The Seventeenth Sunday After Trinity (October 1, 2023)

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be alway acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, our Strength and our Redeemer. Amen.

If you go to a bookstore (if they still have those) or Amazon, and you find a couple books on the concept of biblical leadership, they will almost invariably include a section on Moses. Moses is considered a profound leader, bringing the nation of Israel up out of Egypt and leading them through their wilderness wandering. And rightfully so! Both Old and New Testament hold him up as the lawgiver who fathered Israel into a nation. While all these are accurate summaries of the story, there are more than a few instances where Moses struggles with the loneliness of leadership. He was in the uncomfortable position of representing the people of Israel to God and representing God to the people of Israel, tasked with enforcing the Law, often to the chagrin and complaining of his people. Having been called by God at the burning bush as we read last week, this week, we go with Moses as he begins his mission. But it doesn’t go as smoothly as we might have thought. But even in the midst of a seeming failure, God is faithful to Moses and those of us reading the story this morning, almost 4,000 years after the events depicted, can learn some important lessons about our relationship with God today.

There are three scenes in today’s reading. In scene one, Moses and Aaron go to Pharaoh. Their demand is for the Egyptian despot to permit the Israelites to go into the wilderness where they can offer sacrifice to God. Pharaoh is not amenable to their request, offering a few objections. First, he says he doesn’t know the God Moses speaks for: “Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice?” This is a response filled with blasphemy and pride. From there, Pharaoh reveals that he views Moses and Aaron as troublemakers because they are causing the Israelite slaves to take time off. So Pharaoh rejects their request, demanding that they “get unto their burdens.”

The second scene occurs after Moses and Aaron leave Pharaoh’s presence. Pharaoh immediately commands the taskmasters to force the Israelites to gather their own straw for the bricks they were supposed to be making. Simultaneously, Pharaoh requires that the workload remain the same, making it clear that this increase in hardship is a punitive measure because he perceives the people as idle. At the news of this heavy burden, the people immediately begin complaining about Moses and Aaron to Moses and Aaron: “The Lord look upon you, and judge; because ye have made our savour to be abhorred in the eyes of Pharaoh, and in the eyes of his servants, to put a sword in their hand to slay us.” This must have been quite deflating for Moses who only just had this experience with God at the Burning Bush only to be dashed against the barrier of Pharaoh’s pride while also receiving hostility from the people he was called to save. If you remember, these are the exact reasons Moses had fled Egypt in the first place!

And so the final scene of our reading takes place with Moses retreating back to the presence of God because he needs assurance that he’s doing the right thing. In this interaction, Moses is pointed with God: “Lord, wherefore hast thou so evil entreated this people? why is it that thou hast sent me? For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in thy name, he hath done evil to this people; neither hast thou delivered thy people at all.” Not only does Moses pick up on a disparity between what he sees and what God has said will be, but that disparity was growing. Things weren’t getting better; they were getting worse. But God replies to Moses: “Now shalt thou see what I will do to Pharaoh: for with a strong hand shall he let them go, and with a strong hand shall he drive them out of his land.” God gave Pharaoh a chance but Pharaoh’s hard-heartedness and pride is now the means whereby God will exercise his power in liberating Israel. Moses is, in his mind, unsuccessful with Pharaoh and derided by the very people he went to liberate; but his uncertainty about the future becomes an opportunity for God to confirm his faithfulness to follow through on what he promised.

In these scenes, we see our story. Just as Moses came to liberate the enslaved from Egypt, so Jesus comes to liberate us who have been bound by the devil and sin. The main difference between their slavery and ours is that ours is something we actively participate in. The Israelites didn’t like their oppressors, they seem to just want to get along without causing much trouble; but we often develop Stockholm Syndrome for our captors. The only way out is to turn to the Word who brings us to true freedom through his life, death, resurrection, ascension, and the sending of the Holy Ghost. Just like Israel’s journey to freedom began at the crossing of the Red Sea, so our exodus from the tyranny of Satan begins when we pass through the waters of Baptism.

But Pharaoh doesn’t just let the Israelites go. He resisted Moses’ efforts to liberate the people. Similarly, the devil does everything he can to stop us from being freed from our infernal chains. I always try to warn baptismal candidates that Satan will do anything and everything he can to stop you from reaching the baptismal font. But our diabolical enemy doesn’t stop after we get baptized, either. St. Paul exhorted the Corinthians to bring “into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.” The Church Father Origen explains that our thoughts can come from three places. Some of our thoughts just arise based on our personalities, life experiences, memories, and other internal factors. Other thoughts, those directed towards good things, are given to us by God directly. But still other thoughts are implanted by the Devil. And so we have to be aware that, just like Pharaoh continued to attempt to frustrate the call to freedom, so Satan tries to hamper our journey towards the beatific vision. “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:” But we also have to watch our own selves. Just like the Israelites grumbled and complained, so we are prone to allow a critical spirit impede our spiritual progress. The common theme between being tempted by the devil or being derailed by our own grumbling and complaining is distraction. Pharaoh increased the workload to distract the people from the possibility of freedom; the devil and our own thoughts can distract us from heaven by making us focus on lesser things.

The real application for us comes in the third scene, however. At the beginning of Moses’ story, when he gets into trouble with Pharaoh and receives criticism from the Israelites, what did he do? He ran away. He took up shepherding in the wilderness. But what does he do now after running afoul of Pharaoh and being castigated by the Israelites? This time, he goes to God. And the prayer he offers to God is not some inauthentic prayer; Moses is deeply honest and vulnerable with God. We should take a note from Moses. Another place in Scripture where this kind of dialogue with God occurs is in Psalms. Have you ever read a Psalm and been shocked by the way the Psalmist speaks to God? The Psalmists curse their enemies, cry out in despair, complain about God not acting or criticizing the way he acts. The Psalms often let God have it. But this isn’t a kind of petty criticism or faithless condemnation; it’s a sign of deep faith that one can be honest and vulnerable with God. So what do we do when we’re in a situation like Moses where we see a disparity between what God says and what seems to be? Hopefully, we pray.

Prayer has at least two purposes. First, in prayer, we spend time with the one we love. Second, prayer teaches us to say “thy will be done.” A marriage in which feelings are suppressed or never articulated is unhealthy. Whenever you love someone, there should be real, and sometimes visceral, honesty. Moses was honest with God and we should be too—not by masking our feelings and pretending to be fine, but by being who we are without pretense. Of course the great irony is that God sees through our facades anyways. But note how, despite his honesty, Moses lets God have the last word (and of course, we know how the rest of the story goes). It’s easier said than done, but this is what we must aim at in prayer—always coming back to a posture that accepts what God wants for us because we acknowledge that he nows better than we do, and that he’s more powerful than we are.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.