"Go, and Serve the Lord"

 

Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said, "This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: 'Let my people go, so that they might hold a festival to me in the wilderness.' "

 

            Today, for a number of reasons, we placed the sermon after the celebration of the Lord's Supper. But now, after the Communion, you are normally ready to hear the words of benediction. There are two types of benedictions that we speak. The first type is a word of blessing: "The Lord bless you and keep you . . ." or "the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all." The emphasis in these is on the presence of God in our lives and the peace of God which we carry out in the world.

            The other type of benediction is a direction given to us as we go: "Go, and serve the Lord." "Go out into the world in peace; have courage; hold on to what is good; return no one evil for evil; help the suffering; honor all people; love and serve the Lord."

            In the "go and serve the Lord" benedictions, we see that worship leads us to action. We go from here into the confusion of life with all its many voices. We have made a commitment to Christ and now we will follow and go his way. But we know that will be tested. There are other lords who demand to be served.

            Moses leaves Midian with the blessing and benediction of his father-in-law, Jethro. He goes to Egypt to serve God. There he wins the support of the Hebrew elders. Then he goes to Pharaoh and is rebuffed. In the Hebrew language, the words "serve" and "worship" are the same word. Pharaoh believes that he is the Lord who is to be served and worshipped. When he says to the Israelites, "go back to work," what it says literally is "go and serve."

            Who is this Pharaoh who demands to be served and worshipped? We are told that he is a new king. The previous one acted harshly and out of fear. The Israelites were becoming too numerous, and he was afraid they might join in a rebellion he could not stop. He felt compelled to control them, to decrease their number, first by driving them harder in slave labor, and then in a desperate move, by throwing their babies into the Nile. Powerful people who act out of fear are very dangerous and destructive. They do not make good kings.

            This new king is not driven by fear. He does not throw babies into the Nile nor does he do desperate things to preserve his life or position. This king is proud. He rules from a standpoint of pride. He is Pharaoh, and Pharaoh is divine. He is disdainful of the Israelites and rules in a way that makes them afraid. He plays with them, calling them "lazy" and making their work impossible and blaming their supervisors. He beats their leaders and breaks their will. He is proud and demanding and hard.

            And so two Hebrews, Moses and Aaron, men who are unknown to Pharaoh, come representing the God of the slaves, a God he does not know or fear, a God he assumes must be weak and pitiful, the slave God. But he is Pharaoh, a god of power and wealth and splendor. He is building a magnificent empire and he acts with self-assured pride. John Durham writes that the narrative presents us with "an impossible Pharaoh, a powerful and absolute ruler against whom no man can stand, whose will no group can successfully deny." Jim Bruckner writes that in this conflict with Moses, Pharaoh clearly wins round one.

            Although it was the custom in Egypt to grant foreign worker groups time to attend religious festivals, this Pharaoh will not grant a three-day journey for Israel to sacrifice to the Lord. He feels it is too much time away from the job. He says, "Let them stay here and serve me." To make his point, he gives them more work to do and calls them "lazy." That was a foolish decision because instead of making the bricks from the good chopped barley and wheat straw, they now must chase after the "windblown stubble, the dried-out chaff, the worthless trash in the fields." The quality of the bricks suffers.

            When they cannot keep up with their quotas, Pharaoh has the Hebrew supervisors beaten and he refuses to listen to their reasonable complaints. The result is that everyone becomes demoralized and defeated. Durham writes, "Pharaoh and the Egyptians and Israel are all entirely doubtful about the Lord and the prospect of any exodus from Egypt."

            So Moses, who was blessed by the presence of the Lord, and told "I will be with you," is now severely tested. What will happen next? Will he "go and serve the Lord?" This is the low point of the narrative.

            So each week you hear a benediction: "Go and serve the Lord. The God of peace is with you." And then those words are tested. You walk out into a world filled with other voices, other opportunities, other demands, other ideas and philosophies, many temptations and conflicting priorities. The narrative today leaves us in a difficult spot. Moses was tested and humiliated by the proud king. We walk out into a proud community and a proud world, and we confront people who have other plans for us, who demand that we serve them, and who feel that we just wasted a perfectly good hour in the worship of the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, the God who calls himself "I am."

            But the story does not end there. The proud Pharaoh will soon enough learn who is Lord and God. The slaves do leave Egypt, they do experience the redemption of God, and they do inherit the Promised Land. Years later, Joshua, the next leader after Moses, sets a challenge before the people. After all that God has done to establish and bless his people, Joshua says "Now fear the LORD and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your ancestors worshiped beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve. . . .But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD."

            Amen.