Moses’ Death As A Hopeful Word
Sermon & Prayer as Text
Prayer offering before Sermon: Spirit be with us now in this hour. Quite our minds, our worries for this moment that we may meet you here, that we may hear a word from you O God and be blessed for it. You know our hearts and how they ache, rejoice, and try to navigate this liminal space we are in. Hold the hearts of those gathered now – soothe them, speak to them, and open them to your offering. In your holy and precious comfort, we pray, amen.
Sermon Text:
A seed knows how to wait. What exactly each seed is waiting for is known only to that seed. Some unique trigger-combination of temperature-moisture-light and many other things is required to convince a seed to jump off the deep end and take its chance – to take its chance to grow. And, while a seed waits, did you know it’s alive?...Beneath the soil, these seeds are alive and waiting for its moment to flourish.
When you walk underneath the trees of Happy Valley’s fall weather you are in the midst of hundreds of trees waiting in the soil, alive, and wishing to be. Sometimes seeds can be buried in the soil for years keeping hope of its future; a future it cannot see yet believes in deeply – its life depends on it.
Moses was a seed who knew how to wait. He was patient with Israel as she rebelled, moaned in the wilderness, and loved the people deeply even though they could not see just how close they were to the promised land. Moses knew their future and he saw it right before his death – a confirmation that his patience and willingness to sprout and grow was indeed not in vain.
You see Moses was also a stubborn seed. He moaned once too. He was not interested in being the voice for the people of Israel. He saw injustice circling around him and felt an ache for something new, yet when called upon, he wasn’t sure he could speak up for the cause.
Moses feels familiar to me. He was a shepherd – lowest of the low – an average human amongst a hierarchical world. It makes all the sense in the world to me that he was unsure of being able to speak on behalf of the oppressed people. Perhaps he thought to himself, I am just one person.
We’re one week away from an election that asks of us to raise our voices; to speak up on behalf of the people. And just like Moses, there is no time to wait on speaking truth to power as oppression swirls around us. Yet, I wish to offer you Faith that we are the shepherds who will usher in a unified voice for new growth. We will do so as we take to the polls and we can do so from this liminal space we inhabit – in our forest – as our seeds wait.
If this feels impossible to see right now, you’re not alone. Perhaps seeing the promised land isn’t visible right now, however, the hopeful word here is Moses has and the countless other ancestors who have followed him have as well.
They have left markers for us of which to wait by, live into, and believe despite lacking imagination - because sometimes our seeds need caressing. So, we turn to our ancestors for help - to see what our call is in this world, in this moment, – for our future.
Hope Jahren, a botanist, shares that sometimes scientists will coddle the embryo of seeds to provoke growth. Some seeds, she shares, have been waiting for someone to do so for thousands of years – all for the sake and belief that these seeds too deserve to flourish.
That is who Moses is to us in this story. Moses' sight of the promised land is the caress for us to not give in, give up, or turn inward. It is to look outward, to love deeper, to cultivate flourishing for the sake of the promised land.
Faith, who will we be together as we build heaven on earth, as we plant our gardens, and tend to each other’s seeds?
May we reflect together. May we look around our forest and offer nourishment. May we believe in the unseen; the transition of seed to tree. This moment of liminal transition will become new growth and we Faith get to be a part of it.
Let’s lean on the words of our justice ancestor John Lewis to guide us in ways to be such seeds:
“Ordinary people with extraordinary vision can redeem the soul of America by getting in what I call good trouble, necessary trouble….You must also study and learn the lessons of history because humanity has been involved in this soul-wrenching, existential struggle for a very long time. People on every continent have stood in your shoes, through decades and centuries before you. The truth does not change, and that is why the answers worked out long ago can help you find solutions to the challenges of our time….Though I may not be here with you, I urge you to answer the highest calling of your heart and stand up for what you truly believe….When historians pick up their pens to write the story of the 21st century, let them say that it was your generation who laid down the heavy burdens of hate at last and that peace finally triumphed over violence, aggression and war. So, I say to you, walk with the wind, (siblings), and let the spirit of peace and the power of everlasting love be your guide.”
May we answer the highest calling of our hearts. May we live into our call to be a church who loves relentlessly and tends to the garden for the promised land unfolding.
May it be so.
Prayer Offered Post Sermon: Caress our imaginations, O God. Hold our collective seedlings and whisper truths of how we can become voices of peace and truth for our generation and beyond. Thank you, God for our ancestors who show us a way forward, who call to us to keep going, who have seen the promised land and shared with us it’s living waters. Helps us continue to be and become a church who loves relentlessly, tend to the garden for the promised land unfolding – amen.