Exodus 3:1-15; 1 Corinthians 10:1-13; Luke 13:1-9

The Reverend Paul DeLain Allick, St. George’s Episcopal Church, March 7, 2010

 

 

Moses wasn’t looking for trouble. In fact he was laying low trying to stay out of trouble. Back in Egypt he had killed an overseer who was mistreating one of the Israelite slaves. Moses was an Israelite and yet was raised in luxury by an Egyptian mother. He had a complex identity.

 

 

He fled to another land, got married, and settled into helping run his father-in-law’s herd. And then God shows up. The LORD has heard the suffering of His people. He is selecting Moses to lead them out of Egypt. Out of all of the leaders He could have chosen, the LORD chooses this complicated man wanted by the authorities for murder. The LORD could have chosen an established leader of the people but as we see over and over in Holy Scripture this is not how God operates. He always goes with the unknown, the questionable person or situation. He does not see as humans see.

 

 

Moses asks for a name. He knows full well if he returns to the people and tries to get them to follow him they are going to question his authority. He needs to tell them who has sent him. God tells him, “I AM who I AM.” He tells Moses to say to the people, “The LORD, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.”

 

 

Why does God send Moses? I think it is because He knew Moses better than Moses knew himself. God knows Moses’ inner strengths. Moses has suffered and struggled in a particular way: watching his people suffer while he lives in luxury. He has a global perspective. He will know intimately the ways of the Egyptians. He thinks that he is nobody, God knows that he is a special somebody.

 

 

In other words the LORD is saying to Moses, “You are who you are. You are of the people of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. You have a special role to play and all of that stuff in your life that you see as  weaknesses is really Me showing forth my power and wisdom.”

 

 

 

“You are who you are.” God isn’t looking at what we do or have done He is looking at our being. Just as he identifies himself not by His doing but by His being.

 

 

We are in a Season of Penitence. It is in penitence that we get to know ourselves. We are looking inside of our hearts to confess the wrong we have done. We are pleading with God to heal the wrong done to us. And it all adds up to seeing ourselves. In penitence we are sorting through all of the junk that has built up in our persons, the junk that makes us reactive to the world around us. The more we humble ourselves and confess, the more we get to know ourselves. The more we get to know ourselves we find the peace that lives inside of us and we begin to live in better harmony with the world around us.

 

 

It’s one thing to say, and this is what Moses later tries to get away with, “Well, that’s just how I am.” That is a cop out statement meant to cover up our weaknesses. When we say, “I am who I am” then we begin to admit what we need to change inside.

 

 

A long time ago in a parish far, far away there was a person who was causing me particular consternation. I was obsessing about this person. I wanted to confront them about their mean and hostile behavior. Instead I prayed on it. In that prayer the Spirit whispered to me, “How does God see her?”

 

 

It changed my whole perspective because I knew that God sees us for who we really are not who we have become out of all the hurt in our lives. I began to look at this parishioner this way, “How does God see her?” Then I saw the hurt inside of her. So I prayed that she could it as well because it would heal her; it would help her live in better harmony with God, herself and others.

 

 

 

 

We can learn a lot about ourselves this Lenten Season. We begin with the fact that we are all fallen sinners. Jesus teaches that today in the Gospel. In His day, people believed that tragedy was a result of sin. They did not believe as we do that all are sinners. They believed that you could avoid tragedy by not sinning. Jesus teaches us that no one is a worse sinner than the next. We all need repentance. And like the fig tree we need to repent soon because the time is short.

 

 

The next thing we learn about ourselves this Lenten Season is that we are all redeemed. Jesus is the gardener in our lives pleading with the planter to let us try again to bear fruit.

 

 

St. Paul in letter to the Church in Corinth reminds us that we are redeemed through Baptism and Eucharist. Our spiritual ancestors, the people of Moses, led the way. They were baptized in the Red Sea. In our baptism we are led through the waters, God makes the way for us, and we are reborn to a new life. Our ancestors were fed with spiritual food and drink in the wilderness: the water from the rock and manna from Heaven. We are fed and sustained now in the Body and Blood of the Holy Eucharist.

 

 

We are all sinners and we are all redeemed. When we come to know that about our selves we begin to see the world around us differently. We learn how to forgive ourselves and to forgive others. We can now see that waters of baptism are washing away all of that junk that has built up inside of us over the years. The holy food and drink of the Eucharist is feeding us graces as to become the people God made us to be.