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"God Gives Tasks, Even To Failures" Sermon Delivered By Rev. Dick Stetler – August
31, 2014 Centenary United
Psalm 105:1-8; Exodus 3:1-15
This morning we are
going to talk about the detours that come our way because of a mistake
we made in judgment or because a roadblock interrupted our journey due
to some unexpected change.
Life is never a smooth unfolding of events that are always
favorable to the direction our life is headed.
The headline in yesterday’s newspaper is a primary example of
such a roadblock, “DeFontes pulls the plug on VSB television station.”
Think about the employees of channel 11 when
the rug was pulled out from
under them.
Everyone greets
change with a different attitude.
Today we are going to consider a man who lost everything because
he could not control his emotions. As
a young man, he had been prepared to assume increased responsibility
within the royal family of When Moses learned
of his Hebrew heritage, he decided to visit
shanty town. He crossed
the tracks in order to find
his biological parents. As
he searched among the hordes of people, he witnessed for the first time
the hardships the Egyptian taskmasters had placed on them.
He became enraged at seeing the atrocities that had remained
hidden from him. As he continued to wander among his people, Moses came upon and witnessed an Egyptian killing a Hebrew. He could not restrain his anger and hunger for his form of justice. When he thought no one was looking Moses killed the Egyptian and buried his body in the desert. Later he found two
Hebrews fighting with each other.
While Moses attempted to break up the fight, one of them said,
“Who made you our ruler and judge?
What are you going to do, kill us like you did the Egyptian?”
Upon hearing this, Moses realized that there had been witnesses
to what he had done and that word of his deed had begun to spread.
He ran away leaving his life of privilege behind. During his flight,
Moses made his way toward an oasis.
As he was approaching, he observed shepherds driving away a group
of sisters who were attempting to water their animals.
Moses drove off the shepherds. In gratitude, the women took Moses
home with them. He met
their father, Jethro, who was the priest of Midian.
When Moses decided to settle there, Jethro gave him his daughter
Zipporah to become his wife.
Moses and Zipporah started a family. Moses had fallen
from grace and had disgraced himself in the eyes of the royal family and
now he had become the husband to a peasant woman.
Moses had to be thinking about what killing a man had cost him.
He found himself having to deal with an overwhelming sense of failure. What can make life a fascinating adventure rather than a death spiral is when we realize that life-experiences have a miraculous way of drawing out the best from us. If we can escape being our own worst enemy long enough to press on with living, we learn that our failures, our mistakes in judgment and those unanticipated roadblocks are only bends in the road. Life goes on and becomes the adventure it was meant to be. Our lesson today
opens with Moses tending his father-in-law’s sheep and goats when God
calls out to him from the burning
bush. God tells him
that he is sending him back to I am nobody.
I can’t go home and ask my
uncle to release my people.
Their culture is more Egyptian then Hebrew.
The only heritage they have is verbal memories that they continue
to teach their children. They have lived in Think about how Moses felt during the moment when God was giving him a new task. The pain, the insecurity and “I can’t do this” attitude were caused by Moses’ blindness about the unknown possibilities that were in his future. When we examine our own lives, we had no idea where the risks we
took would lead us. We did
not know how our children would turn out.
We move forward in life knowing nothing about what is waiting for
us around the bend. If anyone would have told us that Moses fell from grace, he killed an Egyptian and he had settled
down with a peasant woman to tend flocks. He had successfully left his
past behind, had become son-in-law of Jethro, the priest of Midian.
His future was economically secure. He resisted any thought of
returning to God, however, needed someone with skills no one else possessed.
Moses had access to members of his former family.
He knew all the important people. He knew his way around the
palace. He was well-educated and could speak the language.
He knew the heritage of the Hebrews and had empathy for their
suffering. He knew
flawlessly the geography of the area.
To all of these abilities that Moses possessed, God added the
thought, “I will be with you.”
(Exodus 3:12) Moses
had to overcome his sense of utter failure to face the people who loved
and reared him. One of the tasks I had in our Annual Conference was to mentor
prospective pastors as they came through
The Candidacy Program.
Anyone entering the ministry must go through this process. I
would meet regularly with candidates until they were ready to appear
before the Board of Ordained Ministry for final approval. A new candidate was given to me.
All I was told was that he came from a very
checkerboard past that was
never quite defined for me.
During our sessions, he was most engaging and eager to learn.
He was insightful.
He asked the right questions.
He knew that he would remain a student of what life has to teach him for
the rest of his days. He was ordained at Conference years later and as a “thank you” he
came by my office at St. Matthew’s and gave me a framed saying that had
been created in water colors by a calligrapher.
The significance of the saying only became apparent to me when I
read an article in the The Reverend is a
recovering cocaine and heroin addict, an alcoholic, an ex-convict who
stole from his mother to feed his $1,000-a-week habit.
At his lowest point, he was in the hospital for the fourth time,
his teeth were gone and his liver was barely functioning.
A doctor gave him one more year to live.
He was 30. Today, at
42, twice married and twice divorced, he entered Wesley Theological
Seminary, graduated and was ordained.
He is currently serving The Post article
pointed out that society would label his past habits and passions as
evil.
However, for the Rev. Alpha Brown, he learned that everything in
his past became transformed into
stepping-stones or tools
that he could use as he led the wandering young people living on the
streets of the Nation’s Capital.
Here are the words to that framed saying created by Ellen M.
Cuomo. These words can
teach anyone that higher ground
awaits them in spite of how misdirected or confusing their background
had been. This piece is
entitled:
Faith Is
Faith is risking what is, for what is yet to be. It
is taking small steps knowing they lead to bigger ones.
Faith is holding on when you want to let go. It
is letting go when you want to hold on.
Faith is saying yes when everything else says no. It
is believing all things are possible in
the midst of impossibilities. Faith is looking beyond what is and
trusting in what will be.
It
is the presence of light in darkness, the
presence of God in all things. The barrier that keeps us from enthusiastically moving forward in
life is fear. We would much
prefer the comfort zones that grow out of our need for security.
When we allow our past or
present to define the rest of our lives, we are totally forgetting how
everything can be
transformed by knowing what God said to Moses, “I will be with you.”
This is how Alpha Brown’s transformed
stepping stones led him
toward what was yet to be.
Life is never over because of a mistake or a roadblock. Our
self-portrait is not completed until we leave our bodies.
This week we received news that Lois’ 99-year old Aunt Alvina
died. She never defined herself by how old she was.
She woke up every morning with the same outlook as a 20-year old.
She lived by herself.
She drove her own car and was not afraid to drive at night.
She sang in the choir.
She still counted the offering from the worship services at her Tomorrow was always a new
day for her with new things to accomplish. She never looked back at
mistakes or hurtful things she might have said.
She would say, “Why think about what you cannot change.”
She finished playing pinochle
with members of the family, had difficulty breathing, went to the
hospital and within a week, the curtain came down on her adventure only
to rise again seconds later as an entirely new adventure was about to
begin . She joined her eight
other brothers and sisters that pre-deceased her.
She taught us that life is an adventure until we draw our last breath. Do not look back. Look only ahead toward what is yet to be. Moses did, and he became a savior to his people. |