Not It
Exodus 3:1-15, 4:10-13
Emmanuel Baptist Church; October 4, 2026
Rev. Kathy Donley
It hasn’t happened in a while. But I remember being at some Emmanuel committee meetings when there was a task that no one wanted to do. As I watched, one person after another would quietly put their finger on their nose in that traditional adult game called “nose goes”. In case you’ve never played it, the idea is that the person who covers their nose last is the one who has to do the job that no one else wants. In the language of another traditional game, that person is IT.
In today’s piece of a bigger story, Moses says “NOT IT” as loudly and as often as he can.
This call from God is not sudden, even if it is a surprise to Moses. The Hebrew people have been suffering for multiple generations. At minimum, it started with the first pharoah who did not know and did not care to know the history of the Hebrew people and their contributions to Egypt. But that king died some time ago and his successor is as cruel and demanding as he was.
It might seem like Moses is a logical candidate to intercede with the current ruler of Egypt. After all, he did grow up in the palace, having been adopted by the daughter of the last pharoah. Surely that gives him some insight to negotiate on behalf of his people.
But he is also on the previous pharoah’s most wanted list, since he murdered an Egyptian for harassing some of his fellow Hebrews. He left the country to get out of Pharoah’s reach. That’s why he is now safely far away, somewhere between the land of Midian and Mt. Horeb. He is married and works with his father-in-law. He has a good life. He desperately does not want to be IT.
He says “who am I to do this”. I am not qualified. I wouldn’t know what I was doing. I am not a good communicator. No one is going to listen to me.”
And then he tries, “Who are you, God? How do I even know this is really what the real God of my people wants to happen?”
Moses and God go back and forth for a while and the last thing Moses says is “O Lord, please send someone else.”
One of my favorite stories from Emmanuel’s history is about our spiritual ancestors’ reluctance. In 1833, the good people of the First Baptist Church of Albany were unanimously agreed that God wanted them collectively to plant another Baptist church. But it soon became evident that, individually, no one was willing to make the personal sacrifice, to give up the comfort and familiarity of the current church, in response to God’s call. At first, every one of the 327 members said “NOT IT.”[1]
At Emmanuel’s 100th anniversary, the current pastor said, “At the divine call, everyone meekly and submissively answered, “Lord, here am I; send him.”
Like Moses, like other faithful ancestors, we face circumstances not of our choosing. The time that we find ourselves in did not appear out of the blue with the most recent elections. All kinds of historians are offering scholarly looks back to see how we got here. At how the recent pendulum swing from electing the first African American president to the rise of blatant white supremacy, is just part of a long-standing pattern of racism in this country. At how Robert Putnam’s book Bowling Alone published in 2000 was one early harbinger of the loneliness epidemic that is now well-documented. I know so many parents who are earnestly praying for the mental health of their teenagers and the isolation of their young adult children.
Major fault lines are evident in democracy as we know it and anticipating the coming earthquake makes us anxious for ourselves, for the next generation, for the rest of the world.
I was ordained 30 years ago. For the entirety of my ministry, there has been a hard and fast divide between evangelicals and mainline Christians which is now almost enmity. For at least the last 30 years, people have been wringing their hands over the decline of the mainline church. We are not really surprised that so many congregations are dissolving. This is the public face of our faith.
None of us wants this to be our reality. The issues we face at home, at church, in our civic lives, seem overwhelming. We don’t know how to fix them or even if they can be fixed.
Some of us are asking “who are we to do this? We are not equipped. No one is going to listen to us.”
Some of us are angry at those who came before us for continuing to kick the can down the road to us. Some of us are tempted to just leave it for the next generation to sort out. Some of us are terribly sad and unbearably disappointed. Some of us are deeply grieving all that has been lost.
And when the proposal is to leave the building that holds memories of so many salt-of-the-earth folks, to abandon the worship style and faith practices that may have contained our personal burning bush experiences, we may say “Who are you, God? How do we even know this is really what the real God of my people wants to happen?”
We just want to live normal lives, loving our neighbors as ourselves in peace. It should not fall on us. “Not IT, Not IT, Not IT”
When we last saw Moses, he was saying “O Lord, please send someone else.” We know that is not the end of the story. We know that he does eventually respond to God’s calling
So how does God get through?
God says “take your brother along and I will be with you both.” If you don’t know what you’re doing, if you think no one will listen to you, go together with your siblings and God will be there too.
God also says you will know later, when you look back, that this was me. It will take faith and risk. You may not really know until years down the road. God says, “When you have done what I’m telling you to do, you will find your way back to this mountain and worship me, and then you’ll know it was me.” You will know that it was God, when you’ve successfully taken the leap and done the thing and can look back. Then you’ll know.
I gotta say that I don’t find that one very helpful.
Maybe Moses is convinced by those things, but I think the true power may be in the groans and laments of the suffering people that have risen over and over again. God has been hearing them long before Moses was born. It is Israel’s voice of hurt and rage that sets things in motion. Walter Brueggemann says “it is difficult to imagine a more radical theological statement that this; it is voiced grief that mobilizes God to act in saving ways.” [2]
And so, I wonder can we hear the insistent cries of those who suffer, the voiced hurt of victims of sexual violence, and weary migrants with no safe place to rest, and people of color in a racist world, and those traumatized by one calamity after another? Do we hear the pain of those who have lost faith because of the church’s lack of love, the failure to adapt our practices to minister the needs of the lonely, the despairing. Do we perceive the groaning of all creation? Can we hear the deep lament of suffering and recognize God’s call within it?
An old blues song says “ev'rybody wants to go to heaven, But nobody wants to die.”
O Lord, please send someone else.
When we come to the end of our inadequacies and excuses, our anger and disappointment and grief, I trust that we will recognize the voice of our God who agitates and disturbs and makes us uncomfortable with the status quo. May we listen to what needs to be heard, notice what needs to be seen and take the leap of faith. . . so that we may honor the deep call of the great I AM. Amen.
[1] Historical information in this sermon gleaned from Emmanuel Baptist Church Albany Centennial 1834-1934 and Bi-centennial History of Albany: History of the County of Albany, NY from 1609-1886, Vol. 2, by George Rogers Howell
[2] Walter Brueggemann, New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume 1, (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994), p. 707.