“The Power of a Question” – sermon on August 31, 2014
Exodus 2:11-15; 3: 1-15 One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and saw their forced labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his kinsfolk. He looked this way and that, and seeing no one he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. When he went out the next day, he saw two Hebrews fighting; and he said to the one who was in the wrong, “Why do you strike your fellow Hebrew?” He answered, “Who made you a ruler and judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid and thought, “Surely the thing is known.” When Pharaoh heard of it, he sought to kill Moses. But Moses fled from Pharaoh. He settled in the land of Midian. (Years passed, the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel, enslaved in Egypt groaned under their bondage. And God heard their groaning.)
Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; he led his flock beyond the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of God appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; Moses looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed. Then Moses said, “I must pay attention and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up.” When God saw that Moses had paid attention, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” Then God said, “Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” God went on, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.
Then God said, “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the country of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. The cry of the Israelites has come to me. So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.”
But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” God said, “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.” But Moses said to 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?” God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” God said further, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’“ God 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 forever, and this my title for all generations.
Matthew 16: 13-18a; 21-25 Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church.
From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.” But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”
Sermon: The Power of a Question by Rev. Doreen Oughton
The rabbi was asked, “Why is it that you rabbis put so much of your teaching in the form of question?” The rabbi replied, “What’s wrong with a question?” In our first reading today, from Exodus, there are many questions – questions answered with questions, and questions not quite answered at all. The first question, in the Exodus reading, is when Moses comes upon two of his fellow Hebrews fighting with each other. “Why do you strike your fellow Hebrew,” he asks. The answer is not one, but two questions – “Who made you the boss and judge?” and “Are you going to kill me?”
These questions tell us so much about what is going on. Moses has grown up in the care and protection of Pharaoh’s daughter, as her own son, even though he was nursed and raised by his own mother, a Levite woman who’d had to play this charade of “working” as a nursemaid because of the violently oppressive policies against the Hebrews. How does Moses see himself? What impact has it had on him to live in privilege while seeing his people suffer so? When he comes upon an Egyptian beating one of the Hebrews, he kills him and hides the body. Did the beating victim help him hide him? Was he grateful, frightened? How did Moses feel about what he’d done? I imagine he struggled terribly within himself, and perhaps was trying to make some peace with the act by assuring himself that he was trying to help his people. And then he comes across more of his people who are doing to each other what he killed the Egyptian for! I imagine his question to them is anguished – “what are you doing?! Why do you strike your own people? Isn’t it bad enough to have to take a beating from the Egyptians? Shouldn’t we be looking out for one another?” And the responding question drives home the point that Moses is not seen as their hero, as one who looked out for them. Perhaps they know him best as Pharaoh’s grandson – a man with power to boss and judge and even kill.
So Moses runs. He goes off and settles in Midian, marries the daughter of a priest he meets there. It’s interesting to note that Moses gets the attention of Jethro after coming to the rescue of the daughters, who’d been chased away from the well by some shepherds. But at this point, he’s been laying low for awhile, tending sheep for his father-in-law, taking care of his wife and son. And then he has this encounter with a burning bush. In a way, this bush was a question from God to Moses. Will you notice? Are you paying attention? Are you willing to look closely? And Moses does – looks closely, then hears God’s call – “Moses! Moses!” Moses does not answer this question with a question, but says right out – “Here I am.” So God tells him what’s been going on, how the groans of the Israelites have reached the heavens, and it is time to do something about it. And the kicker is that God wants Moses to go back to Egypt and lead the people out – out of bondage and out of the country.
Now Moses dares another question – “Who am I that I should be chosen to do this?” God doesn’t really answer that question, or maybe the answer is that it doesn’t matter. Or maybe God doesn’t answer but let’s the question hang so that Moses can answer for himself. Moses who killed an Egyptian to spare the beaten Israelite. Moses who interrupted a fight between two Hebrews. Moses who rescued the seven daughters of the Midian priest. You can’t help but think Moses felt called to do this type of thing. But God’s response was “I will be with you. And when you are done, come worship in this holy mountain.” And so Moses’ next question comes – “And who shall I say sent me, when they ask – which they will – those Hebrews.” And what do you make of God’s answer to that? “I am who I am,” or, in an ambivalent word tense, God might have said, “I will be who I will be.” Is that an answer? If so, it is certainly an answer that leads to more questions.
In the next story shared this morning, from Matthew, Jesus starts the questioning – “Who do people say that I am?” The disciples haven’t quite gotten the hang of answering with questions, and they tell what they’ve heard. Jesus’ next question – “and who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter pipes up right away – “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Now perhaps more questions might have been called for here. In my role as supervisor to a seminarian this summer, I would never have let that comment pass unquestioned. “Unpack that for me,” I would say. Are these just words Peter heard someone else use and he is parroting them, like “Jesus saves,” and “Jesus is my Lord and Savior.” But Jesus hears something he likes and probes no further. He praises Simon Peter, and says that this insight of his is divinely inspired, revealed by God’s very self. It is on this rock-solid revelation that the church will be built.
But even without more questions, the misunderstanding is revealed. Simon Peter has a different kind of Messiah in mind than what Jesus foretells. “It cannot be,” Peter says to Jesus, “Never!” And what seemed rock-solid is now questionable – perhaps a stumbling block – insight only into the twisted ways of the world rather than the divine plan. What does this indicate about who Simon Peter is – the receiver of divine wisdom, or one of Satan’s tempters?
Sometimes seeking or offering quick answers can be a stumbling block to our faith. Like Moses, we’d sometimes like some nice concise name or phrase that we can say with confidence about who God is. But maybe then we’d be less likely to answer God’s call to pay attention, to ease suffering where we can, to worship – holy mountain or no. Sometimes, like Peter, we glibly affirm who Jesus is – lord and savior, messiah, my co-pilot. But unless we understand deeply how mind-bogglingly different his ways are from worldly success and power and ease, even fairness – we may find ourselves nothing but Satan’s tempters. When it comes to our relationship with God, the answers we seek or think we already know will change. They must, because God will be who God will be. Better for us to live with questions — provided they are the right questions, those grounded in mystery. The Hebrews had such reverence for this mystery that the wouldn’t say the name, only the initials – YHWH. And it is in that tradition of mystery and wondering that Jesus taught then and continues to teach – in questions and parables. “Who do others say that I am? Who do you say that I am?” And we are invited not just to live with the questions, but to live the questions. “Who is God? Who is Jesus? Who am I?” Don’t search for an answer – you may not be able to live with it. Instead, use your life as an answer, at least for a time, then ask again. For the best questions possess a power that does not lie in the answer. So I echo the rabbi’s response – what’s wrong with a question?
