Sermon: Some Traits of Good Leaders Who Make Good Trouble - Exodus 2:11-25

We are in the second week of a series on the beginning of the book of Exodus. Last week, we encountered some “good neighbors who made good trouble,” and they saved baby Moses from slavery and genocide. Moses was raised as a Hebrew by his mother, and brought up as an Egyptian noble by Pharaoh’s daughter, a princess. By the time he comes of age, Moses can “walk like an Egyptian” but also identifies strongly as a Hebrew. We pick up the story when Moses is a young man, who starts to take notice of the things that are happening to “his people.”

Exodus 2:11-25 NRSVUE

11 One day after Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and saw their forced labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew [to death], one of his own people. 12 He looked this way and that, and seeing no one he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. 13 When he went out the next day, he saw two Hebrews fighting, and he said to the one who was in the wrong, “Why do you strike your fellow Hebrew?” 14 [The Hebrew] answered, “Who made you a ruler and judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid and thought, “Surely the thing is known.” 15 When Pharaoh heard of it, he sought to kill Moses.

            (Notice how much violence there is in this passage!)

So Moses fled from Pharaoh. He settled in the land of Midian and sat down by a well. 16 The priest of Midian had seven daughters. They came to draw water and filled the troughs to water their father’s flock. 17 But some shepherds came and drove them away. Moses (who is not the kind of person who could not let that go without doing something about it) got up and came to their defense and watered their flock. 18 When they returned to their father Reuel (he is also called Jethro or Hobab), he said, “How is it that you have come back so soon today?” 19 They said, “An Egyptian helped us against the shepherds; he even drew water for us and watered the flock.”

            (What a kind thing for Moses to do! And see, he didn’t kill anyone this time!)

20 He said to his daughters, “Where is he? Why did you leave the man? Invite him to share a meal.” 21 Moses agreed to stay with the man, and he gave Moses his daughter Zipporah in marriage. 22 She bore a son, and he named him Gershom, for he said, “I have been an alien residing in a foreign land.”

            (You could say that Moses was not just a wanderer, a foreigner in exile. He could also be considered a pilgrim. That will be important later.)

23 After a long time the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned under their slavery and cried out. (Apparently, they had hoped that once Pharaoh died, everything would go back to normal. But that was not the case: Pharaoh had created a legacy of fear and violence that extended into the next generation.) Their cry for help rose up to God from their slavery. (The Israelites did not even cry out to God by name; they basically cried, “Someone, help!”) 24 God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob [the forefathers of the Israelites]. 25 God looked upon the Israelites, and God took notice of them.

INTRODUCTION

Last week, we talked about being “good neighbors who make good trouble.” Good trouble is necessary trouble through nonviolent resistance. And while we are all called to be good neighbors, some of us have an additional calling to be leaders. Good leaders need to embody at least these three different traits: they must be angry; they must be nonviolent; and they must be faithful.

1.     Anger

While anger can increase the temptation for sins—like hatred and violence—anger in itself is not a sin. Anger is a sign of passion—it shows that someone has a fire in them that is not easily put out. In our cohort with Rev. Dr. Ken Nash, we called these a “holy disturbance”—it means that there is something on their heart that is really important, that needs attention! Jeffrey Stout noted in his book, Blessed Are the Organized: Grassroots Democracy in America that

“Anger is one of the most important traits [organizers] look for in potential [local] leaders. Someone who professes a love of justice, but is not angered by its violation, is unlikely to stay with the struggle for justice through thick and thin, to display the passion that will motivate others to join, or to have enough courage to stand up to the powers that be.”

Moses was troubled. He was clearly angry about the way that the Hebrews—his people—were being treated, and he was motivated to do something about it. By the end of the chapter, we see that God has the same kind of holy disturbance for the Hebrew slaves in Egypt, too. But the anger needs to come across as passion, and not rage; anger is to be used in love, not in fear.

The next trait of a good leader is love, expressed specifically in principles of

2.     Nonviolence

Good leaders must rule by love; they cannot rule by fear, for “perfect love casts out all fear.” Violence is a tool of fear.

Moses was angry, but he failed to be a good leader for good neighbors because he used violence, which is a tool of fear and not love. Moses’ leadership was always being tested in the book of Exodus, (it’s not the first time they will ask him who put him in charge), but he lost his credibility in this instance when he used his anger to justify violence. To the Hebrews, he was just another murderous Egyptian. He was no different than the Egyptian who beat a Hebrew man to death. Murder is a sin, and violence is a tool of fear; it cannot be used in love.

Violence cannot be justified in light of Jesus’ commandment to love our enemies. Jesus was never violent, and he never condoned others who were. Jesus was a pacifist. Now, Jesus got angry sometimes—he called out the Pharisees for their hypocrisy; he flipped the tables of the moneychangers in the temple; and he scolded his disciples on occasion. But his anger was a small expression of the great love he had for all people, and he much more often expressed himself peacefully and commanded his followers to forgive instead of seeking vengeance. Though angry at times, Jesus was always loving and always led peacefully—nonviolently—even though it cost him his life.

As United Methodists, we do not condone violence of any kind, even though we acknowledge that there are some Christians who disagree. We hold a principle of nonviolence that is based in the commandments of Jesus Christ, to “love your neighbor as yourself,” and to “love your enemy.”

The final trait of a good leader is they must be

3.     Faithful

Being faithful means trusting in God and persevering at all times, especially when it is difficult.

Trusting God means relying on the grace that God provides—even though it may not show up in ways that we expect. Methodists have a name for this: we call it “prevenient grace,” and it is the kind of grace that is all around us, even when we are not aware of it, and even if we are in places where we did not expect God to show up. God’s grace directs Moses through the wilderness and to the land of Midian, and by God’s grace, circumstances unfold that allow Moses to be welcomed, even as a stranger, into the family of a different nation. God is the Lord of all peoples and all nations, and so it was by God’s grace that Moses left Egypt and came to Midian. It was not the final destination for Moses’ journey, but it was an important place for him to stay for a while. Curiously, it is in Midian—not in Egypt-- where God is revealed to Moses in the burning bush.

When we are alone in the wilderness, and feeling abandoned by God, this story gives us hope that living in the wilderness-in a period of exile—is not banishment; it might even be a kind of pilgrimage.

The story of Moses leaving Egypt and settling in Midian reminds me of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s speech, Pilgrimage to Nonviolence. Now, when he was a young man. King endured the humiliation of racial segregation in the South, and it made him quite angry. And while he was an angry (passionate) young man in seminary, he took notice of the successful liberation movement in India in which they gained independence from Great Britain, under Mahatma Gandhi’s leadership. The movement was based in the Hindu principle of satyagraha, which means, “love-force.” Although it took place on the other side of the world and it was based in a different religion, By the grace of God, Martin Luther King was inspired by Gandhi, whose leadership and teaching gave King a glimpse of how the American people could be led into freedom, based in the model and teachings of Jesus Christ. By “visiting” somewhere else, God’s grace fanned the flames within Dr. King’s heart with holy fire, tempered by love and principled nonviolence.

Faithfulness also means that you stick with it, even when things get hard. Remember: the difference between giving up and taking a break is if you come back after you leave. So, keep Sabbath—take a break with God--but then get back to it, do the work in front of you, and trust God to do the rest.

For those who are called beyond the ordinary vows of baptism and into leadership, among other traits, they must possess anger, nonviolence, and faithfulness. These are what it takes to be good leaders of good neighbors who get into good trouble. It takes a lot of spiritual maturity to embody all three of these traits, and sometimes the only way a person can grow and become spiritually mature is to fail in these and make mistakes. We must all hold our leaders accountable for their actions, but we must also be willing to forgive them and to trust God always, to trust that God calls the right person for the job and will equip them with the grace that they need to be good leaders for good neighbors.

Let us pray:

God of all people, our prayer is for all leaders to possess these traits: anger expressed as passion, love expressed as nonviolence, and faithfulness expressed as trust in God’s grace and perseverance in all things. Our prayer is that our leaders would guide all of us here to be brought together into God’s kingdom, where we shall be ruled by love, and not fear; where enemies become friends; and people of all nations come together in peace.

We pray this for the leaders of our church: those who are on council, those who lead ministries, who lead worship, and who lead our denominations, and for everyone who has a calling beyond their baptism into leadership. Give us the grace that we need to accomplish the holy tasks you set before us. In the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and our Savior, we pray. Amen.

Sources:

·      Terence E. Fretheim. Exodus. Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching. Ed. James L. Mays. John Knox Press: Louisville, 1973.

·      Nayasha Junior. “Exodus.” Women’s Bible Commentary. Abingdon Press: Nashville, 2012.

·      Jeffrey Stout. “Domination, Anger, and Grief.” Blessed Are the Organized: Grassroots Democracy in America. Princeton University Press, 2010.

·      Shirin McArthur: “Learning of Fire: An Interview with Sara Jolena Wolcott.” Oneing: An Alternative Orthodoxy Vol 6 No 1 Anger. Center for Action and Contemplation Publishing, 2018.

·     “Social Principles.” The United Methodist Book of Discipline. The United Methodist Publishing House: Nashville, 2016.

·      Sharon Erickson Nepstad. Nonviolent Struggle: Theories, Strategies, and Dynamics. Oxford University Press, 2015.

·      Nell Greenfield-Boyce. “The Power of Martin Luther King Jr.’s Anger.” The Other Side of Anger. Code Switch. National Public Radio, February 20, 2019. Accessed January 11, 2024. https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2019/02/20/691298594/the-power-of-martin-luther-king-jr-s-anger

·      Martin Luther King Jr. “Pilgrimage to Nonviolence (1960).” I Have A Dream: Writings and Speeches That Changed the World. Ed James M. Washington. HarperOne, 2003.