Facing the Fire
Exodus 3:1-15; Matthew 16:21-28
Wendy S. Tajima
Good morning! I appreciate your welcome, and the opportunity to speak here. I’ve visited your church a few times for the Presbytery—in fact, I was presented to the Presbytery right here, and I was impressed with the beauty and spirit of this place. Pastor Tom and others have been especially helpful and welcoming to me as I prepared for today, so as one who guest preaches quite frequently, I thank you for being well-organized and gracious. Actually, I think that’s what we Presbyterians strive to be, isn’t it—well-organized and gracious.
I also appreciate the beautiful liturgy for Labor Day, the history of it and its relevance today. To a large extent, today’s lectionary passages relate well to Labor Day, as we consider our work, and the need not to be exploited for our work, and the call to be open to a higher purpose for our work, as we offer our time, our talents, and our very selves to God’s plan of salvation for this world.
And Labor Day also tends to mark the end of summer and the beginning of the school year. But I have to say, it’s been a very busy summer! At San Francisco Theological Seminary, where I work, we have had many transitions this summer. For a year now we knew that Dave Tomlinson and Elizabeth Nordquist would retire after many years of dedicated service to SFTS and the wider church. Dave’s office as Vice President of the Southern California campus is now occupied quite ably by a mutual friend of ours, Dr. Judy Siker. I’ve enjoyed getting to know her as she begins this new ministry, and she speaks of you with appreciation and affection. There were a couple of surprises, however, as our President went on a five-month sabbatical, so Dave Tomlinson is now acting President, and the person who recruited me to work at SFTS, Kyle Matsumoto Burch, has left the seminary, so I am now the Associate Dean of Enrollment for both campuses, but based mostly here in Los Angeles. We are also bringing on a new senior director of alumni relations, Dr. Peter Kim, also based in Los Angeles, which means that SFTS now has a significant leadership core based in Southern California—but that we are also making weekly trips to the Northern campus in Marin.
But as I get used to this weekly 400-mile commute, I also find myself marveling at the exciting times in which we live. Consider the month just ending—first we had the build-up to the Summer Olympics, with the protests and the worries and the analysis. Then, we had the Olympics themselves, with who knows how many world records and new stars, and new sports. And as soon as the Olympics flame died down, the Democratic Convention got fired up, with more star power—and much better organization—than I thought possible for the Democrats. Not to be outdone, John McCain teamed up with Sarah Palin to give us perhaps the biggest surprise in presidential politics, at least in anyone’s memory.
Possibly your lives have been just as full, either with work, or world interest, or worries. What with mortgage and job fears, rising costs for staples like food and gasoline, and the watch of yet another major hurricane hitting Cuba and the vulnerable underbelly of the United States, there is much to keep ourselves wary. And with family, friends, work, church, and volunteering, there is much to keep ourselves happily busy. And sometimes, our very full lives make us too busy for God.
Consider today’s Old Testament passage, that very familiar story about Moses and the burning bush. Moses definitely had his hands full already! He had his identity issues, raised as a cross-cultural adoptee, cared for by Pharaoh’s daughter but painfully aware of his Hebrew heritage and the brutal manual labor for which his people were enslaved. As an alien residing in a foreign land, Moses had a passion for justice and liberation for his people, leading to a violent outburst against an Egyptian beating a Hebrew slave. Moses killed the Egyptian, and then fled from the law to Midian, where he married Zipporah and worked tending to his father-in-law’s flocks. So it was as a displaced sheepherder, who married and fathered a child while hiding from the law—who, by the way, was a poor speaker—that Moses faced the fire of God’s call.
So we can see that when God called Moses, God didn’t pick the most perfect or holy person to act on God’s behalf, and God didn’t wait for Moses to simply his life and make room for God. So perhaps it’s not surprising that Moses responded to God’s call in very human ways. . . . The first thing Moses did was to take notice. Now we can say that God wasn’t very subtle with Moses, speaking through a bush that was blazing, yet not getting burned up. But it’s remarkable how many signs we can pass up if we’re busy or self-absorbed enough! But Moses did take notice, and after God explained how God had been watching, hearing, feeling, and preparing to respond to the cries of misery of the Hebrew slaves, Moses had two basic questions:
1. Who am I that God would call me to such a great task?
2. Who is this God who has the special effects covered, but is showing some questionable judgment turning to a guy like Moses?
Personally, when I consider this story as a model for God’s call to us, I have to laugh at God’s non-answers to Moses’ questions. God’s answer to Moses’ question “Why me?” has nothing to do with Moses or his qualifications; instead, God says “I will be with you, and just to prove that I will be with you, you’ll know when you’ve completed your assignment that I was with you.” Likewise, when Moses asks God’s name, God answers with “I AM WHO I AM” (or, “I WILL BE WHATEVER I WILL BE”), a play on the name Yahweh.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t find this much to go on. Moses is supposed to leave his family, go back to face Pharaoh, who has a warrant out for his arrest, and in the name of “I AM” secure the release of the Hebrew slaves! The only assurance he has of success is that when he’s done he’ll be able to look back and see the hand of God guiding and protecting him, and God does mention God’s long-standing covenant with the children of Abraham.
In our Gospel lesson, Jesus presents the call to his disciples in even more challenging ways. Not only are we to be willing to leave family and job behind, Jesus challenges his disciples to let go of all worldly attachments, even suggesting that they must be willing to suffer for the call, by denying themselves and taking up their cross to follow Jesus. Even Peter’s desire to keep Jesus safe from harm is chastised by Jesus, saying “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me, by focusing on human things over divine things.”
By the way, it’s interesting to note that in the Greek language of the New Testament, the word that is translated as “life” in the statement “those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it” also means “soul” or “self.” So Jesus may not be asking us to be suicidal, but to give to God our own preconceptions of who we are and what we need—to live as if we believe that God Knows Best.
Now for some of us that may sound like suicide, especially for those of us who have enjoyed past success, having learned to focus on the gifts and parts of ourselves that the world values, values like competitiveness and ambition, looking out for Number One, individual achievement in wealth and education, and conformity in race, class, and beauty. Now we’re being asked to let go of ourselves, our sense of what’s possible, our fears of what’s not possible, and let God work through us without interference, or getting our buy-in by telling us what’s ahead. All God asks is that we trust God enough to allow God to work through us in ways that are unknown to us—because God can do what we cannot conceive of ourselves, as God brings us into God’s plan of salvation.
Does this include you? Might God choose to work through you in wondrous ways, just as God chose a stuttering fugitive from justice like Moses or the comedy of errors that were Christ’s disciples? I’m here to say yes, God does include you, and you are called— to more than you can do for yourself, to more than the world says you are, to a higher purpose than the tasks readily at hand. May you be bold in responding to God’s call, not out of pride, but a humble acceptance of God’s better judgment. We can do God’s will, just as Moses did God’s will, not because we can, but because God is with us, and will always be with us, even in the fires of awareness an doubt and beyond.
Thanks be to God! AMEN.
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