Another slow start this week. Some days these bible studies just flow from my fingers. It is like they write themselves, I’m only along for the ride. Like the message comes from somewhere else. Someone else. I just try to keep up and pay attention to spelling. OK, well, pay a little bit attention to spelling and grammar and the like.
Then there are weeks like this one where I can sit for hours and stare at the stark white screen with the little flashing cursor and wonder if it is sighing deeply. Like there is nothing there, nobody home and I’m stuck with a job to do and no resources to do it. With a message to declare and a roaring silence filling the empty space between my ears instead of the words that normally rattle around in there. In short, I got nothing. Sorry.
Though the words seem to echo a similar complaint. Maybe it was the way I just said it in my head. You remember everyone’s second favorite Charlie Brown TV special, “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown”? What sticks in my head is the trick or treat scene, where Charlie Brown, after having trouble with his ghost costume, tags along with the gang as they from house to house. Then they inspect their haul and everyone described what delights they received, except Charlie Brown who intones, with liturgical rhythm, “I got a rock.”
What can you do with a rock? As a Halloween treat a rock leaves much to be desired. Even if his mother was resourceful and clever and tried to put a positive spin on it, (“Look, Charlie, the start of a career in geology!”) I’m sure Charlie Brown felt lousy getting rock after rock all Halloween. A bag of rocks was not adequate for the task of celebrating the excesses of Halloween, that’s for sure.
Just like a stick isn’t up to the task of setting God’s people free. At least I’m sure that was Moses’ opinion in the middle of this conversation with God.
Exodus 4:2-5 The LORD said to him, "What is that in your hand?" He said, "A staff." 3 And he said, "Throw it on the ground." So he threw the staff on the ground, and it became a snake; and Moses drew back from it. 4 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Reach out your hand, and seize it by the tail"-- so he reached out his hand and grasped it, and it became a staff in his hand-- 5 "so that they may believe that the LORD, the God of their ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you."
“What is that in your hand?” We are in the midst of Moses and his five buts, you remember. Right in the middle of them, as a matter of fact. This is but number three. Which in the DCWV (Derek C Weber Version) is “what if it doesn’t work?” What if they won’t listen? What if it blows up in my face? What I end up looking stupid or worse? These are real fears, you know. This doing God’s work thing is risky business. It could all go wrong so very easily. This was, I believe, the most reasonable but of them all. But what if it doesn’t work?
God’s response? “What’s that in your hand?” What? You can see Moses looking around for something significant. Something that might help in this fool’s errand, this knight’s quest. I’m sure he almost said “nothing! I got nothing. Nothing that will take down a Pharaoh. Nothing that will accomplish this task you’ve given me. I got nothing!” But then he realized that he did have something in his hand, something that was always in his hand. It was like a part of him, that’s why he almost overlooked it. It was an extension of his body. It was a badge of office, or the most important tool in the box, the sonic screwdriver of the Time Lords of Dr. Who. He almost forgot it was there. “I got a stick,” he said to the voice in the burning bush, or inside his head, he really wasn’t sure any more. “I got a stick.”
Expecting, no doubt for a divine snort of derision. A stick? You got a stick? We can do better than that, he was thinking, he was hoping. A tank perhaps, a stealth bomber, the Starship Enterprise - beam us up Scotty, this ain't working here. I got a stick.
We’re pretty sure that whatever it is that we got, whatever resources we've managed to scrape together aren't going to be adequate to the task. Whatever is in our hand isn't going to see us through into the uncertain tomorrow. We are sure of that. Because we have failed before. We have lost our way, we have let opportunities run through our fingers, we have lost friends and partners on this journey. We've seen it happen before and we know it will happen again, that is the way of things. This stick we've got in our hand isn't going to amount to a hill of beans in the crazy world.
Oh, it’s a nice stick. Quite useful for the task. It can help one keep one’s balance in a rocky wilderness. A third foot on uncertain ground. It can fend off wild animals when necessary. A good whack upside the head and wolves and lions will go running. A good shepherd knows how to knock one out of the park when necessary. But it isn’t just blunt force justice either, no that curve on the end, that hook can prod a recalcitrant sheep back on the right path (“he leads me in right paths”) You just reach out and gently slip that crook around the neck of a sheep about to bolt in the wrong direction, and the smooth curve of the wood doesn’t hurt but can restrain and redirect, get those feet going in the direction they need to go, for safety sake.
Useful, yes, but not for freeing a nation. Not for ending four hundred years of slavery. You need something more than a stick. A bit of wood smoothed by sweaty palms and oil from a sheep’s coat, bloodied by the noggin of a hungry wolf isn’t going to be enough to realize a dream of freedom.
I got a stick. “Throw it down.” What? “Throw it down.” What? The stick? It’s all I’ve got. I know it isn’t much. I know it isn’t up to the task, but it’s all I’ve got. “Throw it down.” My stick? “Throw it down.” This stick? “Throw it down.” But ... “Throw it down.”
I got an email from a frustrated bishop this week, or maybe last week. OK, I didn’t get it, everyone got it. Everyone who signed up for the Bishop’s “e-pistle” (get it?). It’s usually a word of encouragement, sometimes a word of explanation or a cheerleading of the latest Conference or Denominational doings, good stuff, usually. But this one was a word of frustration. We’re not measuring up. We’re not keeping all the balls in the air, not providing the support, not carrying our share of the load, not just us, everyone. “Are you all-in?” the Bishop opined from his digital pulpit. “All-in”? Throw it down.
God asked Moses for a total commitment, symbolized by the stick. What’s that in your hand? Throw it down. It wasn’t much but it was all he had and he had to throw it down. Not knowing what was going to happen to it, not knowing if he was going to get to pick it up again. Throw it down. Moses threw it down. It turned into a snake. We need more snakes. Right? Well, Moses wasn’t sure, Exodus says he drew back. It could be translated stepped back, or jumped back or ran away. Screaming. In terror. OK, I added that bit. But he didn’t want anything to do with the snake. The snake that was his stick. God says, pick it up. What? Pick it up, by the tail. Everyone knows you pick up snaked by the head, just behind the head. My dad taught me that. Not that it was knowledge I wanted, mind you. But everyone knows that. Pick it up, by the tail. So, it could twist around and bite you. Moses picked it up. It was a stick. A trick of the light? Eyes already swimming from staring at a burning bush might have been fooled, it was a stick that he thought was a snake. Until he did it again on the steps into Pharaoh’s palace. Throw it down. Pick it up. Get to work, Moses. Are you all-in?
That stick, it wasn’t much, but it was all he had. Good for balance, good for predators, good for getting sheep reoriented. In Moses’ hand. In God’s hand? Well, it could humble a king, it could part a sea, it could lead a grumpy nation through a wilderness, and bring water from a rock. In God’s hand what is in our hand is not just something more, it is enough. Enough to do what God would have us do.
What’s in your hand? What have you got that when thrown down, when all-in can realize a dream? What gift, what knowledge, what passion is in you? I don’t know about you. But I got a stick. It’s not much, but in God’s hands...
Shalom,
Derek
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