Exodus 3:1 – 15
Moses was keeping the flock
of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; he led his flock beyond the
wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain
of God. There the angel
of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and
the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed.
Then Moses said, “I must
turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned
up.”
When the Lord saw that Moses
had turned aside to see, 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.” God said further, “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; I have heard their cry on
account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come
down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land
to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the country of
the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and
the Jebusites. The cry of the Israelites has now come to me; I have also seen
how the Egyptians oppress them. So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my
people, the Israelites, 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 come to the Israelites and 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.” God said further, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I
AM has sent me to you.’“ God also said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to
the Israelites, ‘The Lord, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the
God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you’: This is my name
forever, and this my title for all generations.
***
“Who am I?” Moses asks God,
and one might suppose that this is really a question, that Moses, growing up in
two households, that of Pharaoh and that of his Israelite mother, doesn’t
really know who he is. One might suppose that, “Who am I?” is a question Moses
asks of his identity, but as someone who is likewise adopted, and knows both my
families, I think, perhaps Moses knows his identity intimately.
Growing up I would rearrange
the house at Christmas time. My mom would easily set out her Christmas Village
and the town might as well have been L.A.
because regularly the earth would shake, as I centered the church in the middle
and spaced the houses, so no two similar would be side by side. I made sure the
circled mirror ice risk was as equidistant from the houses as were the snowball
fighters on the opposite side. I would sprinkle the snow just so, so it covered
the edges. Come to find out, years later, my birth-mom was an interior
decorator and my birthfather a builder.
Similarly, I struggled in school.
I remember the anxiety of the Mad-Minute, having to answer sixty memorized math
multiplication tables while my classmates’ pencils scratched fervently against
their quizzes. In response, I remember summers of my parents practicing my
flashcards in any ounce of downtime, from sitting in a pediatrician’s office to
walks to neighborhood swimming pool. Hating books, I remember the lists of
summer reading both from my elementary school, the public library, and my
librarian mother, half of which, even in my teens, were read allowed on car
trips and while picking up my room. Though birthparents likewise struggled in
school, my parents never questioned that I was going to college.
I think Moses too knows who
he is by looking back and seeing the influences of nurture and nature parsed
out. He knows the cunning of his Israelite family, hiding him for three months,
sending him down a river in a basket made to float. He knows their oppression
and their pain as labors and slaves. He also knows the love filled risk of
Pharaoh’s daughter, recognizing him as an Israelite and raising him just the
same, in the palace with wealth and power. Moses knows he is a product of the
love and courage of both his mothers. He is both Israelite and Egyptian and out
of being both, comes his question.
“Who am I that I should go to
Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” Whom am I, raised in the palace of Pharaoh, to go to Pharaoh? Who am I by
birth an Israelite, raised by an Egyptian to bring the Israelites out of Egypt? Who am
I, when I have already left Egypt,
because I am neither one side nor the other, to return again? Who am I to pick
sides, I imagine is the root of Moses’ question. Yet, because Moses has not
picked sides, precisely because he is of both sides, God has called him. Moses
can speak for Israel
to Pharaoh in a way that unveils the truth but comes from inside. He has family
on both sides and therefore is called to the middle ground. Moses knows this
middle ground, Moses knows who he is, but to lead a people of one side opposed
to another, when he is neither, Moses is unsure of the call. So, God reminds
him that he is not called out alone, nor has ever been.
God responds, “I will be with
you; and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you.” After years
of looking over his unlikely life, Moses knows that God has both sent him and
been with him all along. That God was there in his birthing, that the King’s
orders to the midwives were not fulfilled. As his birthmother hid Moses for his
first three months, God was there distracting him to silence when Egyptians who
might have killed him at the sound of his cry passed. God was with Moses in the
strength of the pitch that covered his basket and God was sending him in the
direction of the current of the Nile. God with
him when he was drawn out of the water by Pharaoh’s daughter and in her heart
responding to his cry. God was with him when he had to come face to face with
his dual identity as he witness the oppression of his birth race by his
adoptive race. Moses knows these signs of his unlikely of the gift of life like
I know theses signs.
My maternal birth-grandmother
was almost a nun but fell in love instead. I was conceived by fifteen and
sixteen year old first cousins in a time when abortion was legal. My
birthmother hid me in her womb under Mexican Dresses and big sweatshirts,
telling no one for eight months. After reading a few adoptive parent
applications, my maternal birth-grandfather choose my parents and said he
needed not to read anymore and I am glad he stopped where he did. My parents
went to church in order to get a pastoral signature to adopt a child, and knowing
my life could have easily not have been, but through miracles big and small it
was, and moreover that my life has been good, I am always grateful and live in
awe. I think Moses knows this experience too, but like me he doesn't know how
to explain it to others.
Moses says to God, “If I come
to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to
you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is God’s name?’ what shall I say to them?” Moses,
who does not fit in any easy category, wonders how to categorize an even more
complex God. And God gives Moses the only answer there is.
God responds to Moses, “I AM
WHO I AM.” God says very little but in saying so little God says all that there
is to say. God says I Am and tells Moses God is present, and God is who God is
- that to explain God is both impossible and diminishes God’s completeness,
that God is more than any set of categories, or traits. God is who God is and
that is enough.
Likewise, I wonder if God is
also telling Moses something about himself. God said further, “Thus you shall
say to the Israelites, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” Just as God does not explain
the details of God-self and why the people should follow God, God also does not
parse out who Moses is and explain why the people should follow him, or even
exactly who those people are. And I think Moses of all people can get this,
that we are not one side or the other, not simply Israelite or Egyptian,
nurture or nature, but instead we are who we are, complete, without
explanation. Therefore, the answer to Moses’ question of who am I, cannot be
answered any more simply then his question of, “What is God’s name?” For what we
are is what we are, and that is enough, for God to call us, and send us out,
and for God to be present with us.
God tells Moses, “This is my
name forever, and this my title for all generations, and here we are
generations later, and we know God is who God is and that God still is.” May
we, like Moses, realize there is no one characteristic or trait from which we
are called by God, but instead, we are sent as the whole of who we are along
with a God who is.
