Pentecost 3                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 June 1, 2008

WHEN “I AM” CALLS, WE ASK, “WHO AM I?”

I.  A sinner unfit to stand

II.  A saint empowered to serve

Dear friends in Christ,

“Let someone else do it.”  Does that sound familiar?  There’s an opportunity to canvass the neighborhood.  Sometimes the reasons are legitimate (previous commitments and the like) for saying “no.”  But how often haven’t you read the bulletin and said, “Let someone else do that.  What if I had to actually talk to someone about my church and my faith?.”  Or someone asks you to serve on a committee or take a position of leadership.  Again, there may be legitimate concerns why you might not do it at that particular time.  But, honestly, how often haven’t you felt inadequate for the task, or just felt like you would rather let someone else do it instead?

Psychologists tell us that feelings of inadequacy stem from not knowing yourself; that it’s a matter of identity; or that you have a lack of trust in your abilities.  What scares you is not the task, but yourself.  Such feelings of inadequacy lead to an identity crisis.

Moses seems to have such a crisis.  In a sense, can you blame him?  He was born to Hebrew parents at a time when Hebrew boys were slaughtered by the cruel Egyptians.  As an act of faith, his parents hid him in the Nile River .  Pharaoh’s daughter, of all people, found him, adopted him and gave him - unknowingly - back to his mother to nurse and nurture him for his early years.  During that time he was taught, “You are a Jew, loved by the God who will save you from your sins.”  In his early youth, he was placed into an Egyptian palace, taught the ways of the Egyptians, given the best education, and introduced to a life of royalty.  He was told, “You are an Egyptian; you are royalty; have nothing to do with the slaves.”

But his parent’s training never left him; his faith never died.  So one day he happened on an Egyptian who was beating up a Jew, and he killed the Egyptian.  Instead of hailing him as a hero, the Jews scorned him for what he did, and he was forced to flee from Pharaoh for his life.

Fast forward 40 years.  Moses is a shepherd working for his father-in-law in the Sinai Desert .  This, by the way, will be the place where Moses will bring the Israelites in a few years to receive the 10 Commandments from God.  Imagine his surprise when a bush starts on fire, but it doesn’t get consumed.  Then he hears a voice calling his name.  What do you usually do when someone calls?  You answer!  Here I am.

How, this is where the story gets interesting.  Do not come any closer...Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.  And the holy God proceeds to clear up some things about Moses’ identity and lay out a whole new purpose for his life. 

Why do we interest ourselves with this story today?  Because Moses wasn’t quite ready to accept what God had in store for him.  I think we can all relate to him.  WHEN “I AM” CALLS, WE ASK, “WHO AM I?” just as Moses did.  But it is through his response that we learn how to answer the question.  I am I) a sinner unfit to stand and II) a saint empowered to serve.

I

God came calling for Moses because he wanted Moses to be his man of action.  God was aware of the problems of the people whom he called the apple of his eye.  I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt .  I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering.

“But Moses, before you get started, I want you to know how I operate.  I am holy and powerful.  I will not tolerate disobedience or rebellion.”  In the blazing fire God was revealing the holy side of his reputation which demands that everyone and everything around him be holy.

Moses was confronted by holiness.  And Moses felt the power of God’s holiness rattling him from the inside out.  After all, he was working in the wilderness under less than happy circumstances: He was hiding under the witness protection from the most powerful leader on earth.  He had felt justified murdering another man.  Now the God who created the laws of nature suspended the laws of nature.  The God who knit and fashioned him in the womb of his mother saw through his skin and into the very recesses of his soul.  Moses realized that the God who is a consuming fire could with a flick of his finger send him into the raging fires of hell.  Moses saw himself for who he truly was:  a sinner unfit to stand.

Is our confrontation with the holy God any different?  Can we draw any other conclusion than Moses?  Do you think he has different expectations of us than he did for Moses?  He may not appear to us in a burning bush to get his point across, but he does thunder his holiness at us in the Law,  “I want holiness from you!  Nothing less!”  “The soul that sins is the one who will die.”

Yet, sin is no big deal, is it.  We break the speed limit, we use his name in vain (“Oh, my God!”)  we gossip about our friend, we think dirty thoughts, we let hatred and bitterness mull around in our hearts...and we say, “So what?  I’m human.  God isn’t going to sweat the little stuff!”  Friends, he still expects perfection!  And he came to Moses in a burning bush to remind him and us that he does use the Law side of his personality.  Sinners die.  Standing in front of God - be it before his altar in church, or a private altar at home - we can only answer the question, “WHO AM I” with the answer: I am a sinner unfit to stand.  We need repentance.

Repentance involves a change in attitude, and that means, first of all, a change in attitude about our sin.  Do you see how the holy side of the LORD’s reputation ignites that part of repentance?  With Moses, we hide our faces in shame because we are sinful and unclean.  The LORD’s reputation for being holy and burning up sinners scares the beejeebers out of us and makes us stand back in awe.

But God was not done with Moses, or with Moses’ people.  I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.  With these words he revealed to Moses that he was the Savior-God, the God of free and faithful grace.  He did not strike his servant with holiness; rather, he dealt with him in compassion.  He made Moses, the man who hid himself, fit to stand.  And he makes us fit to stand, too.  He did so by sending a Savior who has released us from a slavery more grueling and more frightening than what Moses faced.  WHO AM I?  Forgiven by the blood of Jesus.  I stand in a place I do not deserve to be stand because God’s Son loved me with an everlasting love.  I enjoy the royal status of the King of the Universe’s child.  I live with confidence that the holy God smiles on me and calls me the apple of his eye.  From God’s perspective - the only perspective that counts - a sinner unfit to stand is not the final answer.  WHEN “I AM” CALLS, WE ASK, “WHO AM I?” and answer with the answer God has revealed: I am a saint - holy in his sight!  We are also able to answer, I am a saint empowered to serve.

II

Moses had a hard time with this.  Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt ?  That was his first response of doubt.  Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, “The God of your fathers sent me to you,” and they ask me, “What is his name?  Then what shall I tell them?  He was still skeptical.  What if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, “The LORD did not appear to you”?  Excuse #3.  O Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past not since you have spoken to your servant.  I am slow of speech and tongue.”  Excuse #4.  O Lord, please send someone else to do it.  Excuse #5.  Then the Scripture says, Then the LORD’s anger burned against Moses.

What finally led Moses to accept his calling?  With each excuse came a promise from God.  I will be with you.  I AM WHO I AM...I AM has sent me to you is what he would tell the Israelites - and he would fill their hearts with faith.  If they wouldn’t believe Moses, God promised his servant the ability to perform miracles.  When Moses complained about his lack of oratorical skills, God promised that he would work teach him what to say.  When Moses wanted someone else, God said he would allow Moses to work alongside his brother, Aaron.  Always a promise.  God empowered Moses with his promises. 

And Moses had no small task ahead of him.  He was told to face the most powerful leader on earth.  He would have to convince two million people he was a worthy leader.  He would have to be a political and spiritual leader for all of God’s people.  He would have to navigate them through a sea and desert.  An impossible task?  Humanly speaking, YES!  But 1 in a million odds are pretty good when God promises to be with you.

This is our God: timeless, changeless, constant.  He is a God who cannot lie or change his mind.  He is a God who calls us into action, but also equips and empowers us for action.

It is very easy to be Moses, isn’t it?  Even in the presence of God he was looking inward.  He was pouting about his past, eyeing his inadequacies, doubting his abilities, and questioning his qualifications.  It wasn’t the task that overwhelmed him, it was himself.  Do you ever find yourself doing the same thing?  I’m sure you have.  I know it is a constant struggle for me.  Our New Man wants to trust God with all our heart and soul and strength and mind, but our flesh is full of disbelief and rebellion to anything that God says.

But that doesn’t change the truth before us today:  God has given us a new identity - we are saints.  And he has empowered us to live this identity.  It was saint Paul who said, I can do everything through him who gives me strength.  For him it meant going to places that had never heard the gospel and starting a new congregation of believers.  Think of our WELS missionaries who were commissioned in the 1940's to go to Africa .  Was it easy to leave family and friends, and  enter a new culture and new language?  One in a million odds, but a sure thing with the promises of God on their side.  Today there are over 70,000 Christians in our circles because of the work of those two servants of God.  Think of the early fathers of our Synod - three in all - who believed that the gospel needed to be proclaimed to the people of the Milwaukee area, and in turn, to the rest of the world.  158 years later, what they began is carried on by 400,000+ Christians.  Stories are told of an early supporter of Shoreland, whose fertile mind had dreams and plans for the school.  So often he would say, “We just have to do this project!”  People would say, “How are we going to afford it?”  And he would reply, “I don’t know; let God take care of that.”  And God did.  Our school exists because he and many others, realizing they were empowered to serve, took the Lord at his Word and relied on his promises.

What is it that he has called you to do that seems humanly insurmountable?  Has he given you children to raise, and he has asked you to put away your pettiness and selfishness and anger and greed and put on love and kindness and caring for them?  Has he placed you in a job where the person next to you needs to hear the gospel?  Has he equipped you with gifts that are just screaming to be used for your church family or for one of the schools?  Has he asked you to face an illness or the loss of a job, and you know that as a Christian people are going to watch how you respond to it?  Has he asked you to humbly deal with persecution?  When we trust in him, even the insurmountable mountains before us are laid low by his promises and power. 

I will always remember what my supervising pastor told me during my vicar year.  He said that the prayer that meant the most to him was the prayer of the father whose son was possessed by an evil spirit.  When he asked Jesus to help him, Jesus said, Everything is possible for him who believes.  And the father said, I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!  There isn’t anything too difficult for Jesus.   He who can keep a burning bush from going up in flames can certainly help us be a faithful parent, a loyal spouse, a friend who is concerned about a friend’s spiritual welfare, a willing worker in God’s kingdom, a giver of wealth to share the gospel, a Christian who is bold to share his faith with others.

It all starts with understanding our identity: a sinner unfit to stand on our own; a saint empowered to serve.  I AM calls us each and every day.  He calls us because he has made us his own.  Remember his promises.  Remember that with him you can do all things - even the one in a million things. 

Rev. Thomas E. Bauer

Shoreland Lutheran High School

Somers, WI