The readings
Exodus 1:8-14: Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. 9 He said to his people, “Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we. 10 Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, or they will increase and, in the event of war, join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.” 11 Therefore they set taskmasters over them to oppress them with forced labor. They built supply cities, Pithom and Rameses, for Pharaoh. 12 But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread, so that the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites. 13 The Egyptians became ruthless in imposing tasks on the Israelites, 14 and made their lives bitter with hard service in mortar and brick and in every kind of field labor. They were ruthless in all the tasks that they imposed on them.
Exodus 3:1-15: Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; he led his flock beyond the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2 There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed. 3 Then Moses said, “I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up.” 4 When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” 5 Then he said, “Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” 6 He said further, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. 7 Then the Lord said, “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, 8 and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the country of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. 9 The cry of the Israelites has now come to me; I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them. 10 So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.” 11 But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” 12 He said, “I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain.”
13 But Moses said to God, “If I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” 14 God said to Moses, “I am who I am.”[a] He said further, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I am has sent me to you.’” 15 God also said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord,[b] the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you’: This is my name forever,and this my title for all generations.
Mark 12:26-27
26 And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the story about the bush, how God said to him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? 27 He is God not of the dead, but of the living; you are quite wrong.”
The message
Today, we hear one of the main events in the history of Israel, and of God’s communication to the world. This is the start of the Exodus, the people of Israel escaping slavery in Egypt through the great interventions of the God who created the world, gave a child to Sarah and Abraham, wrestled with Jacob and walked with Joseph. (If you remember the 10 commandments movie, the plagues and parting of the sea). This was not a get free quick moment, this was not an instant answer to right, intense prayers. This was after a 400 year wait, generation after generation in brutal slavery in Egypt, This was a community that wasn’t feeling particularly blessed. That was a time when God had said very little, if anything to people. (compare with the story of Joseph, where God’s presence is constantly experienced and intervening).
As we often do during this long Advent, the wait for Christmas, for the birth of Christ our savior, we start with a little history, specifically, How did the Israelites get into Egypt? They come as welcomed guests. It starts with Jacob’s youngest son, Joseph, an unexpected child with Rachel, who today we would call Jacob’s true love. Joseph was the youngest but favored by his father (an unfair thing back then). Joseph’s jealous brothers ditch him in the desert and pretend he was killed (covering that famous colored coat with animal blood and using it as evidence, telling Jacob that Joseph was eaten by lions). This begins a series of events that no one could have predicted would turn into good or imagined how they would work together to fulfill God’s promises. Joseph is rescued by slave traders and ends up as a servant in Egypt. Joseph ends up falsely accused of a crime, imprisoned and finds favor with the pharaoh after correctly interpreting a dream. Joseph ends up responsible for the food distribution. During a famine that job makes him one of the most powerful people in Egypt. From this position, he can save his family from famine and brings them to his new country. After Joseph confronts his brothers, he talks of Divine providence, all things come together for God’s will to be done, the wicked actions of his brothers were necessary to save their family (and God’s promise to Abraham of many descendants). Soon after the pharaoh and people of Egypt forget Joseph, The people complain that the family of Joseph, the Israelites, were too numerous, too rich, not adopting Egyptian gods or culture, couldn’t be trusted and needed to be stopped. (pretty much the same things we hear all over the world about immigrants today). The Israelites are enslaved.
400 years later, we come to today’s reading, the start of the exodus. God speaks to Moses from a bush that is on fire but not consumed. This site shocks Moses to the point that he ignores his flock of sheep and goes to the bush to see what’s up. Moses was born an Israelite, hidden and rescued from a death decree by midwifes, found by a member of Pharaoh’s household and grows up in the Pharaoh’s house. Moses’ kills a slave master who is abusing people and then flees where he starts a new life in the wilderness. God calls a man who grew up privileged, fled his people at the time of their greatest need and hung out raising sheep in the wilderness while they slaved away in Egypt.
Moses answers God’s invitation “So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.” with “id rather not” and a series of excuses., I stutter, I do not know the right words, I will not be listened to, the Israelites will not listen to me, the Egyptians will not listen to me. Despite this, God remains with Moses (sending his brother Aaron as well).
Now, of course, we can understand why the mighty Egyptian empire would not listen to two men, from the slaves, who claim to speak for a God the Egyptians do not believe in, who has not helped the people for 400 years. What could happen to them, a nation no earthly army could stand up to, whose buildings and cities still amaze us today. That will take plagues and signs of great power. Why the Israelites would not listen, well that’s a little more complicated. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, a father, son and grandson who all walked with God, found improbable success, The story of Joseph is one of God’s constant intervention, but they were all a long time ago, Is that religion still around, does anyone still believe those things happened, seriously, if there was a God, if God were strong or good, God would have done something by now, a remnant keeps the faith and remembers the promises. God set things in motion a long time ago but after those centuries people would ask, what good will it do, why pray, why bother. Convincing the people that God is with them will be a constant, trying and annoying ask. It will be filled with great disappointments after the Exodus. (for instance, the people will constantly complain, we were better off as full slaves in Egypt than starving in the wilderness, they will make a golden calf to worship and give thanks to for freeing them from slavery, they will fail to keep their ever shrinking part of the covenant, what can God do for us, is that enough). Despite all this, God remains with the people.
Jesus looks at this story of the call of Moses as evidence that God is with us, in life and even after death. Our reading from Mark 12, is part of Jesus confrontation with the Sadducees, a group of wealthy powerful and privileged people who were concerned with property and inheritance. They were a group of religious leaders who weren’t particularly religious, there was maybe a God but not really one concerned with us. They were opposed to the Pharisees. The Sadducees disagreed with them on several points. Most relevant for this argument, the Sadducees denied the resurrection of the dead. They pose a question about multiple marriages and who ones spouse would be in the afterlife. One of the ways that Jesus addresses their argument is referencing God’s words to Moses “The Lord, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob”, they speak of these long gone people in the present tense. (to God those who have died are still actively related to. He is not God of the dead but of the living. Jesus’ point was that if God could identify himself as God of the three old patriarchs, then they must still be alive when God spoke to Moses; and so there must be life after death. Even the Sadducees, who rejected so much, could not reject Moses and still make any claim to religious authority.
For us today, this story can challenge our politics, our world views, our understanding of being blessed. We can easily be tempted to ask what can God do to us. We and many other nations say the same exact things about immigrants that the people of Egypt did. We are also the ones living in a world of great suffering, poverty and fear, called to see God is there, keep faithful, knowing God remains with us.
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