discipleship sermon one

Before First Reading:

Today we begin our journey through the important moments in God's story as a part of our discipleship series. Now until October, each Saturday/Sunday we will hear an important story in the history of God's disciples throughout the ages.

It is important for us to be familiar with these moments so that we can find ourselves within these stories of God, so that God's larger story can help us make sense of our part of the story we live out today, so that we can be shaped into God's disciples...

 

The first story, the story to begin our discipleship journey is not creation, but Exodus, liberation...

Through Abraham, God had begun to form a people set apart. This tribe of Abraham's descendent's, the Israelites, had come to Egypt. For a while things were fine in Egypt.

Eventually, though, the Egyptians, led by the Pharaoh, decided the Israelites were becoming too numerous. The Egyptians decided to make the Israelites slaves, to make their labor demeaning and to even practice killing the Israelites' first born in an attempt to control the population.

This is the context of our first reading...

After the Psalm:

So we just heard about God coming to Moses; Moses an Israelite saved from the Egyptian's infanticide.

It isn't, however, just that Moses was miraculously saved from being killed as an infant...

Think of who Moses was...

Miraculously saved and then promoted to Pharaoh's kingly court, Moses caught a couple of big breaks, sure.

Unfortunately Moses can't seem to make the most of those breaks...

During a moment when some Egyptians were harassing an Israelite, Moses lashes out and kills the Egyptian.

As an Israelite, killing an Egyptian in Egypt is not wise, and so Moses has to flee save his own skin.

You see God shows up to Moses in the wilderness while Moses is herding cattle, not because Moses wanted to be a cattle-man, but because that is the only kind of job a fella like Moses could get, outside of the city, looking after animals.

Due to his poor choices, Moses can work nowhere else but in the fields, away from any kind of respectable society...

Lo and behold, though, there in the distance a bush burns but is not consumed!

Lo and behold, though, God shows up to this Moses guy who has made a mess of everything, there in the middle of those very circumstances.

And if that weren't enough, not only does God show up to this person who has blown every chance he's ever had, the guy stutters!

After that first reading about God coming to unlikely Moses, we sang a psalm together celebrating God's coming into history, coming into history to and through unexpected folks like Moses.

Now for our last reading we're about to skip a lot...

Moses, after some wise protesting, will obey God and go to the Israelites and go to Pharaoh, to demand that the Israelites be set free from their slavery, from Egypt to the Promised Land, to freedom.

After a few false starts and plagues, the Israelites do remarkably enough, begin their journey to freedom.

Before the journey can even get started, though, Pharaoh makes one last attempt to keep the Israelites enslaved. Pharaoh mounts chariot and chases the fleeing Israelites...

God, though, opens the Red Sea for Moses and that band of God's people to walk through to freedom. God made a way out of no way!

As the Israelites miraculously walk across a dry sea, they look behind to see Pharaoh's army crushed under the very same waves they just walked through!

Suddenly, though, on the other side of the Red Sea the Israelites gaze upon something; the desert they must journey through to get to the promised land.

That is where our next and final reading comes from...

After Last Reading:

So there we have it.

Under the terrible circumstances of slavery, God hears the cry of God's people, so God decides to do something about it.

God intervenes to lead God's people from slavery to freedom.

Let us pause to notice a couple of things:

Number One: God decides to choose not a strong nation such as the Egyptians, but instead the enslaved and lowly Israelites.

Number Two: God chooses Moses, not a strong, well-spoken handsome man, but a failure with a stutter to lead these people of God.

 

Moses, a man who can get no respectable job in society, is the very person God sends to Pharaoh.

Pharaoh!

Probably the strongest person in the world at that time.

God sends this nobody Moses to the strongest person in the world to demand, demand!, that pharaoh just let these puny Israelite slaves walk away...

We know where this is going to go...

"Yeah right. Get lost, Moses."

But God is persistent, and even when Pharaoh says no, God makes a way out of no way.

God makes a way out of no way.

And so, incredibly, these Israelite's begin their journey from slavery to freedom, to the land God has promised.

From there the Israelites are so thankful for what God has done, so thankful for what God has liberated them from that they joyfully and confidently, in other words that they faithfully make their way through the desert to the promised land, right?

Wrong!

What is the first thing these people of God do when they see the difficult journey they have to make?

Complain.

They complain, of course!

"Oh how great things were in Egypt," the protest!

In the face of the first challenge, God's people look back, back on how things used to be with rose tinted glasses, and wish to go back imaginary past...

We can relate to that, can't we?

See, this is exactly why it is so important for disciples like us to know these stories of faith; because there are so many places our story intersects with God's ancient story.

Just like those Israelites of long ago, when we look at the challenges we have to face, we forget the trials God has brought us through and ignore the promise God is leading us to.

Just like those Israelites of long ago, when we look at the challenges we must go through, all we can focus on is the trials, forgetting what we've been delivered from and where the struggle will lead us...

You see, it is important for disciples like us to know God's story so that these stories can help us, give us faith, lead us as we continue God's story from the present into the future.

 

Here is why our discipleship series of looking at these iconic moments in God's story; as we think of our own story, we can relate, and perhaps it is in how our story relates so well to that ancient story of God liberating God's people that we can draw faith, that we can have hope in the middle of our wilderness.

So, is our story now just one of slow death, or is it another story?

Could be what is happening is not just some "poor us" story, could it be something else?

As we have wandered through the wilderness, could God be leading us to the promised land yet?

Will our journey through the wilderness present trials, trials that tempt us to look back and swoon, 'oh how great things used to be'?

Will the promised land God is leading us to look different from where we've been in the past?

Yes, obviously yes!

But it is, it will still be the promised land of God.

Here's the thing, we have real challenges, but that's how it's always been for God's people.

Here's the thing, we have a tough row to hoe, but that does NOT mean God has left us.

 

What if just as God showed up to the Israelites in the midst of their slavery, God is showing up to us in the midst of our real struggles?

What if just as God chose the unlikely candidate of Moses and the Israelites, God chooses us?

What if, just like God liberated God's people from slavery to freedom, God is freeing us from what we're enslaved to?

What is it God is freeing us from?

Enslavement to the past...

Enslavement to thinking our budget is just about ourselves...

Enslavement to our fear...

Enslavement to thinking we're worthless...

Enslavement to thinking we can't do anything...

Enslavement to thinking the end of our story can only be death...

Where is God leading us to?

To be the church of the present, not the past...

To be a new church, a church that is faithful to these ancient stories, all while living fully into the present...

To be a place that includes all...

To be a place that feeds the hungry...

To be a place that forms friendships, forms faith, forms disciples...

As God leads us, liberates us from slavery to freedom, will we face challenges?

Yes! Sure! Of course!

Moses protested when God gave him the mission because Mosses knew there would be real challenges, that God's commission would call forth more than Mosses thought he had.

That's true for us, too!

That's always true for people who take God's call seriously.

We're going to face challenges on the way, our way ahead will lead through the darkest path, but there is a promise we go with that is stronger than all those challenges, God goes with us, God liberates us.

So maybe as we face this time of challenge and change, we can relate to those Israelites.

We can relate to those people of God who heard a promise, who had been delivered, but who still had a challenging path ahead.

We can relate to those people of God who got a promise, and walked through the wilderness to that promise. Sure, those people stumbled at times, but they always kept after it because God always calls ahead, God always liberates.

The bush still burns, the bush still burns...

Amen.