“Never since has there arisen a prophet in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face.”

Thursday at the comedy night, the comedian was poking fun at a table of us older folk.

He asked one of the seniors sitting there what his social security number was, two?

Because Moses had number one, he said.


Moses.

If you’ve been listening to the first readings the last few weeks,

you’ve heard a lot about Moses.

At the same time that you heard stories about Jesus

being challenged by the Saduccees. the Pharisees, lawyers,

all of them trying to trap him with trick questions, all of them trying to prove him wrong.

Moses and Jesus met quite a few challenges as God’s plan for His people,

which became God’s plan for the world, as that plan unfolded through their lives.

The two of them, Jesus and Moses, did get to spend a little time together

on the mount of the Transifguration, and I’m imagining what that conversation

could have been like.


Moses: I thought you’d b..b..be taller.

Jesus: You still stutter?

Moses : Only when I’m n..n..nervous. I’m getting calm. But you’re still short.

So what about these stubborn chosen people of yours?

All they ever did was complain and rebel.

Jesus: I know what you mean. They gave me a hard time too.

They were always trying to trip me up, asking me impossible questions.

Moses: You only had to put up with that for three years. How about forty?

Jesus: You got your perks. Think of all the times my Father called you to the mountain and spoke with you. All I ever heard was a voice from a cloud while a bird settled over my head at my baptism. A bird fluttering over you head can make you stutter.

You never know if it will leave a present, you know.

Moses: Now, now.

You did get to do some pretty neat miracles. Raising the dead, changing water to wine.

Jesus: How about your frogs and locusts? How did you do that?

Moses: I paid for that. Your father wrote the 10 commandments on two stone tablets

to bring down to the people. Have you ever tried lugging a few hundred pounds of stone down a mountain? And to top it off, they’re partying and worshipping idols, which made me so mad that I broke the stones, and had to go up and do the whole thing all over again.

All you had to do was answer a few trick questions, and come up with those two great commandments- no stone, no back problems no nothing.

Jesus: There was that heavy cross beam I carried… but they wouldn’t listen to me

any better than they did to you. I sat, looking out over Jerusalem and wept

that they were lost to me, I didn’t bring them to the kingdom.

Moses: Tell me about it. I led them for forty years, and your Father brings me to the mountain to show me what’s ahead for them, the promised land, but I don’t get to go in.


And the microphone fades out on Jesus and Moses on Mt. Tabor.


Scripture tells us enough about Moses to know that God treated him like a friend.

That even when God wanted to destroy His people and start all over,

he told Moses that he would keep him to start over from,

I guess he’d be able to keep his social security number.



And imagine this, Moses was able to talk God into changing His mind

and God took back the wipe out and start over plan.

Last week we watched Moses get hidden in a rock’s cleft,

while God paraded his glory by, letting Moses see His back side.


Moses was a strong man, who in spite of a stutter, defied a pharaoh.

Never since, Deuteronomy says, has there arisen such a prophet in Israel,

unequalled in all his signs and wonders.


This friend of God, Moses, he’s a good one to follow.

He may have led his people, but Moses was always following.

He was following the wishes of God, no matter how unlikely they seemed.

He always followed God’s lead.

Just as Jesus tells us, “Come follow me,”, Moses followed.

In his following he was leading a nation, but it was God who was leading him.


For us too, God always goes before us. We must never take the lead,

especially if we are leading others; always we must be following God;


In his following, it was always God’s backside that Moses got to see;

even in that parade of glory where Moses had a grandstand seat hidden in a rock.

Moses always kept that backside in sight, following where God was leading;

Moses would always only see God from behind.

Moses did not know the way. God revealed it, always going before.


Jesus tells us that we do know the way, for He is the way.

And like our brother Moses, His passing by as we hide in the rock,

signifies that He is guiding and we must follow.

There are times when we feel God’s absence,

When we feel God is nowhere in sight, when we are afraid.


But trusting, following, is to always behold God, though we never see His face.

It is the only safe way to complete our journey here in this life.

If we try to step ahead to see God’s face,

we are no longer heading in the direction that God points out.


Moses’ most precious time may have been those hours

on the mountain in God’s presence, so close,

so intimate that his face glowed with the glory of God.

Moses could not have done what he did

if it were not for that time with God on the mountain.

Where Jesus went each night. For time with His Father, close, intimate.

Jesus could not have done what he did

if it were not for that time with God on the mountain.


So that is our call. To be like Moses. To be like Jesus.

We too, need time on the mountain. Time with the Father, our Father.

Time with the Lord, beholding and praising his glory.

And like Jesus and Moses, we come down from the mountain,

and set our face to Jerusalem, to the promised land,

to our life today, this day, this minute.

We will find the way, for we are being led,

and all we have to do is follow the one who is the way.


We got a break. 10 commandments on stone have become two in our hearts.

Love God. Love each other.


We will not see his face on this journey. Not face to face, not yet.

But if we want to see what God looks like,

if we want to hold God’s hand and experience the kingdom,

the promised land, all we need to do is look at each other.

At each, each other. For that is where God is right here and now.

And in loving that life in each other,

in caring for that life in each other, the kingdom is now.


“Never since has there arisen a prophet in Israel like Moses,

whom the Lord knew face to face.”


AMEN
The Rev. Terry Suruda