Exodus 6:2-9:35
Ezekiel 28:25-29:21
Romans 9:13-26
Exodus 6:29-7:2 YHWH spoke to Moses, saying, I am YHWH. You speak to Pharaoh king of Egypt all that I say to you. (30) And Moses said before YHWH, Behold, I am of uncircumcised lips, and how shall Pharaoh listen to me? (1) And YHWH said to Moses, See, I have made you a god to Pharaoh. And Aaron your brother shall be your prophet. (2) You shall speak all that I command you. And Aaron your brother shall speak to Pharaoh, he will send the sons of Israel out of his land.
When God said, “I am YHWH,” he summed up half the book of Job in a single, short sentence. He said, “I am the God who is, was, and will be. I am the Creator, the Builder, the Founder, and the Destroyer. No one moves or breathes or dies without my knowledge. Nothing is beyond my authority and power.”
God called Moses, the inarticulate, murdering exile, to be the judge of Pharaoh, the most powerful man in his world. And Moses doubted. “But who am I to confront Pharaoh? I’m not a great orator. No one listens to me when I speak.”
Like so many of us, Moses didn’t believe it when God told him who he was. Every one of us have a divinely appointed role, and when we doubt, when we hold back, saying, “I could never do that!” we tell God that we don’t believe in him.
I’m not smart enough.
I have a terrible memory.
I’m not a people person.
I’m afraid.
I’m too shy.
I’m not a leader.
Many others are so much better then me.
It might hurt my business.
I don’t want to offend anyone.
I’m too strange already.
These have been my excuses. To every single one of them, God has the same response: “I am YHWH. Who are you to question me?”
Job 38:2-8 Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? (3) Now gird up your loins like a man; for I will ask of you, and you teach Me. (4) Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell if you have understanding! (5) Who has set its measurements, for you know? Or who has stretched the line on it? (6) On what are its bases sunk, or who cast its cornerstone, (7) when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy? (8) Or who shut up the sea with doors, when it broke forth as it came from the womb?
Do not fear. Do not hesitate. Do not doubt.
God knows who you are!
The Magen Korper is the symbol I have chosen to represent my house. I began using the Magen David with alternate points connected by arcs as a personal device more than twenty-five years ago, long before I had any conscious interest in the Hebraic roots of the Christian faith. Originally I used it in a series of stories I began writing in elementary school. In the course of my studies of marriage in the Torah, I became convinced that the Jewish tallit, the mantle of Elijah, and the household banners of the wilderness camps are all of the same type. They are emblems of a patriarch’s house and symbols of the authority which God has delegated to them. Deciding that my house should also have a symbol, I took this sign and added a Hebrew kof in the center to represent my family name of Carper. I call it Magen Korper instead of Magen Carper in honor of my family’s immigrant ancestor who spelled it so.