First Lutheran Church
March 12, 2023 + The Third Sunday in Lent A
Exodus 17:1-7From the wilderness of Sin the whole congregation of the Israelites journeyed by stages, as the Lord commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. The people quarreled with Moses, and said, “Give us water to drink.” Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?” But the people thirsted there for water; and the people complained against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?” So Moses cried out to the Lord, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.” The Lord said to Moses, “Go on ahead of the people, and take some of the elders of Israel with you; take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink.” Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. He called the place Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarreled and tested the Lord, saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”
Exodus 4:1-4, 17.But Moses protested again, “What if they won’t believe me or listen to me? What if they say,‘The Lord never appeared to you’?”Then the Lord asked him, “What is that in your hand?”“A shepherd’s staff,” Moses replied.“Throw it down on the ground,” the Lord told him. So Moses threw down the staff, and it turned into a snake! Moses jumped back.Then the Lord told him, “Reach out and grab its tail.” So Moses reached out and grabbed it, and it turned back into a shepherd’s staff in his hand. … And take your shepherd’s staff with you, and use it to perform the miraculous signs I have shown you.”
Sermon
“What’s in Your Hand?”
Pastor Greg Ronning
Last Sunday I talked about new beginnings, - the new beginnings of faith. In last week’s appointed First Lesson we heard the story of the call of Abraham and Sarah, the call to pack up all their belongings and travel into the land of Canaan, where they will be sojourners, strangers in a strange land, dependent on the hospitality of others; until some far away day in the future when their descendants would become a great nation, a nation that will be a blessing to all the world, a nation that would reveal the kingdom of God unto all the world. This call was characterized by the 19th century theologian Soren Kierkegaard, "Abraham takes one thing with him and leaves one thing behind. He leaves behind his earthly understanding and takes with him faith. Otherwise, his journey would have seemed and been totally unreasonable."We were reminded that the new beginnings of faith demand that we leave behind “earthly understandings,” for they are born not of this world, but of water and spirit, in faith; born of faith alone. We are called to leave everything else behind.The new beginnings of faith are not rooted in the things of this world, in financial resources, conventional power, or temporal safety and security. The new beginnings of God begin with that proverbial “leap of faith.”
This week’s appointed First Lesson from Exodus tells the story of how Moses is able to provide water for the Israelites as they cross the desert in search of the promised land by striking a rock at Horeb with his staff. Moses travels to the rock with the elders, strikes the rock with his staff, and water comes out of the rock. This water provides them with the water they need in the desert, but more importantly reminds the people that God is still present among them as they make their journey across the desert to the land of promise.
As I read this week’s lesson, I found myself thinking primarily about the “staff” of Moses. It plays a prominent role in almost all of the stories of “The Exodus,” God’s deliverance of the Israelites from their bondage of slavery under the Egyptians. The Jewish theologian IsmarSchorsch writes, “In the saga of Israel’s liberation from Egypt, the staff of Moses is more than a prop. Though inanimate, it is nothing short of a lead character, an effective change-agent in the face of determined resistance.”
The staff becomes a snake on more than one occasion, bearing witness to the authenticity of the call of Moses before the Jewish Elders; and when Moses and Aaron confront Pharaoh for the first time, Aaron tosses the staff on the ground where it becomes a serpent that devours the serpents conjured up by the Egyptian magicians. The staff is the instrument that brings about the first three plagues; changing the water of the Nile into blood, infesting the land with frogs, and then rats. Later it is used to bring about the plagues of hail and locust. It is widely supposed that when Moses raised his hands to part the Red Sea, his ever-present staff was in his hand. In today’s lesson Moses strikes a rock with the staff and the rock produces water. And later when the warriors of Amalek attack the Israelites, Moses stands up at the top of a hill, and as long ashe lifts up his staff in the air, their attackers are defeated.
But this morning I want to focus in on the staff of Moses and the role it played in his new beginning with God, his great calling in life, to lead the Israelites from the bondage of slavery into the freedom of the promised land. So it is, we shift back, and continue to look at the new beginnings of faith.
The call of Moses is found in the third and fourth chapters of Exodus. Moses at the time is a shepherd tending the flock of his father-in-law Jethro. He is with the sheep far into the wilderness at Sinai, the mountain of God. As he walks along, he come across a “burning bush.” When Moses stops to check it out, God calls out to him from the middle of the bush, “Moses! Moses!” God then proceeds to tell Moses, “I have certainly seen the oppression of my people in Egypt. I have heard their cries of distress because of their harsh slave drivers. Yes, I am aware of their suffering. So, I have come down to rescue them from the power of the Egyptians and lead them out of Egypt into their own fertile and spacious land.” And then comes the part that surprises Moses, “Now go, for I am sending ‘you’ to Pharaoh. You must lead my people Israel out of Egypt.”
Moses vigorously objects. “Who am I to appear before Pharaoh? Who am I to lead the people of Israel out of Egypt?”Moses is not looking for a new beginning, and certainly not this one. He has already fled Egypt for his life once, why would he want to go back again. And even if he did, he was not the right person for the job. He continues to protest; I wouldn’t know what to say, I’m not a good public speaker, I don’t know even know how to describe who you are, I don’t even know your name, I don’t have an army, I don’t have any power, I don’t have the necessary skills. And what if they don’t believe me, what if they think I am making up this whole burning bush thing?
At this point, after all the excuses, God asks Moses a simple question, “What is in your hand?” Moses replies, “A shepherd’s staff.”God then tells Moses, “Throw it down on the ground.” Moses obeys, and as the staff hits the ground it becomes a snake. Moses jumps back in fear. God then directs him, “Reach out and grab its tail.” “So Moses (I imagine reluctantly) reached out and grabbed it, and it turned back into a shepherd’s staff in his hand.”God once again calls Moses to got to Pharoah, and finally concludes, “And take your shepherd’s staff with you …”
When God calls us, invites us, exhorts us to a new beginning in faith; when God summons us to undertake a greater participation in the work of the coming of the Kingdom of God; notice what God asks us, and what does not ask us to do. God does not ask us to become something we are not, God does not demand that we learn a new skill, God does not demand that we ignore all our life experience, God simply asks us, “What is in your hand.”
Pastor Roger Tabler comments on The Call of Moses, “Notice that God starts right where Moses was: God didn’t ask Moses to read a book (though books can certainly be helpful), God didn’t ask Moses to take a class in freeing slaves (though classes can certainly be helpful). God didn’t ask Moses to wait a few years when Moses would be ready. No. When God has you cornered, be prepared for [God] to ask you “What’s in your hand?” It’s not a matter of what’s going to be in your hand; it’s not a matter of when better days are ahead. How often do we think “I will give you more, when I get more.” But that’s not how God works—[God] asks you to use the resources that you have right now, …”
Moses held in his hand the essential tool of his trade. It was a staff, a rod, a shepherd’s crook. Shepherds used the crooked end to pull sheep back when they strayed from the heard, and they used the blunt end to prod and guide the sheep as necessary. It could also be used to fight off wild animals. It was an instrument that was very comfortable in the hand of the shepherd, perhaps worn with their grip, something they would never leave behind, something that was not only representative of them, - but a very part of them.
God’s new beginning in Moses, just as God’s new beginning with Abraham and Sarah, demanded that he leave behind his “earthly understandings,” and his comfort zone, but not the tools of his trade, his staff, his gifts, his talents, his resources. God will make use of those things in the new vocation.
Thus, the question for all of us this morning, the primary question we must consider as we ponder God’s calling, our vocation in the kingdom of God, the adventure that is our new beginning of faith, is simply this, “What is in your hand?”
As we answer this question we are encouraged not to get caught up in the “magic” of Moses’s staff. IsmarSchorsch reminds us, “According to the narrative, the staff is nothing more than an ordinary shepherd’s staff. … It could not have been more nondescript and unexceptional. But, that is precisely the point: the staff harbored no inherent potency. At work was solely God’s will which chose to transform a crude artifact into an instrument of titanic power.” Keeping in mind that you don’t have to do magic like Moses, what is that skill set that you have created, what is the natural gift with which you have been blessed, what is that passion that wakes your hands into action, what is that thing that is uniquely you? I love Fredrick Buechner’s classic definition of vocation, our calling in life. He describes it this way, “[Vocation] is the place where your deep gladness and world’s deep hunger meet.” What is the “deep gladness” you hold in your hands, that you live out with your hands? And where can it be used to make a difference in the world! Once again, the question posed by God this morning to each of you is simply, “What is in your hand?”
Now, notice the pattern in God’s call to Moses. It’s important! God first asks, “What is in your hand?” Then God tells him, “Throw it down!” And then God invites Moses to pick it back up again and go tell Pharoah. Once we identify that “thing” that we hold in our hand, that thing that might be a physical thing, or could be a metaphorical thing. Once we identify it, that precious “thing” in our life, we are asked to let it go. Moses is asked to throw down his staff, to let go of his all-important staff. In that moment, he does not know that God is going to ask him to pick it up again. I imagine he might be wondering if God is now going to send him out into the worldwithout it. And besides all that, the staff surrendered now appears as a dangerous snake on the ground.
Yet perhaps it is in this surrendering of his staff, that his staff is transformed into a “sacrament” for his new calling, a sign of, and the presence, of God. This morning as we consider the precious“things” we hold in our hands, let us also be willing to surrender them for the sake of the gospel, to let them be used in a new way, allowing them to be the instruments of God in the coming of God. We are reminded that it is in letting go - that we truly receive.
Once again as we consider God’s invitation to a “new beginning” in our life, as we consider “a leap of faith,” as our Lenten Journey invites us to contemplate what it means to repent, to change direction, to turn around, do more with less, to be born again; let us remember the saints that have gone before us, the descent of God in Christ Jesus, and those things that we hold in our hands that might become the very instrument that might hold the presence of God for those who need it the most. We are reminded by St. Paul in Second Corinthians, “We have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.” (2nd Corinthians 4:7)
And finally, a concluding word from the Psalmist, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.” (Psalm 23:4-5)
May the faith that resides in your heart - rise up, giving you the courage to fully embrace the new beginning God has waiting for you. Listen even now God is calling you,“What’s in your hand?”Amen.