Words that Disturb

As the rain and the snow
    come down from heaven,
and do not return to it
    without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish,
    so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
    It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
    and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.  Isaiah 55:11-12


Words that Disturb
By Rev. William Dohle

"Sticks and stones will break my bones...but words will never hurt me!"

As a child these words seemed true.  But as an adult, I can't believe how false this truly is!

Words aren't harmless.  They are dangerous!  Words change the world.  They upset the status quo.  Words can get you ostracized and fired, or loved and cherished.  They can incite love or violence.  They can divide or call together.  They can bring peace or cause war.

Even simple words change the world.  Think of the words "I love you..." and how dangerous they are to speak in a relationship.  These three words change everything.  They can lead to a deeper relationship or break up a good friendship.  The words "I love you" can seal two people together for a lifetime or cast them apart.

Words are dangerous things.  They can, and do, hurt!  And will, and do, heal!

Moses learns this lesson the hard way.  Fresh off his meeting with the Israelite elders, Moses and his brother, Aaron, approach Pharaoh on his throne to say: "“This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Let my people go, so that they may hold a festival to me in the wilderness.’”(Ex. 5:1)  Sounds simple, doesn't it?  Not too complicated of a thing to ask.  These words shouldn't disturb, should they?  But Pharaoh already sounds angry.

“Who is the Lord, that I should obey him and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord and I will not let Israel go."(Ex. 5:2)

Moses tries to calm the situation down.  Or at least explain himself.  But he does so with more words and words are dangerous.

“The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Now let us take a three-day journey into the wilderness to offer sacrifices to the Lord our God, or he may strike us with plagues or with the sword.”(Ex. 5:3)

Again, Moses isn't threatening Pharaoh.  He actually sounds more frightened for himself and his people.  "Let us go...or GOD may strike US with plagues or with the sword!"  Moses is worried about HIMSELF and HIS PEOPLE.

But Pharaoh doesn't get that.  And these words that Moses speaks affect him in a way that Moses NEVER imagines or intends.

“Moses and Aaron, why are you taking the people away from their labor? Get back to your work!”  Then Pharaoh said, “Look, the people of the land are now numerous, and you are stopping them from working.”  That same day Pharaoh gave this order to the slave drivers and overseers in charge of the people: “You are no longer to supply the people with straw for making bricks; let them go and gather their own straw. But require them to make the same number of bricks as before; don’t reduce the quota. They are lazy; that is why they are crying out, ‘Let us go and sacrifice to our God.’  Make the work harder for the people so that they keep working and pay no attention to lies.”

What?!  Why did Pharaoh say THIS?  What made him so...mad?  Moses and Aaron came to him with no sword or shield or anything to really threaten him.  They came with only God's Word and a simple request.  Why did Pharaoh react like this?


The reasons are the words themselves.  Those words were powerful.  Straight from God, those words had the power to change...everything!  And they did.  But not right away.  The "powers that be", the "god" of the Egyptians, wasn't going to die without a fight.  Pharaoh fought, and fought hard, to keep things the way they were, but ultimately he failed.  God really did redeem his people, starting with a few simple words.


Our words can have the same power, especially when they are from God.  Words from God have the power to heal and to harm, to kill and to bring to life.  The same word has been known to heal one person and offend another.  And God's Word spoken in church is even more powerful.  Spoken from the pulpit, sermons have the power to inspire or incite rebellion.  They have brought communities together or split them apart.

The Word of God, spoken anywhere, will affect change.  It just does.  Not just a surface change that can be easily dismissed, but a lasting, internal change that will always have the powers that be raging against it.

So the next time you are called on to speak a word of grace to a graceless world, a word of love to the loveless, or a word of forgiveness where forgiveness is not welcome, take heart.  The next time your words cause others to fight against you, fear not.  God goes with you!  God speaks through you.  And though the world rage against you, God will overcome!

Word of God, we greeted your coming by hanging you on a cross.  Prepare us with your Spirit, that we may endure persecution and see your word fulfilled.  Amen.
    

"Who's That Guy!?"

"Moses agreed to stay with the man, who gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses in marriage. Zipporah gave birth to a son, and Moses named him Gershom, saying, 'I have become a foreigner in a foreign land.'"  Exodus 2:21-22

"Who's that guy?!"
 By Rev. William Dohle

We are spoiled in our world today!

Last night I had the chance to Skype to my family in Utah and show them the face of our new baby boy, Nicholas James.  It was quite an event, with my brother and his family, my sister and hers, and my parents all gazing at the cute baby on the screen.  Despite some lighting difficulties, all got to see the face of our new son "live" on screen.

Imagine if you couldn't do that, though.  Imagine if the ways we communicate, through the internet or over the telephone, or even through what we now call "snail mail" were all gone?  What if, after seeing someone leave,  you never saw or heard from them again until if and when they return?  And when they did return, they might look and think and even act like a foreigner, an outsider, a wanderer?

If you can wrap your head around that, if you can see yourself there, then you can possibly imagine what Moses' friends and family were all thinking upon his return.

Moses had, as you remember, disappeared.  He had run away from Egypt and escaped to live with the Midianites, another group of nomadic people living east.  Once there, Moses met and married Zipporah and, as married people do, the two of them had a son.

Moses never forgot where he was from.  He never forgot that he wasn't "from" Midian.  In fact, he names his son: "Gershom" which means, "Foreigner."

Moses never thinks he'll return though.  He hasn't seen that far ahead.  Not until God talks to him through a burning bush and he gets told to return.  Then, and only then, does Moses turn around and head back home.

Only Moses isn't returning like he left.  Movies like "Prince of Egypt" and "The Ten Commandments" fail to take this into account, but Moses is a very different guy when he returns.  Not only does he have a foreign wife and a new son to introduce everyone to, but he also has a mandate from God.  A message for Pharaoh.  Moses has been told to shake things up!

Before he leaves he has a strange encounter with God, where God is trying to kill him in the night and only by circumcising her son and touching it to Moses does Zipporah, his wife, save him.  It is a strange encounter, but one that illustrates the point.  Moses and his family are not from around here.  They don't even bear the mark of the covenant upon them.  Here comes an outsider and his family to bring deliverance to God's people.

Moses meets Aaron next and explains things to him.  You can only imagine what the two of them are thinking as they walk along the way and as they enter the tent with the elders of Israel.  Here he is, a foreigner.  An outsider.  A wanderer.  An Egyptian.  Adopted Son of the former Pharaoh.  Here he is a murderer with his outcast Midianite family here to bring God's Word.  Moses has nothing going for him.  What will they think?  What will they do?

But upon his return, after hearing of Moses and all his experiences and after hearing of God's deliverance, the elders of Israel bow down and worship.  They have accepted Moses.  Not because they recognize him or even accept him and his strange family.  But because the Word of God is with him.  They are grateful even for the familiar turned foreigner in their midst.  For the foreigner has brought good news of deliverance, and "lovely are the feet of those who bring good news."

Sometimes I think of how far removed I am from Moses and his experiences...until I look around me and realize that I live far from the land of my birth too.  I communicate with my family back home through the wonders of technology.  I am a foreigner here.  Without God and His Spirit, without His grace and mercy and his calling in my life, I would be lost.  I am here because of a call.  A call from God to serve his people in this place.  I did not hear God in a burning bush.  I heard him in my heart.  But he told me the same he told Moses.  "Go...and I will be with you."

Wherever the call of God takes you, whether it be to far away lands, as a literal foreigner there, or across the street or aisle to meet your neighbor in his own land, the promise given to Moses is the promise given to us today.  "I will help you speak and will teach you what to say."

God, you have called us to paths uncertain and ways yet untrodden.  Equip us that no matter how foreign we feel, we might step out in faith.  Amen.

"I Don't Get It..."

"Moses and Aaron brought together all the elders of the Israelites, and Aaron told them everything the Lord had said to Moses."  Exodus 4:29

"I Don't Get It..."
By Rev. William Dohle

Have you ever told a joke that...bombed??  Something you found extremely funny?  Something that touched your heart?  You shared it with someone and then they just looked at you funny.

"Huh..." they said.  "Okay..."

The more you tried to explain it, the more they just didn't get it.

That's what I think of God's humor sometime.  We just don't get it.

Parts of the Bible are written to be extremely funny.  They're hilarious in fact.  But we, with our "take it all too serious" nature just don't get it.  We don't understand it.  And we wind up just looking at it and going... "Huh..."

Take Moses for instance.  Moses has just been called by God to lead the people of Israel out of the way.  Only he doesn't want to do it.  He's come up with every excuse in the book and strangely God doesn't listen.  Instead, God has told him... "What about your brother, Aaron the Levite?  I know he can speak well.  He is already on his way to meet you, and he will be glad to see you.  You shall speak to him and put words in his mouth; I will help you both to speak and will teach you what to do.  He will speak to the people for you, and it will be as if he were your mouth and as if you were God to him."

Now all the movies that depict Moses have him speaking to Pharaoh.  They have him talking well in fact.  In the Ten Commandments, he's boldly walking up to Pharaoh.  In The Prince of Egypt he does the same.  None of them really understand what's going on here in the text.... Namely... MOSES ISN'T TALKING!

That's right.  He's not talking to Pharaoh.  Not really.  Like some crazy game of telephone, where one person whispers in the ear of another, God is whispering in Moses' ear, Moses is whispering in Aaron's ear, and AARON IS SPEAKING!  Aaron is doing the work!

It's like some divine joke!  Instead of getting somebody who knew what they were doing.  Instead of getting some great orator or some mighty man like we picture in the movies, God chose Moses, a man who couldn't even speak!  A man who had to whisper in Aaron's ear and have Aaron play telephone with Pharaoh.

Can you imagine it!  Here they go, walking up to Pharaoh.  Pharaoh asks, "Why are you here?"

Moses whispers in Aaron's ear.  And Aaron says: "This is what the Lord, the God of Israel says: "Let my people go, so that they may hold a festival to me in the wilderness."

Pharaoh looks puzzled.  "Uh... what?"  Or, more precisely in the text, "Who is the Lord, that I should obey him and let Israel go?  I do not know the Lord and I will not let Israel go."

Moses whispers in Aaron's ear again.  "The God of the Hebrews has met with us."

No wonder Pharaoh refused.  He was probably rolling with laughter!  He probably thought this was some dumb joke!  "Get back to work!" he tells them with a laugh.

And when it turned out that it wasn't a joke...Pharaoh got even more angry!  This wasn't some mighty man coming to him demanding his rights.  It was a criminal!  A shepherd!  An outcast!  True Moses might have grown up in the Pharaoh's home, but that was a long time ago!  And to think that this man was playing some joke on him.  It was absurd!

We too find ourselves in Pharaoh's shoes...not really understanding God's sense of humor.  We think that he should send the mighty, the proud, the powerful, the rich, and the strong to save the day.  Instead, God sends the weak and the frail, the poor and the downtrodden.  God sends us!  And he does so in a way that doesn't make sense to the world.  He does so in a way that is, in fact, rather humorous!

God whispers in the ear of pastors and teachers, friends and family, and we, in turn like Aaron, relay that message to others.  We pass it on.  Sometimes its clear as a bell.  Sometimes we pass on what God is trying to say.  But other times we do not.  Other times our own agenda gets in the way and we think "God couldn't possibly have meant that!"

But still God whispers to our hearts and acts...not in the mighty way we'd think of truths and principles, but in the subtle way of humor and laughter.  Like Aaron, we carry the message to a people who look at us puzzled.  It doesn't make sense to the world...but that is God's humor at work after all.  Is it any wonder that we remember the things that make us laugh more than anything?  Let us remember that God invented laughter and invites us to laugh with him, in joy and hope throughout time!

God, I just don't get your humor sometimes.  I just don't understand how you could choose the foolish and the weak like me, but you did.  Give me confidence in your calling and trust in your grace, in Jesus Christ my Lord.  Amen.