"How to Have Courage"
by the Rev. Krista Taves
March 25, 2007
Reading
In our liberal religious tradition, we honor the sacred texts of all the world's religions. Today's reading comes from the Hebrew Bible, the Book of Exodus, Chapters 3 and 4. It tells the story of Moses, that great Jewish Patriarch who was to lead the people of Israel from captivity in Egypt to a land of their own. In this part of the story, God first appears to Moses and informs Moses of this important role that he is to play:
Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law ... He led his flock beyond the wilderness, and came to ...the mountain of God. ... The angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush ... 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. 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 the Lord said, "I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt ... and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to ... a land flowing with milk and honey ... So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people... 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 ... 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 ... You shall say ... "I am has sent me to you." ....
Then Moses answered, "But suppose they do not believe me or listen to me, but say, "The Lord did not appear to you."
The Lord said to him, "What is that in your hand?"
He said, "A staff."
And he said, "Throw it on the ground."
So he threw the staff on the ground and it became a snake.
"Reach out your hand and seize it by the tail."
So he reached out his hand and grasped it, and it became a staff in his hand...
"Put your hand inside your cloak."
He put his hand into his cloak and when he took it out his hand was leprous...
Then God said, "Put your hand back into your cloak"
So he put his hand back in ... and when he took it out it was restored...
"If they will not believe you or heed the first sign, they may believe the second sign. If they will not believe even these two signs or heed you, you shall take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground... The water ... will become blood."
But Moses said to the Lord, "Oh my Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past now even now... I am slow of speech and slow of tongue."
And the Lord said to him, "Who gives speech to mortals? Who makes them mute or deaf, seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? ... I will be your mouth and teach you what to speak."
But Moses said, "O Lord, please send someone else!"
Then the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses and he said, "What of your brother Aaron?... I know that he can speak fluently: even now he is coming out to meet you, and when he sees you his heart will be glad. You shall speak to him and put the words in his mouth; and I will be with your mouth and with his mouth, and will teach you what you shall do. He indeed shall speak for you to the people; he shall serve as a mouth for you, and you shall serve as God for him. Take in your hand this staff, with which you shall perform the signs."
Sermon
One of the things I love about the Jewish tradition, is that all the great figures in their Bible, almost without exception, are flawed. And Moses, one of the central figures in the Hebrew Bible, is no exception.
The God of the Israelites had great plans for Moses. Moses was to lead the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt and into a land God had promised for them. That God would choose Moses for this important mission was no coincidence.
Moses had already shown great courage. An Israelite who was adopted by Pharaoh's daughter, he turned against his Egyptian upbringing when he could no longer contain his rage at the enslavement of the Hebrew people. When he saw a slave being beaten by an Egyptian guard, he killed the guard in a fit of rage. When he saw two Israelites fighting amongst themselves, he chastised them for doing to each other what the Egyptians did to the whole of their people. Then he fled into the desert. While wandering that desert, he rested by a well, and saw shepherds driving away women who had come with their sheep. Moses defended the women and watered their flocks. One of them would soon after become his wife, and that was how he came to be tending a flock in the desert the day that God came to him in the burning bush.
Clearly, Moses had proven capable of mustering up the courage it takes to stand up for what is right. And he had already learned that doing so often meant paying a price. He lost his life of comfort. He lost his home and adoptive family, and put himself in mortal danger. So you would have thought that when God appeared to Moses in the burning bush that Moses would have readily agreed to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. Instead, he offered God every excuse in the book for why he should not be the one. God starts out patient and reasoning, responding to every fear with a calm argument. But as Moses gets more desperate, and his excuses more futile, God gets mad and pulls out all the stops to get Moses to do what he wants. I'm not sure what exactly convinces him in the end – the help he's going to get from his brother, or the realization that God's pretty mad, but regardless, he stops arguing when God orders him to go before Pharaoh and demand the freedom for his enslaved people.
And thus began the pivotal saga of the Jewish Bible. This reluctant leader began the long negotiations with Pharaoh, time after time demanding the Israelites' freedom. Pharaoh refused repeatedly, growing angrier and angrier at Moses' demands. In retaliation, he made life even harder for the Israelites. The Israelites then cursed Moses for angering Pharaoh. And yet Moses would not be dissuaded. He encouraged them to hold on and upping the ante by threatening great inflictions upon the Egyptians if Pharaoh continued to refuse – water turned to blood, infestations, disease, bad weather, darkness, and most insidious of all, a night when the angel of death passed through Egypt and struck down the eldest son of every Egyptian family. Pharaoh finally relented, and at last, Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt and into the desert, where they wandered for 40 years before coming to the Promised Land.
Modern biblical study has cast significant doubts on the historical accuracy of this story. In fact, some wonder if Moses is but a mythical figure developed through oral history. In this liberal tradition, we give great credence to such studies, and so we look at biblical stories like this metaphorically not literally, and their factual accuracy is not a measure of their usefulness. And when we use the word God here, we know that all of us have different meanings for God and trust each person here to translate words like God into something that makes sense in their particular spiritual framework. So our interpretation of stories like Moses and the Exodus will have somewhat of a different spin here than you might find in some of our neighboring churches.
To me, one of the truths of this story rests in this: the Israelites were led to their freedom by a man who was as deeply flawed as they were. He was a man with a temper. He dared to question his almighty God and resisted what was being asked of him. He had to be cajoled, almost bribed to do what God asked him to do. He was no angel. And yet for all his flaws, he did fulfill what was asked of him, and he has become one of the greatest and most courageous figures in the Jewish faith. And if someone as flawed as Moses can be that courageous, then so can we. So can anyone. We are all capable of that kind of courage because each of us is also flawed and prone to cowardice. This isn't a sin because we don't do original sin here. But it is a truth of the human condition. But just as true is that each of us is able to move beyond our fear and act courageously in this world.
Perhaps this is why the Exodus that Moses led has become the foundational story of the Jewish people, a people that in the Bible constantly vascillate between courage and cowardice. They are exiled from their lands, enslaved by an imperial power, or in lands where they are not safe to be who they are. And in those situations, and under that kind of stress, they swing from courage to cowardice and back to courage. But ultimately, even for all their flaws, for all their doubts, for all the times they were imprisoned by fear, and even for a leader who had to be strong-armed to put on the mantle of leadership, the Jewish people do come to the promised land.
When Christianity adopted the Hebrew Bible as the foundation for its own scriptures, this story spread in its influence. The Exodus story has become a powerful symbol for groups and individuals that have struggled against oppression. It has been used to build courage when standing against seemingly impossible odds. When African Americans sought to break down segregation, they drew heavily on the story of Moses standing before almighty Pharaoh demanding that the people be freed. When Central American workers stand together in solidarity against their governments and the foreign interests they serve, they often draw on the same story to give them courage and hope.
Even gay people have seen their story in the Exodus. The menacing Pharaoh is all those who teach and practice homophobia. Our slavery is the growing web of constitutional amendments and oppressive legislation that renders us second class citizens. We wait for the burning bush that will show us the way. And I do not doubt that there are many among us who this week felt as if we were wandering in the desert when our governor announced that funding for Planned Parenthoods in Springfield and Joplin will be cut because they are philosophically opposed to his "family values". Who is Pharaoh now?
What powerful stories like this do is help us make sense of what happens in our lives, particularly when we are feeling weak, afraid, overwhelmed, and powerless. And it's not just a story that works for those big issues that plague us. Moses' story, from the burning bush, his challenges to Pharaoh, the Israelites who turn against him, and the flight from Egypt, is applicable to our own individual lives for it shows us what we should prepare ourselves for if we want to live our values.
Rushworth M. Kidder, author of Moral Courage, has no illusions about what that takes. It takes a great deal of courage. Kidder identifies three aspects of courage. The first is a deep commitment to applying our values to our lives. The second is an awareness of the danger involved in supporting these principles, and the third is the willingness to endure that danger. (8)
When you look at Moses' story from these three aspects, you can see how it works. First, Moses has to be willing to commit his values of equality and freedom to his life. He couldn't just watch from the sidelines. He had to leave his comfortable life to do that. Second, he had to endure a great deal of danger. Not only could Pharaoh have killed him at any time, he also had to face the resistance of the very people he was trying to help. They were in a state of mental slavery as much as physical slavery, and as such it was easier to turn on him than it was to turn on the one who controlled every aspect of their lives. And thirdly, he had to be prepared for that danger to last. If you remember from your Bible stories, after Pharaoh frees the slaves, he changes his mind, and his army chases them down in the desert. It is only because God caused the parting of the Red Sea, that the Israelites escaped. And even then, every time things get hard, the Israelites turn on Moses, cursing him for taking them into the desert. Some even wish they could go back to Egypt into the stability of slavery. I imagine it took a great deal of forbearance to hold on to what he knew he had to do, even when he was being tested by those he served.
I want to tell you a story about a Unitarian Universalist congregation in a small Midwestern city that learned what it meant to live their values. Several years ago the congregation decided to become a Welcoming Congregation, which meant that it went through a process of learning how to be truly affirming of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered persons. At that time, it all seemed pretty reasonable, but soon, the mandate of the welcoming congregation, to actually be welcoming, was tested when Sandra* (not real name) walked into church. Sandra used to be Sam, and she was a 6 foot 4, non-op transgendered woman. She wasn't on any hormones and hadn't had surgery because as a working class woman with no health insurance this was beyond her means. But she was determined to live as a woman. Sandra had a five o'clock shadow by noon. She loved tight women's clothing and very high heels. She came to the church because she had heard it was welcoming. She didn't think there was anywhere else she could go, and she was probably right. And so she would come every Sunday in her tight dresses, high heels, emerging shadow, heavy make up and big hair, and sit in the front row.
Some people were very uncomfortable with Sandra. They thought Sandra scared people away. What will the neighbors say, you could hear murmured in small circles. And the fact was, that some people did not come back when they saw Sandra. And, the church did gain a certain reputation, even among liberal Christians, because Sandra attended.
But then they began to learn more about her. They learned that in her determination to live truthfully, she was almost completely alienated from her family. She had also been beaten and stabbed by local kids. She had been run off the road by someone calling her a freak. She was often harassed at work and had a hard time getting and keeping a job because few were willing to hire her or work with her. In order to feel safe going out for meals, she had approached several restaurant managers to ask if it would be alright to eat there. She only goes to those places that said yes. It's just safer that way. They also found her to be a wonderful person. She took part in worship, covenant groups, pagan circles, and her skills as a mechanic came in awfully handy when things needed to be done around the church. She was always willing to pitch in when needed, and how good it was for her to be needed.
Was the church going to choose social acceptability and or its values of equality, freedom, and acceptance. Who were they really there for? Should their first priority be to appease those who judged them, and to enable the discomfort of those in the church who wanted to keep up appearances, or were they there to provide deep spiritual nurture to all who chose to walk the path of fellowship? In the end, the church stood before its burning bush, and said yes.
All of us have been called into exodus by a burning bush challenging us to stand for a new way of living, a less comfortable way of living, but a more effective and truer way of living. Sometimes those burning bushes are calling us to the big issues, some of which I have mentioned today. But there are also burning bushes pulling us towards our families. There are burning bushes in our deepest relationships. There are burning bushes pulling us towards our children. There are burning bushes in the work we have chosen for ourselves. And there are burning bushes in this religious community. Whenever a truth is being spoken to you and something is being asked of you, the burning bush is calling to you as it called to Moses.
May we have the courage to answer, yes.
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Send Questions or Comments to Rev. Taves: Minister@EmersonUUChapel.org
Updated: 04/29/07