Sermon: So come, I will send you

Exodus 4:27-5:1; Hebrews 13:16-21, Psalm 116

Life begins at 40, they say. It did for me because the day after my 40^th birthday I had the interview that set me on the path to ordination, a change of direction in my life that I had not anticipated. But looking back I can see how that particular call of God on my life made sense of who I was and am in a way I could not foresee at the time.

For Moses, life began not at 40 but at 80. We are told (Exodus 7:7) that he was 80 and his brother Aaron 83 when they first went and spoke to Pharaoh. And he had another 40 years in the wilderness yet to come. He was already an old man when the tantalisingly short story that we heard in the first reading took place and I'll summarise briefly what has already happened:

Moses was a Hebrew and thus a member of the enslaved race but he had grown up in Pharaoh's court, a background that was prepared him for his new vocation because who else would both identify utterly with the slaves and know his way around court etiquette when the time came to confront Pharaoh. Never underestimate the components of your life story; God is always delving back into the past to make use of something that might have seemed unremarkable at the time but is ideal training or background for a new situation. After that, Moses kept his father in law's sheep in the wilderness for years: more significant preparation since he alone, among a race who had been cowed into submission and knew only the harsh labour of building pyramids or temples in the Nile valley, knew how to travel through a wilderness and rely on his own resources to survive. So he could help them to become a free people who could take responsibility for themselves.

Next there had been the unsettling incident of the burning bush when Moses had his first life-changing encounter with a holy God, reducing him to fear. God told him that he had observed the misery of his people in slavery and had come down to deliver them from their taskmasters. That liberating and exciting news - after all, Moses had once killed an Egyptian who was beating a Hebrew slave - was immediately followed by the instruction, ‘So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people out'. That was not what Moses had anticipated and his immediate response was ‘who am I that I should go?' That failed as a get-out clause because God simply said, ‘But I will be with you, and you'll have the assurance of that when you return to this mountain with the people.' That can't have been a lot of comfort to Moses - only being assured after the event that it was all in God's purpose.

Then ensues a debate as Moses thinks up all the excuses he can manage and God counters them. Losing the argument, Moses ends up by saying - and we can hear the desperation in his voice - ‘O my Lord, I have never been eloquent (shepherds in the wilderness don't do a lot of talking) ... but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.' In other words, ‘I'm simply not up to it.' Then, finally, he comes up with his ultimate bottom line: ‘O my Lord, please send someone else': not only can't I do it but I don't want to do it. God becomes angry and cuts the ground from under him by saying, ‘what of your brother Aaron, I know that he can speak eloquently and, guess what, he's on his way to meet you. You tell him what needs to be said and he'll speak for you.'

I don't think we can get a much more reluctant candidate for a new vocation from God than Moses. But he sets out with his wife and family to go back to Egypt.  Meanwhile, God sends Aaron to meet Moses en route, which is where we picked up the story. Aaron doesn't appear to know anything about this because Moses has to tell him, but he seems to be won. They go to Egypt and meet the elders of the Israelite slaves and Aaron passes on the message, accompanied by miraculous signs and the people bow down and worship God. So far, so good.

But then there's the hard bit which is recounted in one terse verse, ‘Afterward Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said, ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, "Let my people go, so that they may celebrate a festival to me in the wilderness."' That took courage. And against the background of that story, I was struck by a prayer in Church Times ten days ago, written by Bede Jarrett, a Dominican who brought the Dominican order back to Oxford for the first time since the Reformation and died in 1934. Here it is:

‘May he give us all the courage that we need to go the way he shepherds us. That when he calls we may go unfrightened. If he bids us come to him across the waters, that unfrightened we may go.'

The person commenting on the prayer said this, ‘It prays not only that God might give each "all the courage that we need" but that all might be given that necessary courage. It reminds us that each individual is Christian is also a member of the Church. We are part of a flock and God shepherds us.'

She then added, ‘This prayer meets us in the place where we are when we try to follow God's call. To pray that we may go boldly is perhaps too much to ask and too like Star Trek - to "go unfrightened" is more realistic. The word suggests that we still carry our fear with us, like an unexploded bomb that God has defused: we were frightened, but he has un-frightened us and this is our first step towards real courage.' (Claire Benton-Evans, Church Times 14^th August 2009).

I think Moses would identify with that. Later in Exodus he has grown in confidence and soon speaks without Aaron as his mouthpiece. But to start with, he was frightened, indeed terrified would be a better word, because he knew the cruelty of Pharaoh and the fear of the people once they were faced with leaving the oppressive security of slavery in Egypt. We certainly don't have a picture of a bold Moses: unfrightened but knowing God has defused the fear is a much better description. It has been the same with people through the ages.

So what about us today? One obvious comment is that we never know when God will call us to something new. Had you asked me at 35 I would have assured you that ordination was the last thing on my mind, I thought I had a clear calling to my career and to active lay ministry. Age is no barrier -Moses at 80 can't have envisaged anything more exciting for the rest of his life than tending sheep. But God is always making use of our past in new ways. Each of us has an unique combination of skills, experiences, interests and connections that are never wasted with God. As I look back, I can see how God has at times reached back into my past to draw on something and bring it to new expression in the present, sometimes in very creative ways that I would never have dreamed of. Nothing is wasted with God and anything can become the building block for something new; so don't be surprised if a childhood hobby, a skill learned early in a working career but rarely used, an experience you would rather not have had at the time, suddenly comes to the fore and becomes not only usable but vital in what God is now calling you to. God is always creating something new out of the available raw materials, always knitting the loose ends of our lives back into the overall picture.

But then there are bigger issues too. Moses was called to bring justice and freedom to an enslaved people, and- though he would not have guessed it at the time - the exodus became the paradigm for all God's liberating actions ever since. All the prophets' messages about release for captives, not oppressing neighbours, kindly treatment of foreigners and refugees, take their lifeblood from the story of the Exodus when God acted to save a people. The exodus became the interpretive framework for the saving work of Christ, the ultimate Passover lamb. Moses, living quietly as a shepherd in a wilderness backwater, was called to facilitate the definitive liberation. And some of you sitting here may similarly be called. If you have career decisions still in front of you or needing to be revisited, if you do voluntary work or have time on your hands or some disposable income available which could be put to good use for the benefit of others, if you have political or professional connections: how are you offering and using your unique combination of gifts to bring justice and peace in God's world, particularly for the oppressed? To what is god calling you?

I have one practical suggestion for somewhere to start which fulfils the instruction in the other reading from Hebrews, ‘do not neglect to do good and share what you have.' The last Sunday in September is ‘Back to Church Sunday' when all of us are encouraged to invite friends or neighbours to come to church with us, just for one Sunday. Surveys show that when people drop out of going to church they find it hard to make the move back, while people who have never been fear being embarrassed in a strange environment. It is always easier to go somewhere new with a friend who is familiar with it and knows what to do once there. All it takes is an invitation to come with you to somewhere that is special to you; you could take them for coffee afterwards in the restaurant and have a walk by the river. It might be just what is needed to help them to begin to know God's love for themselves and even find their way into a community of faith. Is there someone you could invite on 27^th September?

Remember that prayer about being unfrightened rather than bold. If you sense God is calling you, don't be daunted by your apprehension or fear but offer it to God, seek the encouragement of God's people and follow Moses' example when he went to Pharaoh, making that first move towards something new that might pan out in ways you cannot dream of now.

‘May he give us all the courage that we need to go the way he shepherds us. That when he calls we may go unfrightened. If he bids us come to him across the waters, that unfrightened we may go.'