“Who, Me?”
Remember we don't have to face challenges alone
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, November 23, 2003
Text: Exodus 4:1-13
I've been spending some time (not a great deal, but some) thinking about the following: Do you think, for example, Sherlock Holmes would appear as intelligent as he does without Dr. Watson? Or, I wonder if Hercule Poirot would be as clever if he were not contrasted with Inspector Japp. I have wondered at times if Charlie would have been as effective without his angels, or if Wayne would have seemed remotely funny without Shuster. I have also wondered (and this has been on my mind a lot the last few weeks) if Jean would have been able to govern as well had it not been for Aline.
The fact is that none of us, no matter how eloquent, wise, able or capable can do what we do alone. After all, we did not come into this world apart, but through someone else, and we will probably not leave this world without someone being there with us. Everything that we do between our birth and our death, we do with others.
I've been thinking a lot about this recently. For indeed, the veracity of the dictum “No man is an island” bears itself out not only in fiction but also in reality. Individuals, as powerful as capable, as educated, as informed as any of us might be, do not accomplish anything alone. In this world we walk with fellow travellers and those fellow travellers, in large part, determine our success.
Now, I've been thinking about this a great deal in the context of ministry. As many of you know, The Reverend John Harries will be retiring at the end of this coming week and for those of us who have been dealing with the transition, ensuring that your pastoral needs are met, looking at all the different varieties of ministries and the vicissitudes of what we do, we've realized that no one ministers alone. Even if you draw up very clearly defined job descriptions and have every “i” dotted and every “t” crossed, the fact is, no matter how well-crafted a position, when you're ministering, you're ministering with others. It is their abilities and gifts, the way they work together that determines success.
Many years ago I saw something in an American newspaper outlining job descriptions for a ministerial team. It was tongue in cheek but I've remembered it and thought about it many times. The particular job titles very much reflect the spirit of American churches, but I think it this was most insightful.
First of all for the Senior Minister, or Senior Pastor, we must have the following gifts: “Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. More powerful than a locomotive. Faster than a speeding bullet. Walks on water and gives counsel to God.”
The Associate Minister: “Able to leap short buildings in a single bound. Is as powerful as a switch-engine. Just as fast as a speeding bullet. Walks on water when the sea is calm and talks with God.”
The Minister of Music: “Able to leap short buildings with a running start. Almost as powerful as a switch-engine. Faster than a speeding B-B gun pellet. Occasionally addressed by God and walks on water if he knows where the stumps are.”
The Minister of Youth: “Runs into small buildings. (I'm sure you've run into a few of those in the last few weeks, haven't you?) Can recognize a locomotive two out of three times. Uses a squirt gun. Knows how to use the water fountain and mumbles to yourself.”
The killer was the Church Administrator or Secretary (very fitting for Anne Levy-Ward): “Lifts buildings to walk under them. Kicks locomotives off the track. Catches speeding bullets in her teeth. Freezes water with a single glance and when God speaks she says, 'May I ask who is calling?'” This sounds so real it hurts, I must say.
No matter how you define a job in the Christian ministry, it boils down to the fact that each and every one of us must first of all be faithful to Christ and second, we must be willing to work with one another in a collegial way. Nowhere is this more clearly evident than in today's passage from the Book of Exodus. It's a story of the call of Moses.
Moses, as we have read, had encountered God in the burning bush. God called Moses into His ministry and Moses realized that this was an enormous task. His role was to unite a people and lead them into the Promised Land. His role was to speak to Pharoah, the leader of the Empire and say: “Let my people go.” Moses was given an awesome job to work on behalf of Almighty God. But Moses, having received this call and realizing the enormity of what lay before him, started to give a series of excuses. And are these not excuses that you and I would give if confronted with the same challenge by the Almighty?
When Moses said: “But what if they do not believe me or listen to me, but say, 'The Lord did not appear to you,'” he was saying to God, “Look, I am going to speak as if you have spoken to me and people are going to look at me with incredulity. They're going to wonder on what authority am I able to do these things.”
He then began to question if he had the power, the abilities, the gifts to be able to do this. And finally, he just gave up and said, “O my Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor even now that you have spoken to your servant; but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.” But God would have none of it. God's sovereign will was to choose Moses. And so God offered Moses some magical powers, and demonstrated them to him. He promised that if he picked up a snake he wouldn't be bitten. If he put his hand in his cloak it would come out white. If he poured water from the Nile on the ground it would seem as blood and people would be overwhelmed by these miracles.
After this promise, in my opinion God said what are the two most powerful things in the entire story. In this sense, the call of Moses sounds like a wonderful call to each and every one of us who exercise a ministry within the church. I'm talking particularly to those of you who are becoming new members in our congregation this morning. The challenge that lies before you and all of us is in many ways similar to that of Moses. Maybe not in complete and absolute substance, but certainly in style and in the challenges that we face.
What God offered to Moses most of all was this: The assurance of divine resources. God angrily answered Moses: “Who gives speech to mortals? Who makes them mute or deaf, seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you are to speak.” In other words, God didn't just call Moses. God made a covenant with Moses that if he would go and represent Him and speak on His behalf and lead the people, it was He, the one who gave the ability of speech in the first place, who would enable Moses to know what to say.
This does not mean that overnight Moses miraculously became eloquent. There is no sense of that here. But there is a sense that God would give Moses words that spoke divine authority, as they would be efficacious for the function for which Moses was called. I suspect that at the heart of Moses problem is not actually a pride and arrogance that says, “I can do all things.” At the heart of it is a sense that he is not able to complete the function. However, there is another side, and it is that side that says, “I am now charged with doing this on my own.” The problem with Moses was not that he was inadequate for the task, but that he assumed he was to perform that task on his own, without divine guidance.
In a beautiful book I've been reading by Dr. David McClennan a former minister here at this church titled, Preaching the Good News to Modern Man, he talks about Charles de Gaulle and how he got up every morning and said a one-line prayer: “Lord, you can trust me.”
I think Moses had reached this point of saying, “Lord, I'm not sure that you can trust me.” He'd forgotten that God was with him. He had forgotten that God was the one who gave him the mouth to speak, the ears to hear, the eyes to see. God was not going to give Moses a call and not give him the power to carry it out. On the contrary.
Just before I was to be ordained someone gave me a little parable. It's a parable that is many, many decades old and reflects a time when only men were in the ministry. It's a story of two ministers' wives who were mending their husbands' pants. As they were mending one of them exclaimed, “You know, I don't know why I'm doing this. My husband is no good. He is not happy in his ministry. People are leaving his church in droves and I don't think he's going to be able to continue doing what he's doing.”
The second minister's wife said: “Oh, well, mine is the opposite. He's happy in ministry. Everything is going well. The people love him and he loves the people. The Lord is blessing what he is doing. I'm sure he will never do anything else in his life but be a minister.”
A hush then descended on the room and one of them was patching the seat of the trousers while the other one was patching the knees. The first minister was relying on himself. He was spending most of his time sitting down on the job. The second one was spending most of his time in prayer.
My friends, I've thought about that parable many times throughout my ministry of the last 20-odd years, and it has brought back to me time and time again that the ministry of the church, of individual clergy, of lay people, of the Body of Christ is always empowered by divine resources - not just by human gifts. Oh, it's true that in Luke 19 we read the parable of the talents. And that God gives these talents in various degrees for people to use, and the church is made up of people who have different talents and gifts. In Luke there is a test to make sure we use them. There is a requirement that we must use what God has given us. But the fact is, that it is God who gives the talents in the first place.
God will never call you to a ministry or lead you to do something for which He will not provide you the resources. But it is only if you trust Him, only if you understand what Moses had to learn: It is not just all on our shoulders, but by divine grace and the resources of God that we are able to do anything to God's glory.
There is another side to this story. Not only are divine resources enough to enable us to do the work, but there is also a need for collegiality, a need to perform these gifts and acts together.
When Moses felt that he was not sufficiently eloquent to speak, God stepped in. He almost embarrassed Moses at one point, saying, “What of your brother Aaron the Levite? I know that he can speak fluently; even now he is coming out to meet you... You shall speak to him and put the words in his mouth; and I will be with your mouth and with his mouth, and will teach you what you shall do. He indeed shall speak for you to the people; he shall serve as a mouth for you, and you shall serve as God for him.”
Now, most Old Testament scholars agree that this is the sign of the coming together of prophetic and priestly roles within the people of Israel. That this was a coming together of Moses, the first prophet, this is a gathering with Aaron who was to represent the priesthood and the two would work together simultaneously for God's kingdom and glory. However you read the story of Moses and Aaron, the fact is that Moses had to learn that he was not doing it alone. He was going to carry out the most amazing feat and the most challenging of tasks, with Aaron and with God.
Walter Brueggemann, the Old Testament scholar, suggests that the call of Moses and his uncertain response was ultimately a call to speak on behalf of the voiceless. We have no idea what the people of Israel were like when Moses was bringing them out of Egypt. They'd been enslaved. They were a people from disparate tribes. There were Amalekites and Calebites and Kenites and Keniggites et al. as well as the 12 tribes. This was not a homogeneous, educated, elite that Moses was bringing out of Egypt into a Promised Land. This was a disparate group that needed uniting, a disparate group that had no one to speak for it and was voiceless. Very often, my friends, I believe that the prophetic ministry of the church is to speak on behalf of the voiceless.
I don't know if any of you watched, as I did with some amazement, as the rock singer Bono addressed the Liberal conference last weekend. Whether I thought that Bono was wise to be there at that moment, or if he was as eloquent as he should have been, one thing did strike me positively about what Bono did: He took time to speak for people who have no voice.
I've thought a great deal about that lately - as photographs, letters and articles have been coming across my computer about what is happening in South Africa. When I think of those 91,000 children a year born with HIV, simply because it's passed on through their mothers. I think of them dying, emaciated, in their beds in Kwa-Zulu. I ask myself, “Who speaks for them that the world might listen?” Who speaks for the mothers of suicide bombers in Palestine? Who speaks for the children who die when buses are blown up in Tel Aviv? Who speaks for people who are caught in the conflict of war? Who speaks for those who have no voice, those to whom no one listens when they speak, no one cares about - those who have no access to the means of getting their message across?
Moses was told by God: “I have heard the cry of my people. Moses, I'm sending you to tell the world and to tell the nation and to tell Pharoah that I have heard their cry. So, never mind, Moses if you're eloquent, never mind if your nation is unified, never mind if you're powerful. Rely on me because if I'm sending you as one who has heard the cry of my people.”
The ministry of the church of Jesus Christ will always be to follow the example of Jesus with the lepers, of Jesus and the Samaritans. It will always be to make the voices of those who seem to have no voice heard through the prophetic power of ministry. I know that there are others who do it, and do it even better than we do, that in a secular society what the church says often has little or no meaning or political power. But this I will tell you: The church of Jesus Christ speaks for the voiceless - it speaks like Moses did and it does not speak alone. But there is also this sense that by bringing Aaron into the equation, the priestly ministry is needed as well - not only the prophetic voice that says,“Set my people free,” but also the pastoral voice that says, “Bring my people together and bring them to a place of worship and prayer.”
Ultimately, the people of Israel came to know what Moses found out: When they went into the wilderness their own resources were not enough. They needed to be a people of prayer and God was able to meet them. No matter how strong their leadership, it was the grace of God that was their true support.
When we feel inadequate, when we feel that we cannot rise to the challenges that lie before us as a church or as individuals, when the problems of the world overwhelm us, there is something else that David McLennan mentioned in his book. It was a story from A.J. Cronyn's book, The Keys to the Kingdom. A doctor who had gone to China and in trying to save the people from an epidemic was dying himself. In the midst of all this the doctor cried out to a priest as he was about to die: “You know I still don't believe in God.”
The priest looked at him and said: “It doesn't matter any more. God believes in you.”
My friends, this is not the deification of the human being - we are not God - but it is the affirmation that God works through people. God gives the gifts of the spirit and the power and the wisdom to be able to do His work. So, when you are confronted with a challenge, when you need to be a disciple, when you need to be a person of faith, and you say: “Who, me?” Remember Moses and remember what God said to him: “Who gives speech to mortals? Who makes them mute or deaf, seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go, and I will be with you.” Amen.
This is a verbatim transcription of the original sermon.