“Short Stories, Lasting Calls” Part 3: Jethro

July 9, 2023 — Ordinary Time

Exodus 18:1-27

Pastor Mike

Moses is an example of one of the Bible’s major characters. He is the main character of nearly all of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, and tradition once credited him with writing all of those books as well as Genesis. Moses led God’s people during their escape from Egyptian slavery and their forty years of wilderness wandering. He went up into the dark cloud of Sinai to receive the law, and he came down the founder of the Jewish religion. And Moses didn’t just serve God – he knew God. God “would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks with a friend” (Exod. 33:11, NLT). Moses and his legacy changed the world forever.

But Moses was not always so powerful or confident. He nearly died as an infant because, in Egypt where he was born, Pharoah had ordered his people to murder all the newborn Israelite boys. In a last-ditch effort to save him, Moses’ mother had placed him in a basket in the reeds of the Nile River. When he was discovered by Pharoah’s daughter, she took pity on him, even though he was a Hebrew, and raised him as her own son in Pharoah’s house. Many years later, when Moses was an adult, he lost his temper and killed an Egyptian man who was beating an enslaved Hebrew. He buried the body but the news got out, and Pharoah tried to arrest him.

These two things biographical details are all we’re told of Moses’ origins: he was caught awkwardly between his people’s oppression and the privileged house in which he’d been raised, and he murdered someone. Moses attempted to get away from all this by fleeing to the land of Midian. When he got there, he met and married his wife Zipporah, became a solitary shepherd, and tried to forget about his pain.

I offer all this background about Moses because, to really understand Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, we have to understand that Jethro entered Moses’ life at a time when Moses had lost his way. He came to Midian as a fugitive, spiritually rattled and socially estranged. Who was he? What was his purpose? Moses had no clue. But, for the first time in his life, another man entered the picture who took Moses under his wing and gave him what he needed: exposure to a spiritual life, time and space to figure things out, steady work to do, and a family to belong to.

Jethro was a priest. No one knows which gods he served (likely several) but his spiritual sensitivity seems to have been authentic, because on multiple occasions he affirmed Moses’ experience of Yahweh and was proud of Moses’ religious path. I’m guessing here, because the Bible doesn’t say it outright, but I bet that in those silent, glossed over years that Moses spent in Midian, Moses learned some things from Jethro about prayer, ritual, and spiritual awareness. After all, it was while shepherding Jethro’s flocks that Moses had his burning bush encounter and met the God of his ancestors, the “I am who I am.” Who are we to say that Jethro wasn’t also attuned to something good and true in that God-touched wilderness?

By the eighteenth chapter of Exodus, which Lou has read for us, the plot has gone into overdrive and a lot of drama has unfolded. With Jethro’s blessing (Exod. 3:18-19), Moses responded to God’s call, went back to Egypt, assailed the Egyptians with plague after plague, led the Hebrew people out of slavery, crossed the Red Sea into the wilderness, and drowned Pharaoh’s army in the river. God had shown up for the people through miracle after miracle, but things were starting to cool off. The newly freed Israelites, brand new to the hardships of nomadic life, had started to complain about the discomforts of wilderness living. It’s now occurring to Moses that his job as the people’s leader is just getting started. He has to make sure they don’t starve or fall apart or lose focus. Meanwhile, back in Midian, Jethro hears about all this wild stuff that’s happened, and he sets off to reunite with Moses and get the story from the source.

Which brings us to the text at hand. Sometimes, a way toward interpreting a scripture is noticing words that get repeated. In this chapter, the Hebrew word shema shows up three times: in verse 1, verse 19, and verse 24. Shema is the verb for hearing, listening. But the Old Testament uses shema to describe the pivotal act which binds God and human beings in relationship, and it transcends physical hearing. Shema means taking what we hear to heart, letting God’s Word touch and transform us. There’s a verse in the New Testament book of James that calls Christians to not just be hearers but doers of the Word. That concept is derived from Christianity’s Jewish roots of shema. Shema is in the commandment that creates God’s people: “Listen, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength. And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I am giving you today” (Deut. 6:4-6). When we receive a word with such intensity and sensitivity that it changes us, we shema.

So this is an important word to notice any time it appears, but especially here where it’s repeated three times, marking three distinct movements of the story.

In verse 1, Jethro “heard about everything God had done for Moses and his people.” Shema. Jethro left Midian and traveled to Moses in order to learn more about this God who had proved to be greater than all other gods. Even though Jethro was a seasoned priest, a man familiar with spirituality and religion, with more experience in these things than Moses, he was excited by this new revelation. He goes to Moses and listens to Moses’ story. Jethro is changed by what he hears: He celebrates with Moses, praises God, offers sacrifices, and holds a sacrificial meal “in Yahweh’s presence.” Jethro is the first to shema. He hears something new about God, something surprising about his son-in-law, something startling about what’s unfolding in a land not his own, and he allows what he hears to change him.

The next morning, after all the storytelling and celebrating, Moses re-enters the daily grind of his work as judge over the people’s disputes. (Poor Moses, agreeing to settle arguments only to realize that that job would take up every waking hour of his day. People are people no matter where they are, I suppose…) When Jethro sees how overwhelming this work is, how little Moses can actually lead the people or take care of himself because all his time is tied up in handling disputes, he realizes that Moses is headed for burnout fast. “Why are you trying to do all this alone?” he asks. “This is not good!” Now, here we go with the second shema. Jethro invites Moses to listen to him, to hear what he has to say and consider the counsel he has to offer. Jethro then lays out a plan for delegating work.

The final shema shows up in verse 24, after Jethro’s speech, and the whole verse really captures the essence of shema. “Moses listened [shema] to his father-in-law’s advice and followed his suggestions.” He hears Jethro, trusts Jethro’s seasoned wisdom, and puts the advice into practice. Doing this saves Moses from burnout and bitterness. It sets him free to be the leader the people actually need, a man who has time to listen to God. It sets him on course to lead for for decades, not just for a brief flash. And let’s make sure we note, as Jethro noted, that delegating work in this way is good for long-term health of the people, too. A worn-out leader is unhealthy for the community.

Jethro heard. Then he asked to be heard. Then he was heard. Shema, shema, shema. It is as if we must really listen to others if we’d like them to listen to us.

I’d like to lay out three directions you might take this story of mutual listening, and in each of them there’s something helpful for thinking about God’s call on our lives.

You might take this story as a story about leadership. Jethro comes to Moses in the narrow gap between the exodus out of Egypt and the reception of the divine law on Mt. Sinai. Moses is pivoting from his role as liberator to his role as pastor. But all his waking moments are spent trying to get arguments settled. Jethro’s words are perfectly timed and perfectly direct: “You’re going to wear yourself out – and the people, too” (v. 17). Jethro is telling Moses that he will not make it if he keeps holding onto all the work and bearing all of the burden by himself. Moses was able to go up the mountain to talk with God because Jethro had helped him loosen his control over other affairs. But here’s the crucial piece: Jethro earned this right to give advice. Moses heard Jethro, because Jethro first heard Moses. Jethro was excited about Moses’ unfolding journey; Jethro knew that Moses was never coming back to Midian to watch his sheep. He laid all that aside and was able to receive Moses as Moses.

Maybe you’re called to act as a wise resource, a leader, for those of us in the daily grind of leadership. And if that’s you, you earn our trusting ear by taking our experiences of God and life seriously, with a spirit of celebration and excitement.

The second place we could apply Jethro’s story is to the perennially difficult nature of intergenerational relationships. Jethro, the older man, learns something about God from Moses. Moses, the younger man, learns something about life and leadership from Jethro. The order here matters. Can I tell you a secret: young people – whom I will boldly count myself among – do actually long for meaningful relationships with our elders. There are certain words that we need to hear spoken to us, certain words that we can and will in fact receive from those farther down the road. But a problem arises when the elders expect to be heard while having no interest in hearing the young. Remember, this is shema. It’s not just going through the motions of listening, but listening in a way that changes your life. Great power is unleashed when an older, wiser, more experienced person stays invested in the younger generation; when they hear first, and then ask to be heard.

If you’re of an older generation, Jethro reveals a wonderful dimension to your call no matter what the specifics of it are. You can be a voice of wisdom in the life of a young person who is just beginning to live out their purpose. The only condition is that you earn their trust by listening to their story and celebrating their unique experience of God.

The final thing we can learn from Jethro – also the broadest, simplest, and most important thing – is that none of us can live our calling alone. We are not meant to go through life by ourselves. We are not meant to forge our own way without the help of others. We will wither, like a leaf burned up in the hot summer sun. We need people ahead of us to set us straight, affirm our call, and guide us; we need people alongside us to share the load and remind us how to take care of ourselves as we go. Our callings, just like our lives, are not self-sustaining, and they cannot be carried alone. We’ll wear ourselves out, and we’ll do harm rather than good to the very people we are called to serve.

Every once and a while, the purpose God lays on us is to stand beside someone else and help them they live their purpose. Sometimes God calls us to become the reason one of our brothers or sisters is able to endure. As Jethro tells Moses, “They will help you carry the load” (v. 22).

We all need people to help us carry the load. Jethro is our example. He hears Moses. He sees Moses. He loves Moses. He helps Moses.

Then he returns to Midian, and we don’t ever hear from him again. But how different Moses’ ministry would have been, how inconceivable the whole existence of Judaism and Christianity, if Jethro had never pulled Moses aside and spoken, as father to son, the truth: “If you do this alone, you’ll never make it.”

Thanks be to God for Jethro. And thanks be to God for all who truly hear us, and, by hearing us, help us.

Amen.