the royal house of Egypt was likely a known factor. And yet, there are hints here already that his identity was a point of struggle. First, the text says that he goes out to watch his people at their work. This is not something that someone who has embraced their royal status does. Not most of us who live in the privilege of the first world do not care to know what it takes to maintain our life style.
Speaker 1:I mean, we know that people work in sweat shops to produce our clothing, but we don't want to see that. We know that people toil long hours to make our phones, but we don't really want to read about that. Now, we know that people work to pick the beans that become our chocolate and our coffee, but we don't want to look at them. And Moses here has the audacity, the character perhaps, to force himself to see. I mentioned, the Midrash earlier.
Speaker 1:There's an account of Moses conversation with God at the burning bush, a story that we're gonna get to next week. But in one of the Midrash versions that fills in the gaps, God speaks to Moses and he says this, you have put aside your business and gone to share the sorrow of Israel, behaving to them like a brother. Therefore, I also will leave the high places to come and speak with you. Also for the rabbis, God comes to Moses, God speaks to Moses precisely because Moses was the kind of person that went to those in distress. This is important because if we wish to be the kinds of people that God speaks with as he did Moses, then ignorance is not an excuse for injustice.
Speaker 1:Don't kid yourself. Moses could have very easily stayed in the palace, enjoyed his privilege, considered himself an Egyptian, made sure that he never saw the plight of those who made his royal lifestyle possible. But not looking is not an excuse. In fact, not looking is the unstated premise on which empires are built. They don't want you to look at what it takes to maintain things.
Speaker 1:The husband and wife theologian team of Brian Walsh and Sylvia Kismet out of the University of Toronto say it this way. You see, if there is one thing any empire wants you to believe, it is that what you see is what you get. Empires project a sense of all embracing normality. Not only do empires want us to think that reality is totally constructed of the structures, symbols, and systems that have been imperially constructed. They want us to believe that the future holds no more than a heightened realization of imperial hopes and dreams.
Speaker 1:Moses, this is your world. Accept it. Be thankful you're at the top of the pyramid, but whatever you do, don't look down. And yet one day, he went out and he watched and it changed everything. Perhaps, we could ask ourselves where we need to take a second look at what it takes to maintain our world.
Speaker 1:Now, you can start small. You can buy ethically sourced coffee. We do it here. Now, it costs a bit more and it takes a bit more research, but it costs our soul as a community a lot less. You can go a bit bigger.
Speaker 1:You can go and you can find out what companies make up the mutual funds that you invest in. You can learn what they do. You can decide if you feel comfortable profiting from the actions that they take, and it will take some time, and you will have to go, and you'll have to research, and you'll have to look on purpose because that's usually obscured from you. But it just might put you in a place to hear from God in new ways. Now, you could go really big.
Speaker 1:You could travel somewhere. You could go to Africa. We're putting a team together right now for next summer. And it will cost you money, and it will cost you time out of your schedule, and it will exact a toll on your heart. But to take the concept of poverty and place that on the face of a child, it will change you.
Speaker 1:And so Moses could have very easily stayed sheltered in the comfort of his first world lifestyle, but one day he went and he looked. And what he saw was a slave master treating a Hebrew poorly, beating him in fact. Now Moses probably could have gone back to the palace and used his influence and his position, his power in the system to get that slave master fired, and be demoted a little bit. And could have worked to ensure that he never beat another Hebrew again, and he likely couldn't change the system. Egypt was built by slaves.
Speaker 1:Moses was not going to overcome that by himself, living in the palace, but he could have done something in that moment, and yet here, he is overcome by his awakening. The scales have fallen off. He sees the world for what it is. It enrages him, and he attacks this Egyptian. Now, I don't want to psychoanalyze here.
Speaker 1:There's not enough in the story to do that well, but I think you have to wonder here about what is driving this rage. Is it simply the actions of the slave master? Or is his anger somehow bound up in his personal awakening? Over the years, I've had the privilege of taking a lot of different people to see different parts of the world, teams to Africa, and people often come home and they struggle with what they've seen, how to incorporate that into their world. For a lot of people, it's actually easier going there and seeing it than it is coming home and knowing what to do with it.
Speaker 1:And so they come back and they find themselves in line at Starbucks, And the person in front of them is taking thirty seconds too long to construct their insanely complicated, entirely overpriced, diabetes inducing, saccharin sweet concoction of burnt espresso and milk. And all they wanna do is smack that double tall, sugar free vanilla soy latte out of their hand onto the ground and yell at them, don't you know children are starving in Africa? Can I suggest that is probably not going to do any good for anyone in that moment? Please don't do that in Starbucks. Okay?
Speaker 1:There is something we learn from Moses about his willingness to look at the underbelly of his society. We should also learn from him to be critical of unconsidered actions as well. One of the great things about biblical characters is that they are not cardboard cutouts. Moses is the central figure of the Jewish story in the Old Testament. The figure against all other Hebrew leaders are measured, and yet he is at the end of his life also barred by God from entering the promised land because of his mistakes.
Speaker 1:Not everything Moses does is worth following. And so we learn from Moses, we watch Moses, we do not idolize Moses. And here, he's wrong. And and I get it. He's moved by what he sees.
Speaker 1:He wants to do more than work for change. He wants to do more than raise awareness in Egypt about slavery. Wants to be physically present to injustice in a real way. He wants it to stop now. But perhaps as much as we learn about the courage to see clearly in Moses, I think now we also learn about the difficulty to act wisely when it comes to injustice from Moses.
Speaker 1:And honestly, I do get it. I get that he wants to act now. I get our desire to make some small stand we can feel good about. But the destiny of Moses is not field brawls with random Egyptians. It was the leadership of his people in the subversion of the entire slavery system of Egypt.
Speaker 1:And so maybe you've seen things that you can't unsee. Injustice you can't ignore anymore and you're aware of it. Treatment is unfair, you've seen it. Systems that oppress the vulnerable, wisdom is not always the same thing as making a scene in playing the martyr. So you do not need to storm out of work tomorrow morning to make a point.
Speaker 1:You don't need to make a big deal about not buying coffee from company x every time somebody brings it up. You don't even need to be that person that forces your pet project into every conversation. Trust me, I get that too. As a vegan pastor who recently adopted a baby, it's hard to decide what to awkwardly force into a conversation first. Yes, I do eat eggs.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry about that. Whatever. But justice is not about making a scene for a second so that you feel good about who you are. It's about affecting change over the long term. And yet, here, rather than pause, rather than think, rather than invite some wisdom and input from God about how he can change the situation, Moses rushes into the moment.
Speaker 1:And he kills someone. And it is a decidedly ungodly thing to do. The text says this, looking this way and that seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. Now, there are two ways traditionally this has been interpreted. Looking this way and that could mean that Moses is being shifty.
Speaker 1:He's making sure there's no witnesses. We call this the bad Moses interpretation. Looking this way and that could be this. He's waiting to see whether someone else will jump in. Does no one else see what's happening here?
Speaker 1:Looking this way and that, he sees no one is there, so he jumps in himself. We call this the good Moses interpretation. Either way, part of what's interesting here is that the narrative wants to show great pains in paralleling Moses' actions on day one to his actions on day two. The writer uses the same verb for he went out on both days. It's the verb in Hebrew.
Speaker 1:One commentary I read to this, quote, suggesting that the implication here is as far as Moses is concerned, this is just another day. The fact that he killed a man yesterday is somehow last on him, and so we should translate this, the next day he sallied forth forgetting the day before. Now, I'm not quite sure when this commentary was written, and I'm not quite sure sallied forth has quite the meaning this author intended. Makes Moses seem very sassy. But either way, I think his point stands.
Speaker 1:Moses has moved on. For him, it's just a new day. He goes out again. The writer though wants us very vividly to connect these two things together and remember. Both you, days use the same word for he went out.
Speaker 1:Both days use the same word for the action that's taken by the aggressor. In English, we read about an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, and then in day two, we read about two Hebrews fighting. The parallel is a little muted in English. But when Moses asked him, why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew? He actually uses the exact same word for the Egyptian's actions on the first day.
Speaker 1:The verb is naka. And naka is not hitting, it is actually smiting. So his question is, why are you killing your fellow man here? But if the irony is not is is of this moment is lost on Moses, it is not on the object of his inquiry because in verse 14, the man said this, who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?
Speaker 1:Now, two things here. First, you can see the displacement of Moses again here in this conversation. Whether Moses identifies himself as a Hebrew or an Egyptian, this Hebrew man clearly does not think of Moses as one of his own. Later on, when Moses is sent by God back to the Israelites, his question to God is, why would they listen to me? Who should I say sent me?
Speaker 1:That is not just him trying to weasel out of the job. It's actually a very good, very legitimate question. Moses hasn't grown up as a Hebrew. He fled the country the first time he tried to help a Hebrew. Why would they look to him as a leader?
Speaker 1:So the Hebrews don't really accept Moses, but look at the Pharaoh's response here as well. Verse 15, when Pharaoh heard of this, he tried to kill Moses, but Moses fled. Now, if Moses had real or sorry, if Pharaoh had ever really adopted Moses as a grandson, accepted him as a grandson in his family, is it likely he would have immediately called for his execution even for something as criminal as murder? I mean, the royal family in Egypt were a big deal. This is a lot more significant than Prince Harry and the other one.
Speaker 1:I don't really know. I don't follow British monarchy all that much, whatever. So But the Egyptian royal family, really big deal. They were essentially seen as gods among men. They were Brad Pitt and Angelina Joe Lee combined.
Speaker 1:They're like Brangeline. I just made that up. You can use it if you want to. And yeah, I did bring up Brad Pitt one more time. One more for Jeremy.
Speaker 1:Anyway, even as part of the adopted family of Egypt, Moses would have had incredible stature in that culture. It appears though that part of what we see here is that Moses is not accepted by Egypt either. He is adrift. He is a symbol oppression among the Hebrews. He is a foreigner among the Egyptians in his own home, and perhaps at times, you have felt isolated as well.
Speaker 1:Maybe it's your taste in music. All your friends are cooler than you. Maybe it's your politics, your sense of style, your sexuality, your theology or your lack thereof. But at times, you feel somehow completely alone in the middle of a room packed with people. Maybe even this room you feel alone in the midst of.
Speaker 1:Now, can I suggest that part of what we are reminded of in the story of Moses is that regardless of social cues, are not invisible? That God sees you, that God hears you, that as we will see next week, somehow God knows your name. And so Moses is not a Hebrew to the Hebrews. He's not an Egyptian to the Egyptians. Second, what we see here is this.
Speaker 1:That just as Moses had come face to face with the impact of his privilege yesterday, he saw something he couldn't unsee. Now he comes face to face with the impact of his actions today. And this is again really important for us. Because just as we can't plead ignorance as an excuse for systemic injustice, We can't plead ignorance at the impact of our personal choices either. Yes, Moses wanted to do good.
Speaker 1:Yes, he wanted to help. I don't doubt for a second that the passion that drove him to intervene in this moment came from somewhere good, but that doesn't mean it was good. And maybe you have tried to intervene somewhere. You saw a friend whose marriage was falling apart and struggling, and you wanted to help, and you tried to help, and yet you couldn't fix it for them. Someone you knew was sick.
Speaker 1:And and you prayed about that, and you showed up, and you were present to them in the midst of that, and yet they still slipped away. And you couldn't stop that from happening. And maybe more to the point, maybe like Moses, there was a situation and you tried to get involved in argument, you tried to mediate between friends, a relationship you tried to fix, and somehow in the midst of it, you got involved and you just made it worse. How do we respond to those situations where our intentions were good, but our limitations, our failures, our humanity maybe even somehow gets in the way of our heart and what we wanted to do? Well, we could do what Moses does and run away.
Speaker 1:Now to be fair, considering the pharaoh is looking to kill him, that is not an unreasonable response. But I would suggest that even as we run at times, even as we flee and we pull back and we know there are lessons that we can learn as we go. The section that we read ends this way. Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian where he sat down by a well. But then we read this.
Speaker 1:That a priest of Midian had seven daughters and they came to draw water and fill the troughs to fill or to water their father's flock. Some shepherds came along and drove them away, but Moses got up, came to their rescue, and watered the flocks. So even after the disaster of his first attempt to do good, Moses somehow doesn't completely give up on the idea of trying to do good. Perhaps, you've tried before and it didn't end well. And so you've said, I'll sit on the sidelines.
Speaker 1:I'll watch. I'll get uninvolved. There's something here. Now we can notice here, he doesn't kill the mean shepherds and then take the flock and throw it down the well in an effort to water them. So there is some growth here in Moses.
Speaker 1:He's learning. That's good. And perhaps that should encourage us as well. Alright? Because our calling is growth, not perfection.
Speaker 1:And what makes Moses a good leader eventually is not his immutability, it is in fact his malleability. So his willingness to grow and change and learn and become something new, this is actually part of what makes him someone worth looking to and learning from. Perfection doesn't qualify us for a place in God's story. Squeaky clean past is not a prerequisite for participation in God's kingdom. Instead, what we see in Moses is that is a heart that desires to do good even when our efforts are flawed.
Speaker 1:It is a character that longs somehow to partner with God in his story of redemption, even when we know that our actions are sometimes pushing in the wrong way. It is a soul that wishes for justice and freedom and mercy to be brought into this world even while we know we are part of the problem at times. This is what prepares us to accept God's invitation. It's not our squeaky clean past. It's not our perfection that joins us and gets us ready to join God in the renewal of all things.
Speaker 1:And Moses is impulsive. He's impetuous, he makes mistakes, and he runs away from his people and his destiny. And yet, God in his graciousness prepares him and shapes him and molds him for the moment when he will come full circle back to Egypt, back to his people, and lead them into freedom. Perhaps you have a sense that you were meant to contribute to God's story. But so far, you are unsure how.
Speaker 1:And you've tried one thing and it didn't work, and you tried another and it failed, and somehow you're afraid that maybe there is no place for you. Trust me, what we learn in the story of Moses, if that is the case, then all it means is that God is not done with you yet. And so perhaps you are still struggling to find your place. Can I suggest that rushing in is not always what God is looking for us? Sometimes, is simply the willingness to wait, to listen, to invite his spirit to give us wisdom and guidance to shape us for that moment when we will be ready to pick up our place and participate in the larger story.
Speaker 1:And for Moses, he starts here and has to backtrack here and all of a sudden finds his way back here. And for some of us, it's a period of waiting. For some of us, it's a period of learning. But there is something that God is calling each of us to. Let's pray.
Speaker 1:God, help us as we, look at the story of Moses To burn with the passion to see this world changed and renewed. To see redemption come to our relationships and the people what we know, but also to the systems, the structures, the way this world is. But at the same time, give us what we need in terms of humility and patience. Sometimes even courage to wait until we hear your spirit speaking to us loudly and clearly and telling us when to step forward. God, all the ways that we have tried to do good and messed things up.
Speaker 1:We ask for your forgiveness, but also for your spirit to infiltrate our hearts. Renew us and heal us and remind us that that does not qualify us from next time. Help us to believe everyone here in this room that we have a place to play in your story. And as we continue to wait and watch and look for it, that you will show us when the time is right. In the strong name of the risen Christ, we pray.
Speaker 1:Amen.
Speaker 2:This is a podcast of Kensington Commons Church. We believe that God is invested in the renewal of all things. Therefore, we wanna live the good news by being part of the rhythms of our city good neighbors, good friends, and good citizens in our common life. Join us on Sunday or visit us online at commonschurch.org.