God sees, hears, and knows the pain of this world, and calls you and me to be God’s hands, God’s voice, God’s instrument for healing and deliverance.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Lectionary 22 A
Texts: Exodus 3:1-15; Romans 12:9-21; Matthew 16:21-28

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

The God WHO IS said to Moses: “I have seen; I have heard; I know; and I have come.”

Moses’ people are in bondage in Egypt; Moses has fled a crime and is hiding in the wilderness. He’s married, and is tending his father-in-law’s sheep. Does Moses ever think of his people’s suffering?

But God comes to him in this burning-but-not-consumed bush and says, “I have seen the abuse of my people in Egypt. I have heard my people’s cries. I know their pain and suffering. And I have come down to rescue them.”

God sees, God hears, and God knows. And God comes to deliver, to rescue, to bring healing. And back then, God’s people were brought out of slavery into freedom. But consider this: in our world today, where the many problems and struggles and sufferings and abuses and pains are so evident, the Triune God sees all this suffering and oppression, too. The Triune God hears the cries of all God’s children who are in pain, knows they suffer from injustice. And today, God says, “I have come to deliver my children.”

But in these readings, God comes by calling Moses. And the Roman Christians today.

God comes in the burning bush for one reason, to call Moses to be God’s hands, God’s voice, God’s instrument to deliver the people.

Paul’s Roman Christians are likewise called. Everything Paul urges today is God’s response to what God has seen, heard, and known, with the Roman Christians as God’s means of deliverance. By holding fast to what is good while resisting evil. By loving each other as siblings, even with their great differences. By rejoicing in hope, patiently suffering, persevering in prayer. By contributing to the needs of those siblings and offering hospitality to those strange to them. By blessing persecutors and enemies, setting aside vengeance, and above all, being people of peace even if others aren’t.

God sees, hears, and knows, and calls regular people to be God’s coming.

Which is why Jesus is calling you and me to a cross-shaped life today.

Paul’s words today are exactly what taking up your cross might look like in your life. It will be challenging, frustrating, overwhelming. You might be tempted to give up. You will have to stand in the face of evil with only your trust in God at your side. You will be asked to be vulnerable in many ways.

That sounds a lot like what happened to Moses when he followed the call, doesn’t it? It sounds a lot like what happened to these first disciples who also became witnesses by their very lives offered for the world.

This is both Good News and frightening news: God sees, hears, and knows the pain of this world. And God comes to deliver, to rescue, to heal.

But God won’t do it without you. Without me. To love. To embrace. To make peace. To stand against evil, even if it means saying to the Pharaoh of this land, “God says, let my people go.”

It actually comes down to what kind of rock you’ll be.

Simon got a new nickname last week. “Peter,” meaning, “Rock.” His trust and love became part of the bedrock of this new community of faith Jesus is building. So do yours and mine, as we heard last week.

But this week, Simon the Rock is compared not to a bedrock foundation, but to a rock that sticks up in the road and makes people trip. “You are a stumbling block to me,” Jesus says, “working against my coming to deliver, to rescue, to heal.”

These are both possible for you and me. Will you let the Spirit transform you into Christ, that your fear, love, and trust in God become part of the foundation of God’s Church, that you, like Moses, like the Christians in Rome, become part of God’s coming to deliver, to rescue, to heal?

Or will you be a stumbling block to God’s rescue, planting yourself in your place, refusing to risk, to love, to make peace, because of whatever reason you have? Maybe it’s fear of being hurt that plants you or me in the road. Or our stubbornness that we don’t want to change, or be challenged. To live as Paul describes would require for each one of us dramatic changes in how we relate to others, especially to those who are strangers to us and those who are enemies.

But our refusal to follow Christ with our lives of vulnerable love trips up God’s plan of salvation. Becomes not an instrument for God’s rescue, but a hindrance to it.

So will you take up your cross and follow Christ?

Everything is at stake. Literally. Everything. This world is in flames, and filled with fear. God sees this, hears the cries, knows the pain, and wants desperately to come and bring deliverance, rescue, healing.

Will you take the time to turn to the burning bush and hear God call you? Will you listen to your brother Paul urge you to find a completely new map to how to live your life as Christ? Even if, as God’s Son tells you today, it will be costly, sacrificial, vulnerable?

Because if, with the strength and courage of the Spirit, you and I answer and follow, then Jesus’ words today will be fulfilled: there are people here right now who will not die before they see Christ’s reign.

Because such following in this path would create a world where no one weeps alone, where more and more work for peace even if others fight, where mutual love and respect abound, where strangers receive hospitality and siblings in need are cared for, too, where revenge is non-existent, and even enemies are loved. Such a world is the reign of Christ. And it could be now.

God sees, God hears, God knows. That’s astonishingly Good News.

And now God says, “I need you, because I have come to deliver my children, to bring rescue to my world. I will be with you, as I was with Moses, and those first disciples, and, like them, you can and you will be my hands, my voice, my instrument for justice and mercy and healing in this world, so all will know that I see, and I hear, and I know, and I have come.”

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

In fear, love, and trust of God, we are transformed into Christ and sent into the face of evil to midwife God’s love into the world.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost, Lectionary 21 A
Texts: Exodus 1:8 – 2:10; Romans 12:1-8; Matthew 16:13-20

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

They feared God, these Hebrew midwives.

Twice Exodus reminds us that these brave women feared God, and simply would not obey the Pharaoh’s genocidal command. They would not kill half of the Hebrew babies, as they were born.

The rabbis say that if you save a life you save an entire world. These brave women saved a nation, because they feared God and did what was right in the face of evil.

Be transformed into Christ, not conformed to this world, Paul tells his Roman churches today.

These midwives would not conform to a world where a ruler could order the death of half their people’s children. They lived lives transformed by their fear of the God of their ancestors who hadn’t yet saved them from their centuries of bondage. (This is before Moses was born; the Exodus is years in the future.) Still, they feared God. And did what was right.

Paul urges the Romans to be formed into Christ, to be transformed by the renewing of their minds – their attitudes, their way of thinking and being – and in the next few chapters he’ll describe what a Christ-formed life looks like.

But today simply consider this possibility these midwives model for us: what if we are like they were? If we didn’t conform to the brutal evil of our world, even if our leaders order it. If we didn’t conform to systems and structures that crush our neighbor. If we didn’t conform to the cultural attitude of “me first.” What if we asked the Spirit to transform our minds, our attitudes, our way of thinking and being, to be like that of Christ?

Could we, like these midwives, save the world?

Without a doubt. Because we have more than fear of God to work with.

Fear of God is a proper thing, Luther taught us. To be in awe and reverence of the Triune God who made the whole universe, stars, galaxies, is the only wise position to take. Only a fool says such a God isn’t to be feared.

But we’ve met Jesus, whom Peter proclaims today is the Son of that Living God, God’s Anointed. We’ve seen Jesus’ face, and Jesus’ face is a face of love and grace and forgiveness. It is the face of the Triune God for us. For you. For the creation.

We’ve learned from the Son of God not only that the Triune God is worthy to be feared. We have learned to love God. To trust God. As Luther taught us in the catechism: we fear, love and trust God above all things.

So if, like these midwives, you see a world filled with evil that works against God’s good will, you have more than fear of God to inspire you to seek transformation. You know God loves you, so you can love God. You know God saves you with life and grace now that will extend even beyond death, so you can trust God. And if you fear, love, and trust God – imagine what you can do in this world, transformed by the Spirit into Christ!

This could be the rock Jesus promises to build the Church upon.

Yes, Simon gets a new name, “Rock,” “Peter.” But what if the rock Jesus will build upon isn’t Simon Peter himself, but his trust in Jesus? His love for Jesus? That would mean, then, that the Church is built on more than just Peter. That your trust in God, your love of God, even your fear of God, become part of the strength of the Church. Mine do. All Christ’s disciples’ do.

Paul certainly believes we’re all part of the rock Jesus builds upon.

His breathtaking vision of the Body of Christ – with each of us, even you, individual members of the greater Body – shows this. Every single member, small or great, is critical to the Body’s life.

These midwives didn’t lead Israel out of Egypt. All they did was simply help babies be born. And we’re still talking about them three thousand years later, astonishingly remembering two of them by name. Whether you think you’re important or not, you have gifts as a transformed Christ, Paul says, to change the world.

Your job standing against evil might be as simple as making sure you vote this fall and vote early. It might be as quietly unnoticed as kindness to a neighbor. It might be an unseen sacrifice you make to be Christ’s love to your family, or your willingness to support policies that cost you but benefit your neighbor.

Like the midwives, as a person transformed into Christ, anchored in your fear, love, and trust of God, you simply need to see what is before you today, and do what is right. Or, as Paul says, what is the will of God, what is good, and acceptable, and perfect.

No more is asked of you than this. No less, either.

And Jesus promises that no evil can withstand such a transformed Body of Christ.

Jesus sends you into the world bearing your anointing, transformed in your mind, your attitude, your way of thinking and being, to be Christ. And Jesus says, wherever you encounter the gates of Hades, they will crumble. Multiply that by millions of Christs.

Pharoahs and rulers will be impotent in the face of such Christ love. Systems and structures that crush and kill will collapse like a house of cards when Christ’s Church approaches them, transformed and loving.

If you save a life, you save an entire world. Be transformed into Christ, and become another midwife for God, helping to birth God’s healing grace and love into existence, and saving the world.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen