Narrative lectionary Sept 28, 2025

Do you remember the people we met in last week’s reading?  Jacob…the deceiver and Esau…the hairy?  Names like that are very common in the bible.  Names that have meanings attached to them, often somewhat prophetic names.  Like today, when we hear about Moses whose name means ‘drawn out’, as in from the waters.

Names have meanings.  They often say who we are, what we do, or even where we come from.  Even today you will hear names like Olafson, or Mason or Shingoose and that tells you a little bit about that person’s history or family.  So, it’s no surprise that God has so many name.  Today Moses learns about what God calls himself.   

I think that the story of Moses is better known then many of the biblical characters and just like so many of them, when God tells Moses that he will be sent to Pharoah and that he will be representing God, leading the Hebrews to freedom, Moses objects. 

It has been generations since God had intervened in the lives of the Hebrew people. Israel had been in Egypt for generations and Egypt worshipped many deities.  Over time Israel’s worship of God had been severely compromised by living in a foreign land and surrounded by foreign deities, oppressed for generations.  

How many of the Hebrew people still worshipped God I wonder?  Had their sense of identity, as a people of God become more a matter of tradition rather than a way of living?  In essence, did they still know God?

 

When God spoke to Moses, Moses asked ‘If I come to the Hebrews and say to them, “The God of your ancestors has sent me to you”, and they ask me, “What is his name?” what shall I say to them?’ 

Why should the Hebrews believe Moses that God was finally going to deliver them? What could he offer as proof that he was truly sent by the God of Israel and that the covenant was still valid.  What would inspire their trust?  A relationship…a name.

And the name God gives, is very telling.  God said to Moses “I am who I am”

Now as is so often the case, the translation of this ‘name’ is one of those ‘we do the best we can’ situations.  The word ‘I am’ in Hebrew is like saying ‘existence’ and the ‘who’ could be at one time ‘who’ or ‘what’ or ‘will be’ or ‘was’ .  An awkward but perhaps more accurate translation would be almost like I am existence; that is and was and will be existing. I am that I am. Tell the Hebrews that ‘the eternal existence’ has sent me to you’ 

I am.  Life itself … identity… breath…eternity…the center of all beings.  I am has sent me to you.  Now that is a name!  but it is a bit esoteric, a bit hard to get your head around.

So God also said to Moses, ‘Thus you shall say to the Hebrews, “The Lord, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you”

God further defines himself by the relationship and covenants that have been created between God and the Hebrew people over several generations.

The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.  Not just any God, but the God your ancestors …perhaps worshiped generations ago, but worshiped for generations. 

The covenant established between God and Abraham was by this time seven generations old and the Hebrews had been in Egypt for some four generations.  Time had passed indeed.  Jacob you recall had 12 sons and it was in his son’s generation that the Hebrews were enslaved in Egypt.

The people of God did not lightly disregard the covenant.  It had taken time to forget the covenant established between Abraham with God.  Generations of time before the people felt abandoned enough to abandon God…but the stories of God and the covenant, they would have lived on.  From Abraham to Isaac to Jacob…to Levi whose family was the first generation in Egypt and who would have passed the covenantal lessons on to Kohath and to Amram…Moses’ biological father.  The question becomes…did Moses know God’s name?  Did Moses know the covenant? 

One of my favourite Moses movies is Prince of Egypt, which does a great job of telling the story, but does make Moses youth a bit more interesting than it is in the bible.

You may recall that after generations of growth, just as God promised, The Pharoah of Egypt grew anxious about the Hebrew’s growing population.  The Pharoah forgot his ancestor’s alliance with Joseph (one of Jacob’s sons) and began to be concerned with the possibility of rebellion from the enslaved Hebrews.  So, trajically Pharoah ordered Shiphrah and Puah, the Hebrew midwives to kill all males born to the Hebrew women.  However, they were righteous women and deceived the Pharoah allowing the boys to live. So, Pharoah ordered the Egyptians to seize every male newborn and throw them into the Nile river. 

 

Moses’ mother you recall, famously hid Moses in a basket where he was found by Pharoah’s daughter.  When she appeared to pity the baby, Moses’ own sister who, had been watching to see what would happen,  fetched their very own mother to nurse the baby for Pharoah’s daughter.  And so, Moses grew up in his own mother’s house, a Hebrew amongst Hebrews for perhaps 4 years or so, until he was weaned.  Long enough to hear many stories about what it meant to be a son of the covenant.

After that Moses grew up in the palace of Pharoah, but we find he still understood himself to be a Hebrew.  In the second chapter of Exodus we read.   

One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. 12 Looking this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. 

His own people… and when what happened came to the ears of Pharoah he tried to have Moses killed. 

So Moses fled. He fled to and became a part of the family of Jethro, a Priest of Midian and a descendant of Ishmael.  So there too, Moses would have learned the name of and worshiped the God of Abraham.

So, that when the Lord appeared to Moses as a bush, ablaze yet unconsumed, Moses recognized God’s voice calling to him.  “I have observed the misery of my people…” said God “and I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, …out of Egypt.”

 

 

 

Moses heard the call, but couldn’t imagine how God could make that happen:

 ‘If I come to the Israelites and say to them, “The God of your ancestors has sent me to you”, and they ask me, “What is his name?” what shall I say to them?’ God said to Moses, ‘I am who I am.’ He said further, ‘Thus you shall say to the Hebrews, “I am has sent me to you.”’ God also said to Moses, ‘Thus you shall say to the Hebrews, “The Lord, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you”: This is my name for ever, and this my title for all generations.

 

The God of covenant and of relationship. The God who travels with and upholds his people.  And the God who is the very basis of existence…I AM.  God who had promised Abraham long ago:

“I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you;
I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.[a]
3 I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”[b]

Still we find Moses objecting…’O Lord, I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.…please send someone else.”  Moses may know the Lord’s name and have been told the stories of the covenant, but it is clear that those lessons haven’t sunk in…or perhaps, more likely, poor Moses is simply afraid.  After all Pharoah does want to kill him.

Just like Abraham and Sarah who were too old.  Just like Isaac who was blind and favoured one son over another.  Just like Jacob who lied and deceived his family.  Moses seems an unlikely choice for a messenger of God.  However, just like all those who have carried the covenant of God forward, God sees in them something beyond the superficial.  Speech impediment or not, we know that Moses will do great things.

God’s covenant will be continued, the Hebrew’s will be delivered, the promises will be fulfilled.  I am…says God.  I am what was, and is, and will be.  Existence is in me, past and future.   However Moses saw himself…God saw something more.  Indeed Moses is exactly what is needed and through him God will continue to deliver and provide for his people.  Even in the wilderness, but that is for next week.

amen