There is a local bookstore that I hate to shop at, not
because they don’t have anything I want—they have lots of things I want,
nothing I need—but because when I go up to pay, the cashier bombards me with a
dozen questions as they try and sell me on this and this and this.
“Do you have a membership with us?”
“No.”
“Would you like to sign up today? You would save ….”
“No.”
“Are you sure because ….”
“I’m sure.”
“You qualify today for three free magazine subscriptions.” Here they whip out the list from under the
counter. “Which would you like?”
“None, no thank you.”
“Are you sure?
They’re free.”
It’s the classic upsell.
And it’s obnoxious. It’s why
those self-checkout lanes are the best inventions ever.
We live in a world today where someone is always trying to
sell us on something. It’s the cashier
at Target. It’s the telemarketer on the
phone. It’s your own computer. If I look up a book on Amazon, thanks to the
cookies left behind on my computer, I am guaranteed to see advertisements for
that book everywhere.
And the more someone tries to sell me on something, the less
likely I am to buy whatever it is they are selling.
In today’s reading from Exodus, we see Moses and Aaron
forced to sell God to the Egyptians. The
world of Moses was filled with gods, hundreds and thousands of gods. You couldn’t just proclaim your god to be the
god and expect people to take you at your word.
Moses had to prove to the Egyptians that his god was supreme.
So, Aaron throws down his staff and it becomes a snake.
But then, Pharaoh orders his magicians to do the same and
poof, now you have a room of snakes.
Only then, Aaron’s staff swallows all the other snakes.
Still Pharaoh is unimpressed.
So, per God’s command, Moses has Aaron strike the river with
his staff and turn the water into blood.
The water becomes blood, kills the fish and becomes undrinkable, but
Pharaoh has seen his own magicians do the same and his heart remains
hardened.
What we don’t see in today’s reading is the rest of the story.
Plague after plague after plague grips Egypt, flies and
frogs, locusts and hail, dead livestock and still nothing moves Pharaoh until
the final plague, the death of all the firstborn children in the land of
Egypt. Exodus 12:30 tells us that “there
was not a house without someone dead.”
That’s what it took to sell Pharaoh on God.
What began with a staff turning into a snake, escalated to
the deaths of thousands.
That’s what it took to free the Israelites from slavery.
It was a very steep price to pay.
But now contrast that with what Paul tells us about selling
Jesus in today’s reading from 2 Corinthians.
Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 2:17, “For we are not peddlers
of God’s word like so many ….”
Look at the choice of word there … peddler. Peddler is the most common translation, but if
you look at other translations you will find this verse saying things like we
are not, “adulterating the word of God,” or “we are nothing like the others who
sell the word of God like a commodity” or (my personal favorite) the
translations that replace peddler with the word “huckster.”
Huckster. I love it.
In other words, Paul is saying if you are out there trying
to sell the world on Jesus, you will most likely be viewed as a huckster, as
someone who is not to be believed, not to be trusted.
Remember that Paul’s world was not all that different from
Moses’ world. Just replace Egyptian gods
with Roman gods and a whole bunch of random, other gods. There was a lot of competition and Paul knew
that if you tried to sell God and Jesus to the people, you would sound just
like everyone else trying to sell their god.
You could not sell Jesus and sound sincere.
But, fortunately, Paul writes, we don’t have to sell Jesus, because
we, ourselves, are living examples of Christ’s presence in the world.
We do not need physical proof. We do not need “letters” backing us up, because
the proof of who Jesus is, is written on our hearts, Paul writes, “with the
Spirit of the living God.”
We are all living, breathing, walking testimonies to the
power of God. All of us.
Because of Jesus, we don’t need to turn staffs into snakes,
or water into blood, or unleash plagues upon the earth.
This is what Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross bought us.
In the time of Moses, it took a plague that killed thousands
of firstborn Egyptians to convince Pharaoh of God’s power and to free thousands
of Israelites.
But God so loved the world, He made the greatest sacrifice,
His only son, His firstborn, to save billions for all eternity.
We don’t have to sell anyone on Jesus. Every last one of us is a sign of the
greatest gift, the greatest love ever shown.
The Spirit of God has been hardwired into us from the moment of Christ’s
death and resurrection.
Our job is to tell
the world the price Jesus has already paid for us.
Our job is to tell
the world that we are worth so much to God that there was not a price He
wouldn’t pay to save us.
Amen.
Wonderful mini-sermon!
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