Pastoral Letter 26

Dear Members of St. Andrew’s Uniting Church, Friends and Adherents,

Heartfelt greetings to you all.

We are still anxiously waiting to come out on the other side of this year into 2021. We have to accept that we started this year with so many things planned, including our trip to Broken Hill, the fourth trip to Armenia, Movie Nights, Time4U, Bible Studies, Market Morning, Fashion Parade and St. Andrew’s Day at the end of November. It seems we will not be able to do any of those programs and activities as planned, except the Broken Hill trip just before the lockdowns. But we have hope that soon this will end, and we will be able to emerge out of this by Gods’ grace. Let’s be a little bit more patient and believe that things will be much better in the new year ahead.

We are making plans to postpone our next Armenia Trip. Initially, we were anticipating the possibility of May 2021, but it seems that it will most probably be May 2022.

The Church Elders and the Council will meet next Wednesday to reconsider the reopening of the church doors. We will consider the items that are on the agenda and make the appropriate decisions.  If you have any requests for us to include on the agenda, please let us know.

Please continue to pray for the suffering people of Lebanon and if you can, please help.

Join the other members tomorrow morning in worship, following the Order of Service. Please light a candle and pray for Lebanon. Thanks to Mark for suggesting most of the hymns for this Sunday’s Worship.

Be well and safe and if you need any kind of help or support, please do not hesitate to ask and let us know.

Continue to pray and remember the following points in your prayers:

1. Pray seeking God’s help as we go through the difficult time of pandemic, as we are still having deaths registered in Victoria and NSW.

2. Continue to pray for those countries who are still in the midst of the pandemic, where the number of cases of COVID-19 is still growing.

3. Pray for Lebanon as the country goes through a difficult time.

4. Pray for those who are struggling financially, those who have lost loved ones and are still in pain and for those who are not well and lonely.

5. Pray for world peace and ask for God’s blessings.

If you have any prayer points, please let me know and I will include them in the next week’s letter.

Krikor

“No More Objections, Moses. Now Go!”

Exodus 3:1-15 and Exodus 4:1-17

How would you feel if someone told you: “No more objections. Go!”

Probably humiliated and upset.

If a mother asks a child to do something and the child is not willing to do it, because they would have to stop what they were doing. The child ignores the request and wants to carry on with what they were doing. Then the mother says: “No more objections. Just do it now!”

It’s a kind of a debate which ends with a direct order. 

Sometimes we feel we are having a similar debate with God, when God has certain plans for us, the church, and asks us to do certain things for Him and in His name, we try to give reasons not to do what He is saying or even commanding us to do. We make objections and try to manoeuvre around it refusing to do what we are supposed to do.

As Christians we know and believe that God has certain plans for us. Even we proclaim that He is in control of our lives. But when we feel that God is asking us to do something for Him or in His name, we hesitate, think twice and try to disregard it, presenting some arguments not to follow His instructions.

In other words, we argue with Him or enter into a serious debate, find some reasons to find an escape route.

Have you ever carried on a lively debate with God?

Have you ever tried to change God’s mind on some matter?

Have you argued with God about some issue or circumstance in your life?

When God speaks to you and you feel that He is urging you to do, to act or to say something and you don’t feel comfortable, you try to find a reason not to respond. You argue with Him in your heart.

Moses did the same. The first step in his journey of discipleship and turning into the leader he meant to be and lead the people of Israel out of the bondage of Egypt into the promised land, the land of milk and honey, the land of prosperity and freedom, he did exactly this. He argued with the God of the ages! The God who had rescued him from the Egyptian Pharaoh’s declaration that every male child of the Jewish people must be thrown into the Nile. Then he was raised  by the Pharaoh’s daughter as a royal prince in the palace and after finding out that the Pharaoh was trying to kill him, because he had killed an Egyptian, when he saw that the Egyptian was beating a Hebrew and went to live in Midian, where he was safe.

Many years later God appeared to Moses through the famous burning bush and asked him to go to the Pharaoh, asking him to let his people go. God gave Moses a challenge, with the expectation of trusting Him and to do what He was commanding him to do.

Amazed and terrified about meeting God face to face, even not being able to stand on that land with his sandals on, he quickly became defensive in this extraordinary calling he had received. Moses was convinced he couldn’t respond to God and do the task God was giving to him. He objected and said: “Who am I to do this”.

And then he started to play the game of “Yes, but” with God. Any time we feel called or obligated to do something we would rather not do, we are tempted to say “Yes, but” to the person making the request.

I am sure we are familiar with this experience of ours or others.

As we look to the passage that we read today, we see Moses playing this “Yes, but” game with God. He “Yes, but”-ed God at least five times.

Let’s look at the five instances.

1.  Moses asked a simple question: “But . . . who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” (3:11). God said: “Now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt”. The task he was called to do was clear and it was God’s obvious and direct request from him. Moses was probably thinking: “I am too old for this job. I’m almost at the age of retirement and I need to rest and enjoy the rest of my life. I am not ready for a whole new mission in life.” Moses was about eighty years old when the call of God came. This is hardly the time when we think of a whole new vocation in our lives!

But God simply said? “I will be with you, Moses.” God did not accept Moses’ argument. Neither does God accept Moses’ age or stage in life. God simply called. When God gives us a task to do or opens before us a door and asks us to do something for Him, even if it is not necessarily a similar task of great responsibility and leadership, like the one He gave to Moses, He also assures us that He is and will be with us.

2.  When God assured that He will be with him and so Moses need not to be worried, Moses suggested a second argument. He asked God for His name.

The name of God was closely intertwined with the nature of God in the ancient mind. Thus, the writer of Psalm 23 says, “He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake” (Psalm 23:3).

Moses was actually asking how he could offer the perfect nature of God to the Israelites. “If I go, and they ask me about you, what shall I tell them?” seems to be Moses’ question. What he was supposed to say to the people, who were suffering under the oppression of the Egyptian rule and they were under immense pressure and have lost everything.

Sometimes we doubt about God’s identity and we question Him. Even we ask Him: “Who are you?” “Are you the One?” “Is it really You who had promised many blessings and good days?”

The response of the voice from the bush was one of the most mysterious in all of scripture. God said? “I am who I am.” The One and Only One, the God of the universe; the Creator and the Sustainer of the whole cosmos. Therefore, Moses was simply to tell the people that the “I am” had sent him.

We see a mystery in the words of God. God preserves His mystery for all time. God was not about to open up the full mystery to Moses in this moment of Moses’ life.

Perhaps God was offering a “name” that is only finally completed in the person of Jesus. The Gospel of John may be a partial unfolding of the mystery of God’s words to Moses in Exodus: Jesus uses various images to suggest Jesus’ identity as in John 6:35 – I am the Bread of Life, 8:12 – I am the Light of the World, 10:7 – I am the Gate of the Sheep, 15:1 – I am the Vine, 10:11- I am the Good Shepherd, 11:25 – I am the Resurrection and the Life). And so on.

3.  Unchanged in his desire for some kind of permanent deferment, Moses raised a third argument. “But suppose they do not believe me or listen to me, but say, ‘The Lord did not appear to you’” (4:1). In effect, Moses was saying, “What if I go to preach and nobody listens or even cares?” This is one fear of every preacher: “What if the people do not believe me or listen to me? What if they do not come? What if my words make no contact and no difference at all?”

God replied convincingly: “Moses, I will create signs and wonders before you. I will make the fruits of your ministry happen. I will make things happen.” God gave Moses two signs as proof; the staff turning into a snake and his hand into leprous, when he put his hand in his cloak. Those were the signs and wanders, that God gave Moses and that was a promise to help him and to use, if people ask questions.

I ask the question: “How many signs and wanders have we seen in our life?” Probably a lot. The signs and the wanders are always around us. Regardless of what is happening, God’s signs and wanders are always around us. We need to have eyes of faith to see them.

4.  Moses relentlessly threw his fourth “Yes, but” at God. Moses trembled at the thought of what might be unavoidable. He said, “O my Lord, I have never been eloquent . . . . I am slow of speech and slow of tongue” (4:10). Moses pleaded a new tact: “I mumble a lot, Lord. I can’t think fast on my feet. And I don’t always use good grammar.”

Sometimes we look only at the weaknesses we have and think that they will be problems for us not letting us do what we are supposed to do. We doubt that we will be able to accomplish the required tasks because of our limitations and shortcomings, when on the other hand we know that God is Almighty and All-Powerful.

God’s response to Moses’ self-imposed lack of skill was wonderful: “I will be with your mouth” (4:12). We remember the promises to the disciples where they were told by Jesus that they will receive the words to speak when they stand before powers and before enemies.

5.  The fifth “Yes, but” annoyed the patience of God. Moses said: “O my Lord, please send someone else” (4:13). Here is a last desperate plea to avoid the interruption of a very pleasant existence. “I really do enjoy retirement, Lord. I am happy here with my family and I don’t think I can do what You are asking me to do. You don’t really want me to go to Egypt, do you?”

With the fifth “Yes, but” we read, “Then the anger of the Lord burned against Moses” (4:14). God was frustrated with all of Moses’ excuses—and ours! In the end, God told Moses that Aaron will be called to be alongside. Moses will give Aaron the words of God to speak, and God will be with both of their mouths. In essence God said, “No more objections, Moses. Now go!”

That’s it! No more excuses and “Yes, but”s. Go and do your job!

God was simply ordering Moses, though at the start gently, to accept the challenge put before him and stand up and go in complete obedience.

To do that, we need to have faith. We will have our doubts and questions, which will make us hesitate and like Moses say: “Yes, but”. “I want to do what you are asking me to do, but I am not sure if I am ready, I have some doubts and am not sure if I can do what you are asking me to do.” But God assures us that He is and will always be with us, no matter what. God is with us when we are facing the deadly pandemic. God is with us when we are facing death, terror, fear, sickness, loneliness, despair, anguish, pain, desperation, anxiety.

We need to trust God and move forward with faith.

After the argument and the questions, Moses went in faith and did what he was supposed to do. He led the people of Israel out of Egypt. His task was not easy, he had so many other challenges to face with the people annoying him. They spent 40 years in the desert, they had their highs and lows. They had good days and bad days. They had what they needed, and sometimes they lacked food and water. They grumbled thinking that God had abandoned them.

Moses’ task was not an easy one. He knew that it will not be easy, that’s why he questioned and tried to avoid it.

Someone has said that faith is most simply “waiting for the rest of the story to unfold.”

We may be called. God may interrupt our life—either briefly, or for the long plea. We may “Yes, but” God a few times ourselves. However, in the end, we will find ourselves saying, “OK, Lord! Here I am. I have heard your call. I think I know your name and your nature. Here I am, Lord. Lead me to where the hurt is. Help me set your people free. And I will go.”

God made it clear. Moses, no more objections and arguments. Go! And he did.

Thank God he did in obedience.

There is a great lesson here that we should learn. God calls us no matter what we think or what we feel.

We may argue and play the game “Yes, but”. But at the end of the day, when He calls us, we should respond and commit ourselves to the work. We should respond to His call and be ready to serve Him.

This is a requirement from every Christian and every believer. If we are the church and its members, and if we are His Church, then we have to play our role using the talents and the gifts That God has given us.

We could easily make arguments and try to give reasons not to do what we are supposed to do. But God’s call is right there.

We have to respond and respond positively and say and sing:

“Here I am, Lord it is I Lord?

I have heard you calling in the night.

I will go Lord, if you lead me.

I will hold your people in my heart.”

Amen!