Sermon-How God's Help Comes

"SOME OLD STORIES FOR A NEW MILLENNIUM:
How God's Help Comes"

Dr. James L. Mayfield
Tarrytown United Methodist Church

October 3, 1999

Text: Exodus 3:1–5 (see Exodus 2-4)

Life is a good and marvelous gift. To be alive is to be able to experience joy and hope. But there are times when our problems are so great and the heartache and pain are so intense that without thinking we cry and pray, we pray and cry: "God, help us."

Today I want to talk about how God's help comes, and to do this I want us to recall some parts of one of the most famous Old Testament stories. The story begins with the Hebrew people living as slaves in the land of Egypt. Their life was one of misery. It seemed to be without hope.

I can only imagine the despair of parents putting their children to bed at night. What future could their children ever have? As painful as it was for those parents to deal with their own misery, it was a thousand times more painful for them to see that their children had no future except the future of slaves. "God, help us," they cried and they prayed.

Person after person, household after household cried out from the depths of their hearts: "God, help us." And the cries from their hearts blended into a mighty spiritual chorus that filled the heavens. And God heard. God remembered the promises he had made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Now the scene of the story changes. A fellow by the name of Moses was out in the Sinai desert taking care of his father-in-law's sheep. Moses had an interesting past. He had been born into a slave family in Egypt, but at the time of his birth there was a law demanding that all boy babies born among the Hebrews were to be thrown into the Nile River. Well, Moses' mother had put him in the river, but she had not just thrown him in to drown, she had made a water tight basket, a little boat. It was another ark in the service of God's purposes. Moses, in his little ark, was sent floating down the Nile where he was found by a daughter of Pharaoh. This Egyptian princess rescued this baby Hebrew slave from certain death and raised him in the palace where he had the opportunities and childhood of a prince.

It is clear in the story that Moses knew he was a Hebrew. When he was a young adult, his hot temper exploded in violent anger, and he killed an Egyptian who was beating one of Moses' relatives. When the Pharaoh learned what had happened, he wanted Moses killed, so Moses fled from Egypt into the Sinai desert. There he met the family that became his family when he married one of the daughters. That is how Moses came to be a shepherd, in the wilderness.

One day he saw a strange sight that did not make sense. A bush was burning, but not being consumed by the flames. As he drew near to examine what he did not understand, he became aware of God speaking to him. It was a scary experience.

It is scary for any of us who have found some peace and quiet in our lives to discover that God is speaking to us. And we are not just awestruck; we are somewhat afraid of what is coming next. I think Moses was something like a soldier on leave who gets a phone call from the general, the call he was afraid would come, the call that he was afraid might bring the assignment he had been trying to avoid. Moses undoubtedly knew what God had promised his ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He knew it was wrong for the Hebrew people to be in slavery. But that was some one else's problem.

Now came the voice of God speaking to him, and Moses was not only afraid of God, he was afraid of what God was going to say. And sure enough, God said just what Moses did not want to hear.

God has a way of doing that to us—telling us what we do not want to hear, telling us to become involved in what we would rather ignore. That moment in which the reality of God confronts us with what we know we ought to do is a scary moment.

The message was just what Moses did not want to hear. "I have seen the misery of my children in Egypt. I have heard their cries for help, and I am going to do something about that. I am going rescue them from slavery, and I am going to give them the place in life I had promised them long ago. And you, Moses, are the one I am going to use to accomplish all this. I am sending you back to Egypt, to bring my people to this place, where they will be free to worship and serve me."

Tradition says Moses stuttered. Well, if he had not done so before now, this was enough to make him start stuttering—the way all of us stutter any excuses we can think of when we try as best we can to get out of doing what we do not want to do and yet know we ought to do. In chapters 3 and 4 of the Book of Exodus, Moses uses a variety of excuses, "reasons" we call them when they come of our mouths—"reasons" why God ought to get someone else to do this job.

Moses forgot the kind of God he was arguing with. This is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob—Abraham the coward and liar who laughed at the promises of God, Isaac who was so easily tricked and fooled, Jacob who was such a scoundrel. God had used each of these men to fulfill the purposes of God, and in the process they became the persons God saw they could be. "I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and you, Moses, are going to be the one I use to set the Hebrew people free."

Moses' argument with God goes on for a while, but you know how it ends and who wins. Moses goes back to Egypt, and he begins doing what God has told him to do.

At first the Hebrew people were amazed and delighted. Gratitude ran high and worship participation was up. But then, Pharaoh decided enough was enough. These slaves did not have enough to do if they had time to listen to Moses and begin to get ideas about freedom. After all, business is business, and if you let this kind of cheap labor get the wrong kind of ideas, who knows what is likely to happen? So, convinced they needed more to do, the Pharaoh made their work more difficult and their hours of labor longer and their misery greater.

At this point, the very people Moses had been sent to rescue turned on him and blamed him for making matters worse. Far from being seen as a hero, Moses was seen as one who had held out false hope and in the process increased their misery.

Moses found himself not only carrying the burden of trying to do what God wanted him to do, but also having to deal with an angry Pharaoh and the hostility of the people he had been sent to set free. Moses must have wondered why he had ever left the peace and quiet of a shepherd's life.

As you know, after many ordeals, by the power and grace of God, the Hebrew people were finally set free, and Moses led them out of bondage and into the wilderness to worship and serve God.

What does this story have to tell us about how God's help comes? Here is some of what this story tells me.

This story reminds me that God's help comes—not in response to what we want, but in response to our deepest needs.

This story reminds me that God's help comes according to God's schedule—not ours. God's help did not come according to the schedule of the Hebrew slaves; if it had, it would have come sooner.

This story reminds me that God works through ordinary, imperfect people, people who have problems, people who have faults. Because God works through whomever God chooses—Pharaoh's daughter, Moses, even Pharaoh—I cannot rule out anyone from being the instrument God will use to address my need. The truth of the matter is that one of the ways I most often cut myself off from the help God is trying to give me is for me to think God could not possibly be using that person in my life. Certainly not someone who looks like that, talks like that, acts like that, has that kind of a history, has that kind of a reputation.

Similarly, this story also tells me that regardless of our imperfections and our problems, regardless of our pain and our limitations, God can and will use each of us—including you and even me. None of us can exempt ourselves from God's claim on our lives any more than Moses could.

This story reminds me that while there are times when what I really want to do happens to be what God wants me to do, there are also times in life when what I know in my heart God wants me to do really does not fit any of my plans or fulfill any of my desires.

Similarly the story also tells me that sometimes when God is in the process of rescuing me from some sort of bondage, it appears to me that what is really happening is things are just getting worse. Sometimes the only way to the life God is offering us is through the pain we are trying to avoid.

There are times in our lives when from the depths of our hearts we cry with all the earnestness of those Hebrew slaves: "God, help me." How does God's help come? This old story about the Hebrew people, Pharaoh, Moses and God, contains some significant clues.

God, from time to time our experiences in life cause us to cry to you for help. Enable us to be aware of your help when it comes—however it comes. Amen.

Pastoral Prayer:

God, on this day we are especially aware that as we come to receive this sacrament we are not alone. We are sharing this special feast of grace with Christians in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Africa, South America, the Pacific Islands. Wherever there are Christians gathered around the table of Holy Communion, we are there in the spirit and they are here with us. God, on this World Wide Communion Sunday enable us to be aware that in our communion with Christ we are also in communion with all who claim Christ as Lord and Savior. God, help us and our sisters and brothers in Christ to be nourished by your grace as we celebrate in different ways and in different places the redeeming love you have made known in Jesus Christ.

O God, we pray for our sisters and brothers in the faith. Grant that they and we are so transformed by the presence of Christ in our lives that the way we live our lives is pleasing to you. Redeem all of us; restore and remold us so that we are made new, and as your new creations we are made one in the spirit, one in the Lord, one in the love of Christ, and therefore one in service to all people everywhere.

God, make this service of World Wide Communion be more than an ecumenical ritual. Make it be an event that is truly a world wide communion in Christ. This is our prayer. Amen

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