SCRIPTURE: Exodus 14:19-31
TEXT: 31Israel saw the great work that the Lord did against the Egyptians. So the people feared the Lord and believed in the Lord and in his servant Moses THEME: Severing ties with the past the people of God get to begin again. INTRODUCTION Three years of seminary, 40 years of pastoral ministry and decades of life experiences, keeps my theology evolving. I have a couple of friends who feed me articles, pod casts, webinars and books. Old Biblical stories are now revealing new punchlines. So I have taken a few children’s bibles and began writing down new observations and conclusions for the retelling of these familiar stories. For example, Krista Tippet on her On Being podcast interviewed Avivah Zornberg (Oct 6, 2011) : She describe the world that Noah lived in as one where people had lost connection with each other and God. Their lack of interpersonal communication with each other made them less than human. Although Noah finds favor with God, he is silent all throughout this saga. This loss of connection between humans may be why, when Noah is building an Ark in his garage; no one confronts him with curiosity, challenges him with building code or is concerned about how his collection of animals may affect their property values. Humans were isolated from each other, creating their own kind of chaos. So God deals with this human chaos with the “chaos of water,” a flood to reset human existence. The ark, becomes a box that contains the seeds for life to begin again. This chaos is repeated again in destruction of Pharaoh’s army in the Red Sea. The chaotic attempt of evil against God’s seeds of hope, are drowned in the chaotic waters of a flash flood refilling the Red Sea. God creates out of chaos, in order to create a new beginning for the people of God. SCRIPTURE What were the Egyptians learning about God, about their desires, and about their consecutiveness to humanity? God is all about relationships, When the Egyptians were pursuing the Israelites through the wilderness, they learned that God protected them with a pillar of fire and kept their location hidden from them with a cloud. They might have thought that God was not very good with directions, but their path kept the pursuing army off their scent as they travel south instead of north. And now with their backs against the wall, their God created a path right through the sea like the ocean does for Moana. As the Egyptian army follows them into the sea, They began to panic. Mud clogs their chariot wheels and as they tried to make it back onto shore, the sea closed up on them. There is something about Israel and the relationship they have with their God. God liberates slaves. The practice of slavery is wrong. The Israelites are not less than human but worthy of God’s attention. The Egyptian may have also thought that Moses was a little weird. What were the Israelites learning about God, about their desires, and about their consecutiveness to humanity? God listens to the Israelite’s cries even before they became prayers. God initiated an answer to their prayer for freedom that took years in the making. God is more powerful than Pharaoh and Pharaoh’s army. God protects, God provides, God leads, God liberates, and God Saves. The people of God are beginning to bond with each other with common experiences and with God. As slaves living on the edge of existence they are now free, with possibilities, even as they survive in the wilderness, The people of God are beginning to learn how to live with a God and with others in a community. In the next few chapters, the people of God will develop the values they need to build their future. APPLICATION When Egyptians die in Red Sea, it is like when God destroyed humans in the flood with Noah. It was because they had become disconnected with each other. “In the depths of the story of Noah, Avivah Zornberg finds a drama about language and civilization. The real crisis of human beings is, she says that “they have become so open that they are closed to one another.” Seeing the Hebrews, only as run away slaves loses Egypt’s connection between human beings. Blinded by rage, nationalism, loyalty to Pharaoh, the army pursues the Israelites to the sea floor. What does it mean to live in connection with God and in connection with others? No matter where we are, God is still speaking to us, and initiating something for our benefit. God will have a Noah, a Moses or a Jesus for us to follow. God will use us to participate in what God is doing and sometimes we will have to be the Noah or Moses to others. In what ever we are doing, there will be God Signs along the way to keep us on God’s way. Believe in God and then our faith will open us up to the signs of God along our journey; in answered prayers, chance meetings, how things work out, balanced check books, peace in chaos, healings, and when death passes over. The God who was there when they were slaves in Egypt, will be with them here in the wilderness. It is in the church, where we can Stay in contact with other humans and practice being on our best behavior, so we can do so in our most challenging situations. A community where there is acceptance and belonging. Last week I attend the activities of my 50th class reunion. I met articulate, interesting, accomplished people at each event. Then there were two people not from our class that were there. I asked who they were. One person was a kid from Kalaheo but went to Eleele Elementary school because that is where his mom taught. He graduated from Kauai High but they let him come. The other guy grew up in the camp town of Kaumakani but he graduated from Kamehameha Schools as a boarder in Oahu. He was invited and came to the picnic. Just because we graduated in 1973 from Waimea, or would have, or could have, they were accepted and included in our 50th reunion. This felt like church. Part of a loving caring community. CONCLUSION God seems to disregard Egyptian lives swallowed up in the Red Sea. Going back to Noah, and using this template, we have the chaos of the water, destroying the chaos of evil, with seeds of a new life preserved. God’s people have a chance at a new beginning. The old is gone, in order for something new to begin. The collapsing waters provides a pathway into the future, where the Egyptians threat is ended, but will later have their chance to join into the inheritance the Hebrews created with God. God cares about their lives too but in order for this to happen, Israel must survive their escape from Egypt and grow in their relationship with God. God has a long answer to this prayer. What we understand as a loss ends one chapter for a new one to begin. Pacific School of Religion offered a Certificated Theological Educational Leaders class on the Old Testament. As an assignment their professor had them write a poem following the crossing of the Red Sea (like the ones we find in the next couple of chapters from Moses and Miriam) from the Egyptian Army’s perspective. I didn’t take this class but found this as an interesting assignment; Clouds shelter them from the sun. A pillar of fire kept them warm from the cold. Who are these people? Who is this God that cares for them? They seem lost in the desert, But it is we who can’t seem to find them. They evade us at every turn. We will get our hands on them in the morning. The Red Sea will be their doom. In the morning light the fog has lifted, But they are on the other side. Rage, anger, frustration, fuel our pursuit Into the sea as fast as we can. But in our hast, Mud stops our progress. Foot soldiers amass around us, The congested chaos is now added to by the collapsing water. Our resolve has turned to fear As we know this is where it ends. Who are these people? Who is this God that cares for them
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SCRIPTURE: Exodus 3:1-15
TEXT: 10So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.’ THEME: INTRODUCTION The theme of God’s compassion will be featured in the next series of lectionary sermons. As we saw in first chapters of Exodus, when Israel fell under the harsh policies of racial discrimination, oppression and forced labor, God was sympathetic towards their sufferings. Compassion for children, human life, for others beyond their kind, thwart Pharaoh’s plans of systematic racism. Midwives, mothers and families risked their lives with acts of subversion. Moses was delivered, hidden away, released in an ark of hope and the compassion of Pharaoh’s daughter drew Moses out of the water. Moses’ mother was hired to nurse and care for him but later he was raised in Pharaoh’s household. Moses is a long answer to Israel’s suffering cries, that will take a few more years to unfold and develop. God will work through him to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. SCRIPTURE Several years later, after a series of events that lead Moses fleeing from Pharaoh, he finds himself in the land of Midian tending sheep. He leads his flock beyond the wilderness to Horeb, where God gets his attention. The ever-attentive God, who has been following the plight of the Israelites and their continued groans in Egypt piques Moses holy curiosity. Even when we are not paying attention, God is paying attention. Moses may have thought that he distanced himself from his past, his family, his people and escaped the sufferings of Egypt, but God uses unconventional means to get his attention and raise compassion in his heart, as God has for the Israelites. We all want a holy encounter like this burning bush and Holy Ground so we can know with certainty that this is what God wants us to do. But if we did, would we be like Moses and second guess God at the daunting task before us, be insecure at the abilities God thinks we are capable of, and wish that there was someone else that God could send instead of me? God see abilities in us, beyond what we see in ourselves and calls us to participate in God’s compassionate activity. Here’s the thing. Yes God has the power and the ability to do all of this stuff without us, but whose greater goal, is to have us join God and do it in and though us together, growing and deepening our relationship and knowledge of each other. So at creation there are Adam and Eve as partners in the skillful mastery of everything. Noah as an agent of new beginnings. The family of Abraham and Sarah as an example of what living in relationship with God looks like with our ups and downs, function and disfunction. And now when God’s people are subject to an evil beyond themselves, God wants Moses to participate in the acts of compassion that will lead to their liberation. It’s not the ground that is holy, but our encounter with God that is. This is how I know that God is Japanese (in case you were wondering). Moses had to go “hadashi” barefoot, as respect for entering in this small corner of God’s House. Called by God, Moses will go back to Egypt and ask Pharaoh for Israel’s freedom. The combination of experiences, people that he knows, his abilities, strength and God being with him, there is no one like Moses who will be able to do what God wants him to do. This is the same for us, for the callings we have from God to participate in the compassionate liberating God is doing. Our church may not have been a first responder to help the people in Lahaina, but we will be part of the long answer to that prayer, with help, care, and love. So far, we have been involved in several prayer services, we have given up our Hall to shelter the Red Cross volunteers, individuals have given to those they know, we are beefing up our food pantry for the long haul, we have resources from the Hawaii Conference and the National Church at our disposal. We have been contacted by trusted attorneys and architects who have offered their services to help. People will ask, “can we trust these people who want to help us?” We will say, “This is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,” in other words, “We know them, we trust them, you can trust them to.” God is using our unique combination of gifts and skills in the way that God has called compassion in our hearts to help. The answer to these cries of Israel lasted a generation. Pharaoh came to power and died. During that time Moses was born and has become a man, and it is only now that he receives a call to free the people of God. Some traditions have Moses at 80 years old at the burning bush. Too bad if you thought you were too old to receive a call from God. But this goes to show, how in our culture we want immediate answers to our prayers, but the reality is that some prayers take a life time as God works out and plans all of the details of a multifaceted answer. And while working all of this through the people God has called to participated in this. We have an ever-present God who is always working through the process of accomplishing what God wants, while including us in what ever God is doing. Oh yeah, one more thing, Israel has been in Egypt for 400 years. They must be very Egyptian by now, and in what God is doing, it will be towards the formation of the Israelites into the being the People of God. APPLICATION God calls us to participate in what God is doing. Sometimes what God is doing is beyond our comfort level. What does not mean that God is committed to work through us to accomplish what God wants? How does God’s compassion call us to overcome what we are afraid of? And what happens when prayer takes a long time to be answered? Our compassionate God hears our cries. God sees our suffering. God knows our misery. We may have had a burning bush experience once but God has our attention, and we are aware that God is always with us and present. We are more attentive to see God’s signs of compassion, provision, protection, love, help, compassion, and call to join God in what God is doing. We are not always the goal of the mission but called to join God in mission. CONCLUSION We have a compassionate God who is always present working for our good. When I was 8, I was asthmatic and spent the entire summer indoors. I was fed a diet of banana, hamburger with salt, peas, and rice. I prayed for my Asthma to go away. My family even moved away from the damp Hamakua Coast to dry Waimea on Kauai because they thought it might help my Asthma. I used to walk to the dispensary for shot once a week. I must have been in the 9th grade when I realized that I wasn’t asthmatic any more. It didn’t go away right away. There was no definitive moment when I was and I wasn’t. This prayer took years to be answered and I didn’t know that it was answered until I looked back at it. Last story, I was the band president of our Intermediate band. Washington Intermediate Band came to play a concert in Klum gym and I was appointed the task to introduce them. I was shy, introverted, and asked Mr. Suga the Music teacher repeatedly, “Isn’t there somebody else who can do this?” He said “no”, He might have said that I was capable and he knew that could do this, but I don’t remember that part. I borrowed Mr. Kajihara’s coat. And even at the last moment, as the band was setting up, I asked to be liberated from this public speaking, (which they say is one of the most fear producing things a person could do). Mr. Suga stood his ground and said “no.” He was not sympathetic to my anxiety. I suspect he knew me better than I did myself. I have no other memory about speaking in the mic or anything. But now I do this all of the time. God knows more about our own capabilities and overcoming our fears than we do. Just like Mr. Suga did. |
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April 2024
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