Scripture Lesson

From the book of Exodus, Chapter 3

¹⁵God 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 for ever, and this my title for all generations.
¹⁶Go and assemble the elders of Israel, and say to them, “The Lord, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, has appeared to me, saying: I have given heed to you and to what has been done to you in Egypt. ¹⁷I declare that I will bring you up out of the misery of Egypt, to the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, a land flowing with milk and honey.” ¹⁸They will listen to your voice; and you and the elders of Israel shall go to the king of Egypt and say to him, “The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us; let us now go a three days’ journey into the wilderness, so that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God.” ¹⁹I know, however, that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless compelled by a mighty hand.

"The Reluctant Disciple"

A Sermon Preached by
Mr. Steve Aucella

at the First Congregational Church of Stoughton

United Church of Christ

Born and raised a Catholic in Reading, I moved away from the church of my youth when I was in my late teens. I stayed away during my twenties. And thirties. And forties. It wasn’t until our daughter Kate was born and getting into school that Jody and I decided to look for a church. We wanted Kate to have the same faith foundation that we grew up with at the very least. Well, one day, we walked into North Community Church in Marshfield and it felt like coming home. The pastor, the people – half of whom we knew – all welcomed us joyfully.

Soon enough, I was asked not just to join a committee, but to chair it. From there, I became a deacon and later, the church moderator. In the meantime, I began to feel a tug at something more. I admired the seminarians we brought in every year, and when one of our own also went off to Andover Newton, the germ of an idea came to me without my knowing it. But it took the death of a close friend to get me to open up to God. “Do You want me to go to seminary,” I asked; “If so, give me a sign.” It sounded kind of hokey to me, but I was alone, so why not? I got my sign. I told Jody about it and she said, “You have to go.” I told my pastor about it and she said, “I’ve been waiting for you to come to me.”

Long story short, here I am today, and quite happy about it.

As your first seminarian in 17 years, I am honored and proud to work with you and to learn from you, and I’m looking forward to the next nine months. A student’s perspective tends to lean toward the academic side. We want to show what we know. Personally, I have realized that my tendency is to go for that “old-time religion”. I mean real old. About 2,000 years old.

Recently, I read an article¹ in a Jewish newspaper about so-called non-religious people coming back to their synagogues, almost being compelled to return. One man responded when he heard this great passage from Deuteronomy:

When it shall be difficult for you, all these words will find you, and you shall return to the Lord your God and hearken to His voice.²

This man had given up on religion until he heard this passage, but he was attracted to worship services – and I quote - “despite his present self but in recognition of his truest self.”

During some of the time I was unchurched, I worked in Cambridge and had easy access to Wordsworth Books, a wonderful bookstore that’s no longer there. Over the years, I collected several Bibles and some religious texts that sounded interesting. Never read them, but I was attracted to them without knowing why.

Today’s Scripture reading has relevance for me because, like Moses, I felt completely unworthy when I heard God’s call. Who am I to go to Pharaoh? Who am I to think I can serve God? And I had asked for a sign. Moses was minding his own business, and there the comparison ends. We have to trust in the Lord and listen to what the Lord reveals to us. We are all of us worthy. God made us to be so. We may have misgivings and we may be afraid, but God gives us everything we need to serve.

Moses kind of holds back here. He comes up with some interesting reasons why he shouldn’t be doing what he ends up doing anyway. He doesn’t speak well. The Egyptians won’t believe him. The Israelites won’t believe him! And later, the people are too stubborn – why, Lord, Moses asks, did you choose me for this?

In this reading, we also encounter the revelation of God’s name.

Names are very important in the ancient Near East, and in the Bible, they are especially so. This is a good topic for a fellowship dinner some cold winter night, by the way.

Unexpectedly, Moses finds himself standing in a holy place. Take off your shoes, God commands. Get ready for something special.

When Moses asks for a name that he can bring to the Israelites, to let them know which God had sent him, the Lord tells him to say “Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh”, which can be translated in several ways: I Am That I Am; I Am Who I Am; I Am, Because I Am; I Will Be What I Will Be; and, my favorite, “I Am The One Who Makes Things Happen”. This wide range of interpretations of God’s reply hints at the fullness and mystery of God. God is many things. And God has many names.

Now imagine Moses daring to ask God for God’s name. Remember, names are important. They carry information about you. By not revealing this information, one can withhold power. Moses is not asking, "What should I call you?" He is really asking God to give up some power. He is asking God, "Who are you; what are you like; what have you done?" And he is told – firmly - that this is the eternal God, the God of his ancestors. Other gods come and go. This God is.

Though God was known to the children of Israel by different names at different times, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob were all the same God.

What does it all mean for us?

God is always with us. Wherever we pray – at home, in an airplane, on the golf course, or at work – and whether we pray alone or with our families, our prayers are heard. And it doesn’t matter how we pray. We just want to form a relationship. A pastor once told me that all prayer breaks down to “Thank you, thank you, thank you; help, help, help.” God wants to hear from us, all the time, any time.

Jesus taught outside the Temple and he taught outside Galilee. He met and spoke with women, one a non-Jewish woman in Tyre, a part of Syria. He crossed the river Jordan and back again, which itself carries a lot of symbolism. He went beyond physical boundaries, and he crossed social, political, gender, cultural, and racial boundaries as well.

Teaching the Gospels, learning the meaning of the Gospels, living by the Gospels, all constitute public faith. We can’t apply Jesus’ teachings only when we’re in church. That’s not how it works. We’re Christians all the time, everywhere we go. Just as I’m a husband and a father all the time, I am a Christian and a disciple all the time. Our faith exists outside the boundaries of this beautiful building.

God was waiting for us here in the sanctuary this morning. God wants us to come to God, and it’s up to us to reach out, to “turn aside” as Moses did, to drop everything when Jesus commands, “Follow me.” Any reluctance we might feel is understandable. We’re being asked to make a commitment in how we live and how we behave. Think of Abraham’s faith and how God rewarded him for it. As Christians, we are asked to love our neighbors and to walk humbly with God.³

It’s hard. We live in a secular world. Most of the time, we’re caught up in the whirl of daily life: jobs to do and bills to pay. Prayer time often comes only at the end of the day. We’re tired. We’re stressed out. We forget. We’ll do it later.

To live a spiritual life, we need to keep God before us. Why do we come to church? Why do we go back out to the world? To what end? What is our self-understanding as Christians?

The original disciples of Jesus dropped everything to follow him, without even knowing who he was or where he was going. But they did it. It was only later that the doubts and questions occurred. We have an advantage in that we know the whole story. We know how that one turns out. What we don’t know is how our own stories will turn out. I certainly don’t know about mine. God has set me on a path on which there is no turning back. Every night, I pray for just a little more clarity. Things come into focus a bit at a time. I don’t expect I’ll ever know all that I want to know.

The Gospel of Matthew ends with the commissioning of the disciples, and it goes like this:

¹⁶ Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. ¹⁷When they saw him, they worshipped him; but some doubted. ¹⁸And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’

Amen.

¹Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, A Sweet Partnership, (Jerusalem Post, 15 August 2008), 30.
²Deuteronomy 4:30.
³Micah 6:8.