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Lent 3C RCL February 28, 2016

Posted on February 28, 2016 by Beth Crane

Exodus 3:1-15
Psalm 63:1-8
1 Corinthians 10:1-13
Luke 13:1-9

Our opening reading today is the account of Moses’ life-changing encounter with God. Before we examine this historic moment, let us gather some background.

Just before Moses was born, the Pharaoh had ordered that the midwives kill all the boy babies born to the Hebrew people. God’s people were growing in numbers, and the Egyptian king was threatened. The Egyptian midwives refused to carry out this order. When the king complained that there were still Hebrew boy babies being born, they explained that the Hebrew women gave birth so quickly and efficiently that the birth was done before the midwife could get there. God’s people “continued to multiply and became very strong”, and the king finally commanded that every Hebrew boy baby be thrown into the Nile.

When Moses is born, his mother hides him for three months, but finally she realizes that she can hide him no longer. So she makes a basket of papyrus and seals it with pitch and tar to make it waterproof and  places the basket in the reeds by the river bank. Moses’ sister, Miriam, keeps watch.

The Pharaoh’s daughter comes down to the river to bathe, and Moses begins to cry. She finds the basket, opens it, and sees this little Hebrew baby. She takes pity on him. This is a baby that her father would kill, but she takes him into her home. Miriam offers to find a nurse for the baby, and Moses’ mother gets the job. The Pharaoh’s daughter pays Moses’ mother the usual wages for a nurse. Moses is adopted by the princess and will be raised in the palace as an Egyptian prince, with his mother serving as his nurse and nanny.

There comes a day when Moses leaves the palace and goes out to see what is going on. Even though he has been raised as an Egyptian, he identifies with his own people. He sees an Egyptian beating a Hebrew man. Moses looks around to see who is watching,  sees no-one, and kills the Egyptian. The next day, he goes out again, sees two Hebrews fighting and asks the one who is in the wrong why he is fighting another Hebrew. The aggressor asks Moses who made him the judge and then asks Moses if he is going to kill him, too. Moses realizes that he was seen killing the Egyptian. The Pharaoh hears about Moses’ attack on the Egyptian and decides to kill Moses.

Moses flees to the land of Midian. He marries Zipporah, the daughter of the priest of Midian. They have children, and Moses helps with the  family agricultural business.

The fact that Moses is alive is nothing short of a miracle. Moses has survived because of the courage of the midwives who would not murder innocent children; the love  and courage of his mother and sister, and the compassion of the Pharaoh’s daughter, who adopted a baby whom her father would have killed.

So here is Moses tending the flocks of Jethro, his father-in-law, and he sees this very strange bush which is obviously on fire but never is consumed. The text says that Moses “turn[s] aside.” He notices. He goes over to look.

Most of the times when God is calling us or guiding us, we are going about our daily tasks. Like Moses, we need to be paying attention. We need to notice. We need to let God speak to us. God calls. “Moses, Moses!” And Moses answers. God tells Moses to take off his sandals, that he is on holy ground. In the midst of our daily routine, we are on holy ground. We are always in God’s presence, doing our daily chores doing the most humdrum things. It is all holy ground.

God tells Moses that he has seen the suffering of the people, and that he is calling Moses to lead the people of God out of slavery. Like all of our heroes of the faith, Moses has questions. Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and free the people? If I go to your people, what is going to make them believe me? And God tells Moses God’s Name,”I am who I am.” Moses is the first person in the Scriptures to hear the Name of God. Moses is becoming very close to God, and God is going to give Moses the grace and gifts to lead God’s people out of slavery.

Moses’ life up until this point is a crucial part of this story. He knows how powerful the Pharaoh is and how easy it is for someone with all that power to kill people. He has had to run away to save his own life. His mother had to set him adrift in a basket to try to save him when he was a baby. He has seen the suffering of his people first hand. He put his own life in danger trying to protect one of his people from an Egyptian.

Moses grew up in the palace. He could have lived his life as a member of the Egyptian royal court. He could have denied his own identity as a Hebrew man. But he did not. He could have lived a life of privilege based on that denial, but he did not choose that path. Moses has been tried and tempered in the fires of his own life experience, and now he is accepting God’s call to lead the people out of slavery into freedom.

Lent is the season in which we move from slavery to sin into freedom in Christ. The life of Moses reminds us that our own experiences of  brokenness or oppression or slavery can be our greatest sources of strength to help others on their journeys.

Fortunately, we are not being called to do what Moses did. but the story of Moses is full of rich insights for us. Our own experiences of brokenness or oppression or slavery of various kinds have strengthened us as Moses’ experiences strengthened him. Because we are walking the Way of the Cross, these experiences make us more compassionate and they give us the wisdom to help others on their journeys to new life.

May we listen for God’s call. May we trust God. May we follow our Lord into freedom and newness of life.  Amen.

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Lent 3C RCL March 3, 2013

Posted on March 25, 2013 by Beth Crane

 Exodus 3:1-15
Psalm 63:1-8
1 Corinthians 10:1-13
Luke 13:1-9

In our first lesson, Moses is tending the flocks of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian. In other words, he is going about his daily routine.  As we recall, Moses’ mother had hidden him in the rushes by the Nile in order to save his life, He had been brought up in the palace by the Pharaoh’s daughter. One day, after he had grown up, he had gone out of the palace to see his people. He had seen, the scripture reads, “their forced labor.” Worse yet, he saw an Egyptian beating “a Hebrew, one of his kinfolk,” and he killed the Egyptian.  Herod then wanted to kill Moses, so he escaped to the land of Midian, married a woman named Zipporah, settled down, had a family, and helped his father-in-law with the family business.

God has a ministry for Moses, and our reading today tells us about God’s call to Moses, their ensuing dialogue, and Moses’ acceptance of the call. As God called Moses those many years ago, God calls us today.

 In our epistle, Paul continues his letter to the congregation in Corinth. Some people in the community have gotten the idea that, since they are saved, they can do anything they please, and they are indulging in sinful behavior. Their actions concern Paul, but he is even more deeply concerned about the arrogance which leads them to think that freedom in Christ means a license to disregard the rights of others and engage in selfish and sinful behavior.

In our gospel, Jesus is with a group of people, including the disciples. Some people tell Jesus about a grisly thing that has happened. Apparently there were some Galileans, that is, people from Jesus’ home area, who had gone to the temple in Jerusalem to make sacrifices. Pilate’s troops had killed these people while they were worshipping and then had mixed their blood with the blood of the animals on the altar to show that Rome was in control. We know from historians of that time that Pilate did not hesitate to use violence against anyone he thought might cause trouble.

There was a belief in Jesus’ time that, if something bad happened to a person or a group of people, it was punishment for sins which they had committed. This is what Jesus is getting at when he asks, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans?” Then Jesus answers his own question and says, Absolutely not. And he gives another example. Apparently a building had fallen down and killed eighteen people. Does this mean that the people were sinners? No. In the gospel of John, when Jesus and the disciples meet the man born blind, the disciples ask, “Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” And Jesus says that no one sinned. This is an opportunity for him to do his healing work.

I have met thoughtful, intelligent people who have been going through horrible experiences, the death of a family member, or a terrible illness,  and they have wondered what they did wrong in order to have this happen to them. Some people even think that God is punishing them for some thing they have done, but, on careful examination, they have lived exemplary lives. This belief really hurts people.

Bishop Michael Curry, whom some of us met at our diocesan convention, says about this passage, “Frankly, if God was in the business of meting out punishment and curses in relation to our sins,  there probably would not be anyone on the planet.”

We humans like to try to explain things. We do not like to admit that there are some things that are beyond our limited understanding. We don’t like to admit that there are mysteries, things we do not understand.

Jesus emphatically says that the people who were on the receiving end of Pilate’s violence and the people who were killed when the tower collapsed were no worse sinners than anybody else. Then, immediately, he calls us to repent. The Greek word is metanoia. He calls us to change our thinking. He calls us to turn to God. He calls us to be open to his work of transformation.

 And he tells us a parable about a fig tree. The owner of the vineyard has gone to this fig tree for three years, and the tree has borne no fruit.  The owner wants to cut the tree down. But the gardener says, no, don’t do that. Let me dig around it and put manure on it and if it bears fruit next year, well and good. If not, you can cut it down. The point of this is that God is patient with us.

 There are so many things that are beyond our understanding, and there are so many tragic things happening in the world.  It is human to try to find answers. Jesus is calling us not to jump to that old, easy answer, someone has sinned.

He is calling us to look within, to ask God’s help in clearing out our sins, and, for those of us who tend to be hard on ourselves, he is reminding us that God is loving and God is patient.

He is calling us to take action. The gardener takes action to cause the tree to bear fruit.  We need to take action so that we will bear fruit. I think of the fruit of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  And we are also called to reach out to others and help to build the shalom of God.

Bishop Curry writes, “ I once heard the late Dr. Benjamin Elijah Mays, president of Morehouse College, say that faith is taking your best step and leaving the rest to God. Bishop Curry continues, “…those who would follow in the footsteps of Jesus are charged with witnessing to the world in the name and spirit of Jesus. …The working out of God’s kingdom is not ours to figure out. Our task is to labor, without having all the answers, to acknowledge the deep mystery of it all.”

May we turn more and more toward God. May we take our best step and leave the rest to God.

Amen.

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