Calvary Episcopal Church
Memphis, Tennessee
March 14, 2004
The Third Sunday in Lent

Exactly the Partners God Wants
The Rev. Dr. Andrew MacBeth

First Reading: Exodus 3:1-15
(This sermon is also available in audio)

This forgiveness-of-sins business is great–unless you were counting on your misdeeds disqualifying you for further service to God.

I want to tell you about a young man who got into some serious trouble…. Although he had a good heart and was from a good family, he was a passive and impatient young man. He got involved in some things that had the police looking for him, and it seemed like rather than stay around to deal with the charges, which were true, he had just better disappear.

The new life he put together for himself was not the life of privilege he had left behind—no chance for an education, no fancy vacations, but he got by, working at a minimum wage job and doing a little extra whenever he could. It was a “little life” compared with what he had been born to, but it was okay. After a while, he even married the boss’s daughter and started a family—he was set!

“End-of-story”, we might think, for this man we call Moses. But apparently, God had something else in mind for him. God was trying to get his attention. It’s not clear how long this went on or how many different approaches God took.

What are the usual ways God works to get through to us? My experience is that we are most likely to pay attention at those times when (1) things are going badly or (2) when we feel especially blessed.

In Moses’ case, God resorts to a third option–phenomena–Moses starts seeing things. To be specific, he sees a bush that catches fire–and instead of burning up and going out, it just keeps getting bigger and burning higher. Moses mutters some words which–even if they could be translated–we would not be able to say in church. And he stops to see what is going on.

(Why is it so hard for God to get our attention? Do we feel too ordinary for God to be interested in us? Too sinful? Or are we just to busy pursuing our own interests to know that God has plans for us? JR Tolkien’s “hobbit” is not a human, but he is wonderfully human in this respect. According to the story, hobbits are the most home-loving, routine-hugging creatures in all of Middle Earth. They love their creature comforts, their pipe, their slippers, the long evenings beside the fire. They are the very last creatures one would imagine undertaking long journeys, perilous quests, or difficult combat. Yet it is precisely to one of these that falls the task of returning the whole known world to normal. Bilbo Baggins is rousted out of his comfortable burrow and discovers…amazingly! ...that he has gifts and friends he never counted on. He is precisely the person to do the job after all.

If you want to know more, come to the Parish Retreat in late April and take up the challenge for forty-eight hours of leading what we are calling “a Hobbit’s Life.”)

God sees and knows Moses in a way that no one else can. “Moses,” God says, “I know who you are. You are royalty, you are a leader, and yes, you have weaknesses, but you are the partner I need for the great work I am about to do. You and I are going to set my people free from Egypt.”

We can only imagine that Moses’ response has been cleaned up over the centuries, but to put it mildly, he says, “Who the HELL are you?”

And God says, “I am the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham and Sara, and I know exactly what you are capable of doing.”

This is how God does Youth Ministry:

First, God SEEs what there is in us–both the gifts we have and the liabilities we bring–God knows Moses is a runaway, a man who has committed murder, a man of both passion…and laziness. God know all of it!

Second, God EQUIPS Moses to do the work that lies ahead. He gives him a quick theology lesson. Unlike the many ancient gods, who responded when called by the worshipers who knew their name, Moses finds out he is dealing with a different sort of God. This God who simply says, “I AM” says that HE does the calling. God is the One who calls us, not the other way around. And God acknowledges that Moses will need friends to do the work God is giving him to do. “You don’t have all the gifts required? Not good at public speaking? Leave it to me. Remember your old friend Aaron? Well, he does not have the greatest value system, but he’s really good at marketing. You can take him with you.”

Finally, God SENDS Moses. He gives Moses a job that is way too big for any human being. But the job makes the man. If you look around you for the teens and young adults who are not present in the pews, there is a reason they are not here. And let’s don’t kid ourselves that they will just come back as part of some natural cycle or after we build a gym and a bowling alley. Something less than ten percent of Americans under thirty have a relationship with organized religion. There is a lot of mythology about this–how they don’t like the music we sing or find the worship dull or don’t like the way we have treated women and minorities–and all of these have at least a grain of truth in them. But the main reason they are not here is because THEY HAVE NOT FELT NEEDED.

We offer to entertain our young people, offer them moral advice, send them to camp or even on a pilgrimage, but we have not explained how GOD NEEDS THEM! But if we are at all in touch with the state of the world today, it should be obvious that God has things that need doing which are every bit as challenging and exciting as slipping behind enemy lines in Egypt and organizing a rebellion there.

If we weren’t so focused on tradition, on reminding ourselves about our family associations with this place–that our ancestors all were under the cloud that protected the Hebrews from the Egyptian army, that they all went through the Red Sea, all ate the manna in the wilderness–then we would change the name of this parish–oh, and I know how tacky this is–because I could not stand it either. But, like those churches that are inventing themselves and choosing names like “Jubilee Christian Life Center,” we’d call it “Calvary Episcopal Ministry Center,” and we would say, “If you don’t want to join a church, fine, but this is ‘God setting a table in the wilderness’ as the psalm says! ‘Come and help!’”

Or do we think the kingdom is already in place? Or that the work is too hard or the pay too poor for our nice kids?

Of course, it’s OUR CALL too, yours and mine, even before it is theirs. Jesus told a parable in which the landowner comes and says to the nurseryman, “What’s the matter with this old fig tree? It hasn’t given me any fruit in years. Dig it up!” But the nurseryman says, “Let’s not be hasty, my lord. Why don’t I dig around it and fertilize and see what it can do? Sure it’s old, but I think it still has possibilities.” And the landowner relents and says, “Okay, one more year.”

Do you ever get the feeling I sometimes have that God has been patient with me for a long time? I have had a ready excuse or two for years and years– “Right now, Lord, I’m too busy. I have a new baby, or I am in grad school, or I just opened my first practice, or we just bought a new house, or whatever!” Now, I’m coming up with a whole new set–“You know, Lord, I don’t have as much energy as I did when I was younger….and so on and so on.”

There’s good Biblical precedent for God preferring the elderly and the adolescent! Think about Abraham–and think about our little sister Mary. Don’t you wonder how many young women Gabriel visited before he found one who was ready to say, “Be it unto me according to thy word.”? This God of ours consistently refuses to use coercion to get our help. This is a God people can and DO say NO to. But there’s grace in the fact that our God keeps on asking, way past the time when a good personnel manager would have said, “Let this one go—they’ll never produce much.”

My friends, we have a good and gracious God who needs our help, a God who knows us better than we know ourselves and yet still insists you and I are exactly the partners God wants.

Let the God who sees you and calls you also equip you and send you out. And if you are having trouble hearing just what God is saying, come talk with your clergy and your faith community. I dare you! We will help each other listen.

Copyright 2004 Calvary Episcopal Church

First Reading: Exodus 3:1-15
Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; he led his flock beyond the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed. Then Moses said, "I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up." When the LORD saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, "Moses, Moses!" And he said, "Here I am." Then he said, "Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground." He said further, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. Then the LORD said, "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, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out
of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the country of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. The cry of the Israelites has now come to me; I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them. So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt." But Moses said
to God, "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?" He said, "I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain." But Moses said to God, "If I come to the
Israelites and say to them, 'The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' what shall I say to them?" God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM." He said further, "Thus you shall say to the Israelites, 'I AM has sent me to you.'" God also said to Moses, "Thus you shall say to the
Israelites, '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': This is my name forever, and this my title for all generations. NRSV

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