During the four hundred and fifty years the Israelites were slaves in Egypt, they were treated harshly, but their numbers kept increasing, even to the point where they were becoming a powerful force large enough to threaten the defense of the country in case of war. The king finally decided to slaughter all the male Israelite babies. One mother, a daughter of Levi, hid her newborn baby in a basket and placed it in the water near where Pharaoh’s daughter bathed. Her maid found the baby and gave him to her mistress, who asked an Israelite woman to nurse the baby. That woman happened to be the baby’s mother. Pharaoh’s daughter named the baby Moses. Moses grew up in Pharaoh’s palace and was treated as family, educated with the other children in the family, but his mother taught him as he was growing up that he was an Israelite, and a member of the tribe of Levi, which was to mean later on that he was by birth a priest.
One day as he was traveling he saw an Egyptian soldier beating an Israelite slave. Moses killed the soldier and then had to flee for his life. Leaving Egypt, he crossed over to the Sinai, eventually settling in Midian, where he met a Midianite family of shepherds. They accepted him into the family and he married the man’s daughter. Her name was Zipporah who gave Moses a son, whom they named Gershom.
After many years, one day, while Moses was wandering in the mountain, he saw a bush burning, but noticed that the bush was not being consumed. Walking closer to investigate, he heard a voice, “Moses! Moses!” “Here I am.” “Do not come closer! Take off you sandals, for the place where you stand is holy ground. I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. The Lord then said, “I have witnessed the affliction of my people in Egypt and have heard their complaint against their slave drivers, so I know well what they are suffering. I am sending you to Pharaoh to lead my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.”
“But, who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and lead the Israelites out of Egypt?” “I will be with you, and this will be your proof that it is I who have sent you: when you bring my people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this very mountain.” “But, when I go to the people and tell them that the God of your fathers sent me, they will ask, ‘What is his name?’ What do I tell them?” “I am who am.” Then he added, “Tell them, ‘I AM sent me to you.’”
That was the call of God to Moses. Now, let us think about what is happening. After four hundred and fifty years, did God just let life take its course, at first a happy time for all Jacob’s family, as they grew in time to be a nation of themselves, but then all those centuries of harsh slavery. It seems that they lost all memory of the God who had been so close to their ancestors, though God was, as he said, watching them all along, and was moved by their sufferings, and their pleas for help. So, he did not abandon them. What happened to Moses is interesting. Moses was apparently trained in Pharaoh’s palace, probably to be a leader, or a person who would be in charge in some capacity; but that all came to an abrupt end, when he killed an Egyptian soldier. We don’t ordinarily look upon Moses as a murderer, but that is what he was, and a fugitive from justice, who ended up wandering through a barren desert with nothing and nobody. Moses had to carry that stigma with him all his life, and later on when he gave the Law to the Israelites; he had to always be conscious of the fact that he had broken one of the greatest of those laws by destroying a human being.
Those years of exile were a training period apparently, as God was psychologically and emotionally and physically preparing Moses for the superhuman task he was about to place upon him. Right from the start, Moses was conscious of the reality that he was not fit to do such a job. He was aware of what he was and not worthy of God’s singling him out to be the leader of his people. But, that is when God can use us, only when we are broken, and are aware of our unworthiness of God’s consideration of us for anything. That is when God does his best work, when he is using broken and shattered instruments. That is when his power and his wisdom shine the brightest, through broken vessels, where there is no ego, no inflated self in the way of God’s silent voice. And now I begin to see the way God works in his Church, slowly, patiently, not in terms of days or months or even years but in centuries. Like God, who sent the Holy Spirit to guide the Church until the end of time, the Holy Spirit moves the Church painfully slowly for us humans on its steady unwavering course, making changes so gradual that even Church councils take over a hundred years before they grow to full bloom. Other groups who stray from the Church eventually fragment and wither and fade away, as the Church grows ever stronger and more robust faithfully shining God’s light in a dark world that keeps changing and shifting in its moral values.
