Exodus 3:1-15
Romans 12:9-21
Matthew 16:21-28

Who am I? Who are you? Who is God? Those are the three questions asked in today’s scripture and three questions I have asked myself again and again throughout life and I suspect they have also been your questions!

The first person in our story today to ask the three questions is Moses. Now Moses was a pretty lucky guy for he was raised as a house boy in the home of the King. He was the little boy of the Princess who would be educated, unlike all the other Hebrews who were slaves. Egyptian education was world renown! Yet he also had an early education by his own mother that had stayed with him helping his self identity. He knew he was a child of Abraham and what moral values that implied.

So on that hot day in June when he was about 40 years old, he was riding his horse and came upon a working party of Hebrew slaves. When the Egyptian slave master began beating a Hebrew slave, Moses was outraged. This was injustice and he took advantage of his position to beat the Egyptian to death. Then he buried him in the sand. His secret might have stayed buried had not the other Hebrew passed the word around. The next day, when he was again riding his horse he came upon several Hebrews fighting. Determining which man was in the wrong, he berated him saying, "Why would you beat your fellow countryman? At this the Hebrew showed his jealousy, saying: "Who appointed you to be prince over us? What right do you have to judge us? Do you intend to kill us like you killed the Egyptian?"

Moses realized that it was only a matter of time when Pharaoh would get word. Then he surely would have Moses killed. What a parallel to life in these United States. Just 50 years ago, some felt justified with the lynching of a black who had offended a white. For years, even after the freeing of the slaves, African Americans had been seen as sub-human and feared. Racial barriers are hard to erase. That will obviously be the wild card in the election next November. We will test once again how effectively our culture has dealt with hidden prejudice.

So back to the story! Moses flees for his life to the land of Midian where he marries into the family of a Midianite Priest. Years have passed and the King of Egypt has died. The plight of the Hebrew slaves have become even worse and they have cried out to God for help. So one day, as Moses was tending the flocks of Jethro, far away near Mt Horeb, the mountain of God, an angel appeared to Moses in the shape of a flame of fire coming from the middle of a bush that was not being burned up. The voice startled Moses as he was told to stop and take off his shoes "for you are on Holy Ground." Then to his amazement God told him that he was being sent to Egypt, to the Pharaoh to demand release of the Hebrew people.

Obviously this announcement must have shocked Moses who said: "Who am I to go to Pharaoh? Who am I, Lord? Who am I to speak truth to power? Who am I to risk so much? So God replies: "Moses, I will be with you all the way! Also I will show you who you really are! And I will show you who I am!" That is what happens when you are called by God to a task no matter how large or small. So when Moses timidly asks: "Who are you, Lord?" "By what name shall I call you?" And of course we all know that the name determines who you are. So God says, tell them "I am who I am" or "I will be who I will be" sent you. (By using the verb to be, God describes himself as the great I AM. I existed long before you and will around long after you. I am creator and sustainer of all. I am who I am!

So this God, whose name is too powerful to even pronounce, becomes known bit by bit to the Hebrew people and to the world. And this God, whose name is too powerful to even pronounce, seeks to become known to every generation anew. We don’t know God just because we are born into a family that claims to be Christian. One of the main failures of many mainline denominations is that they assume people know God and people assume they know God. Coming to know God as your personal Savior and closest friend, takes some doing! But we can’t do it on our own! This is the exclusive work of God! We call it recognizing the faith already given to us.

I remember the first time I really came to grips with faith. I was in High School and my best friend, Mike, and I were hanging out in his driveway. We had met in the church youth group. The discussion turned to how we ever got to know some things. Years later, I realized that we were sharing faith stories, but at the time it was really great that I could share something so personal and sacred and be taken seriously. There were things about life and God and other things that I just knew but never remembered anyone teaching me about them. Mike said he felt the same way.

Today, the God I came to know as a child is quite different from the one I know today. This God seems insistent on revealing self to each of us, even when we don’t pay attention. In all of the great turning points of the Bible God is once again reminding us of who God is! It took place with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It took place with Elijah and Elisha, with Joseph and Mary and those humble shepherds. It took place with Peter, Paul and Moses. It just keeps taking place.

But in the process, we are also challenged with the question who I am. I remember hearing somewhere that we are spiritual beings. The quote was : We are not a human beings being spiritual but spiritual beings being human! When I finally understood that, it changed a lot of things for me. I have spent much of my life trying to be spiritual until I recognized that I am a spiritual being! That is the promise of Jesus that by the power of Holy Spirit. By that same power, my mind has been changed or transformed from my limited self image into recognizing what a spiritual being is all about.. While that process belongs to God and begins in the womb, it takes a lifetime to live into the knowledge of what that means. In today’s scriptures we see Peter, Paul and Moses each coming to grips with that knowledge. Peter came to recognize Jesus as the promised Messiah which Jesus affirms could only have come from God. That is rock solid assurance. We heard that story last Sunday. Now this Sunday, Jesus knocks Peter off his pins when he calls him the Evil One. "Peter," says Jesus, "You have reverted to human thinking when you want to take everything into your own hands. You are back to trying to be spiritual instead of being the spiritual person God has created you to be. You can see the world with "God’s see-level" if you will just allow it!" Paul had to be knocked off his horse to completed change his thinking. He was trying to be spiritual by crusading against the Followers of the Way. Perhaps you remember that he was temporarily blind and was given new sight as well as insight about who he is and who God is. And of course, we remember Moses who suddenly comes upon the burning bush in which God encounters him. . He was instructed to go to challenge Pharaoh and lead the Hebrew people out of slavery. There should be a song about Peter, Paul and Moses. Many years later another leader would be called to lead a people out of slavery and his name was Abraham Lincoln! Then there was also the call of Ghandi. Always the same questions are present, who is God, who are you, who am I. When you know the answer then you also understand why you were born!

Jesus told us that we were born to be spiritual beings. Jesus told us: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life[a] will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? There is the formula for spiritual beings to become the humans that they were born to be. Deny self, take up your cross, follow Christ. But that requires dramatic change!

We only rarely see any value in denying self anything. This has been called the Age of Narcissism. We are infatuated with self. We want to have certain clothes to identify ourselves. But that is not really who we are! We want to have wealth to impress people that we are successful. But wealth is not the measure of a person. We want to ensure that we are better than those we look down upon. But status is not the measure of a person. In fact, there was a time when routine fasting was a visible effort to deny self. Denying self allows God to be in the spotlight rather than you. Life is not all about you! Jesus walked this earth to point out that love is God’s driving force for change. Justice and hope are God’s tools for building a more perfect union.

YOU are God’s tool for change for if you would follow Christ, then you must see that there are other priorities God has in mind.

Secondly, we pick up our cross. In other words, you become a living sacrifice! Paul points this out again and again. The word "Sacrifice" comes from a Middle English verb meaning "to make sacred". Human sacrifice was practiced by many ancient cultures. People would be ritually killed in a manner that was supposed to please or appease a god or spirit. . While not widely known, human sacrifices for religious reasons still exist today in a number of nations. Some occasions for human sacrifice are found in multiple cultures on multiple continents include: Human sacrifice to accompany the dedication of a new temple or bridge. Sacrifice of people upon the death of a king, high priest or great leader; the sacrificed were supposed to serve or accompany the deceased leader in the next life. Human sacrifice in times of natural disaster such as droughts, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, etc. were seen as a sign of anger or displeasure by deities, and sacrifices were supposed to lessen the divine ire.

Some of the best known ancient human sacrifices were those practiced by various Pre-Columbian civilizations of Mesoamerica. The Aztec were particularly noted for practicing this on an unusually large scale; a human sacrifice would be made every day to aid the sun in rising, the dedication of the great temple at Tenochtitl‡n was reportedly marked with the sacrificing of thousands, and there are multiple accounts of captured Conquistadores being sacrificed during the wars of the Spanish conquest of Mexico.

So when Moses led out the slaves, the final plague was the sacrificing of the first born male in each Egyptian household which would have been understood as the anger of the gods. The Hebrew people terminated human sacrifice with the impending sacrifice of Isaac. There Abraham learned that God would prefer an animal without blemish as a more acceptable offering. The Christian world learned that Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice to free all people from the punishment of their sins. Yet, in Jesus, we also learned that being a living sacrifice was more important than a dead one.

So, we are called to be a living sacrifice as we take up our cross daily. What did that mean to the early church? How well they remembered the day when Jesus had to take up his cross. Now, with Holy Spirit in charge, the meaning had changed. We risk being creating a counter culture on earth as it is in heaven. We risk loving those others despise. We risk speaking truth to power. We may be called to even risk even the safety cushion of money that is the safety net of the church, to be faithful to an extraordinary ministry God reveals to us.

So, we follow the Christ. We sincerely love one another and honor others above ourselves. We are joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. We readily share with God’s people who are in need, practicing hospitality. We are learning to bless those who persecute us and threaten us. We are not constantly seeking attention nor having false humility. We try to live at peace in our homes, in our communities, in our nation and in our world. We are the example of the counter culture that the Christ established on earth as it is in heaven. AMEN.

Exodus 3:1-15
Moses and the Burning Bush Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the desert and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. So Moses thought, "I will go over and see this strange sight — why the bush does not burn up." When the LORD saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, "Moses! Moses!" And Moses said, "Here I am." "Do not come any closer," God said. "Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground." Then he said, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob." At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.

The LORD said, "I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey — the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt." But Moses said to God, "Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?" And God said, "I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain."

Moses said to God, "Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' Then what shall I tell them?" God said to Moses, "I am who I am .(or "I will be what I will be) This is what you are to say to the Israelites: 'I AM has sent me to you.' " God also said to Moses, "Say to the Israelites, 'The LORD, the God of your fathers — the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob — has sent me to you.' This is my name forever, the name by which I am to be remembered from generation to generation.

Romans 12:9-21
Love
Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with God's people who are in need. Practice hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited. Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord. On the contrary: "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head." Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Matthew 16:21-28
Jesus Predicts His Death
From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life. Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. "Never, Lord!" he said. "This shall never happen to you!" Jesus turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men." Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life[a] will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father's glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done. I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom."