"Be Moses for each other" - Sermon for Sunday, Sept 17th Lectionary 24

Sermon

Text: Exodus 14



Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who remembers and saves us.

The people eat, lions girded, sandals on feet, staffs in hand, the blood of the sacrificial lamb on the doorposts and lintel of their homes. They eat fast, ready, or so they think, for the journey to which God is leading them.

Ok, Moses thinks. This is it. This is the real thing I’ve been readying for. It’s not been just to talk to Pharaoh, to ask for him to let God’s people go. It’s to actually lead them out of slavery into freedom.

They get up the next day, and Pharaoh says, go, leave, get out of here, I never want to see you again. And so they leave, they start walking, when a pillar of cloud appears at day, and a pillar of fire by night, leading them away. God tells Moses, don’t take the direct route, go by way of the reed sea a little further south.

Pharaoh after they leave, changes his mind yet again. Go, my chariots, catch them, capture them, brutalize them, and bring them back, if some die to do so, so be it.

The people are camped by the shore, when a rumbling and a dust cloud arise to the west of them, chariots. Egyptian soldiers bent on their death. The people cry to Moses, why did we listen to you! Why did we leave? We could have served the Egyptians still, that would have been better than this death that is coming to us.” And God said to Moses, take your staff and stretch it out, so the seas will be divided, you may then cross on dry land.

Moses does so, the pillar of cloud moves from in front of them to behind, protecting them and confusing the Egyptians as the Israelites cross on the dry land, and as the Egyptians begin to cross themselves, God says, raise your staff again, Moses, and the waters will cover them. And the waters do, the Egyptians are covered, they drown, and the Israelites see the Egyptians dead on the seashore. They see that the Lord has saved them on this day.

We know this story. We’ve seen it in movie, on TV, in story books. It’s God saving the chosen people, saving God’s people Israel, again remembering and honoring the covenants with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to provide for the people, to give them a home, a land of milk and honey, and to free them from oppression. Those promises are remembered so well, that Moses has Jacob’s bones taken with them away from Egypt, so he may be buried at his home.

But this story is so much more as well. This story and most of the early Old Testament began as oral stories, things that parents and grandparents would tell each other and their children around campfires or while sewing or making food. They would tell of Moses and the plagues, the pillars of cloud and fire, the reed or Red sea, the walls of water on each side. And they kept on being told, over and over again. But then something happens, generations after these stories take place, Assyria comes in and destroys the northern tribes, and then Babylon comes in and takes most of the people away in exile. And the people in exile find themselves in a situation similar to Egypt. Again a people oppressed. And suddenly these stories take on more meaning, it’s not just a tale to tell at night, or while working, it’s a story that tells that God saves the people when they are oppressed. God leads. God remembers. Just as God saved them from Egypt, God will save them from Babylon. Just as God lead them by the pillar of cloud and fire, God will lead them home yet again. Just as God remembers the covenants to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, God will not forget them in their exile. This story becomes not just a story, but a passage of hope, it becomes the thing they cling to, hold on to, unite around. God who will save them.

And it’s still so much more, It’s our story. What are the things that enslave you? The things that confine you that you wish to be free from. Money concerns, job, grief, fear, uncertainty. All the things that you seem to not be able to get away from? That like Egyptian soldiers seem to follow you over and over, never letting you go. What are the things that weigh you down, that loom like walls of water around you?

I think of all the people displaced by natural disaster in the last month. I think of people overwhelmed by debt. Of those whose families are hurting, because of a death, because of abuse, because of divorce. Where even though you are on dry ground, those water walls loom so close. Where everywhere you go, it seems like the cloud of raging chariots follows close behind.

This is our story too, because in it we see our God.

God remembers you. God saves you. God leads you. In Christ we are promised life, we are promised that nothing can separate us from the love of God. As our Romans reading for today says, We are promised that we are the Lord’s. Christ died and was raised for you.

And again, this text is so much more, God sends a Moses to you, and calls you to be Moses to others. Calls you to be “little Christ’s” for each other as C.S. Lewis says.

People of God, you are a Moses to someone. You are a little Christ to someone. Through you, someone will experience companionship in the midst of loneliness or grief, someone will feel warmth in the midst of fear, someone will feel remembered in the midst of lossness. Someone will walk across dry land, because you hold the waters back.

We had God’s work, our Hands Sunday last week. Where we used our hands to reach to others in this world through school kits. Where we did God’s work through our hands. That’s being Moses. That’s being Christ. We do that every day, we live out the Exodus every day when we reach out to those who need us, ourselves supported by the God who loves us, remembers us, and saves us.


Amen.