Proper 24 A - October 22, 2023

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Luc Thuku OHC

The Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 24 A, October 22, 2023

 

Exodus 33:12-23
1 Thessalonians 1:1-10
Matthew 22:15-22

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In our first reading this morning, we hear Moses having a dialogue with God. Like most people who want a sign to believe or confirm something, Moses despite numerous Scripture passages before indicating that he spoke with God face to face, wanted God to show him a sign. He wanted another indicator. He had had many along the way. He had witnessed some very remarkable and unusual demonstrations of the divine; the burning bush, a staff that became a snake, the Red Sea parting in two, tree twigs that cleaned up polluted water, a pillar of cloud leading him and the people by night and a cloud by day, manna falling from heaven like dew and numerous other wonders. He still wants further clarity and he prays cunningly like I do, first trying to justify his position and kind of blackmailing God by reminding God of God’s part in the deal as we heard in verses 12 and 13.

Moses also asks God to guide him clearly along the way, to teach him His ways; a good thing indeed! Most of us like being guided. We crave to be taught God’s ways. We like to know the paths we are to take, to be shown the right way. We are a people hungry for guidance. We long for direction. We are like wanderers lost in a jungle or in a desert who cry out to God to show them the way or even to give them a sign in the sky! God however created no sign for Moses in the sky, nor laid a blue print down on how things will proceed. He did something better.

God replied Moses’ prayer, his request for a sign, by assuring him that God’s presence will go with him and that God will give him rest(Exodus 33:14). God personally and providentially led Moses and the nation of Israel. He offered to be the guide as opposed to offering guidance. He promised to accompany them and to be with them. He was not going to be an isolated God who lived in some heavenly domain but rather a God who chose to come down and live among His people. He would walk with them side by side as a friend.

Guidance for a Christian comes from an ongoing relationship with God. God wants us to know Him. Being guided by Him is part of that relationship. It is better than signs in the sense that signs are temporary whereas a relationship is permanent. Signs can be misread, misinterpreted, and in some cases not seen at all. God wants to lead us in our journeys, every step of the way through rain and sunshine.

In the verse immediately preceding the start of our passage today, verse 11 of Exodus 33, we are told that “the Lord spoke with Moses face to face just as a man speaks with his friend.” This verse speaks of the reality and depth of communion between Moses and God. Moses was God’s friend not because he was perfect, gifted or powerful. They were friends because friends trust each other and talk to each other on top of sharing common interests. God did not always provide a signpost or send Moses memos to direct him but that did not matter. He knew with whom he was going and that was all that mattered! We as Christians must get to know God first if we want to know God’s will. The guidance revolves around the relationship. If we seek the guide more that guidance, we will see the sign we are looking for and on top of that wonderful benefits.

The greatest of the benefits that comes from being in a relationship with God is His enduring presence. God, the ruler and creator of the universe walks with us, He is our companion, our friend. The whole world may walk out on us but God never will. We have His word on that. God also promises us rest as He promises Moses in verse 14…“and I will give you rest!” The rest promised here is a rest that happens while we are still on the journey, a rest that reaches down to the inner depths of our being. It is not like our weekly Sabbath rest, our annual vacations or family visits, or even the retreats that we do. It is not a mere cessation of our activities or struggles but a calmness, a fulfillment, a security that only comes from knowing and walking with God. It is solitude…a solitude that gives us wisdom to find God and His ways. It comes to us as a testimony of trust, the knowledge that gives us feelings that make us confident, secure and victorious.

God’s presence makes us a holy people, a people set apart and distinct. This distinguishes us from the rest of society, not because we are special or better than they are. We are different not because of what we do but rather because of what God does in and through us. We are holy only when we take God’s accompanying presence seriously. When we are consciously and continually aware of God’s presence, it will impact our talk, our behavior, and our thoughts. It causes us to think differently, act differently, love differently and serve differently. It calls us to stand out in the crowd, to be distinct, to be separate and even to be unusual.

In verse 18 of our text, we hear Moses pleading with God to let him see His glory. This glory accompanies God’s presence because of God’s majesty. The heavens declare this glory, creation testifies to it and authentic Christians reflect it. The glory of God is all around us. We come to understand and sense it, not in its entirety just like in the case of Moses because of our human condition.

God also promises Moses His goodness. The goodness of God is a concrete manifestation and experience of what God has done and is still doing in the lives of His people. God also promises to be gracious to whomever He is gracious and to have compassion on whomever He chooses to have compassion. The grace of God is therefore an unmerited favor…It is a gift. Many times on our earthly journey we may deserve justice but God instead grants us favor. This is because God’s heart is of love and compassion.

God’s glory, goodness and grace are however interesting in the sense that we mostly see them afterwards not when they are happening. We mostly see them when we look back and see how God has shown up and worked for us. We see bad situations having worked for our good. We see the misfortunes and tragedies that befell others and say “it is only by God’s intervention that I survived!”

Moses wanted to see the glory of God. He wanted to see God’s face but God knew it would overwhelm him and kill him. God therefore hid him in a crevice of a rock and covered him with God’s hand until God has passed and  then removed the hand so that Moses could see the back of God. Moses did see the visible appearance of God, not God’s face but back. We too like Moses are being led by God if we have developed a relationship with Him. We do not see God’s face but His back. We do not see His face because we cannot see Him coming. We see His back because we see where He has been and what He has done. God does not point the way but He leads the way.

This is the point that Jesus is making in the Gospel today when he tells us to give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God, what is God’s. We belong to God who never abandons us. We can only lose God if we turn our backs on him which then means that we are no longer following Him. We give to God what belongs to God, in other words, ourselves. We take the trust of God and invest it in lives of worship. Sometimes that worship is in private, at other times it is corporate and the rest of the time it occurs in the sphere of our daily work and service. Ultimately, giving ourselves to God means that we give ourselves to the world but there is a caveat to giving ourselves to the world, that is, we should only give ourselves to serve the world but not to its ‘values’ which most of the times turn out to be vices.

Most of our denominations, especially the so called Liturgical or High Churches, have exchanged the message of repentance and salvation with the pursuit of Human Rights and Social Justice in their attempt to fit in the world or being ‘woke’ as it is being called nowadays, and this is not a bad thing, but it is not THE thing. It is difficult at times to tell the difference between some denominations and human rights organizations like Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch. Unfortunately not every right that is claimed by people is morally upright or in accordance with God’s will, or leads to a relationship with God. The church in the world is called to stand as a moral compass, a sign of contradiction; and that we cannot do by baptizing evil or blessing evil and convincing ourselves that it is now holy. We deceive ourselves and mislead others in the process and only repentance can save us from the wrath of God that we heard is coming from the second reading. The Evangelical and Pentecostal Churches are also fairing no better. They have exchanged the true gospel with prosperity gospel and fake miracles all in the pursuit and service of wealth and fame…and what about monasteries that are supposed to be a prophetic voice, first to the church and then to the world? Most have been sucked in by denominational values and principles, by self-preservation efforts, and by working for financial security and stability henceforth rendering to Caesar instead of giving God what is God’s.

The call this morning my brothers and sisters is for us to offer ourselves afresh to God, to receive Him in our lives and to allow Him to guide us in all that we do and are. He sent His son Jesus to facilitate this relationship. It is that Jesus who is inviting us this morning to come to him just as we are. It doesn't matter where you are at, what you have done or how worthy or unworthy you feel. Signs are increasingly becoming evident that the end of the world as we know it is here and if we are true believers of the Word, then we know that there is judgement coming followed by eternal life or eternal damnation. Choose wisely, choose life.

AMEN