But...
Notes
Transcript
We just heard a lot from the beginning of the Exodus story but it’s hard not to focus in on the part about Moses and his encounter with God through the burning bush. This is after all, the moment that God answers not just Moses’ question, but also Jacob’s question. If you recall from last week, Jacob also wants to know God’s name and God doesn’t answer him, instead God grants the blessing that Jacob asks for. Moses isn’t looking for an encounter with God, he was just looking for a safe and healthy patch of field for the flock to graze on. But through this encounter Moses has this need to know God’s name.
I’m not sure what this fascination is with knowing God’s name, but that is on Jacob’s mind and now Moses’. Perhaps it’s because there are names of the gods in the land of the Canaanites, like Ba’al, and now that they Israelites are in Egypt they know all the names of the gods in Egypt. You see well before Moses insists on knowing God’s name God let’s Moses know who God is. At this point in the story the only thing Moses has said is, “I’m here” in response to God calling out to Moses. God very plainly tells Moses that God is Moses’ father’s God, Abraham’s God, Isaac’s God, and Jacob’s God. We see that this formula of naming Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is a way of showing God’s covenantal relationship with Israel and even though this is probably the first time that it is being used, I think it would be easy to see that the voice from the burning bush is clearly talking about the God of their ancestors and not some other God that they’ve never heard of.
When Moses hears God’s naming, it says that Moses then hides his face because he was afraid to look at God. Moses seems to have a very clear understanding of who he’s talking to. Not only that but then God goes on and lists all the ways that God has observed the way that Egypt has treated God’s people unfairly and oppressed them through slavery, injustice, and so much more. God has, in God’s own way, very clearly defined who God is in relationship to Moses and the children of Israel.
So what then is Moses’ problem? The answer is that it’s twofold. And both answers have to do with the word ‘but’ (and no the screen is not a typo, I mean’t to put it in there twice). In both verses 11 and 13 from Exodus 3 we see that Moses has a counter to what God has said, or proposed to Moses. Moses’ first ‘but’ is very clearly his lack of self confidence in his ability to confront Pharaoh. On the one hand I totally agree with Moses, who am I to go to Pharaoh’s court and demand the release of the Israelites. On the other hand, he grew up in Pharaoh’s court, so who else would be uniquely qualified to engage with them.
Moses’ second ‘but’, or excuse, has to center around the fact that Moses needs a name to bring to the Israelites. Even though God, as we already talked about, says who God is, Moses seems to think a name will help his presentation to the Israelite people. He needs to differentiate God from all the other gods that the Israelites may know or may be worshipping. So Moses has presented God with two issues, who am I as a servant of God compared to Pharaoh, and how am I supposed to be credible to the Israelites unless I have a name from you.
What is incredible are God’s answers. To answer Moses’ question, ‘who am I’, God doesn’t give him a pep talk. God doesn’t list all of his qualities and attributes that make him a good leader. By human standards he should be good at public speaking and should be charismatic among a host of other things. Even today, those are the qualities church’s often look for in a good pastor or leader. God doesn’t even actually answer Moses’ question, instead, God tells Moses that God will be with him. It’s not about how good Moses is, but that God will be with Moses through the whole thing, and that God accompanying Moses will be the sign by which they will know it is God.
Now you might think that God answers Moses’ question directly to Moses’ second complaint, and while that is true, there is so much more to it than just God giving Moses a name by which the Israelites will call God. In the English we hear the famous answer from God, “I Am Who I am”. In the Hebrew we would hear God’s response as Eh yeh, which later becomes Yahweh. In other words, this is the revelation of God’s divine name, but again, there’s a whole lot more to it. While we take it as an answer to the name question, we need to also understand what this name means. After all, we have learned over the last few weeks that names are incredibly important in the Bible, and God’s name is no different. The way that God declares God’s name is using the imperfect tense in Hebrew, which means that it has happened in the past and is continuing to happen now and will continue to happen into the future for an unknown amount of time.
In other words, God is essentially saying that God is the eternal one. John does a great job of describing in Revelation 1:8. God who created the heavens and the earth, who is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and the God who will be there far after Moses and we are gone is the God who is there for the Israelites as they suffer at the hand of Pharaoh.
“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “the one who is and was and is coming, the Almighty.”
While God does answer Moses’ ‘but’s’ God answers them in a very different way than Moses probably expected. Moses expected a reason as to why God chose him. Moses, even though the name Yahweh is given, was probably expecting a name like Baal or Asherah or Ra. Instead, what Moses gets are not answers in the plain sense, but Moses receives instead answers in the relationship sense. God isn’t overly concerned with who Moses is, but more that God will be in relationship with Moses not just through the exodus from Egypt but throughout the entire wilderness journey. Moses says, Who am I, and God says I will be with you. Moses says, who shall I say sent me, God says the one who has always been from creation to the unknown future is with you and with all God’s people for this generation and for all generations to come. God, we see, is very much true to God’s name. God declared God’s self as a God of relationship to Moses and God has continued from generation to generation to us today, to be a God who is all about relationships no matter who we are or where we came from. Who am I, we might ask, we are God’s children and God will be with us through it all. Amen.