Lessons in Leadership: Acceptance

https://youtu.be/CViSeTicNrs?si=17E_IgzwBMKeS7v7

Kingdomtide

Rev. Dr. David M. Oliver

First United Methodist Church

Massillon, Ohio

August 30, 2026

Texts: Exodus 3:1-15; Matthew 16:21-28

Opening Prayer: Almighty God, whose Word is authority and power and whose way is love, grant unto us clear minds, understanding hearts, and willing spirits so that we may wisely appropriate your Word of Truth. In the name of Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.

If you wish to complete the sermon listening guide in your bulletin, please take it out at this time.

We continue this morning with our series Lessons in Leadership. Last week we discussed power. Power is the ability to act. As people of faith we use our power to act for the benefit of others. God helps and empowers us to do this.   

Today, we look at the dynamic of acceptance—acceptance of God’s call and accepting the challenges that accompany that call.

As we saw and heard in the Exodus text, Moses was not looking for an encounter with God. He wasn’t seeking a way to get back to Egypt. This was God’s idea with Moses in mind. It was not Moses’ idea with God in mind. God took the initiative to seek out Moses and use his talents for the liberation of the Hebrews, God’s people, from 400 years of slavery in Egypt.

Let’s examine what happened more closely.

You may recall that Moses had grown up in the palace of the Pharoah, the leader of Egypt; at that time, the most powerful nation in the world. He had been well-educated. He was experienced in leadership. He was also sensitive to the living and working conditions of his fellow Hebrews who had been enslaved by Pharoah and were being treated unjustly.

However, things went sideways when Moses took matters into his hands and killed an Egyptian overseer who was beating a Hebrew slave. Despite having killed and hidden the body of the overseer, Moses’ deed was noticed by someone and made known to the authorities. Moses then fled his country. He had to abandon his life of privilege to go to a distant land, the land of Midian, between 250 and 440 miles away depending on where he went in the country.

Sometime later, Moses then met and married a Midianite women and took the job of tending the sheep of his father in law, Jethro,  who was a priest in Midian. He did this for forty years, traveling daily with the sheep in the desert to help them find food, water, and shelter.

One wonders if Moses was enjoying the scenery as he led the sheep that day. Did he bother to look at the majestic mountain pressing upward into the cloud-strewn sky? Did he see the wind-carved sandstone sculptures in the rocks that surrounded him?

We know that a strange sight caught his eye; a bush was ablaze with flame but was not consumed by the flame. We can thank God for that. Moses did not expect this encounter. He wasn’t looking for a new job. He wasn’t seeking a leadership position.

In fact, it’s safe to say that Moses didn’t want to be found. He was in self-imposed isolation, hiding out from the authorities back home who wanted him for murder. He had accepted his new life; his much diminished life, especially when compared to the splendors, ease, and pleasures of Egypt which had been his lifestyle growing up.

Despite his not wanting to be found, God found Moses. God got Moses’ attention through the bush that was burning but not consumed. The bush contained the fire of God but the source and sustenance of the flame was God.

When God saw that Moses turned aside to see that strange phenomenon, God called him by name. God said, “Moses, Moses…” This phrasing is known as a double vocative. I’ve spoken about it before. A double vocative is a sentence that uses two names or titles to address someone directly. It means pay attention!  Listen up!  It often carries strong emotion like anger, love, or deep respect.

God told Moses to remove his sandals. Taking off his sandals represented that this land, and Mt. Horeb in particular, which is also called Mt. Sinai, was holy ground belonging to God. It was a way of showing reverence, respect, and humility to God.

God then spoke to Moses and told him, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” The experience was so powerful and overwhelming that Moses hid his face for he was afraid to look at God.

God then proceeded to tell Moses that he had observed the misery of his people in Egypt. God had heard and empathized with their suffering. God told Moses that he had decided to deliver the Hebrews from the hands of their oppressors and bring them back to the land which would later become known as Israel, the promised land.

Moses must have been curious about all that God was saying. His curiosity turned to concern when God said, “Now go, I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt. But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt” (Exodus 3:10-11)?

Moses objections to God’s plans were based on him being a wanted man as well as his own sense of inadequacy. For forty years he had been leading sheep, not people. Suddenly, God was selecting him and not giving him much of a choice.

God wasn’t taking no for an answer. God said, “I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain” (Exodus 3:12).

Nevertheless, Moses persisted in raising objections saying, “If I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” ¹⁴ God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” He said further, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I am has sent me to you.’ ” God also said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you’: This is my name forever, and this my title for all generations (Exodus 3:13-15).

We know the rest of the story, at least most of it. Despite his murderous deed, despite his feelings of inadequacy, Moses accepted the call of God. As he made his way back across the desert to the land he had abandoned (but this time with a mission, an impossible mission to be sure), Moses must have rolled God’s name over and over in his mind with every sandy step. “I am who I am,” the voice had said. This phrase can also mean, “I will be who I will be.” Tell them, “‘I AM’ sent you. ‘I AM’ will be with you.”

Acceptance. We don’t know whether that is what Moses came to as he trudged out of his desert sanctuary and headed back to the scene of his crime. But somewhere along the line, he claimed the call laid on him there in the glow of the burning bush. Somewhere in the courts of Pharaoh, Moses accepted what he was there to do. Somewhere in the face of the rejection and suspicion from his own people, somewhere with an army behind and an impassible sea before him, he accepted the burden and the joy of being where God wanted him to be. It can’t have been an easy process, this coming to acceptance. It rarely is. Just ask Peter about whom we read in Matthew 16.

Fresh off his Gold Star honor for being the one with the insight and courage to name Jesus as the Messiah of God, he ran full bore into the brick wall of implications. What should have been a celebratory moment of high fives and backslaps, Jesus turned into a shocking story of a desolate future. The keys to the kingdom were still burning a hole in Peter’s pocket even as he listened to Jesus talk about immanent torture, suffering, execution and death.

It’s no wonder that Peter exploded with objections. It would have been hard to take. This wasn’t what anyone expected from the Messiah. This wasn’t the script that had been coming to life in the back of Peter’s mind from the moment it occurred to him that Jesus really was the Son of God. His script had victory at the forefront. It had power and authority; it had making things right and overthrowing the oppressors. It had relief for the suffering and reclaiming Israel’s right to exist, thriving in this homeland that had been given by God. Not torture and execution.

Matthew doesn’t tell us everything that Peter said to Jesus when he pulled him aside to rebuke him. The Greek word that Matthew uses is epitimao, which means rebuke, or warn, or strongly admonish. We don’t know what words Peter used to admonish Jesus, but I suspect it started with, “You are the Messiah; the Son of the living God!” Peter found it incredulous that although Jesus was the Messiah, he had such a fate waiting for him. “God, forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.”

“This must never happen to you.” In that moment, Peter stood in the way of everything that Christ had come to do: to show sacrificial love, to show the vulnerability of true power, to live out the way of service and surrender.

Any thread of faith that centers worldly power over sacrificial service, nation over humanity, supremacy over equality, is satanic; it is an adversary to the faith that Christ exemplified and asks us to model to the world in which we live. One wonders when Peter came to full acceptance about who this Christ really was. We are not told but we know it occurred and, in acceptance, Peter became a major leader in the emergence of the new Church.

Fast forwarding to today, just as with Moses and Peter, we all have unique calls. We share a mission to live as the body of Christ and to build the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven. The Council of Bishops recently articulated it this way. The mission of the United Methodist Church is, “to form disciples of Jesus Christ who, empowered by the Holy Spirit, love boldly, serve joyfully, and lead courageously in local communities and worldwide connections.”

No matter how we describe our mission, we can probably all agree that God’s work is never an easy ask. There are many barriers to loving boldly, serving joyfully, and leading courageously in our world.

The good news is that we are not alone; God is with us and has given us this church community to help us on our mission and journey of faith. We are committed to moving forward together with grace, acknowledging that some days acceptance of God’s call to leadership will seem difficult and beyond our ability.

This reminds of the saying, “God doesn’t call the equipped. God equips the called.” It is a good reminder that we don’t serve God in our power but rather with the power of God. With God’s help we lean on one another and with determination and courage we step into all that God has called and equipped us to be and to do as God’s leaders.

Speaking of leadership, I close with this encouraging thought. The Nominating Committee has met for two weeks. Phone calls have been made asking for people to accept roles of leadership on behalf of Christ, the ministries of this church, and the furtherance of God’s kingdom in Massillon and beyond.

Nearly all of the people we have asked have responded positively for which we are profoundly grateful. It takes all our hands and hearts working together to faithfully accomplish the work of the church.

When we were completing our grant application with the National Fund for Sacred Places, one of the things they asked was what percentage of your membership is involved in ministry. We added it up. The figure was 92%. That is unprecedented!  Across 47 years of ministry I haven’t seen that high a rate of involvement and investment until now.

As members of this congregation, you are not content to just be a name on the church roles. You eagerly and generously contribute your valuable time, money, wisdom, and energy. Thank you for your devotion to Christ and to this church. Acceptance of leadership responsibility is always an act of faith. It is evidence of heartfelt conviction and commitment. Jesus Christ asks for this kind of commitment. He expects this kind of commitment. He blesses this kind of commitment. He perfects this kind of commitment. He bears kingdom fruit through this kind of commitment. We see evidence of this in our midst and in our community involvements. Thanks be to God for the work God is doing in our hearts, through our lives, and our willingness to accept leadership.

Let us pray. God, you are the Great I AM. You called Moses and Peter. You call each of us. Thank you for equipping us to hear and answer your call. May we have fidelity and integrity in honoring your call personally and as a congregation. May our joy abound as we partner with you fulfilling our call. We ask these things in the mighty name of Jesus Christ, our Savior, Leader, and Lord. Amen.