November 6, 2011
Money & Stuff Part 4, Energy - Exodus 18:10-27
Pastor: Luke Maybry
DownloadI got gasoline in South Carolina last week for $2.99 a gallon. I haven’t seen gas that low in a long time. $2.99! What a deal! I remember my sermon from Easter of 2004. I was still in Texas and, from what I recall, gasoline prices had just jumped up. We were worried about what that might mean for the economy. It was really rough out there, I told my congregation. I can’t promise that things improve much this year. Gasoline was out of sight. It had even reached $2.00 a gallon. It’s all about perspective, I guess. I’m not an economist at all, but it goes something like this. First of all, the world has a finite supply of oil. In fact, by definition, we have less and less oil every day. Yet, thanks to the growing economic powerhouses of India and China, we’ve got at least a 50% increase in demand. The supply will not change, or it certainly won’t change for the better. We are not going to find some enormous tank of oil in outer space somewhere. Furthermore, the demand is not going to go down. China and India are not going anywhere anytime soon. So we have three options in this country: we can either pay more for oil and adjust accordingly, we can find another energy source, or we can use less energy and oil. It’s all about energy, you see. Now you may think that God and oil prices don’t have much to do with each other, but oil prices greatly affect God’s people, especially God’s younger people, especially our children. If we care anything about them at all, if care a fraction for our children that God does, then we better start addressing our energy consumption and sources. I haven’t even mentioned electricity, which comes either from coal, nuclear reactions, or water. Just imagine how much our lives would change if one day were told that we had to live without gasoline and electricity. It’s all about energy, and how we produce it, and allocate it.
If anybody knew anything at all about energy, it would be Moses. Moses was a small man. He was not your typical leader. Yet God chose him to lead his people our Egyptian slavery, through the desert, and into the Promised Land. Now think about how tall an order that is. You’ve got to convince the most powerful man in the world to let go of his free labor. Yet with God’s help, and through a few nasty plagues, Moses succeeds. And then he’s got to lead these people, all 600,000 of them , for forty years in the harsh, harsh Arabian wilderness. As you can imagine, that takes lots and lots and lots of energy on the part of Moses.
And yet, Moses succeeds, or at the very least he escapes Pharaoh’s army. And then he runs into the Amalekites, one of Israel’s arch enemies, and he defeats them. And then, poor Moses, he runs into his in-laws. Except this time, his dear old father-in-law, Jethro, saves his skin with some excellent advice. Jethro tells Moses that if he keeps bearing all this load by himself, then it’s going to kill him. It’s not good for either Moses, or his people, or Zipporah (his daughter and Moses’ wife), or God for him to do all of that by himself. It’s all about energy. Energy, energy, energy! Moses himself only has a finite amount of it. He can only do so much. The path that Moses was on was not sustainable. If it’s not sustainable, it’s going to stop one way or other. Things had to change. Moses had to change. Moses had to change the way he used his and his people’s energy. Moses is the only person in the Bible who ever talks directly, face to face, with God. Only Moses can see God and live. But even Moses himself has limits. And so do we.
This text I think is largely about energy. It raises two very important points relating to energy. First, there really is a limited degree of human energy. There just is. If you’re a normal human being, then you’ve got to get about eight hours of sleep. That leaves sixteen more every day. In that sixteen, how do you burn your energy? Is it in a worthwhile cause or not? Or maybe as the Baptists used to say, if Jesus returned tomorrow morning, would you be scared? Would you be using your energy in a faithful way or not?
And maybe even more to the point, what about us as a Church? We have a limited supply of energy. How we are we using it? What is it that we’re trying to do exactly? Moses was trying hard to get across that wilderness with God’s people intact. What are we trying to do? We need to know that. We need to know where we’re headed. When I first moved here, you told me that you were at a crossroads and you wanted help crossing over. After four years, I think I’ve finally learned more about what that means. We’ve got to explore that more. I think we need to discern what God is calling us to do at this time and place, and then we have to do it. We have to spend our energy on things that matter. And we have to quit spending it on things that may not matter as much. This Church asks a lot of us, a whole lot. Some of ya’ll are up here all the time. I do not want to waste your time and energy, nor do I want to waste my own. I want us doing things that matter, that speak to the issues of the day, that preach the hope of the Gospel to a hurting and dying world. I read the paper. I watch the news. I try to keep up with current events. I hate to say it, but I haven’t read much about hope lately. God has a ton of work for us to do. There is 100% employment in God’s Kingdom. I am convinced of that. And that is what we need to do.
Which brings me to my second point, which contradicts my first point. Energy is limited. I agree with that. But when we devote ourselves to doing the Lord’s work in Steele Creek, we tap into the only infinite energy source in the universe. We tap into the very energy, the very Spirit of God, that created the universe. Say what you want to about Moses. He stuttered and he hemmed and he hawed. He spent at least three chapters of Exodus trying to get out of what God had called him to do. Who could blame him? It was a crazy idea, chalk full of risk everywhere he turned. If he failed, then he was a dead man, and so were his people. It took a lot of energy alright. It took far more than Moses ever had. But Moses tapped into that everlasting source, and God sustained him. Sure there were bumps and bruises and scrapes and scratches and mistakes and doubt, everywhere he turned. Sure there was a mutiny. Sure, his own brother even turned on him. But in the end, God was faithful, and God supplied everything that Moses would need, everything.
I am convinced that we need to spend our energy in a Kingdom kind of way. When we do the Lord’s work, the energy shows up all over the place. It’s everywhere. Like the exodus, it’s risky, and uncomfortable, and painful. We will make our own mistakes and have our own bumps and bruises along the way. But God will be faithful. I am convinced of that.
Talmage Skinner was the chaplain at Wofford when I was a student there. He was instrumental both in my education and in my theological formation. When I think of a pastor, his is the first image that comes to mind. I went to Wofford’s homecoming last week, and I saw a lot of good friends there. As we reminisced, I had to finally conclude that we had a lot of fun, did a lot of stupid things, we sowed our wild oats. We, or at least I, tried to forget about God for a while. But then there was Talmage Skinner, who, more than anything else, simply showed up, and devoted himself to showing us that there was a greater truth. If Talmage Skinner is not a saint, then I am at a loss as to who is. He is a saint because of what God has done in his life. He is also a saint to me, personally, because of how he responded, and specifically how he spent his time and energy from the fall of 1994 to the spring of 1998. He devoted his limited energy to a worthy cause, and somehow found enough energy to preach the Gospel to a bunch of college fraternity boys. Whatever energy I have to preach the Gospel today came largely from him. I am living proof, then, of God’s eternal reservoir of energy. In short, we’ve got it. May we use it faithfully.
In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.
