PC(USA) Co-Moderator explains ‘The Moses Mistakes’

LOUISVILLE — Donning a beard briefly to help those in worship accept his character, the Rev. Tony Larson personified four big mistakes Moses made along the way while leading the people out of enslavement in Egypt and completing his assignment at the cusp of the Promised Land.

Larson, Co-Moderator of the 226^th General Assembly, preached during closing worship of the Moderators Conference, held Friday and Saturday online and at the Chapel in the Presbyterian Center in Louisville, Kentucky.

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Before he put on the beard and began preaching, Larson and his fellow Co-Moderator, the Rev. CeCe Armstrong, anointed those in worship. “God has heard you say ‘here I am,’ and God will be with you,” Larson said.

“I had a decent life once,” Larson said as Moses. “Then I made four catastrophic errors that dragged me into 40 years of the hardest work I’ve ever done.”

While tending sheep  one day, Moses spotted a bush on fire without being consumed. “I should have noted it and moved on, but I stopped to look at this great sight,” he said. The burning bush made Moses remember some of his worst behavior, including killing an Egyptian man and hiding his body.

“Something else in those flames: righteous anger, burning injustice at empire’s cruelty,” he said. “God’s anger burns without being consumed, and then I knew that God had been hearing [the people’s] cries all along.”

“Once your eyes are opened — once you sense God’s anger at injustice — you can’t go back like nothing happened.”

Moses heard his name being called: “Moses, Moses.” “Not, ‘hey shepherd,’” he said. “I said without thinking, ‘Here I am.’ That was mistake number 2. … The absolute foolishness of responding before you know.”

“God had been watching, listening, knowing all the things I had been trying not to do for 40 years. … The bush that burned without being consumed? That was about to be me.”

“I should have cut my losses, but instead I made mistake number three: I asked the question, ‘Who am I that I should go to pharaoh?’”

“God said, ‘I will be with you,’ which isn’t an answer to my question at all. It was a promise I didn’t know what to do with,” he said. “I wasn’t being sent to ask pharaoh nicely, but to challenge the entire logic of empire, which runs on only the principle of scarcity. God runs on the principle of abundance, God’s provision.”

“I was called to dismantle pharaoh’s hierarchy. Don’t ask a question that might reveal what God is about to do,” he said.

“After making those mistakes, I was on a roll and I thought I’d make another: I went and got involved in other people’s problems,” he said. “I stood in front of pharaoh and said, ‘Let my people go.’ Pharaoh said, ‘Who is this God that I should listen?’ It’s always empire’s first move, denial.”

“Pharaoh made it worse for those enslaved people I came to help,” he said. “The people turned on me, saying ‘We were better off before you showed up.’ That’s what happens when you get involved in other people’s problems, especially when they are rolled into empire.”

“Ten plagues, 10 confrontations. Finally we crossed the sea, Miriam danced, and we tasted freedom,” he said. “Then came 40 years of wandering and 40 years of complaining: ‘At least in Egypt we had good food.’”

“At the end of 40 years, I stood on a mountain and looked at the Promised Land, the land I had bean leaning into my entire life,” he said. Mistake number 4 was getting involved  in other people’s problems, and what did it get me? An unmarked grave in Moab.”

“Don’t make my mistakes, unless you want to see God work, unless you want to see the enslaved become free, participate in God’s breaking empire’s grip — unless you want your life to mean something beyond comfort and security.”

“I realize I would make those mistakes again,” he said. “They weren’t mistakes. They were the only real choices I ever made. … Those mistakes were when I aligned my life with what was already going on in the world. Yes, it cost me everything, but I gained the privilege of seeing God’s abundance defeat pharaoh’s scarcity.”

“I never reached the Promised Land, but I spent my whole life moving toward it, and that was enough,” he said.

Stepping out of character and then back into it, Larson told the moderators that as they return to their mid councils, “you will encounter your own burning bush. Maybe someone is going to offer you the tools of empire.”

“When you see that burning bush and the empire says, ‘take my tools,’ make my mistakes. Ask the questions. Dig deeper. Get involved. Take on other people’s problems. Stand with the oppressed and refuse to play by pharaoh’s rules or pick up pharaoh’s tools.”

“It will cost you something, but you will spend your entire life moving toward the Promised Land,” he said. “Friends, even from this side of the mountain, I can tell you it’s enough. It’s more than enough. I’d make the mistakes again. Go and make it so.”