14th Sunday of Pentecost Year A 3 September in the Year of our Lord 2023
Exodus 3:1-15
Psalm 105:1-6, 23-26, 45b
Romans 12:9-21
Matthew 16:2-28
We are not alone
“God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life” is the beginning of a widely used guide called the 4 Spiritual laws, used to introduce college student to Christ. It is a succinct and clear introduction to our faith as any that I have ever heard. But once a Christian what must we do to find this wonderful plan? The first verse in the Psalm for today is some help: O give thanks to the LORD, call on His name, make know his deeds among the peoples.(105:1) But the text raises other questions.
Does this mean begin the day thanking God? Or thank Him throughout the day? Or both? Take time for prayer! Is this something we should do at set times in the morning or night, or extemporaneous prayers throughout the day? Keep learning about things about things in the Bible that God has done so that we may share them with others? Whatever your devotional habits are, they are private and between you and God. But what do we do when something disruptive happens? We tend to focus on what we have lost, even though we know we won’t find any progress there.
In the aftermath of 9-11, Tim Keller, the Presbyterian pastor of Redeemer Church in Manhattan offered New Yorkers something other than the consolations that so many NYC leaders were offering to people. He said that healing in that moment “was contingent on having a personal encounter with the Son of God.”
In a sermon to his church on September 16, 2001, called truth, tears, anger, and grace he said "that the love and hope of God and the love and hope that comes from one another has to be rubbed into our grief. And that's what we're here to do." Pastor Keller, who died May 20th of this year was an exceptional man who helped found 120 churches and train 40,000 Christian leaders worldwide.
But leaders do not always have such clarity. Consider Moses. He began his life as a Hebrew infant, hidden by his mother, in a small papyrus basket, among the reeds of the Nile River of Egypt. He would be discovered among the reeds and adopted by the daughter of Pharoah, a royal princess. Moses would be broadly educated and develop, as a member of Pharoah’s household, qualities that would later be used by God. He would, years later be able to communicate with the Egyptian king in the language of the court and the Leaders of the Israelites in Hebrew. But Moses will live a very different life for many years before the Lord called him into service. As an adult in Egypt, he killed an Egyptian and was forced to flee to the land of Midian where he became a shepherd, married, and had a son. After 40 years of this life God appeared to him, in a burning bush and told him he had plans for him.
For centuries after the death of Jacob’s son Joseph, the Israelites in Egypt were, as far as I know well treated. They had thrived and multiplied greatly in number. But as Scripture tells us after about 400 years had passed things changed dramatically for the worst. “… a new king to whom the name of Joseph meant nothing came to power in Egypt. (Exodus 1:8) This was the context for the call of Moses.
God’s people the Hebrews were enslaved and subjected to forced labor in great building programs for the king of Egypt. God heard their cry for rescue and was ready to act. God told Moses that he would be His instrument to bring his people out of Egypt and give them a completely different life, in a “land flowing with milk and honey.” (Exodus 3:8)
Moses protested with every argument he could think of. He was content with the life he was living. He did not want to face the Pharoah who had ordered his death for murder years before or face the Hebrew leaders who would be skeptical of his credentials. But the Lord dealt gently with him reassuring him about all his reservations. God told him that He would be with him, and that his brother Aaron would speak for him.
What we know about ourselves is not as important as the fact that God has chosen us for the work that he wishes for us to do.
Most importantly, God also told Moses His name: “I AM WHO I AM,” the four-letter tetragrammaton YHWH, which scholars have added vowels to (classical Hebrew only has consonants) producing the name ‘Yahweh.’ There is a commonly accepted explanation of what “I AM WHO AM,” means. In plain language it means I am uniquely transcendent, there is no one or nothing in creation that compares to me.
Moses was told to tell the Israelites, when they ask who sent you to us: I am YHWH, the LORD, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob … This is my name forever, and this is my title for all generations. (Exodus 3:15) Moses believed God and obeyed his calling, and Israel became a nation that has survived more than three thousand years.
We will never find our future in our past, or in any one person, but only in the LORD our God, and in our personal and corporate relationships as Christians led by Jesus our Savior.
This lesson comes to us in a rather different way in Matthew’s Gospel reading for today. In the last year of his earthly ministry Jesus introduced to his chosen inner group of followers that he is going to be a different kind of Messiah than the one they expected.
From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid it Lord! This must never happen to you.” But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” (Matt 16:21-23)
As a college teacher I often advised my students, especially the very bright ones with fire in their belly, to reserve judgement for as long as possible when faced with a historical fact or political leader that angered them; so that they may approach the subject with better historical perspective and objectively.
Peter rushed to make a judgement, overlooking that the Son of God had spoken, or that there was no greater authority on this matter than Jesus.
Peter just moments before had been the first of the disciples to declare that Jesus was “the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And he was dramatically commended by our Lord, saying Peter would be the leader of the church in its early years.
“blessed are you Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man but by my Father in Heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter (Petros, stone) and upon this rock will I build my church and the gates of Hell will not overcome it.” (Matthew 16:17,18)
Peter’s reaction was bullheaded, Jesus said Satanic, but not surprising giving his upbringing and culture. The Temple Priesthood, Scribes and Synagogue Rabbi’s all taught that Messiah would be a Priest, a King, and the Savior of his people from their oppressors. In the lifetime of Jesus, the Romans ruled the Jews. Every Jew prayed that Messiah would come in their lifetime, throw out the Romans and establish his kingdom on earth. Peter and all the disciples wanted this as much as the Israelites had wanted in Moses’ day to be rescued from the enslavement and domination of Pharoah and the Egyptians 1400 years before. But Jesus came the first time to be a suffering Messiah so that He could die for the sins of the world and offer those who believe in him salvation.
When we consider the 12 Apostles, after being with Jesus for three years at the point of his arrest they still did not understand him or his message. Judas would betray him; Peter would deny him three times in the courtyard of the Sanhedrin. All but John, the Beloved disciple, would flee when Jesus was arrested and remain in hiding until He appeared to them after the Resurrection.
But encounters with the Risen Christ would change everything. These same men would later be called in Thessalonica “the men who turned the world upside down.”(Acts 17:6) in one generation they evangelized the entire Roman world.
We too have choices, we can follow our instincts and avoid taking on new responsibilities because they require much of us, or with the gifts and abilities that the Lord has developed in us over our lifetimes, say yes to what Jesus wants us to do.
In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.
Joseph J. Muñoz
Professor Emeritus
Feather River College