“Moses was shepherding the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. He led the flock to the west end of the wilderness and came to the mountain of God, Horeb. The angel of God appeared to him in flames of fire blazing out of the middle of a bush. He looked. The bush was blazing away but it didn’t burn up. ³ Moses said, “What’s going on here? I can’t believe this! Amazing! Why doesn’t the bush burn up?” ⁴ God saw that he had stopped to look. God called to him from out of the bush, “Moses! Moses!” He said, “Yes? I’m right here!” ⁵ God said, “Don’t come any closer. Remove your sandals from your feet. You’re standing on holy ground.” ⁶ Then he said, “I am the God of your father: The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.”

Moses hid his face, afraid to look at God.

^7-8 God said, “I’ve taken a good, long look at the affliction of my people in Egypt. I’ve heard their cries for deliverance from their slave masters; I know all about their pain. And now I have come down to help them, pry them loose from the grip of Egypt, get them out of that country and bring them to a good land with wide-open spaces, a land lush with milk and honey, the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite.^9-10 “The Israelite cry for help has come to me, and I’ve seen for myself how cruelly they’re being treated by the Egyptians. It’s time for you to go back: I’m sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the People of Israel, out of Egypt.” ¹¹ Moses answered God, “But why me? What makes you think that I could ever go to Pharaoh and lead the children of Israel out of Egypt?” Exodus 3:1-11

“The Second theme of the Exodus: God chose a leader. Moses was called, along with his brother Aaron and sister Miriam, to tell the people that God was now at last coming to their rescue. Moses then, at God’s behest, led the people out of slavery into freedom.” (“Re-Living the Exodus”,  Simply Jesus,  N. T. Wright, p. 64)

Leaders are so important in our lives: especially the leaders of world, the country, and our communities. Moses was an unlikely leader chosen by G-d. In fact Moses tried valiantly to convince G-d that he was the wrong person. He did not believe that G-d had the right person to lead the people out of Egypt, coming up with at least five reasons why he was not “the guy”. We still believe that G-d is in the processes we use to elect and choose our leaders today. In the church, when we are electing a Bishop, or other leaders in the Synod, we pray before each election—invoking the Holy Spirit to lead us in our decision making process. When we go forward to elect our governmental leaders, we should invoke the same Holy Spirit in our decision making process. Look at what the writer of Timothy says:

“The first thing I want you to do is pray. Pray every way you know how, for everyone you know. Pray especially for rulers and their governments to rule well so we can be quietly about our business of living simply, in humble contemplation. This is the way our Savior God wants us to live.” (1 Timothy 2:1-3)

If you do not believe that prayer is effective and powerful, then it won’t be. But if you pray knowing that your prayers are heard, then those prayers will have more power than you can imagine.

Pastor Dave

“A new king came to power in Egypt who didn’t know Joseph. He spoke to his people in alarm, “There are way too many of these Israelites for us to handle. We’ve got to do something: Let’s devise a plan to contain them, lest if there’s a war they should join our enemies, or just walk off and leave us.”

^11-14 So they organized them into work-gangs and put them to hard labor under gang-foremen. They built the storage cities Pithom and Rameses for Pharaoh. But the harder the Egyptians worked them the more children the Israelites had—children everywhere! The Egyptians got so they couldn’t stand the Israelites and treated them worse than ever, crushing them with slave labor. They made them miserable with hard labor—making bricks and mortar and back-breaking work in the fields. They piled on the work, crushing them under the cruel workload.” Exodus 1:8-14

“Here are the seven themes of the Exodus story: Wicked tyrant—Chosen leader—Victory of God—Rescue by sacrifice—New vocation and way of life—Presence of God—Promised/inherited land.

We will deal with the first theme. First, the Exodus story was all about a wicked tyrant—Pharaoh, the king of Egypt—who had enslaved God’s people. Pharaoh is, as it were, the most visible symptom of the problem the people were facing.” (“Re-Living the Exodus”,  Simply Jesus,  N. T. Wright, p. 64)

Who are the wicked tyrants of our day? Where are the wicked tyrants in our communities? It isn’t hard to look to history, even to what is happening around the world to find the tyrants. Pharaoh did not start off as a tyrant—in fact Joseph was second in command to the Pharaoh who understood his genius and ability to understand a crisis and plan for the future—they were partners in ministry, so to speak. However, as the family of Joseph grew, and generation after generation passed away, a new Pharaoh came into power—and looked to the Hebrews as a problem, not a partner in ministry. All of a sudden the Israelites were a problem—and an ultimate solution needed to be put into place. Pharaoh hoped to “pile on the work, crushing them under the cruel workload.” The Germans felt the same about the Jews—and found an ultimate solution—working them to death, if not putting them to death in concentration camps.

As believers in G-d, as followers of Jesus, we are called to see the injustices of the world, to name them, shame them, and work for justice wherever possible.

Pastor Dave