Scripture: Exodus 2
By Katherine Harris Szerdy,
Seminary Student
In Exodus 2:11, we read that
an Egyptian killed one of Moses’ brethren—
we’re not certain if it were
an actual relation or whether the word brethren refers to a fellow
Hebrew.
Moses slew the Egyptian
attacker and “hid him in the sand.”
After news of the slaying
reaches Pharoah’s ears, Moses flees, and chooses to cast his lot
with his people---Heb. 11:25—
“choosing rather to suffer
affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a
season.”
He meets Jethro and his seven
daughters, marries one of them, Zipporah,
and settles down into a life
very different from the life of privilege he once knew,
a life amidst his people in
the land of Midian.
After 40 years, however, the
life of the Israelites under the oppressive hand of the Egyptians had become
unbearable.
One day Moses sought new
pastures for Jethro’s flocks at Horeb,
also known as the “Mountain
of God.”
And this is where the Great I
Am chooses to get Moses’ attention.
The God of the Hebrews was a
master at messing with Mother Nature
to attract the attention of
his chosen ones.
Perhaps he tried calling him
a few times—
MOSES!
Moses must have been really
busy with those sheep.
MOSES!
So God decides to use a
little pyrotechnics-in-the-bush action to get Moses to stop and pay
attention.
Moses hesitates, hems and
haws, tries every which way to excuse himself
from the call of all calls,
but God won’t allow him.
Was Moses’ hesitation evidence of a palpable fear of returning to face the consequences of slaying the
Egyptian? But the reader is not privy to his motives.
“OK..so what was the name again? Whom should I tell them sent me?”
“I am that I am.” The God of all, the Creator of the heavens
and the earth—not some puny little pagan god or goddess worshipped
by surrounding cultures.
The story of Moses’ call was
a good example of the kind of call where God yanks us by the collar, plucks us
from a comfortable place in our lives to a very difficult, challenging space outside of our comfort zone, where God most needs us.
Some of us, however, are
called gradually…one step at a time.
I think I fit into the
latter.
My parents used to take us to
United Church of Christ church camps –
a week-long family church
camp—
each summer at Temple Hills
and Pilgrim Hills, Ohio, and Dunkirk, New York.
When I was nine-years-old, ---that was a half-century ago, folks...do the math--
my
Dad, Mom, sister Linda, and I
went to Pilgrim Hills Church
Camp about this time of year.
I loved family church camp—
all the games, songs,
Bible story time, crafts--remember making God's eyes
with yarn and popsicle sticks?--
family meals and hymn sings around the campfire. preparing
a little Bible musical to
present to the parents at the end of the week.
I loved it all.
My favorite spot at Pilgrim
Hills was a place called Vesper Hill.
A hand-hewn lifesize wooden cross dominated the
small hill
surrounded by meadow flowers and thistles.
This
humble space was sacred ground to me.
One quiet rose-colored dusk
after supper,
I slipped out of the
screened-in dining room
And wandered over to Vesper
Hill which was just a few
minutes walk down a dirt
path.
I spent some time meditating
on what I had learned that week
About Jesus—
About how Jesus demonstrated
the ultimate act of the greatest love
on a cross on the hill at
Golgotha.
I remember feeling so
overwhelmed with gratitude for the sacrifice he made on a makeshift cross not
unlike this one, that I knelt down and bowed my head. It was right there in that
moment, in the heart of a nine-year-old girl—me, I felt a call upon my life
and I responded with a whisper of dedication, soft in voice but mighty in
heart, of my life to Him. God didn’t speak to me
through a burning bush, but it was no less real—like Wesley’s Aldersgate
moment, I felt my heart strangely warmed and I knew my life had been changed
forever.
The twinkle of the fireflies seemed extra bright and magical with the backdrop of a sky deepening into various shades of purples and fuschias.
If you have children or
grandchildren, take them to family church camp!
I highly recommend it!
As God didn’t call me to
instant ministry—
First I became a wife and
then mother to three wonderful children
Then I became a teacher—a
calling in itself—for 20 years.
Then the first door opened—only
a crack. Asbury Theological Seminary,
out of Wilmore, KY, and my number one choice of seminaries, built a satellite
campus in my city at the time, Orlando.
Then before I could start my
first semester, we were called to move home.
Ten years later, I found
myself spending a lot of time in hospitals and hospice caring for my parents. That is when I heard the call
to chaplaincy loud and clear.
And all of the necessary
funding is now there, the only seminary to offer the program I need--is two blocks from my office...all the signs are there, aligned.
God’s timing is impeccable and
it’s now.
Does God call everyone?
Yes, I believe he does call
each one of us to follow Him, to dedicate our lives to a love greater than what
we are capable of unless we know Him.
And I believe God calls us all the time—but are we always attentive? Distractions keep us from hearing His
call.
As the poet Elizabeth Barrett
Browning so eloquently writes:
Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,
The rest sit around it and pluck
blackberries,
And daub their natural faces unaware…
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