"Harvey, Moses, and Carrying the Cross" - Sermon for Sunday Sept 3rd, 2017
Sermon: Lectionary 22, 13th Sunday after Pentecost
Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and our Lord
Jesus Christ who leads us to hear the cries of the people.
To start, I
highly encourage all of you to make a donation to Hurricane Harvey Relief when
you get home today. Search for ELCA Harvey Relief to find the ELCA Lutheran
Disaster response page, 100% of all donations marked for Hurricane relief go to
assist. You can also search for the Red Cross or other organizations, no matter
how or where, most importantly I ask you to give to help those in need.
Our texts
today, the story of Moses’ calling by God and Christ calling us to carry our
cross, give us reasons for why we respond to situations like Hurricane Harvey,
or to any giving that we do, any assistance we offer.
Our Gospel
follows Peter, just after he said just the right thing last week, saying the
exact wrong thing. Jesus responds with a rebuke of Peter, and then an
explanation that we are called to carry our cross. There are lots of
explanations what that all means, but one that often comes up I want to counter
briefly. Carrying your cross is not a call to either endure ongoing suffering
or to seek out suffering. In cases of abuse or mistreatment, carrying your
cross does not mean just dealing with it. Abuse and mistreatment are wrong, and
it is not wrong to seek to remove the suffering.
To attempt
to figure out what it then means to take up the cross, I want to turn to our
Old Testament lesson. Moses has grown up, he has a situation arise where he
sees an Egyptian beating a Hebrew worker. Moses reacts in anger and kills the
man and flees for his life into the wilderness, where he meets the family of
Jethro, a priest of Midian, and marries his daughter Zipporah. Just a side,
Moses first meets Zipporah as he was waiting by a well, continuing the trend
of, if you meet a person at a well, you might end up married. While there he
works as a shepherd for his father in law. He’s out one day and sees an odd
thing, a bush on fire, but it’s not burning up. So, he goes to check it out. As
he approaches, a voice calls out to him, Moses! Moses! Now, I don’t know about you, but if a burning
bush started to talk to me, I’d be a little freaked out. But, Moses just answers,
Here I am. “Remove your sandals, this is Holy Ground. I am the God of your
father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.”
Now, When
we usually just read this passage, this listing of people, we often just read
through it and move on, ok, it’s just a list of names, just an introduction to
remind Moses who God is. God’s the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And that’s
true, but it’s more than that, there are reasons those specific names are
mentioned. It’s not just a listing of names, like a last name, I’m Erik Son of
Kent, Son of Norris. Those names are there because those are the initial people
with whom God made a covenant. It’s more than an introduction, it’s a reminder
that God remembers God’s promises. God remembers the promises made to Abraham,
those made to Isaac, those made to Jacob. God remembers the promises made to
the whole Hebrew people, to provide a home for them, to make them as numerous
as the sands of the sea, make of them a great nation, to always be their God.
In response
to that, remembering the promises, our text continues: God says, “I have
observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on
account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings.” I will bring
them out of that land to a good and broad land. To Moses, I will send you to
pharaoh to bring my people out of Egypt. And I will be with you.
God’s
response to remembering the promises is to hear the cries of the people, to
hear their sufferings and seek to save them, to remove them from the slavery
and oppression they face.
Our
response to Christ’s call to bear the cross is to also listen to the cries of
God’s people. We carry the cross like Christ when we behave like Christ, listen
to the cries of the people and reaching out to remove their suffering, save them
from slavery and oppression. As such it may mean that at times responding to
these cries might mean we go to our own cross. But, in all that we do, all that
we respond to, we remember that God walks with us, like God’s promise to Moses,
God tells us, “I will be with you.” That Christ went to his cross first, saving
us from the power that our own crosses may hold. We go to respond to the cries
of the people, knowing that any ultimate repercussions have already been
overcome.
It’s why we
respond to things like Hurricane Harvey, confront things like racism, work to
end hunger and poverty, because we hear the cries of the people, because we see
the words of Romans, 9Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what
is good; 10love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing
honor. 11Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. 12Rejoice in
hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. 13Contribute to the needs
of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.
14Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse
them. 15Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. 16Live in
harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do
not claim to be wiser than you are. 17Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but
take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. 18If it is possible, so far
as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. 19Beloved, never avenge
yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, “Vengeance
is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” 20No, “if your enemies are hungry, feed
them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you
will heap burning coals on their heads.” 21Do not be overcome by evil, but
overcome evil with good.
Christ calls us to carry the cross, carrying the cross means
hearing the cries of the people, and hearing the cries of the people means
responding to them in love, no matter if they are friend or enemy.
So again I ask you, carry the cross this week. Give to
assist with Hurricane Harvey recovery, stand up to oppression in this world,
assist the poor and the hungry, visit the sick, comfort the grieving. And know,
that God, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, the God that
remembers promises, has promised you, through the death of Christ on his cross,
that eternal life is yours.
Amen.
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