Out of the Ooze, Exodus 3:1-15, 9/3/23

Exodus 3:1-15

Rev. Dr. Rhonda Blevins

September 3, 2023

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. 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. 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 he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” Then he said, “Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” 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. 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, 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. The cry of the Israelites has now come to me; I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them. 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?”  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.” 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?” God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” He said further, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I am has sent me to you.’”  God also said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘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.

______

If you were here last week, you heard me deliver a message entitled “In the Ooze” about baby Moses hanging out in a basket in the reeds at the river’s edge. I suggested that each of us find ourselves in the metaphorical “ooze” from time to time—helpless and powerless against trouble and hardship life sometimes throws our way. I even gave practical tips, like how to survive rip tides and quicksand (because that happens so often!)

Then Hurricane Idalia hit. And the “ooze” was no longer metaphor, but literal for some of you! Rev. Dr. Chuck Roost made me feel a little better when he reminded me that my sermon titles hold little sway over the weather.

I spent Thursday checking on church members in some of Idalia’s hardest-hit areas. At one house I stopped, the family is in the middle of installing a pool. Their backyard was already a mess in the mid-construction phase of what will surely be beautiful weeks from now. After the storm passed, the man of the house stepped into his backyard, and guess what he got into? Quicksand! Can you believe it?? He remembered my advice from the sermon just a couple of days before, and he lived to tell about it. The proof? He showed me one of his boots halfway submerged in the “ooze,” and told me the other boot was 3-4 feet underneath. He kept his life but lost his boot!

Sometimes we find ourselves “in the ooze,” and other times we have to pull ourselves up out of our bootstraps and get “out of the ooze.”

Which is where we find Moses in today’s story. No longer a baby, no longer powerless “in the ooze.” Now Moses is all grown up. Moses is uniquely equipped to be the one to bring the Hebrew people up “out of the ooze” that was slavery in Egypt.

But before we get too far in today’s story, let’s remind ourselves of the arc of Moses’ life up until this point, shall we?

Born to a Hebrew slave at the time when Pharaoh ordered all newborn Hebrew boys to be killed in order to reduce the population, Moses was placed in a basket by his mother. Pharoah’s daughter found him, and brought him back to the palace to raise him, but she needed a nanny who could nurse him. So she enlisted one of the Hebrew slaves, and guess who stepped up to the plate? Moses’ birth mother! So Moses had this interesting upbringing, as a pseudo-grandson to Pharaoh, but with nurturance by his own Hebrew mother. And when he got older, 40-years-old, he did something he apparently hadn’t done before (according to Acts 7). He decided to visit his people, the Israelites. He did something seemingly unholy—he killed an Egyptian slaveholder for his treatment of a fellow Hebrew. So he fled. Moses went into hiding in the desert region of Midian where he married and worked for his father-in-law Jethro. Forty years passed, when one day he was tending Jethro’s sheep and he saw “the bush was blazing, but was not consumed.” So do the math: forty years old when we fled to Midian, plus forty years there—Moses was 80 when he saw the burning bush and received a new calling from God—120 when he finally looked over into the promised land. (So no “I’m too old” excuses, ok?)

What did God call Moses to do? To lead the Israelites out of slavery—“out of the ooze”—into freedom, that’s what! No big deal, right? That would only be 603,550 men age 20 and up (according to Numbers 1:46). Plus women (add another 600k and that’s 1.2 million) plus a couple of kids per couple, that’s 2.4 million people Moses would just lead out of Egypt into the desert. That roughly the population of Chicago. Plus livestock. And that’s IF Pharaoh would let them just up and leave.

To say “yes” to God would be risky. But then, it always is.

Dwight D. Eisenhower once said “If you want total security, go to prison. There you’re fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking . . . is freedom.”

Freedom is risky. I believe the call of God is always toward greater freedom, internal freedom, and often external freedom as well. Jesus’ cited his mission at one point as proclaiming “release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free.” (Luke 4:18-19) So if freedom is risky, and God always calls us to greater freedom, then following God is risky. Logic. 

Thomas Jefferson once said in a letter to James Madison: “I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery.” Dangerous freedom. I like the sound of that.

Did you ever have a dream that stuck with you? A dream so vivid that you remember it in details: the colors, the feel, the sights, maybe even the smells? I’ve had a few like that. Here’s one of them from several years ago (feel free to psychoanalyze me if you wish!):

I was in prison. It was cold and gray. The walls were made of stone. I was walking in the hallways, and I passed by one room where there was an electric chair. A man was being executed; two guards attending who were not happy that I was witnessing the execution. I quickly moved along into the prison yard. I was alone in the yard, and I noticed that the gate was open. I looked around. No guards. I was free to run. But I didn’t. I was too scared. And then the dream ended.

Could the meaning be any clearer for me and my life? I was free to exit the situation that felt like imprisonment, but I was scared to do so.

You wanna know what my prison was at that time? Religion. I was working within a religious system that felt increasingly oppressive. I felt stuck in a religion that seemed to value rules over relationships and dogma over decency. And the golden rule? Do unto others as you would have them do unto you? It applied only if the “others” referenced looked like the American, middle-class, straight, white men who held and still hold the power within the denomination I served.

About that same time I discovered the poetry of Rumi, the ancient Sufi poet, who wrote: “Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open?” “Good question,” I thought to myself. Within weeks of that dream, I resigned from my job with that denomination. I discovered expressions of the Christian faith that lead people to greater freedom instead of boxing them in with doctrine and dogma. One of the greatest things I’ve ever heard was when someone new to the church I served said, “I love this church! I can BREATHE here.”

Which leads me back to Moses there at the burning bush receiving the call of God. 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?” God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” He said further, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I am has sent me to you.’” “I am” is related to the divine name for God YHWH; the word contains only consonants in Hebrew that don’t require lips or tongue, only breath. Both have the idea of “being” at their core. This is the name for God in Jewish tradition that is so holy as to not be uttered, and it can’t really be uttered anyway. Josephus, the first-century historian said that the sacred name for God consists of “four vowels.” How do you pronounce a word with only vowels? No body knows. Contemporary priest and teacher, Father Richard Rohr helps us understand the meaning of this revelation of God’s name to Moses:

This unspeakability has long been recognized, but now we know it goes even deeper: formally the name of God was not, could not be spoken at all—only breathed. Many are convinced that its correct pronunciation is an attempt to replicate and imitate the very sound of inhalation and exhalation. Therefore, the one thing we do every moment of our lives is to speak the name of God. This makes the name of God our first and last word as we enter and leave the world. I have taught this to people in many countries, and it changes their faith and prayer lives in substantial ways. I remind people that there is no Islamic, Christian, or Jewish way of breathing. There is no American, African, or Asian way of breathing. There is no rich or poor, gay or straight way of breathing. The playing field is utterly leveled. It is all one and the same air, and this divine wind “blows where it will” (John 3:8). No one can control this Spirit. When considered in this way, God is suddenly as available and accessible as the very thing we all do constantly—breathe.[1]

There’s some dangerous (even scary) freedom in that teaching!

As we read the call of Moses this week, we are reminded that the call of God can come anywhere, anytime, to anyone (everybody breathes, right?). You’re too old? Moses was 80 when he began the 40-year process of leading the Hebrews out of Egypt. You’re not good enough? Moses was a murderer. You’re not holy enough? Moses was a shepherd.

God doesn’t call just holy people; people become holy when they say “yes” to God. God doesn’t call perfect people. God calls those who have been “in the ooze” to lead others “out of the ooze.”

Are you ready to say yes? Are you ready to exchange your peaceful slavery for a dangerous freedom? God is calling you (always) to a greater freedom . . . freedom from the “ooze” of habits and expectations, freedom from the “ooze” of past mistakes or failures, freedom from the “ooze” of judgment that keeps us isolated and alone. And once you taste life “out of the ooze”—once you taste freedom—you want others to know that freedom as well. And if you know a measure of freedom, are there people you can help lead to freedom as well? Now that you’re “out of the ooze,” are there others you can help get “out of the ooze?”

Fellow “ooze” survivors, let our freedom not be in vain! Let us say “yes!” to the call of God—enjoying our freedom and leading others into freedom as well.

[1] http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Richard-Rohr-s-Meditation--Breathing-Yahweh.html?soid=1103098668616&aid=W6_U3gyEM9g