Moses is my favourite character in Scripture because he is so honest. His story is full of “please don’t make me do that” and sometimes he gets exasperated with God and with his life.
He
has confronted the Egyptian Pharaoh and has won the release of his people. He
has held his arms over the Red Sea to part them so the people could pass safely
through, and he has guided and cajoled them through the wilderness and their
justifiable apprehension that eventually questioned whether they had done the
right thing in leaving the relative security of Egypt. He has organized, cared pastorally, led the journey;
he has interceded and reassured – the work of an ordained minister! And no sooner has he gone up the mountain to
spend some quality time with God, the people gather up all their jewellery,
melt it down and cast it into a golden calf to worship.
In chapter 33, one of my favourite parts of the Bible, he is tired, mad, nervous and afraid.
I
guess there are times when we feel paralysed and can’t face the challenge of
moving to where God requires – anywhere but there.
It is a common feeling in Scripture; think of
Jonah for example, he sets off as far in the opposite direction to God’s
direction as he can. Think of would be disciples of Jesus – they have all sorts
of other priorities to attend to before they can commit themselves to the
journey, the journey Jesus beckons them on is for today, not tomorrow. Think of
John the Baptist, radical prophet heralding the coming of God’s Kingdom and
calling people to change. Does he have sleepness nights in the wilderness about
his safety upsetting the apple cart? Coming against the hierarchy of the day,
he isn’t afraid to stand up for what he believes, even where it conflicts with
the majority view around him. Going out can be risky, especially if we are
commissioned to be controversial. How easily we can be knocked off course by
difficulties and oppositions! We so easily give up. Keep quiet John; you can keep
your head that way! It is easier to stay in bed, than to interact with the
world where you might meet a Herodias.
But
wouldn’t life be boring if we couldn’t move, or hadn’t the will to move? I have
said in many sermons that I believe
Methodism needs to rediscover being a movement, bringing a new beginning to
lives crippled by fear, confusion, stress, pain, insecurity and paralysis. I
believe in a God whose mercies are new every morning and who says there is always
more, more, more, more, more to discover, more work to do, more blessings to
seek, more to discover in ourselves as we do his will.
One
of my friends moving appointment for September like me asked her new church
what they wanted her to do. They described what their very popular, long
serving minister, who they really didn’t want to go, has done for the past ten
years. They then told her, “and we expect you to do what he has done and we
don’t want change.” And she is now worrying about moving because they seem to
have already decided that “the storm may roar about me but nothing changes
here,” and she won’t be allowed to be herself because they are comfortable
where they are.
Some
churches can be so negative – we don’t want this, we don’t want that, no new
hymns, no chairs, definitely not a screen, and they seem to think new people
will come by returning things back to how they were many years ago. Some
churches faced what Moses faced some chapters before the one we are looking at
today, “why have you brought us out here to die? We want to go back to Egypt!” Moving
though can get us involved in new things and it can be fun!
On
a recent visit to Hastings, I felt so good because I managed to find the road
where I was heading without getting lost. But I missed the turning into the
road and went too far past. I decided I could turn round in the
cemetery along the road and come back. So I found the exit. Trying to turn out
into the road, I saw a lot of cyclists coming towards me, but I thought I can
get out before they reach me, so I turned into the road. I then realised there
was a big funeral, possibly of a cyclist, and I found myself in the middle of a
funeral cortege, people on the street with cameras watching and police
everywhere. The cortege in front of me turned back into the cemetery, I in my
clerical collar went straight on, past a bemused policewoman who assumed I was
taking the service! I was in the middle, by accident, of real life, real pain,
I never intended being there, but I was. Sometimes that how we find ourselves
and we have to respond to what is around us.
The
new, the move, the challenge is exciting. New opportunities await. I read this
week an article by Canon Giles Fraser. You may remember with all those
protestors on the steps he left St Pauls Cathedral and he’s just started in a
London parish. Before starting he wrote, “What will I be doing? I don’t know.
As I wander round the council estates I have no idea how to begin.” But then he
discovers within a few days you start by seeing what’s there, where God is, and
you encourage that, and you work from that point. I am thinking about that looking forward to taking my first steps into the new. I think!
