Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“It was this Moses whom they rejected when they said, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge?’ and whom God now sent as both ruler and liberator through the angel who appeared to him in the bush.”
NL Daily Devotion for Thursday, April 28, 2022
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
Who made you boss? Again Stephen recounts a story of change—this time how God can change a person and equip them to do things they didn’t think they were capable of.
In his youth, Moses murdered an Egyptian in defense of one of his fellow Hebrews. Instead of being grateful, the Hebrews in question told Moses to go jump in a lake. Who did he think he was? Even though he was technically Hebrew, Moses had been raised as an Egyptian prince, so it was sort of like someone with extreme privilege trying to “save” an oppressed community to which they don’t belong through a single, direct action instead of working to actually change the system. Moses was so taken aback at being questioned (and the threat of being prosecuted for murder) he took off running.
God found him a couple decades later and said, “Suck it up, buttercup. You’re going to make good on an entire systemic change.” Moses didn’t want to go. He literally asked God to send someone else. God wasn’t having it. Moses would have to change—give up his comfortable and safe herding life, leave his wife and family, and go put himself in harms way for the sake of an entire people. And eventually, like Abraham, Moses went. Moses was fundamentally changed by God through his experience freeing the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt. Change is necessary to do God’s work in the world.
How have I been changed by my faith over the course of my life?
