Today’s Scripture Reading (July 9,
2015): Exodus 4
The Danish
Philosopher Soren Kierkegaard once told a story about circus that caught on
fire. According to the story, the men and women who were part of the circus
fought the fire with everything that they had, but the ground was dry and the
wind was strong, and before they knew it the fire had overwhelmed the circus.
The circus owner was afraid that the wind was going to drive the fire toward a
nearby town, so he asked for a volunteer to go to the town and warn them.
Immediately a clown jumped on a bike and road toward the nearby town. And upon
entering the town he began to yell and scream about the approaching fire. The curious
town’s people came out of their houses and watched the clown, and they
applauded him as he made his rounds. And the more the people applauded, the
harder the clown rode and yelled and screamed his warning about the approaching
fire.
The wind
picked up a little and it didn’t take long for the fire that had destroyed the
circus to reach the town. And once the fire reached the town, it didn’t take
long for the town to burn. The loss of life that day was great because no one
had listened to the warning. After all, the message had been delivered by a
clown. Kierkegaard openly wondered if this was the way that the world was going
to end – to the general applause of people who think it is all just a joke.
Maybe the
bigger misunderstanding is inside of us. After all, the clown’s warning was
accurate enough. But the clown could have refused the task believing that he
was not a worthy bearer of the message because he was just a clown. After all,
who is going to listen to a clown?
It is the
major dilemma that Moses seems to find himself in. Why should anyone listen to
me? Again, Moses is still hanging on to the idea that he has been here before
and the people – his people - had not listened to him. It is just another
version of the lie that we tell ourselves all of the time. If I was someone
else, then I could do this. If I were the President of the United States, then
I would make these changes. But I’m not, so I can’t. If I had a million dollars
I would donate to these charities, but I don’t so I can’t. The lie comes in
many forms, but the basic structure is the same. I am nothing more than
Kierkegaard’s clown, how can God use me to change the world?
So as Moses
prepares to tell God the reasons why he can’t do this task, God doesn’t decide
to do a miracle by changing Moses into something that he is not. If he had
needed a prince to this thing, he would have used Moses forty years ago. What
he needs is just a simple shepherd from Midian – and that is exactly what Moses
is today!
The imagery
of this whole situation is intense. The Egyptians hated and despised shepherds.
And now God was about to use one to overthrow their nation. The Egyptian’s
respected the power of the snake, and even wore it on their headdresses, but
now a man was being sent who was naïve enough to grab a snake by the tail
(Note: Do not do this at home. You never grab a poisonous snake by the tale because
it will turn and bite you – and yet this is exactly what God tells Moses to do)
and he would defeat the most powerful kingdom on earth. God was sending a
circus clown with a message for the Pharaoh. But it was never the clown that
was important – it was the message that Pharaoh needed to hear.
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Exodus
5
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