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| Can I Trust God? |
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Can I Trust God? Exodus 3:1-15 (excerpts) Delivered by Andy Langford on February 28, 2010 On the Sinai Peninsula, Moses was keeping the flock of his father in law Jethro, the priest of Midian. Moses led his flock beyond the wilderness, and came to the mountain of God. At the mountain, the angel of the LORD appeared to Moses in a flame of fire out of a bush. Moses looked, and the bush was blazing, yet the bush was not consumed. Then Moses said, "I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up." When the LORD saw that Moses had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, "Moses, Moses!" And Moses said, "Here I am." Then God said, "Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground." God 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. Then the LORD said to Moses, "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 the people=s sufferings, and I have come down to deliver my people from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of Egypt to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey. . . . So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt." But Moses said to God, "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?" God 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 me on this mountain." 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 the people ask me, 'What is God=s name?' what shall I say to the people?" God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM." You shall say to the Israelites, 'I AM has sent me to you.' . . . 'The LORD, 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." Exodus 3:1-15 (excerpts, adapted) On a recent snowy morning, I woke up early before dawn. I stood on my back porch and looked across my yard. I saw the first rays of the sun, breathed in the cold air, watched the shimmering snow and frosty trees, and listened to the silence. And for that moment, everything just fit together perfectly. I thought to myself, "All of this magnificent beauty and complexity was not an accident." Each of us has probably experienced a similar, unexpected certainty of a wise Creator. Yet, even if we feel certain that there is a Creator God, we still are not always sure what kind of God is out there now. We may imagine God in different ways: a Spectator who silently watches us from a distance, or an aloof Judge in a black robe, or a grandmother in a rocking chair. There are still other images of God. One of my favorite television shows is the cartoon "The Simpsons." In one episode, Lisa Simpson says to her brother Bart, "I don't know who or what God is exactly. All I know is that God is a force more powerful than Mom and Dad put together" [qtd. in Mark Pinsky. The Gospel According to the Simpsons. (Louisville: WestminsterJohnKnox, 2001) p. 16.] Of course there are those crisis times when we yearn to know more about God. We ask “Where is God?” The destructive earthquake in Haiti is the opposite of the calm scene in my backyard. Other chaotic events rock our lives. A medical crisis hits our family. A loved one dies. The economy goes into recession. Wars rage in the Middle East. Especially when crises hit, we ask more probing questions: Does God really care what happens to us or to our world? Is God in charge? Can we trust God to guide our lives? Moses also asked these questions. Moses was the great leader of the Hebrew people. He challenged Egypt's king, demanding that the Israelites be liberated after four hundred years of slavery. Moses then led the people of Israel through the waters of the Red Sea across the desert to freedom and a land flowing with milk and honey. But before any of these astounding events happened, Moses was a lot like us. In the midst of personal and community tragedy, Moses yearned to know who God really was and whether God was with him when bad things happened to Moses and his people. When Moses stumbled upon that burning bush, he was living as an outlaw. Back in Egypt, Moses had killed an Egyptian and fled for his life. He left behind his people in slavery, working in desperate conditions. Moses had to have wondered “Where was God?” It was in the midst of Moses' searching, God came looking for Moses. Through thaa burning bush, God changed Moses' life and altered the history of the Hebrew people. God said, "I have seen the misery of my people. I have heard their cries. I know their sufferings. And through you, Moses, I will lead my people to freedom (Exodus 3:7-10)." Understandably skeptical, Moses asked, "Who shall I say has sent me?" The voice rang out with a cryptic response: "I Am Who I Am!" God reminded Moses that God can be anything God darn well pleases. And even more importantly, this same powerful God cared about Moses and the Israelite slaves. In the midst of crisis, God came to Moses. God's intensive compassion in the midst of crises was good news for Moses and the Hebrew slaves. Even better, God's appearance to Moses is good for the rest of us also. When we yearn to find God, especially in times of earthquakes and personal crises, Moses' story reminds us that it is God who discovers us. Sometimes we feel as if we are at the mercy of random events: from car wrecks to corporate downsizing, from shifts in weather to acts of terrorism, from economic uncertainty to stock market gyrations. Yet, in those very times God is in the business of liberation. If God could turn Moses’ life around and set slaves free, God may also free us from all those things that pin us down and keep us and our world from reaching our true potential. Our God makes a way when there is no way. Beneath the disorder of our lives, God remains at our side. Beyond the chaos of this world, God is in control. How do we know that God is ultimately in control? In the beginning, God brought order out of chaos and created the universe (Genesis 1). The beauty of our earth, such as on that snowy morning, reminds us of God’s sustaining presence. Even after the earthquake in Haiti, the sun rose the next morning. Throughout Haiti, in the name of God good people began pouring into the country and using money given by good people like you. Even further, Scripture assures us that one day all of us and the whole universe will be where God want us to be. God was not just present at the beginning of time but is with us today to the end of time. If God both creates order out of chaos and sustains all creation, why does things so often seem out of order. If God loves us so much, why is there suffering and chaos? The most obvious answer to why there is suffering and chaos is due to human sin. I define sin as choosing the wrong path or going in the wrong direction. When given the choice, we humans almost always make the wrong decision. Because each of us individually, and all of us together, turn our backs on God, the result is a world of hurt. Suffering is less a sign of an uncaring God and more a witness about flawed human beings. Let us be honest. Most often the greatest hurt in our lives comes not from what others do to us, or from unexpected events, but from what we do to ourselves. Human sin leads to suffering B not because God is punishing us B but because we have been punishing ourselves. Moses was in exile because he killed a man. The Hebrews were slaves because they loved the security of food more than the security of God. We neglect to study and we fail the test. We smoke and we get lung cancer. We break our wedding vows and our children are hurt. Many buildings collapsed in Haiti not because of the earthquake but corrupt officials who ignored building standards. Even though there are earthquakes and other natural disasters, whose source remains a mystery, most frequently our suffering is the result of tragic human choices. How does God respond to our failures that lead to our suffering? God most important response to our sin is to keep loving us as the sinners that we are. God loves us as only a parent can. One of the most important things that Jesus taught us was to consider God as our Father. Jesus' often called God "Abba." Abba is an informal word, something akin to "Papa" or "Daddy" (Mark 14: 36). And God is not only the Father of Jesus, in addition, God is the Father of us all. When Jesus called God Abba, Jesus taught us that God=s love for us can be compared to the feelings of a strong mother or a compassionate father. Jesus wanted us to know that God is our ideal parent B a parent who is infinitely firm and kind, expectant and patient, strict and loving. And because God loves us like the perfect parent, when anything goes wrong, God responds with passion. Every mother or father knows that when their children suffer, the parents also hurt. When our child falls down, we shiver all over. When our child worries, we lie up at night worrying. When someone picks on our child, we become defensive. Our child's welfare becomes more important than anything else. Each of us is God's beloved child, and God cares for us in just this same way. Yet, even as God loves us like a loving father and compassionate mother, we still face tragedies in our lives. Parents cannot protect their children from every disaster. What becomes of us when we fall down and earthquakes hit? Can our suffering be of any value? Let us go one step further. Sometimes, our suffering may be an opportunity for our own spiritual growth. Infants learn to sleep through the night only through being tearfully separated from their parents. Toddlers learn to walk only by falling down. Youth learn about life through bouts of insecurity and disappointment. Older adults gain wisdom as they lose friends and family. Sometimes, we grow through suffering, to find meaning within our suffering. For example, when a family member becomes critically ill, all of a sudden we recognize our family’s need to support one another and to rely on God more firmly. Suffering leads us to focus on the essentials and to leave the rest behind. Suffering often, positively, leads us to God. Let me give an example of how we grow through our suffering. William Sloane Coffin was a well known pastor a generation ago. One night his twenty-four-year-old son, Alex, was killed in a car wreck. When someone told Coffin that his son's death was the will of God, the pastor replied, AGod does not go around the world with his finger on triggers, his fist around knives, his hands on steering wheels. . . . My own consolation lies in knowing that my son’s death was not the will of God that Alex die; that when the waves closed over the sinking car, God's heart was the first to break." This pastor also believed that God's plans for Alex were not foiled even by death. The accident had been terrible. His son would never fulfill God's potential for him. Yet, even in death, his son was not cut off from the love of God. Coffin expressed his hope in his son=s new life this way: "If a week ago last Monday a lamp went out, it was because for Alex at least, the Dawn had come" [William Sloane Coffin. "Alex's Death" in A Chorus of Witnesses: Model Sermons for Today's Preacher. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994) pp. 262-266). Coffin had the Christian assurance that his son was still alive in the presence of the loving God Jesus called Abba. Let us go one step further about the meaning of suffering. While we may believe that people alone suffer, the truth is more complex. At the heart of the Christian Faith, we discover that God chooses to suffer with us. Think about Jesus himself. In Jesus Christ, God became like us to experience human suffering. When a friend died, Jesus wept with grief. When his followers deserted him, Jesus felt betrayal. Before his execution, Jesus was whipped and beaten. On the cross nails were driven into his wrists. Jesus cried out in despair to God. In Jesus, God experienced the worst of what life on earth had to offer. God in Christ suffered alongside us, but ultimately God triumphed over the suffering. In Jesus' resurrection after his death God made a way out of suffering when there is no way out. God suffered with a purpose, to reconcile us to God. The resurrection of Jesus shows us that God achieved God’s purpose. Suffering and even death, therefore, do not have the final word. The worst tragedies of life can never derail God's love for us. Pastor Coffin knew that Good News at the death of his son. I pray that all of us can also discover God’s love in the midst of suffering. To close, let us return to Moses. When Moses was struggling to understand why he was an outlaw separated from his slave people, he was discovered by God. God met Moses in that bush. From that moment on, Moses' life and the life of the Israelite slaves would never again be the same. After all these experiences, and near the end of his life, Moses stood before the people he had led out of Egypt. Moses had been transformed from an exiled murderer into a great leader. The people had moved from slavery into freedom. Moses shared with his people a final word of advice: "I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day; I have put before you life and death, blessing and curse. Now choose life, that you and your children may live, and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to God’s voice, and hold fast to God" (Deuteronomy 30:19-20)." Like Moses, you and I are given true freedom. In this chaotic world and in the midst of the tragedies of our own lives, you and I have the freedom not only to turn away from God and go down wrong paths. God also gives you and me freedom to turn toward God. When we face crises and suffering, either as individuals or a whole people, we are invited to “choose life, that we and our children may live, and that we may love the Lord our God, listen to God’s voice, and hold fast to God.” Especially when we face suffering in our lives, instead of turning away from God, run toward God. Believe that God's does care and that God is with you. Discover God not as an uninterested observer of our suffering, but as a loving parent who weeps when you weep and then picks you up and kisses the pain away. Whenever you ask, "Does God care for me," I promise you that God will meet you and show you the path chosen for you. "This I Believe" Can I Trust God? A snowy morning Images of God Does God care? The story of Moses God seeks us in midst of suffering God is in control Then why is there suffering? Sin as one source of human suffering God's response to suffering and chaos God as "Abba" We are God's children Learning through suffering The death of Alex Coffin Jesus' suffering God triumphs over suffering In suffering turn to God Choose life Remember that you are chosen |