[Propertalk] Fwd: [propertalk.topic] Sermon for Proper 16A

[joeparrish]

Forwarded:


From my Android phone on T-Mobile. The first nationwide 4G network.

-------- Original message --------
From: Judy <judy_boli at ecunet.org> 
Date: 08/23/2014  4:59 PM  (GMT-05:00) 
To: propertalk.topic at ecunet.org 
Subject: [propertalk.topic] Sermon for Proper 16A 
 
Dear Friends,

 

This Sunday’s sermon is entitled “The Birth of Moses” or “It’s Not About You!” and deals with the Old Testament lesson (Exodus 1:8 - 2:10).  Here it is:

 

            Do you remember how President John F. Kennedy said, “Ask not what your country can do for you.  Ask what you can do for your country.”  In other words, instead of looking at this great nation like children, full of “gimme’s,” look at our country and say, “What can I do to make it better?”  That was a wonderful idea for us in terms of our country, but it’s an even better idea in terms of God.  “Ask not what God can do for you.  Instead, ask what you can do for God.”  In other words, don’t keep begging God as if God were Santa Claus.  Instead, you do something (or many things for God).  St. Paul’s, Corunna, has a mission statement that states this idea simply: “Live the life!”  That’s what I’d like us to think through this morning.  St. Paul says all of this in still another way (Romans 12:1):“Dear friends, I beg you to offer your bodies to God as a living sacrifice.”  So when you do things for God, be sure some of them are sacrificial.  Don’t just do the easy things that you find enjoyable.  Instead, sacrifice for God.  Do the hard things.  Take risks.  Do what you really don’t feel like doing, but what you know is loving, helpful, kind.  Go the extra mile for others.  When we refuse to help others, we are refusing Jesus himself. 
Today’s Old Testament lesson about the birth of Moses offers four examples of faithful people who didn’t take the easy way, they took the loving, hard, risky way in following God; and their sacrifices allowed the great prophet Moses to live and thrive.  As you recall, the Israelites were in slavery in Egypt because the Egyptian pharaoh was afraid they would multiply so fast that they would support Egypt’s enemies and take over his kingdom.  He decided to reduce the Jewish population by ordering the Jewish midwives to kill all the Jewish baby boys at birth.  They could simply tell the babies’ mothers that their infants were stillborn.  The brave midwives (Shiphrah and Puah) outsmarted him.  They outsmarted the pharaoh by saying that Jewish mothers delivered their babies so fast- his order was impossible to carry out.  They sacrificed for God by doing the loving thing, no matter how great the risk.  How are you doing on that one?  Like the midwives, do you love God enough to sacrifice and do the loving thing, no matter what the cost?
Then there was Jochebed (Moses’ mother).  When Pharaoh found that his evil scheme had failed (having the midwives kill all the Jewish baby boys at birth), he knew he needed a new strategy.  He ordered all Jewish parents to throw their baby boys into the Nile River.  I’m sure Egyptian soldiers roamed the streets listening for the sound of a baby crying.  As a baby got older, it would become increasingly difficult hiding him.  I remember years ago when I felt sorry for a poor little abandoned, flea-bitten kitten.  (This was when I lived in Detroit, before I was married.)  You know what I did- took that kitten into my “no-pets-allowed” apartment.  I thought I could hide him.  Do you know how loud a kitten can be and how a kitten can climb up on window ledges to see outside?  I ended up moving to another apartment that allowed kittens.  When Jochebed knew she was putting the entire family at risk by keeping her baby, she did throw him into the river- officially obeying the pharaoh’s order.  She made two slight additions to the order, however.  She floated him in the river in a little boat and sent Moses’ big sister Miriam to watch him.  When she couldn’t totally solve her problem, she didn’t let herself fall into depression and despair.  She did what she could and then gave it to God.  How do you handle such situations?  If you can’t have your way, do you just have an attitude and give up?  Are you a “my way or the highway” person?  Like Jochebed, do you trust God enough to sacrifice and do what you can and then leave the rest to God?
Next was Moses’ sister, Miriam.  What a boring job- day after day sitting by the river watching her baby brother floating in his own little boat!  Then, can you imagine how frightened she must have been when Pharaoh’s own daughter found her little brother?  Can you imagine how much she wanted to run away and hide?  Instead, she stood her ground, kept calm enough to think, and listened to God’s still small voice with a plan to save the day.  The result was that the baby’s very own mother got paid to nurse and raise him until he was old enough to move to the palace and grow up as an Egyptian prince.  Like Miriam, do you love God enough to sacrifice by standing your ground and using your God-given talents to make a bad situation better?
Finally there was the princess- Pharaoh’s daughter.  Remember back to the kitten.  When I called my mother to tell her that I had rescued that pitiful little kitten, you know what she said.  “Judy- put that kitten right back where you found him.  You can’t hide a cat.  You’ll end up having to move!”  She surely was right- I did have to move.  Can you imagine what the Pharaoh said when he saw the enemy baby his daughter brought home?  She must have out-thought and out-argued her dad though, because Moses was raised in the palace as a prince.  Like Pharaoh’s daughter, do you love God enough to accept others, even when society says they aren’t “your kind of person”?
My friends, you’ve heard the old saying: “Only one life, ‘twill soon be passed.  Only what’s done for God will last.”  Stop begging God and start asking God what you can do for him.  Like the midwives, love God enough to sacrifice and do the loving thing, no matter what the cost?  Like Jochebed, trust God enough to sacrifice and do what you can and then leave the rest to God?  Like Miriam, love God enough to sacrifice by standing your ground and using your God-given talents to make a bad situation better?  Like Pharaoh’s daughter, love God enough to sacrifice by accepting others, even when society says they aren’t “your kind of person?”  Live the life!  Sacrifice for God.
 

For anyone who is interested, this sermon and updated African-American wisdom statements are posted on our parish’s NEW WEB SITE under “Sermons & Stuff”. The address is: http://www.stpaulsepisag.org .

 

Blessed preaching,

Judy Boli

St. Paul's Episcopal Church

Saginaw, Michigan

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to propertalk.topic+unsubscribe at ecunet.org.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://stsams.org/pipermail/propertalk_stsams.org/attachments/20140824/538926a9/attachment.htm>