Sermon: God at Work – Responding, Rescuing, Revealing
September 29th, 2019 Rev. Betsy Perkins
First Baptist Church, Delavan WI
Scripture passage: Exodus 1:6-14, Exodus 2:23-3:15
Have any of you ever watch that TV show, Undercover Boss? I don’t know if it is still on, but several years ago I watched it for a while. On each episode, the leader of some large business or company gets into a disguise and goes undercover to visit one of his/her stores or outlets. This CEO/boss, pretending to be a new hire or an intern, then listens to employees, hears their struggles, their needs. The show always ends with the boss having a new sense of compassion for the employees and giving them what they need (car, home, money for college, whatever the need was). Then in a dramatic conclusion of tears and hugs, the disguise comes off and the boss reveals herself to the employees. Those bottom rung employees who thought the CEO was all high and mighty and unaware, suddenly realize that all along the boss has been there listening, and caring, and wanting the best for them.
God heard and remembered
Our reading today begins by telling us that a new king came to power in Egypt, and Joseph meant nothing to him. He didn’t remember him. He didn’t know the history of the people who lived in his land. He didn’t know the story of how God had worked through Joseph to save people from a time of great famine. But the writer goes on to say that God remembered! God heard the Israelites groaning for God had not forgotten. God remembered that He had a covenant, a special agreement, a pact, with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and that included their descendants. It included the people enslaved there in Egypt 400 years later.
But hold on – 400 years later?! 400 years of a slippery slope into slavery, into oppression and harsh treatment, into terrible exploitation and injustice. What was God doing for 400 years? That’s a question people have asked again and again – about this situation and about so many other situations. In August this year, there was a commemoration to mark 400 years since the first African slaves were brought to North America. What was God doing for the 250 years that Africans were enslaved in this land until the Emancipation Proclamation? And what about the 150 years since, as injustices continue? We know many of those enslaved cried out to God to be saved. They sang Let My People Go!
A couple weeks ago we thought about Abraham and Sarah waiting decades for God to fulfill the promise that they would have a child. What was God doing over those many years that Abraham and Sarah had to wait? In the Wednesday Bible study we are about to get to the chapter in John’s gospel that tells about Jesus’ friend Lazarus. Lazarus gets sick and his sisters send a message to Jesus that they need him to come right away. But Jesus waits for a couple days to act on the request, and Lazarus dies. What was Jesus doing for those 2 days as he delayed? (btw, if you want the answer, come to Bible study on Wednesday!)
God at Work Responding
We’ll probably never get a completely satisfying answer to these questions this side of heaven, but the verses I skipped over Exodus 1 and 2 give us some clues about what God is doing as the Israelites groaned in slavery and as they cried out to God for help. God was getting things in place, getting people ready. The story tells us that nearly 100 years prior to that burning bush where Moses is given the job of rescuing the Israelites from slavery, at the time that Pharaoh begins ordering newborn Israelite boys to be killed, God is giving 2 midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, the courage to defy Pharaoh’s orders out of their reverence for God. About 80 years before that burning bush, a mother is given the faith and the creative idea of trying to save her son by hiding him in a basket in the river. That baby’s sister is given the love and courage to follow her brother as he floats downstream and to speak up when she needs to. Even Pharaoh’s daughter is used to serve God’s plan with her compassion for the little boy and her determination to adopt him. It may have appeared to many that God was silent and still, but in fact, God was at work. God was preparing the right person for the right time, a person with a passion for justice, a person who spoke Pharaoh’s language and knew the ins and outs of the palace, a person who had spent time surviving in the desert. Moses.
God not only remembers, but God has heard their prayers and is already responding by getting people in place to come to the rescue. God has prepared Moses for this exact assignment – even though Moses doesn’t think so at first. God tells Moses what has been happening – we can hear it in the verbs, the actions words as God speaks to Moses starting in Exodus 3:7: Then the LORD said, “I’ve clearly seen my people…, I’ve heard their cry…, I know about their pain.”
For us, as we cry out to God over the brokenness we see in the world, in our nation and in our own lives, as we wonder if God is hearing our prayers, if God is at work responding to our prayers, this story encourages us to have faith. It challenges us to trust that God is at work in ways we may not see… yet. The story challenges us not to be like the new king of Egypt that doesn’t know Joseph or the story of God at work. Most of the time, we will not be able to immediately see how God is responding to our prayers. Therefore, we need to remember the story of how God has responded in the past, how God has been at work. That’s why we spend time reading the Bible, studying the story of God at work, and talking about it, letting it encourage us. That’s why we share Communion and say, “Do this in remembrance of Me.”
For further reassurance in times of doubt, we can also turn to the Psalms. At least 20 psalms speak about God hearing, God listening. Psalm 6:8, The Lord has heard my cries. Psalm 66:19 God definitely listened; He heard my prayer. Psalm 116:1, I love the Lord because He hears my requests for mercy.
God at Work Rescuing
Let’s go back to Exodus 3 and continue following the verbs, the actions words that point to what God is doing. In verse 8, we see that God is hearing and responding in a specific way: God is at work rescuing. Do you see it? I’ve come down to rescue, to bring them out. God will save them. God’s plan is to do this through Moses, and God tells him (verse 10), “So get going. I’m sending you…”
As I said earlier, we look at Moses’ story now and recognize that God has prepared him, the right person, the right experiences, the right time. But Moses didn’t recognize that at all! He felt he was the most unlikely person for the job – an escaped criminal, an elderly shepherd, someone who stumbles over his words, who’s always felt out-of-place. “Who am I to do this job?” Moses asks. God’s response is “I will be with you.” Moses needs to go, but it is God who will be with him who will be doing the rescuing, the saving. God will do it, through Moses.
Much later, after Moses has watched God at work rescuing and saving again and again and again, and realizes that this is the key characteristic of God, Moses creates a new name to help people remember that. There is a young leader named Hoshea, who serves under Moses. Hoshea means Salvation or He Saves. Moses takes that name Hoshea, and combines it with the Lord’s name, Yahweh, and creates the name Yeshua, ‘The Lord Saves’. Yeshua, which is Joshua, which is Jesus.
The angel sent to announce the birth of God’s Son, said “…you are to give him the name Jesus because he will save his people from their sins (Mt.1:21). Jesus means “God Saves”! Later Jesus himself announced the reason he came to live among us: For the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost (Lk.19:10) And of course you know that well-loved verse in John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. And just in case his followers missed the point that not perishing means being saved, Jesus continued, making it explicit. He said, “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” (Jn.3:17) Through Jesus.
Did you know you proclaim that God is at work saving, rescuing, every time you say the name Jesus? Our God is a God who saves! (Ps.68:20)
God at Work Revealing God’s Self
But as Moses stood there, barefoot before the burning bush, he didn’t know the name of this God who was speaking to him. All he knew was that this God had a relationship with someone else. This was the God who had a relationship with Abraham, with Isaac, with Jacob. This was the God who had made promises 400 years ago to bless them and to give them a land of their own, a land filled with their descendants. But there is no indication in the story of Moses to this point that he has had a relationship with this God at work in his life. So Moses follows up his “Who am I” question with another question: Who are you? What’s your name?
“I AM WHO I AM” God responds. Or maybe it was, “I WILL BE WHO I WILL BE.” What God said could be understood either way. It’s the first person form of the verb ‘to be’. I am, I exist. I am already in relationship with you and your people. You will see who I AM, who I WILL BE as we go along, as we develop a relationship. This is the name for God that we now pronounce as Jehovah, or Yahweh. We don’t really know what this name sounds like because like the ground that became so holy in God’s presence that Moses needed to remove his sandals, this name was considered so holy that it mustn’t be spoken by unholy, human lips. So the vowels were removed and what remained was YHWH, and what was spoken is the word LORD (all caps). (You can see it that way several times in the passage as it’s printed on the back of the bulletin – vs.2, 4, 5, 7, 15)
Once we become aware of God’s name, once it is revealed, we realize that God has already shared God’s name with Moses a few moments before. The God whose name is ‘I WILL BE’ has said, “I WILL BE with you.” The God whose name is “I AM” has introduced himself saying, “I AM the God of your fathers.” God has already been at work revealing Himself, getting Moses ready to recognize God. The God we worship is not a God who wants to remain hidden, but a God who longs to be known.
God longs be to known so much that God came down, not just to rescue, but came down to reveal God’s Self fully to the world. God revealed Himself, fully present in the person of Jesus. We know that because Jesus declared, “I tell you the truth, before Abraham was born, I AM!” (mic drop!) I am! Jesus reveals more about who God is, saying: I AM the bread of life, I AM living water, I AM the good shepherd, I AM the light of the world, I AM the resurrection, I AM life!
God still longs to be known by each and every person. God continues to be at work, revealing God’s Self – through the Bible stories of God at work in the world and in people’s lives, like this story about Moses; through Jesus, alive and present in the world in his Body, the Church; through the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God that comes down and live within us, speaking to us, guiding us, calling us to participate in God’s plans to respond to prayers, to rescue and save.
God is at work, right now, in the world, in your life, listening and responding, rescuing and saving, revealing and sharing. So now get going! Our Undercover Boss is waiting to hear you, to help you, to invite you to participate in rescuing and saving others. Let us pray:
God at work, help us to trust that you do indeed hear us and you are responding. You love us and long to save us; you laid your life down to save us. You are inviting us to get involved in your rescue work – may we notice and stop to investigate the burning bushes in our lives, just as Moses did. You have revealed yourself to us, through Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, through your church. Keep showing up, Lord God. Keep working in us and around us and through us, we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Closing Song: “May You Run and Not Be Weary”
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