Leaving Midian, a sermon by Rev. Peter K. Perry A Sermon on Exodus 3:1-15 and Matthew 16:21-23 August 30, 2020

Take a deep breath and hold it in for a second or two longer than normal. Now let it out. This act of breathing in and out is what keeps you alive. And yet, ironically, it is the breathing in and out that spreads the tiny particles of the virus that has so rapidly paralyzed our world. And so we wear our masks and avoid crowded places, living in bubbles of isolation. But we cannot stop breathing. Lift up your hands face. Clinch your fists and relax them. Put your hands together in prayer. If you are with someone now, reach out and touch their hand. Our hands are can symbolize our strength, our prayers, our relationships. It is with our hands that many of us do work, embrace children, wipe away tears, extend hospitality to others. Yet it is our hands that spread the virus from surface to surface. But we cannot stop using our hands. Covid 19 has turned the world upside down in the past 8 months. Many of us have been able to create safe zones of existence where we can escape from a world where such fundamental human processes as breathing and touching have become fear-inducing behaviors. In our lives, in so many ways, willingly or kicking and screaming, we have learned to adapt. But I fear that we might get too comfortable in these places of retreat. I count my blessings every day because I know that there are many, many people who are not as well equipped to handle these days as I am. I am thankful to still have a job, one that with some moderate effort and adaptation I can do remotely. I am thankful that because of the job I have a place to live. I am thankful that when I shelter in place I do it with a life partner and I don’t have to feel lonely. I am thankful that I have access to the internet and can communicate across thousands of miles with my children and grandchild. I am thankful that there is food in our pantry, and clean clothes in our closet, and books on our shelves. I am thankful that I don’t have responsibility for school-aged children or infirm and housebound parents. I KNOW that there are millions upon millions who cannot say those things. Here’s the thing, folks. I am feeling a fair amount of angst over my ability to escape from the virus and so many of its impacts when so many people can’t. It’s not just the pandemic! This world of ours is hurting. There are the wildfires, and the hurricanes, and the boiling pot of racial unrest. There is the scourge of opioid addiction, the prevalence of mental illness, the wealth distribution inequality in our nation, the impact of generational poverty, and ultimately the fear of the collapse of American democracy. There’s gun violence on our streets and domestic violence in our homes. It is a bleak world out there, but hey... “I’m good.” I have found a way to survive, maybe even thrive. The pandemic isn’t the only source of anxiety for us, of course. Even before the pandemic hit, we all had our own issues weighing us down. Conflicts within and without the church, physical issues of health, emotional issues of heart. Everyone of us is broken in some way, right? Everyone of us is struggling to get it right, to figure life out, to live meaningful and fulfilling lives. Every one of us has things we hide in the back of our personal closet, things we avoid. A couple of years ago, I had to have some plumbing work done at the house that resulted in a hole in the drywall in the utility room. Rather than repair the drywall, I just stacked a couple of boxes in front of it. I hid the problem from view for over a year. Out of sight, out of mind. It took someone to complain a bit, to light a fire under me, before I finally got the project done. Speaking of lighting a fire, let’s take a look at this Moses story. Moses was minding his own business in Midian. Tending the sheep for his father-in-law Jethro. He had a history, you know. Moses, Prince of Egypt, saved from the bulrushes by Pharaoh’s daughter, a Hebrew child raised as royalty. Remember how he got to Midian? He killed an Egyptian taskmaster for abusing a Hebrew slave and had to flee. Now, it worked out pretty well for Moses. He found a good wife and a good life. But meanwhile, back in Egypt, bad things were still happening to God’s people. Moses knew it, but he counted himself lucky. He had escaped! But then Moses sees the burning bush. And he talks with God in the wilderness. God says, "Moses, my old friend, there are some things you need to take care of. I want you to go to Egypt. Deal with the problems." Actually, according to the scripture, what God said was, "I have seen the affliction of my people." Say that with me, church! “I have seen the affliction of my people.” God sees. God sees it all. Moses had been there. He had seen the affliction with his own eyes. He saw the problems, knew them first hand, and he ran away from them. It seems to me that there in the wilderness of Midian, Moses was having a crisis of conscience. It seems to me that God was speaking to Moses through his own guilt, anxiety, worry, sense of responsibility, hope for a better day. God has a habit of doing that. More often than not, if we listen to our conscience, it sounds an awful lot like God. This is the true miracle of the burning bush story: not that a living plant was burning without being consumed. No, the real miracle is that out there in the fields that day, God lit a fire under Moses. God shook him up, got him properly motivated, and set him to doing the right thing. Not just the right thing for Moses, but the right thing for all of us. Now Moses didn't want to go back to Egypt, despite the heat God was applying. So he came up with some excuses. Stumbling blocks, if you will. Barriers to getting the job done. "I'm not qualified, God." "I'm not eloquent, God." "Let someone else do it, God." I think we've all got a little bit of Moses in us. By that I mean, we've all got issues in our own life that we would rather not deal with. And by that I mean that we can all see some problems in the world that need to be fixed. And by that I mean that we all come up with excuses for NOT dealing with both our personal issues and the world's problems. We are happy in Midian, thank you very much. The New Testament lessons parallels this Moses story. In the reading, Jesus lets it be known that he needs to go to Jerusalem to take care of some important business and it’s not going to be pleasant. Indeed, he knows he is going to die. And Peter, loyal Peter, says to Jesus, "Don't go, Lord. Don't go. This can't happen to you. Stay here where it is safe." And Jesus says to Peter, those famous words, "Get thee behind me, Satan. You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things." Indeed, it is human nature to run from our problems, to avoid the important things that God would have us do! Even when God lights a fire under us, the way he did under Moses, we still find plenty of stumbling blocks … obstacles which get in the way of doing what God would have us do. At least I know I do. I've got my excuses, my stumbling blocks. I suspect they are very much like yours. There's the stumbling block of fear and uncertainty, fear of the dark, of the unknown. There is a story about a time when the electricity went out at the circus. The big cat trainer had just gotten into the cage with the tigers when the lights went out. Everyone held their breath. Several minutes later, when the lights came on, the trainer was still alive. He was interviewed by reporters who asked him, "How did that feel, to be in the cage in the dark with the tigers knowing they could see you but you couldn’t see them The tiger trainer's answer was this: "They didn't know I couldn't see them!... So I just cracked my whip and shouted commands." Sometimes responding to God's call for change in our lives and in our world seems like stepping into a dark cage full of tigers. We are afraid of the things we can’t see. Fear is a major stumbling block. And then there is the stumbling block that I will call the "Over- the-Hill" syndrome. I have to confess that this is increasingly a stumbling block I experience. "I've confronted enough demons already," we say. "It's someone else's turn. I'm too old, too tired, too set in my ways." You know, when baseball great Ty Cobb was 70, a reporter asked him, "What do you think your batting average would be if you were playing today?” Cobb, who lifetime batting average was .367, said, "About .290, maybe .300." The reporter nodded. "That's because of the travel, the night games, the artificial turf and all the new pitches like the slider, right?" "No," said Cobb, "it's because I'm 70 now." Despite Ty Cobb's wisdom that we all slow down a bit with age, the truth is that we are never too old to try. I knew a lady in one of my churches who at age 67 BEGAN the process of addressing the psychological and emotional scars of having been abused by her father six decades before. She was not too old to deal with her personal issues. Age was not a stumbling block for her! And then there’s the stumbling block of being too comfortable in our places of escape, of retreat, surrender, and complacency. When we get too comfortable in our place of safety, it is not uncommon to hear ourselves saying: “Don’t rock the boat of our existence! Don’t poke the bear in our soul. You’ve got it good. Leave well enough alone!” Those are all phrases you will never hear God say to you. There are many, many more stumbling blocks which get in the way of doing those things that God calls us to do. But when God lights that fire under us, we need to say to the stumbling blocks, as Jesus said to Peter, "Get thee behind me!" When God lights the fire and reminds us that God sees the affliction in our own lives and the affliction in the world around us, we need to respond somehow. That’s true for each of us as individuals and it’s equally true for all of us when we come together to be the church of Jesus Christ at work in the world. So sure, we worship online now, and we will worship online for some time to come, I fear. Many of us have gotten used to the idea. But watching church on a screen feels a little bit like being in Midian while Pharaoh keeps on beating the slaves, it feels a little bit like hiding out in Galilee, as far from Jerusalem as we can possibly get. There are all these reminders out there that God sees the affliction of God’s people. And in our hearts, so do we. God is calling us just as God called Moses, just as Jesus called the disciples, to engage in the problems of this world, to deal with the issues of our lives. God is calling us to be wary of the stumbling blocks but to keep on striving to respond to the call the heal and help, to live and love, to pray and praise, to fix with faith, and to grow in grace. God reminds us of the afflictions and calls us to change the world! God has called us, Covid or no Covid! No stumbling block will stop us from picking up our cross and demonstrating the love of Christ. No obstacle will keep us from marching into our Egypt proclaiming, “Let my people go!” We are not alone in this work. We have one another, we have God, and we have the promise that the Spirit goes before us. Do not be afraid to face your fears head on. Do not be afraid to go to your Jerusalem. Do not be afraid to leave your Midian. You are a child of God who has stood on holy ground and you have heard the call of God. Do not be afraid. May God inspire us and equip us to do the work to which we are called. Amen.