God: Lover of the Excuse Makers

"Moses answered: "What if they do not believe me or listen to me or say 'The LORD did not appear to him?"  Exodus 4:1

God:  Lover of the Excuse Makers!
By Rev. William Dohle

God has a strange sense of humor sometimes!

You spend so many of your younger years making excuses for things.  Why your homework didn't get done.  Why you CAN'T do the dishes right now.  Why your bedroom will always stay a mess.

Then you grow up, get married, and have kids and...THEY start making excuses!

Little things at first, just like you did.  "I didn't hear you..." they say when you've asked them countless times to do something.  "I forgot to bring home my book..."when a certain assignment is due.  "I didn't know I had to..." they say when you ask them again, for the umpteenth time to finish their chores.

Ahh, yes.  God has a righteous sense of humor!  The excuses we give...come right back to haunt us later in life!

God should know too because God's chief prophet.  His messenger to Pharaoh.  His right-hand man.  The only person to ever have seen God face to face.  The author of five books of the Bible.  Moses.  Moses was...above all things...the king of excuses.

Don't believe me?  Just read chapter 3 and 4 of Exodus.  Then you'll see what I mean.

It begins with a simple question.  "Who am I?" Moses says.  The excuse?  I'm a nobody.  Choose someone else.

Then Moses thinks up another excuse.   "What's your name?  I don't even know your name, God!"  The excuse?  Not enough information.

Then Moses thinks up another excuse.  "What if they don't believe me?"  The excuse?  My friends!  Peer pressure!

Then Moses thinks up another excuse.  "I just can't talk." The excuse?  It's just too hard!

Four times Moses offers God one excuse after another and each and every time God shoots his excuses down.  Talk about persistent!  I wonder sometimes if I chased after people as God chased after Moses, could I overcome their excuses?

But God does... in a way.  Moses does lead Israel out of Egypt into the wilderness.  True...Moses complains the whole way.  He really gives God a hard time...but he does it!  Excuses and all!

We laugh at Moses, but frankly we're really no different.  We too are excuse-makers.  We are like little children to God.  And the number of excuses we offer God is staggering!  Numbering in the thousands!  And what does God do with our excuses?  Take them?  Of course not!  God leaves our excuses and keeps pressing.

We say to God... "We don't know who you are..." And God surrounds us with creation and gives us Scripture and the Church to teach us about his grace.
We say to God... "We don't have time..." And God makes time for us, sometimes in the most inopportune moments, to call upon him.
We say to God... "We can't do it.  We just don't know how."  And God gives us gifts of the Spirit and a community to teach us how to use them.
We say to God... "What if we fail?'  And God gives us forgiveness in His Son, Jesus, that overcomes all our failings.

God doesn't take our excuses.  He never has.  And He never will.  And, though we may give excuses to the world, to his church, to our families, and to everyone else, God still remains close to us.  Close enough for us to touch.  Always ready to break open our excuses with his grace and lead us into service.

Heavenly Father, Moses was the king of excuses...and I am his prince.  Help me to put aside my excuses and trust you, no matter where you should lead.  Amen. 

God of the Ordinary

"But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.  God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things--and the things that are not--to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him." 1 Cor. 1:27-29

God of the Ordinary
By Rev. William Dohle

Like many families, my family has two sets of dishes.

We have the dishes we use every day.  Those we dirty on ordinary occasions.  Dinner, lunch, etc.  These dishes all go in the dishwasher to be washed and then thrown in the cupboard.

Then there are the special dishes.  The china.  These dishes only come out at special occasions, like Thanksgiving and Christmas, and they DON'T go in the dishwasher.

The ordainary dishes have normal wear and tear on them.  They're stained in some places.  They're scratched.  We've even broken a few pieces of the ordinary dishes.

But the china... Now that's a different story.  Because they're stamped on the bottom, we are extra extra careful with the china.  Nothing(and I do mean nothing) stains the china.  It's all very special you see.

Now... here's a question for you.  If God was going to use dishes... which ones would he choose??
Would he choose the dishes that are used every day.  The ones with scratches and stains on them.  The ones thrown about in the dishwasher?

Or...  would he use the china?  The special dishes.  The ones that we set aside as a little holier than the other dishes?

You might think that God would use the holy dishes.  Since God is...well... holy!  But if you did you'd be wrong.  Very wrong.  You see God loves ordinary things.  He resides in ordinary things.  He uses ordinary things.  God is just an ordinary thing sorta God.

Take God's first face-to-face encounter with Moses for instance.  Instead of speaking to Moses from one of the great cedars of Lebanon(one of the holiest trees in all the Middle East!).  Instead of speaking to him from a cloud or a pillar of fire...God speaks to Moses through a bush.  A SHRUB in Hebrew.

Now you might think:  Come on... This shrub is pretty important, isn't it??

Well... no its not.  It's just a shrub.  One of many, many thousand you would see growing all around the area.  God doesn't choose a special tree.  He chooses an ordinary shrub.

Even Moses doesn't get it at first.  The Bible tells us, "Moses saw that the though the bush was on fire, it did not burn up.  So Moses thought, "I will go over and see this strange sight--why the bush does not burn up."(Ex. 3:2-3)  Moses walks up to the shrub to see this freak of nature.  To him it's nothing special.  Nothing holy.  It's just a strange bush!

Moses walks up to the thing, but still doesn't get it!  God calls him, "Moses!  Moses!" from within the bush.  (Notice, it's from WITHIN the bush, and not from some voice in heaven.).  Moses still doesn't get it.

"Here I am." He says.

Finally, God tells him, "Do not come any closer.  Take off your sandals, for the place you are standing is holy ground."

Without these words from God, Moses wouldn't have had a clue who was talking to him or why!  And, catch this, the Bible never tells us whether Moses obeyed!  It never says he took off his sandals or anything!

Now, why would Moses have this reaction?  Because... Moses was expecting a God of the Holy and God is a God of the Ordinary.  God works in ordinary ways, transforming ordinary things into extraordinary.

We see it's true for Moses here... and we see it's true elsewhere.

God changes ordinary people...into HIS ordinary people.
God changes ordinary bread and birds...into manna and meat from heaven!
Later with Jesus God makes an ordinary manger...into the cradle of a king.
God changes ordinary water...into baptismal water!
He molds ordinary bread and wine...into the body and blood of Christ!

In fact, if you think about it, God doesn't use very many things that start holy.  He likes to infuse his own holiness into them and through that holiness, make the ordinary, extra-extra ordinary!  He does it for things.  And he does it for people.  Our God is a God of the Ordinary!

So... ordinary people... if God can speak out of a shrub...what could he possibly make of you?

Almighty Lord, you spoke out of a shrub to call your servant, Moses.  Use us as your shrubs in the world, calling the world to behold your presence here, in Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

"You Remind Me Of..."

"God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.  So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them."  Exodus 2:24-25

"You Remind Me Of...."
By Rev. William Dohle

My wife and I have a little game we play around our children.  We call it: "Tell me where that comes from..."

We play it whenever our kids do...well pretty much anything.  Jenny will say something like:

"That's SO you!"

Or

"He gets that from your side of the family."

Or

"He or she reminds me of you when they do that!"

I'm sure other families play that game too, but we've taken it to an art.  Everything, and I do mean everything, connects back to someone else in our family.

William's growing stature... "Your father is pretty tall..."
Matthew's red hair... "My grandmother used to have red hair..."
Lynne's personality... "She reminds me so much of your mother!"

Maybe it's good.  It shows that we're all connected to each other.  Maybe it's how we "prove" to each other that our kids really are...our kids!  In any case, our kids remind us of our family which remind us of our kids.  It's a gigantic game of memory!

God played such a game in this passage from Exodus.  The people of Israel, once at home in Egypt, had been enslaved and their cries rose up to God.  Now, God had a choice of what to do here.

God could have ignored them.  He hadn't really spoken to any of them for quite some time.
God could have told them it was their fault.  It was Jacob who led his people into Egypt in the first place.
Or... God could act.

And act God did.  God acted too, not because he had a soft spot in his heart for Israelites, but because, according to Exodus: "...he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob."  In other words... the Israelites REMINDED God of the promises he had made with their forefathers and it was because of the patriarchs that God was concerned about them.

You know, too often we feel that we should stand on our own.  "Judge me," we say.  "By my own actions, not the actions of my family!"  We want to be so individual.  So distinct.  And yet...even with all our independence, we are still products of our families!  They raised us.  They nurtured us.  They may have made mistakes...but we are forever connected to them.  Their memory lives on within us.

God remembers us too, not because we are so important or special on our own, but really all because of Jesus!  It is Jesus and the promises made to us through Jesus that God acts in our lives.  He sends his Spirit...because Jesus promised it.  He forgives our sins...because Jesus promised they would be forgiven.

Just as the Israelites were remembered because of the promises God made with and through the patriarchs, we too are remembered because of the promises God makes through Jesus Christ.  It is Jesus who sparks God's memory.

So...the next time you look at your children or your grandchildren and think about someone they're related to...remember how you, child of God, are remembered because of Jesus.  And every time God looks at you...he remembers the promises he made through him!

Oh the promises you have made through Jesus Christ.  Remember me because of him.  When you look at me, God, may you see Jesus!  Amen.