INTO THE FRAY John M. Buchanan
Exodus 3:1-12 Broad Street Presbyterian Church
November 14, 1982 Columbus, Ohio

Just when things had begun to look up: just when life had returned
finally to an even keel; just when he had begun to enjoy security, safety,
and stability, Moses felt himself propelled back into the fray.

It is one of the truly great stories of our civilization. It is about a
series of events which happened back on the ragged edge of recorded history,
about 3,500 years ago, which places it in a transition period between what we
once learned to call the Iron and Bronze Ages.

Israel was not yet Israel but a number of robust, semitic families,
descended from a wandering Aramaean by the name of Abraham and Sarah, his wife.
When a famine struck several generations after Abraham, those families migrated
south into Egypt where there was food. One of those semites, Joseph by name,
had been sold into slavery in Egypt sometime before but had risen in the
Pharoh's court and was a governmental official of some influence. So the
Hebrews, as they were known, were welcomed in Egypt, and they settled in and
prospered and grew.

When Joseph died, the Hebrews lost their friend in the court and suddenly
this vigorous tribe began to look like a threat to the Egyptians, a potential
fifth column. The welcome turned to suspicion: hospitality became resentment.
Official governmental policy changed and became adverse to the Hebrews.
Refugees became prisoners forced to work for their captors. They were treated
harshly, persecuted, and oppressed. Still they prospered and grew.

The Pharoh decided that more drastic measures were required. Male Hebrew
babies were to be thrown into the Nile River. The mother of one of those
babies, in order to protect him, put him in a basket and hid him in a place
where Pharoh's daughter would be sure to find him. When the young woman
discovered the baby, she recognized him as a Hebrew, decided to save him and
sent for a Hebrew woman to nurse him. The baby's mother, having anticipated
this turn of events, happened to be nearby and was the one chosen to nurse and
raise the infant. Thus, Moses, a Hebrew, grew up within the royal household
of Egypt's monarch.

He too rose in prestige and position. His people, in the meantime, con-
tinued to grow in number and in strength and the Egyptians increased their
oppression. One day Moses, a young man now, saw an Egyptian guard beating a
Hebrew worker. Moses became enraged, reacted vigorously, interceded and
killed the Egyptian in the process. Unfortunately he was seen and, fearing
for his life, immediately ran away, ending up in the wilderness of Midian
frightened, tired, and very concerned, one assumes, about future prospects.

In a fortunate series of events Moses meets the daughters of a man of
property, is given shelter, food, security. One of the daughters becomes his
wife and Moses ends up in the employ of Jethro, his father-in-law. That's a
remarkable pilgrimage: from political rabble rouser, mrderer, outlaw,
refugee on the lam, to middle-class respectability. The man we meet at the

ginning of the third chapter of Exodus is almost audibly relieved...

—2—

"Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro..." You can
almost hear the sigh of relief. He is safe, secure. I'L] bet he was a member
of Rotary, or at least the JayCees, I'11 bet he had money in the bank and had
begun to discuss educational trusts for his children, 1'11 bet he thought he
had a "piece of the rock",

In the midst of that placid, peaceful scenario, God has a word to say.
Out of the burning bush he calls Moses by name, tells Moses that he has heard
the groaning of his people in Egypt, tells Moses that he has not only heard
but intends to do something about it, says ~ in fact - "Come, I will send you
to Pharoh, that you may bring forth my people,"

I love that story for what it says about where God wants his people to be.
i love it, as well, for the way Moses responds to this outlandish interruption
to his peaceful new life. Moses says, in effect - "Who me?" His objections
to God's preposterous proposal sound remarkably familiar. “Who shall I tell
them is sending me? to which God responds with a not very clear "Tell them 'I
am who I am’ sent you." Moses counters, "They're not going to believe me when
I teli them...,and anyway, I'm a terrible public speaker.”

God answers each objection, promises Moses that he will provide the
necessary resources ta get the job done, and assures him that he will not be
abandoned.

And so, in a meeting that strikes me as terribly poignant, we overhear
Moses meeting Jethro, his father-in law, who I envision as an elderly man,
content now that his affairs are safely in the responsible hands of this
strong young Hebrew, and telling him that he's actually going to leave this
small paradise in Midian and return to Egypt. ~- where he's still wanted for
murder, to see whether his people are dead or alive. He's too modest or
embarrassed to tell Jethro that he means to go back there and get the whole
tribe of them out. And one of the greatest one liners in all of literature
comes next as old Jethro, saying goodbye to his daughter and grandchildren
looks Moses in the eye and says, "Go in peace."

If there's anything Moses is not "going in" for the next forty or fifty
years ~ it's peace. He's going back to Egypt with a price on his head and
his job is to convince the power brokers that it is in their interests volun-
tarily to give up the free labor they've been enjoying for all these years,
te open the gates and escort thousands of people to the border and wave goodbye
as they head toward some promised land at the end of the world North of Sinai.
Peace is what you have in Midian, in the sarly morning, when the mist still
clings to the tops of the littie hills and the lambs are bleating for their
mothers, and a clear stream bubbles by, and you have food enough and a stout
stick and a strong arm and a family at home waiting fer you. On the other
hand, what you have when you've packed your belongings, saddled your ass and
headed toward Egypt is fear, white~knuckled terror. And if you have any
imagination at all you know that there isn't going to be peace, at least of
the Midian variety, for a very long time, if ever.

-3-

Unless, of course, what you have in Midian isn’t peace in the first place.
That's what's going on in this story, of course: and it goes on consistently
on every page of the Bible. The only peace worth having is back in the fray.
Another way of saying that is that God called Moses back to Egypt not only
for the liberation of the Hebrews, but also for his own salvation. Still
another way of saying it is that your salvation comes to you in the form of
a person who neede your love, a cause which requires your commitment, a Gospel
which calls a deep and profound self-giving out of you.

The great temptation of the Christian Church, as it was for Moses, is to
locate salvation in the peaceful wilderness of Midian: to withdraw, as it
were, from the ambiguities of Life in the world, to elegant sanctuaries where
other-worldly platitudes assure the faithful of an other worldly paradise on
the far side of the grave.

Christian social critic, Peter Berger, wrote that the "Function of
religion in our society is to be socially irrelevant." [The Noise of Solemn
Assemblies, p. 138] Berger went on to warn that powerful forces will stir in

opposition whenever the church is relevant. "Stick to religion” the American
Bishops will be told as they discuss their statement on nuclear weapons, as
if the existence of life on the planet were not a theological issue. "Just

preach the Gospel" the Utility will say to the religious coalition concerned
about people who cannot afford heat: to which faithful people mat say, if
they value their integrity and their faith, "the existence of coid people is
a religious concern."

There is something intrinsic about Christian faith which insists on its
involvement in the world, Berger wrote: “The social relevance of the Chris-
tian community is not a political imperative, it is an imperative only of the
Christian faith. And William Sloane Coffin, pastor of Riverside Church in
New York City, writes: "There is no way that Christianity can be spiritually
redemptive without being socially responsible. A Christian cannot have a
personal conversion experience without experiencing at the same time a change
in social attitude." [Courage to Love, p. 32]

Historically Broad Street Presbyterian Church has reflected in its own
life the traditional Presbyterian genius for keeping the two ideas of per-
sonal salvation and social justice in tension. It is easier, in institutional
terms, to focus on one or the other. Neither a Neighborhood House which
exists to help poor people, nor an evangelical church which exists to save
individual souls, has a problem deciding what to do. But sometimes the church
stumbles over its own objectives.

E. B. White said somewhere that it would be no problem to enjoy the
world only - or to inform the world. Our trouble, he said, is that we wish
to do both and that makes it difficult to know how to plan one's day. Chris-~
tian people are called to do both: to leve the world God has made and to
save it.

It would be pleasant to invest our energies, skills and resources in the
provision of good music, good worship, good education for ourselves. Sut our
aighbors ate hungry and cold and it is our perception of God's will that we

—4-

pay attention to both areas, And so we have a Mission Statement that says
that we exist for our members and for the sake of our neighbors, and for the
eity, and for the nation, and ultimately in God's economy, for the sake of
the world, And so, at this time, we are investing heavily and intend to
invest more heavily in mission outside the four walls of this building, We
are about to add a case worker to the staff of the church with the intent of
helping, in a more creative and substantial way the individuals who look to
us for help.

The point made by the Moses story, however, is that the need is not only
the neighborhood's, but ours as well. People may, in fact, need the assis—
tance this church can provide. but the soul of this church needs, every bit
as urgently, to be engaged in meeting the complexities of the world at our
doorstep. We are at our best, someone said, when we are God's love not only
incarnate, but well organized.

Religious conversion, of course, is personal. It is a turning to Jesus
Christ. And it is a simultaneous turning outward to the world, full of the
love of Jesus Christ. Frederick Buechner in his autobiography, The Sacred
Journey, deseribes how he finally learned that lesson. He was enjoying a
very nice dinner with his mother in her New York apartment. A friend called
from the airport. His family had been an a terrible automobile accident in
California, he said. He wasn't sure they would live. Would Buechner mind
coming to the airport to sit with him? Buechner hesitated, said he'd see if
he could. The friend called back several minutes later to say that ir wouldn't
be necessary, that he had hold of himself. That uncomfortable event changed
his life. Buechner reflects:

"My mother's apartment by candlelight was haven and home and shelter

from everything in the world that seemed dangerous and a threat to

my peace. And my friend's broken voice on the phone was a voice

calling me out into that dangerous world not simply for his sake,

as I suddenly saw it, but alse for my sake. The shattering revela-

tion of that moment was that true peace, the high and bidding peace

that passeth all understanding, is to be had not in retreat from the
battle, but only in the thick of the battle, To journey for the sake
of saving our own lives is little by little to cease to live in any

sense that really matters..." (p. 107)

We have called this Dedication Sunday. It is the time when the members of
this congregation put faith in a very tangible line, by pledging money to enable
the mission of this church. May it be that and more this morning. May it be a
personal acknowledgement that Jesus Christ calls this church and each one of us
into the world,

Your salvation and mine is a matter of doing our living and believing in
the middle of Life, not withdrawing from it. Any peace we experience will pro-
bably be in the middle of some ambiguous, stress-filled situation which is
demanding more than we think we have to give. The call of God to his church is
to go “into the fray". ‘That same call comes to each of us.

He has promised to provide what we need. He has promised to be with us,
in the middle of it all. Amen,