Scripture Lesson

"Appointment With God"

A Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Jean Niven Lenk

at the First Congregational Church of Stoughton

United Church of Christ

Those of us “of a certain age” will remember the cartoon character Popeye the Sailor Man.¹ Popeye was not a particularly sophisticated or educated guy, but that was OK; he knew who he was: a simple, sea-faring, pipe-smoking, Olive Oyl-loving guy, and he didn’t pretend to be anything else. When he was frustrated, felt inadequate, or wasn’t quite sure what to do, Popeye would simply say, “I yam what I yam.”

If you think about it, this is kind of a sad way to explain away your shortcomings, because those words are devoid of a hope of ever being anything more. “I yam what I yam.” Don’t get your hopes up, Popeye seems to be saying. Don’t expect too much. This is all there is to me, and there won’t be anything more. “I yam what I yam.” In his bleakest moments, he would add, “And that’s all that I yam.” No hope of changing.

What is interesting is that Popeye DOES change. When he eats that can of spinach in every episode, he transforms from an ordinary guy into someone with extraordinary powers capable of subduing his nemesis, the hulking, bearded, fearsome bully Bluto.

This kind of change is a common device in cartoons and fairy tales – something ordinary becomes extraordinary. Think Clark Kent, who becomes Superman. Bruce Wayne changes into Batman. Bruce Banner transforms into the Incredible Hulk.

This of all the classics in which frogs become princes; ugly ducklings become swans; wooden marionettes become real boys. These are all transformation stories, and they capture our imagination because there is a kind of magic about becoming something greater than you are. How many of us women dreamed as little girls of being Cinderella, dreamed of being transformed from our ordinary lives into a beautiful princess, living happily ever after with our prince, who chose us over all the other ladies in the kingdom.

The bible is full of transformation stories, too. But with one difference. These are true. It’s not magic. It’s the power of God.

That is certainly the case with Moses. When you hear the name “Moses,” do you think of Charlton Heston in the Ten Commandments? Remember the part in the move when he comes down from Mt. Sinai carrying the Ten Commandments. Up on that mountain, Moses has had an encounter with God, and afterwards his face shines with a radiance and his bearing conveys a new-found self-assurance and confidence. But he wasn’t always that way; our scripture lesson this morning shows us a very different side of Moses.

Moses has been a shepherd for 40 years which, is a real come-down from the life he has been prepared for. He grew up in Pharaoh’s court, as Pharaoh’s adopted grandson. He was in training to be a leader in Egypt, but one day he sees an Egyptian taskmaster whip a Hebrew slave to death; enraged, Moses kills the taskmaster. And then he flees to Midian, and there he spends 40 years tending sheep. .

One day, he takes his sheep across the hot dry desert to a mountain called Sinai where there is plenty of grass for them to eat and water to drink. And Moses walks near a bush. He has probably passed by that bush a hundred times. But this time, something is different. This time the bush is on fire and yet, it is not being consumed.

Moses says, “I must turn aside and look at this great sight and see why the bush is not burned up.” Everything turns on Moses’ willingness to “turn aside” – to interrupt his daily routine to pay attention to the presence of God. He doesn’t have to. He could just as easily looked the other way, walked right past, as many of us would. But what if he hadn’t turned aside, hand’t taken the time out of his routine to pay attention to the presence of God. If he had not turned aside, Moses’ life – indeed, the course of human history – would have been much different.
Moses would have missed the Exodus, the people of Israel, his calling, the reason for his existence. He would have missed knowing God. But he didn’t miss it. He stopped. He “turned aside.”

And God says to him, “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt… and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians…” [Exodus 3:7-8].

Well, you can almost hear Moses rejoicing; God is going to deliver the Hebrews out of bondage and give them a land flowing with milk and honey!! But then God drops the other shoe…Guess who God has chosen for the job. God says to Moses, “So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.” [Exodus 3:10].

Moses is terrified at what God has asked him to do, and he expresses his humanity, his hesitancy, and his feelings of inadequacy, with several creative excuses. Moses responds to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” [Exodus 3:11].

God’s timing may seem a little off to Moses. Forty years before, he had been somebody in Pharaoh’s court. Forty years before, he had been young, strong, and the product of the greatest education the advanced civilization of Egypt could produce. Forty years before, he had powerful connections and high hopes. But now, he is a nobody, an anonymous shepherd in a forgotten desert, rejected by his own people and a fugitive from the Egyptians. And so, Moses asks God, “Who am I?”

And listen to how God answers Moses. God doesn’t say, “Moses, you’re great, you’re wonderful, you can do it!!” God says: “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.” [Exodus 3:12].

What God is saying to Moses, and to all of us, is: “I know all about your past, your present, your future. All about your inadequacies and guilt and doubt. But they don’t matter, because they are not the ultimate truth about you. Yes, you are what you are now, but you are not yet what you will be. And – I will be with you every step of the way.”

Well, Moses isn’t convinced yet. So he questions 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?” [Exodus 3:13]. In other words, if Moses isn’t able to squirm out of God’s call by asking, “Who am I?’, then he’s going to challenge God and ask “Who are you?”

And guess what God says to Moses: “I am who I am”! But it’s so different than Popeye’s hopeless lament. God says, “I am who I am… the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” This same God who has already been active in human history, transforming others who have been willing to turn aside, says: I am a God you can believe in, a God who transforms Have confidence! Trust in me! “I am who I am.”

Is Moses convinced yet? No. Remember, he fled Egypt 40 years previously because he has murdered an Egyptian slave driver; the Israelites might be skeptical, to say the least, at having a known murderer show up to lead them out of bondage. So Moses says to God, “But suppose they do not believe me or listen to me, but say, ‘The Lord did not appear to you.’” [Exodus 4:1]

And turning his staff into a snake and back, God tells Moses that “when I call you to a task, I’ll equip you for it – I will give you the tools you need.”

Is Moses done arguing with God yet? Nope. Moses says to God, “O my Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor even now that you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.” [Exodus 4:10]. When Moses says to God, I don’t talk well, we don’t know exactly what he means – does he have speech impediment, or a fear of public speaking, or is he just not very articulate? We don’t know, but whatever the problem, Moses feels inadequate to the task that God has called him. Listen to how God responds: “I will be with your mouth and teach you what you are to speak” [Exodus 4:11-12].

Well, Moses tries one last trick to get out of this job that God has picked him for. He begs. “O my Lord, please send someone else” [Exodus 4:13]. In response, God tells Moses that he will send his brother Aaron to work beside him. Aaron is the first Press Secretary in recorded history!

Did you notice that every time God responds to one of Moses’ excuses, God’s answers are not about Moses, but about God; in each case that Moses felt inadequate, God said, “I will be with you and show you how to do it.”

And what happens to Moses? He marches with courage ten times into Pharaoh’s court; he leads the people out of Egypt, and across the Red Sea, and through the wilderness into the Promised Land. And when Moses dies, the Bible [Deuteronomy 34:10] tells us, “Never since has there arisen a prophet in Israel like Moses.”

Moses spends the first 40 years of his life learning that he is somebody in the courts of Pharaoh. He spends the next 40 years of his life as a shepherd, a nobody. And he spends the last 40 years of his life learning what God can do with somebody who knows he is a nobody but gives his life over to God. Transformation!!!

We are not so much different than Moses – or Popeye, for that matter. We have all said, in our own way, “I yam what I yam.” It is the cry not of hope, but of disappointment.

Dis-appointment. There’s two parts to the word. Appointment: a meeting set for a specific time or place. Or, the act of designating or placing in office. And “dis” – the prefix means not, or apart, or away from.

Disappointment – that’s what we feel when we miss the life that we have been appointed by God to live, when we have missed our calling. That’s what God feels when we have removed God from the central role God longs to play in our life – when we have failed to turn aside, when we have missed meeting God, when we have appointed ourselves in God’s place, when we settle for “I yam what I yam.”

But each of us is called to be the person God had in mind when we were knit in the wombs of our mothers. Each of us is called to live out God’s purpose for our lives. Each of us has an appointment with God. Moses could have missed his appointment and walked past that burning bush. But he didn’t; he turned aside and he – and the world – were transformed.

Each of you has an appointment with God. Be careful not to miss it, because it will transform your life. Amen.

¹The great Popeye reference, and the inspiration for much of this sermon, comes from John Ortberg, The Life You’ve Always Wanted (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2002), p. 13ff.