Desert Scribblings

November 16, 2008 - Twenty-Seventh Sunday After Pentecost

Judges 4:1-7 - link to the NRSV text

Just as the wilderness narratives had a pattern of crisis-grumbling-providence-deliverance, the book of Judges often follows a pattern of its own: apostasy-oppression-cry for salvation-God raises up a judge.  And as the story goes on, the times of faithfulness seem to shorten while the periods of apostasy seem to lengthen.  The tribes continue this pattern and it gets progressively worse until the end of the book, when the tribes turn on each other and the land descends into civil war (cf. Judges 19-21).

This pattern begins to play out for this generation here in Judges 4:1: "The Israelites again did what was evil in the sight of the LORD," followed by the description of the oppression by Jabin of Canaan and his right-hand man Sisera and is said to have lasted twenty years.  So the Israelites cry out to God, and then we are introduced to Deborah.

Deborah is described as both prophetess and judge, much like Samuel would function as both prophet and judge later in Israel's history.  Functioning as the judge of Israel, Deborah summons Barak from Kedesh of the tribe of Naphtali and gives him some military instructions.

That is where the lection for the day ends, but to really get into it the rest of the story probably needs to be referenced.  In the verse 8, Barak argues that he will go only if Deborah goes as well.  This could very possibly be a editorial insertion to downplay female authority, for verse 7 seems to suggest that she would be leading a seperate force to lure Sisera into Barak's ambush.

This weakening of female power is emphasized by Deborah's assertation that because he asked this, then instead of him receiving the glory for victory it would be given to a woman (at this point, we would presume Deborah).  Battle ensues, with Sisera's troop trounced and Sisera himself fleeing only to find himself on the wrong end of Jael's tent peg (cf. 4:17-24).

The preacher could emphasize God using people the world would normally consider less-than-ideal (Deborah as judge, Jael as the one who defeats Sisera).  And that is a powerful story and one that needs to be heard.

But alternatively, in this day and time, someone could focus less on Deborah and Barak as the instruments of deliverance, but on Israel's apostasy and the pattern of neglect-trouble-need for deliverance.  Think about our financial crisis here in the states and globally.  Think about the rising demand for energy that will most likely occur in the decades to come.  

How are we contributing to these problems through "ungodly" living?  That is, living in ways that are not in harmony with God, with each other, and with the rest of creation?  What are we as people of faith doing or failing to do in order to point the world towards more harmonious life?  How have we "done evil in the eyes of the LORD" through how we use our money, time, and resources that have contributed to the economic situation?

Yet with that comes the word of comfort, that even when we do turn away and God turns us over to the consequences of our actions, God is there when we call and offers us new beginnings.  So the follow up question to "How have we done what is evil in the eyes of God?" is: "So how is God at work in the midst of these circumstances, and how can I be a part of that work like Deborah and Barak?"

Shalom,

Geoff

November 9, 2008 - Twenty-Sixth Sunday After Pentecost

Joshua 1-3a, 14-25

This Sunday is the last of the semi-continuous readings from the Hexateuch (the first sixth books of the Bible) and the next to last semi-continuous reading from the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible in Year A this liturgical year as Christ the King falls on November 23.

In this week's text, Joshua has finished allotting the various lands to their respective tribes; the Israelites are now the ruling power.  The LORD has delivered them from Egypt with a mighty hand and fulfilled the promise of long ago, the promise of a land that is their own.  Now Joshua, like Moses before him, begins to prepare the people for life without him.

"Then Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem" (Joshua 24:1).  Joshua has some important things to say to them, words of reminder and warning.

First, the reminder.  Again, much like Moses in Deuteronomy, Joshua reminds the people of God's work in the past: "Then I took your father Abraham from beyond the River and led him through all the land of Canaan and made his offspring many" (Joshua 24:3a).

But Joshua knows this people; he knows how fickle they are, how quick they are to despair and to turn away from the God of their salvation, and even though those fears will soon be played out and will be played out again and again in Israel's and Judah's history, still Joshua tries to impress upon them the need for them to not forget the reminder and thus exhorts them to make a choice.

Because Joshua recognizes a simple truth, one summed up well by Bob Dylan: "You're gonna have to serve somebody."

You will either serve the LORD God on your own interests, in this case represented by "other gods."  Other gods would have been attractive, I admit; they often promised good harvests, fertility, prosperity, favorable weather, etc.  All the comforts of ancient life, things to make a hard life easier if only you make the appropriate sacrifices and do the right rituals.  Service to these gods demanded comparatively little over and against the demands of the God of Israel.

The God of Israel demanded much more than just proper worship and ritual, but demanded justice within the community, concern for the poor, widow, and orphan, concern for the stranger, alongside proper religious practice.  As Amos would later put it (in a reading which is the OT reading for today in some alternate lectionaries):

I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.  Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals I will not look upon.  Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream (Amos 5:21-24).

Joshua knows that this God demands more of God's people.  "Choose this day who you will serve," Joshua says.  'Cause you're gonna have to serve somebody.

Some of us in the wake of the election are ecstatic and hopeful for the future, others are intensely uncertain and afraid of what an America under President Obama will look like.  Still, President-Elect Obama will be our President, and my prayers are with him, his family, and his administration just as they would have been with Senator McCain if he had won.

But I have made a choice of who I serve, and while I support the new President-Elect because he will be our leader, my ultimate allegiance is not to him or his party.  "But for me and my house," Joshua says, "we will serve the LORD."  No matter your party allegiance or who you voted for, if you call yourself a disciple of Jesus, you have a commitment and loyalty and servitude higher than any elected official.

I am a citizen of the United States of America, but I have a higher citizenship, one that trumps all other loyalties and oaths and promises, and that is to the kingdom of God that Jesus came to proclaim. 

My prayer for President-Elect Obama and for all our elected officials is that God's wisdom may be with them, will guide them, and that they be discerning, compassionate, and strong leaders.  But at the end of the day, I choose a higher, and in many ways harder, calling to serve not worldly interests alone like economic policy or national security or any number of important issues.  Instead, I serve a living God who demands justice, mercy and righteousness first and foremost.  As for me and mine, we will strive to serve the LORD.

Hopefully, our country will as well.

Shalom,
Geoff

November 2, 2008 - Twenty-fifth Sunday After Pentecost/All Saints Sunday

Joshua 3:7-17 - link to the NRSV text

"After the death of Moses the servant of the LORD, the LORD spoke to Joshua son of Nun" (Joshua 1:1).

Next Tuesday in the United States will mark the beginning of a new era, a new time in our country's history.  Regardless of one side's attempts to link their opponent to President Bush and argue that it will be more of the same (I will not go into whether that is true or not in this space), power will change hands.  A new administration will be selected and a new thing will begin.

The truth is that time and again, change happens.  At the beginning of the book of Joshua, that change is happening to the Israelites.  "After the death of Moses the servant of the LORD..."  Moses is dead, and they were soon to leave the wilderness areas they had known for a generation and enter into a new land.  Though they believed the land was a good land, the truth is there was probably a little uncertainty.  For while change is inevitable, and even when it is welcome and anticipated, change is also frightening.

"...the LORD spoke..."  Yet when change happens, when new eras emerge, when times are different, again God breaks in and speaks to God's people.  And not just that God speaks.  "...the LORD spoke to Joshua son of Nun..."  God speaks to people and does not just blindly shout into the chaotic whirlwind of this world.

After centuries of slavery, God spoke to Moses.  Now, God speaks to Joshua.  Down the road, time and again, God will speak to the judges.  God will speak to Samuel.  The word of the LORD continues to break in and interrupt the way things are going in order to announce that God is doing something new.

Which sets the stage for Sunday's reading in chapter 3.  The LORD says to Joshua (there's that speaking thing again!): "This day I will begin to exalt you in the sight of all Israel, so that they may know that I will be with you as I was with Moses."

Joshua needs a pedigree.  He's got a little clout, he was Moses' side-kick for a good long while after all.  Back in chapter 1, the Israelites had banded behind Joshua (see 1:16-18), but maybe there were some murmurings.  This people had shown their ability to turn from their leader in a heartbeat before, after all, and Joshua needs to shore up his credientials.

So God says to Joshua, "You are the one who will command..." (3:8, emphasis mine).  No longer is it Moses' responsibility, but it nows falls to Joshua.  It is now his job to give the commands, to lay the course, to see it through, and here God is reminding Joshua of that responsibility.

But it does not all fall on Joshua, for the reason for this event is not just about Joshua but a reminder to the people who is their true leader.  Sure, Joshua is the face and name, but it is the LORD who goes before them and to prove to them that God will remain with them even without Moses there.  As Joshua puts it: "By this you shall know that among you is the living God" (3:10).

As leadership changes hands, as new eras begin, as the future unfolds, who goes with us?  Who is among us?  Or more correctly, who do we know is among us?  Will we despair if our desired canidate is not elected as we want, or do we cling to a higher hope that in all times and among all leaders the living God is among us and continues to speak?

"After the death of Moses...the LORD spoke to Joshua..."  O LORD, speak to us again and remind us that you, the Living God, are truly among us in all things, in all times, and in all ways.  Amen.

Shalom,
Geoff

October 5 – Twenty-First Sunday After Pentecost

Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20 - link to the NRSV text

There are many iconic images and stories in the Bible that shape our imaginations, but few rival this Sunday’s reading from Exodus, which is the giving of the Ten Words (or Commandments) to Moses on top of Mount Sinai.  For Jews and Christians alike, it is a formative theological memory, and the Ten Words themselves are foundational teachings that inform moral behavior.

All that being said, sometimes iconic texts are the hardest to preach because they come with so much baggage.  To quote Alan Rickman’s character the Metatron, the Voice of the Almighty from Kevin Smith’s Dogma: “Tell a person that you're the Metatron and they stare at you blankly. Mention something out of a Charlton Heston movie and suddenly everybody is a theology scholar.”  We assume that, “Yeah, the Ten Commandments.  I know those things [Note: Well, maybe not].  I know what they mean.  How can I not?  I’ve been hearing about them my whole life.”

But often what we think we know about a text gets in the way of what the text is actually trying to communicate.  At first glance the Decalogue seems to be a list of regulations, and that’s what we assume they are, a list of do nots.  But maybe they are more like a framework through which life,
specifically life with God, is interpreted.

Jewish tradition about the Decalogue gets this in a way that post-Pauline Christianity has seemed to have lost.  For many Christians, the Ten Words are “law” vis-à-vis the gospel or good news of God revealed in Jesus and even though we’ll still think following them is a good thing, they are seen as something distinct from the concept of God’s grace, as things that we as humans have failed to live up to and thus we need saving.

But in Jewish tradition, the Ten Words are a response to grace.  The Jews traditionally order their commandments differently; what the Jews regard as the first commandment or word, many Christians just dismiss as a prologue or introduction to the commandments.  But in Jewish tradition, the first commandment is not to have “no other gods before me,” but is instead: “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the  land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery"  (Exo 20:2).

In other words, the first word of life with God is to, “Remember what God has done for you!”  All the other commandments flow from this, even the commandments about relations with other human beings because they flow out of response to God’s goodness.  Those that had been slaves in Egypt have been liberated and thus are called to a new allegiance, a new bondage to the one that has provided for them so graciously, and these Ten Words define what life with this new lord and master shall look like.

And note that life with God is defined by a dual relationship, a relationship with God and with other people.  Jesus noted this when he refused to separate the commandments to “Love God with all that you are” and to “love your neighbor as yourself.”  But that principle is traced back here, to the Ten Words, these foundational spoken commands from the liberating and life-providing God of Israel.

In many ways, the rest of Torah is a working out of what living out these Ten Words looks like in everyday life and is a continuing, on-going process of reflection and discernment in the midst of life’s toils and troubles.  The Jewish rabbis frequently understood that Torah observance must shift according to new times and contexts, and I think this principal is found in the character of the Decalogue.  For the Decalogue defines the boundaries of faithful living, but does not provide the answer to how this is to be lived out.

What does it mean to hallow the Sabbath and to rest?  How is an image defined?  What does it mean to honor your parents?  These and other questions are the work of discernment and God’s working in the community of faith to guide God’s people to faithful observance.

But first and foremost is the word: Remember!  Remember what has been done. "I am the LORD, your God, who brought you out of Egypt, up from a house of slavery."This is the Word on which all faithful living is formed and founded, that God has already done so much on our behalf.  How will we respond?

Shalom,
Geoff

September 21, 2008 – Nineteenth Sunday After Pentecost

Exodus 16:2-15 - link to the NRSV text

 

Last week I spoke about the pattern that is repeated several times in the wilderness narratives of crisis-grumbling-providence-deliverance, and this pattern shapes the narrative for this Sunday.  The Israelites, so recently saved from slavery and delivered through the sea, are quick to turn and doubt that the God who had performed such wondrous and awe-inspiring deeds of power would be unable to provide for their most basic needs.

 

And so the people grumbled “against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness” (Exo 16:2).  “If only God had killed us back in Egypt!” they despair.  “Why, back in Egypt we had plenty of food!  You’ve only brought us out here to die from hunger.”

 

The present often seems worse than the past.  We often romanticize the “days of yore” and think of them as better than now.  We especially see this is the American church; while dealing with declining membership and people’s suspicions of apathy towards the Christian faith, we think back to when everyone just went to church because it was “what you did.”  And we assume that this was better.  Maybe it was better, maybe not. 

 

Or we think back and look at society and culture and think things were so much better than.  People were more polite, you didn’t have to lock your doors, everything was closed on Sunday, no school would ever schedule activities on Wednesday nights, etc.

 

I could go on and on about the things we think were “better” back in the previous times.  But I think the main reason we romanticize the past is that we know that we can get through the past whereas the present and future is still undecided.  Kind of a “better the enemy you know” way of thinking; sure, it wasn’t perfect but at least we know we could get through it.

 

The God of Israel, however, is not a God of the past.  This God is a God of the present and future, one who calls us to new places and new ways of being in relationship with God and with each other.  Jesus himself hinted at this idea when he taught, “[H]ave you not read what was said to you by God, 'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'? He is God not of the dead, but of the living” (Matthew 22:31-32; cf. Mark 12:26-27, Luke 20:37-38).

 

Here in his teaching on resurrection, I believe Jesus is pointing to a fundamental characteristic of this God: that this God is one that seeks life and renewal over death and stagnation.  It might seem self-evident, but I know in the church we often do live this teaching out very well, clinging stubbornly to our pasts to the detriment of our future.

 

And in this story of bread from heaven, we are reminded that while the future may be uncertain God does not send us to a place where we will not be provided for.  As God tells Moses, “I am going to rain bread from heaven for you, and each day the people shall go out and gather enough for that day” (Exo 16:4).  God will provide us what we need to go on, to live and to survive in our wilderness places.  It is a promise that God will be with us daily, providing us what we need to get by, whether this “bread from heaven” is physical or spiritual food.

 

And lastly, how God provides may be in ways that we don’t recognize at first and we’re unsure what God is at work doing.  The Israelites, when they went out to gather, the found what the text describes as “a fine flaky substance, as fine as frost on the ground” (16:14).  And the Israelites look at it, then each other and ask, “Okay.  So what is it?”  And Moses answers, “It is the bread God has provided you to eat.”

 

Where are those gifts and blessings God has sent that we don’t immediately recognize?  What are some of the things we have that we haven’t realized is God’s doing in order that we might be people of life and love and not people dragged down by what always was?  Were is God raining “bread from heaven” in your life and in the life of your church or family or community in order that it might find its way forward in the wilderness, away from the past of bondage and into a new day of life with God?

 

As Jesus taught his disciples to pray, so we too pray this day: “Give us today our daily bread,” whatever form that bread might take in order that we can be the liberated people of God.

 

Shalom,

Geoff

September 14, 2008 – Eighteenth Sunday After Pentecost

Exodus 14:19-31 - link to the NRSV text

Fear is a reality that we all must deal with in some way.  Personally, heights scare me out of my mind.  Rationally, I knew when I stood on the top of the Empire State building in high school that there was practically no way I could fall off, but I still could not get myself to physically step through the door and outside onto the terrace area.  I spent fifteen minutes trying to work myself up to go through those doors, but I literally could not make myself do it.

 

Some fears, like mine at the Empire State Building, are irrational.  Others are very rational.  Jews in Germany during the Nazi regime had legitimate reason to fear for their lives and the lives of their loved ones.  People living in Iraq or Afghanistan or other war-torn areas of the world surely experience at least uncertainty if not fear at what could possibly happen at any moment with very little to no warning.  Franklin Roosevelt once famously remarked that we have nothing to fear but fear itself, and while it’s a great sound bite most people know that there are things out in the world that do cause fear in the hearts of human beings.

 

In our reading from Exodus this morning, we have the famous story of Israel’s final deliverance from the hand of Pharaoh and the start of their journey into covenant relationship with God.  The story functions as a bridge; in some ways, its themes echo themes found in the stories of the plagues, with Pharaoh’s heart being “hardened” or “stiffened” (Exo 14:8) and the idea of the LORD being made known to Pharaoh (7:17), the Egyptians (7:5, 14:4,18), or Israel (10:2).

 

More properly, however, the story is a part of the wilderness tradition, setting the stage for themes of the uncertainty of the Israelites and God’s deliverance and providence.  Throughout the plague narratives, Israel takes on a mostly passive role, and Pharaoh and Moses (with his side-kick Aaron) are the main players.  Pharaoh and Egypt however become passive in this story, almost secondary as the main drama plays out between God, with Moses as God’s representative, and Israel.

 

The usual pattern follows something along this line: 1) uncertainty or fear over a threat or crisis, 2) the people grumble at Moses, 3) God through Moses provides, and 4) the crisis is averted.  This rough pattern appears (by my count) at least three more times before the giving of the covenant and the Ten Commandments in chapter 20: Exodus 15:22-27 (the bitter water), 16:1-15 (bread from heaven), and 17:1-6 (the water out of the rock).  You can possibly also interpret 17:8-16 in this pattern with the threat of Amalek against the Israelites, and the Golden Calf story in 32:1-14 could be understood as an attempt by the people to replicate this pattern with Aaron when they feared for Moses’ fate on the top of Sinai.

 

In this case, the threat or crisis is the oncoming Egyptian army, and the Israelites are afraid as one could well imagine.  In reaction, they turn on Moses (the grumbling) and ask, “Was it for want of graves in Egypt that you brought us to die in the wilderness?” (Exo 14:10 NJPS).  Moses instead implore the Israelites to have faith in the God that has already brought them this far.  “The LORD will battle for you,” he argues.  “Hold your peace!” (14:14 NJPS).

 

And so the stage is set for God’s providence and action; the author of the story is working out of the theology of the divine warrior, understanding the LORD as the one who will fight on behalf of Israel against the one who threatens their existence, i.e. Pharaoh. 

 

So God’s angel and the pillar of cloud cut off the Egyptians’ advance and darkness came upon the sky (14:19-20) and then comes the famous cinematic moment: the parting of the sea.  The Israelites are able to cross the muddy ground, but the Egyptians chariots (the very thing that most likely gave them their overwhelming military advantage) are unable to follow and turn to flee but are swept up in the waters

 

And so the fear of the Israelites is relieved and replaced by the fear of the LORD.  This fear, however, is not a fear where one trembles and cringes, but is an awe-struck, overwhelmed sense of wonder at what God has done.  To fear the LORD in biblical language is less about fearing God’s wrath and more about having respect and acknowledgement for God’s power and authority.

 

There are troubling aspects to this story, just as there are in the plague narratives earlier in the book and in the “holy war” stories that follow.  But in terms of this particular story, there is a point where evil must be defined as evil and must be dealt with.  Within the context of Exodus, Pharaoh had dug his own grave.  Time and again he was given the chance to end the conflict without it coming to this point, and instead pursued the Israelites blind to the LORD’s admonitions and warnings through the plagues.

 

I talked about this before when I blogged on the flood narrative, the tension between God’s love and mercy with God’s righteousness and justice.  Evil must be judged and something must be done about it.  Miroslav Volf puts it incredibly well in his book Exclusion and Embrace, which I have referred to on this blog before:

If Augustine was right that “the city of this world…aims at domination, which holds nations in enslavement” and “is itself dominated by that very lust for domination” (Augustine, The City of God, I, Preface), then God must be angry.  A nonindignant God would be an accomplice in injustice, deception, and violence…God will judge, not because God gives people what they deserve, but because some people refuse to receive what no one deserve; if evildoers experience God’s terror, it will not be because they have done evil, but because they have resisted to the end the powerful lure of the open arms of the crucified Messiah (Volf, Exclusion and Embrace, 297-98).

 

The crossing of the sea is a story that transitions a people from fear to awe, from doubt to faith, from cries of despair to shouts of joy and worship.  It is because of the God who heard their cries of injustice and has delivered them that they now can sing and dance with joy, liberated for a new life and new purpose.  It is the LORD who turns fear into joy, who delivers us from those dark places of enslavement and exile and brings us through the deep into a new dawn.

 

The Song of the Sea in chapter 15 sums it up well:

I will sing to the LORD, for he has triumphed gloriously;

    horse and rider he has thrown into the sea.

The LORD is my strength and my might,

    and he has become my salvation…

Who is like you, O LORD, among the gods?

    Who is like you, majestic in holiness,

    awesome in splendor, doing wonders? (Exodus 15:1-2a, 11)

 

Who indeed?  Amen.

 

Shalom,

Geoff

September 7, 2008 - Seventeenth Sunday After Pentecost

Exodus 12:1-14 - link to the NRSV text

How we keep time says a lot about our priorities.In his book Introduction to Christian Worship, James White offers these observations:

The way we use our time is a good indication of what we consider to be of prime importance in life.  We can always be counted on to find time for those things we consider most important though we may not always be willing to admit to others, or even to ourselves, what our real priorities are…Time talks.  When give time to others, we are really giving ourselves to them…Time, then, is a definite representation of our priorities.  We reveal what we value most by how we allocate this limited resource.

            The same is true of the church.  The church shows what is most important to its life by the way it uses time.  Here again the use of time reveals priorities of faith and practice.  One answer to What do Christians believe? Could be, look at how they keep time! (White, Introduction to Christian Worship, 49).

 

So I don’t think that it is just an afterthought that the Torah is concerned with time and how the Israelite people were to keep it.  At the heart of this concept of “holy time,” represented in our text for the day from Exodus concerning the institution of Passover, is a fundamental reality: the story of faith is not something to be remembered but something to be enacted.

 

When I first read the text for this week, I scratched my head.  The story read as if someone took the instructions for how to prepare for Passover and wedged them in the middle of the story about God warning Moses about the last plague, the death of the first-born.  This is reinforced by v. 21 and following, where Moses repeats all those instruction for a second time in the chapter.  And the part that struck me as the strangest was God commanding the observance of this festival “throughout your generations” (v. 14) even before the event ever happened.

 

Now, by inner historical-critical voice tells me the historical-critical answer: that the compilers of the Torah took the Passover commands and tied them to the Passover narrative.  But theologically that answer doesn’t quite suffice.

 

By tying the event and the instructions together, by putting them side-by-side, I believe that the author(s) of this text are suggesting something more than just incorporating priestly law into the narrative, but making a fundamental claim about the way we are to live out the life of faith.  It is a reminder to us that our faith story is not just something that occurred “back then,” but is something we live out now.

 

The instruction to observe Passover is at its heart a reminder for the later generations to remember the story and to instruct, encourage, and incorporate the story into their own faith story.  Christians do the same in our observations of Christmas and Easter, and even when we observe the sacrament of the Eucharist and retell the story of God’s activity in and through Jesus of Nazareth.  The language of the Eucharistic prayer is the language of “we” and “us,” not language about “them,” or in other words “those that came before.”

 

The command to remember, be it in the Passover celebration or in the Eucharist or in the observing of any religious celebration, is at its heart a command to make the past reality our present reality, to incorporate the story of those that have gone before into our own story.

 

Our priorities are shaped by our time, and thus the command to observe the Passover or other festivals of remembrance shapes our lives and gives them a contour that emphasizes God’s place in our story.  It is a meeting between God and ourselves within time in order that we might remember our true calling, to be God’s people shaped by God’s story and redeemed by God’s love.

 

Shalom,

Geoff

August 31, 2008 - Sixteenth Sunday After Pentecost

Exodus 3:1-15 - link to the NRSV text

NOTE: Sorry about the delay to Thursday afternoon, it's been a weird week.  A little shorter, more reflective post this week.  Blessings and peace!

“Here I am.”

Oh, how dangerous those words are!  I’ve been thinking about these words, about what it means to respond.  There are a lot of preachers here in the south of the United States that love altar calls, and there is often an assumption that if someone has experienced God then, well, of course they’re going to respond!

And for those of us in the church, for those of us who are clergy or lay leaders, boy do we wish more people would respond in faith.  We watch time after time, opportunity after opportunity to growth in faith or step out in service or to turn from destructive and hurtful behavior and attitudes and watch as people just keep on going as if everything is fine.  And so we get frustrated, we get desperate, and even sometimes we get discouraged.

But in the church, we must also remember this: responding to God’s call is not something to be taken lightly.  Here I am.  Dangerous, frightening words; words that lead us forward in new, uncertain directions.  Words that may even send us back into the clutches of Pharaoh, into the places that we most fear.  Responding to God’s call leads us into fearful places where we do not necessarily know what might happen.

That day, when Moses sees the bush and hears God’s call, the phrase slips from his lips almost as if it was second nature, a single word in Hebrew: hinneni.  Here I am.  And Moses didn’t know the world he was about to step into.  And I wonder if Moses didn’t stop and think maybe he should watch what he says just a little bit more.

The danger is heightened later in the story when Moses begins trying to weasel his way out of God’s command for him to go down to Egypt: “Well, what if I get down there and they ask me, ‘What god sent you again?’ what do I tell them?  What’s your name?”  In the ancient Near East, to know and use a god’s name was to invoke its power.  Thus Moses is asking, “What do I call you so that I can use you to help?”

God’s answer, however, is one that may very well have been frightening when uttered.  “I am that I am.”  Or maybe better translated, “I will be what I will be.”  In other words, this God is not a god to be controlled, contained, invoked on a whim but a boundless God, one who will be whatever and will do whatever that God desires.  I will be what I will be.

And yet, this is the call that people over the centuries have heard call and have given the answer, “Here I am,” and gone to places and done things that they and the world probably never could have imagined on their own.  It is this God, untamable, uncontrollable, sending us places that we never would walk if it was strictly up to us, that is calling and commanding.

Moses, weak, stuttering, uncertain Moses that wouldn’t go down to Egypt without someone to hold his hand…Moses goes.  And in going, Moses is transformed.  For the promise that Moses heard that day from the bush was one that would sustain him.  It was a promise that this dangerous, uncertain God who calls us to dangerous, uncertain things does not abandon us to them.  The same promise that was in the covenant to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob whom God recalls to Moses is the God that again promises, “I will be with you” (Exo 3:12).

Here I am.  Dangerous, frightening words yet words that offer hope.  For if weak, stuttering Moses, who had been fleeing from a murder rap, well if he could be God’s instrument of redemption and deliverance, then maybe, just maybe I can be as well.  Thanks be to God.

Shalom,
Geoff

August 24, 2008 – Fifteenth Sunday After Pentecost

Exodus 1:8-2:10

“But the midwives feared God; they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but they let the boys lives” (Exodus 1:17).

It’s presidential campaign season here in the United States, and an emerging theme between Barack Obama and John McCain seems to be patriotism.  Words have started flying back and forth; there have been attacks from McCain’s camp about Obama’s patriotism, and Obama has recently called on McCain to acknowledge that he is a patriot.

What is getting buried in all the debate about patriotism is the fact that, underneath all of the talk and rhetoric, there seems to be somewhat of a difference of opinion about what patriotism is.  For some, patriotism is blind faith in the flag and the government that flies it.  To question the decisions or the actions of the president or the government…well, you’re being unpatriotic.

Except that form of patriotism, which more accurately could be described as naïve nationalism, is not true to our own history.  If the leaders of the American colonies had thought that way, they never would have protested against King George and his taxation policies and would not have eventually sought independence.  The ability to protest the actions of the government was so important to the founders of this country, they made sure that right was upheld by including it in the Bill of Rights in the form of the freedom of assembly and the freedom to petition.

Or in the paraphrased words of comedian Lewis Black: “I love my country.  In what other country in the world can I get away with saying this stuff?”

Maybe true loyalty to one’s country is holding that country to a higher standard than what it is doing.  Maybe true patriotism is holding one’s country to the high standards that is demanded of the powerful.  Maybe true love for our country demands that we, as people of faith, stand up before our country and declaring to it what the kingdom of God calls for this world to be.

In the generations that span the time between the Joseph narrative at the end of Genesis and the Moses narrative in Exodus, the political landscape of Egypt had shifted.  The descendents of Jacob’s sons and their households thrive in Egypt, so much so that “the land was filled with them” (Exo 1:7).  Their power, their status, their social standing had grown.

There is nothing that indicates the Israelites were anything other than loyal subjects to Pharaoh.  Joseph had been Pharaoh’s right hand, and his family probably had some favored status due to Joseph’s position.  They were most likely well-settled, productive, fully integrated members of Egyptian society.

Something had shifted, however.  The text says that, “a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph” (Exo 1:8).  The memory of the Israelite contribution to the country’s success and well being had faded, and the new Pharaoh was able toe exploit that to advance his own agenda.  Pharaoh thus begins a systematic enslavement and oppression of the Israelites, even to the point of ordering the newborn Israelite males killed.

This is where Shiphrah and Puah enter the story.  They’re described as Hebrew midwives, and when Pharaoh ordered the Hebrew midwives to carry out the genocidal plan to kill the Hebrew male children, Shiphrah and Puah refuse to go along.  The text tells us that they “feared God,” and one could infer from this statement that they feared God more than they feared Pharaoh and his possible retribution.

We don’t like to think about “fearing” God; it’s language that has fallen out of favor with many mainline Christians in the West.  But as I mentioned in my blog on the Wrestling Jacob story, there is something dangerous about encountering God.  Secondly, fear in this sense is not the same fear that one feels from the Pharaohs of the world; instead, it is a healthy respect for their power and authority.  Alternately yr’ “to fear” can be translated as “to tremble for” or “to honor” when God is the object, and that this verb can mean to awesome or terrible in the niphal stem (see HALOT  432-33).

These midwives knew that Pharaoh’s actions were evil, and they would play no part in it.  They knew the character of the God they served as Israelites, and they “feared” or honored that God’s ways more than they feared the wrath of Pharaoh.

That kind of fear is one that we in the church need more of, the kind of “fear” or respect and honor of God’s kingdom and authority that drives us to stop and stand in the way of injustice.  As we vow in The United Methodist Church whenever someone is baptized or joins the church:

Do you accept the freedom and power God gives you to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves? (The United Methodist Book of Worship, Baptismal Covenant I, 88).

We don’t always live up this call very well, and I confess that I’m far from perfect in doing so myself.  But when I stood up at my confirmation almost fifteen years ago, I answered yes to this very question.  I answered yes, saying that I would be a bulwark in the storm of life, putting myself in the way of evil as it attempts to batter this hurt and broken world even more than it already has been.  At it’s most basic it is a giving of ourselves without concern for cost and with fear of reprisal, knowing that we are doing God’s work in the world.

The Hebrew midwives are great examples of faithful loyalty to their true kingdom, God’s kingdom, the kingdom and reign to which all kingdoms and reigns should be upheld.  I love this country, and I know that my country has done great things with its power and influence in the past.  But I also know that this country is composed of human beings who often struggle to do the right things with what we have.

And so I hope I, and that all of us, will continue to hold this country up to a higher standard, to look at the actions of the Pharaohs, the rulers and authorities of this world, and with God’s help and grace strive for the ways of God’s kingdom first and foremost.  And it is in this sense that I can honestly pray those words that are quickly becoming cliché, that God might bless America.

Shalom,
Geoff

August 17, 2008 - Fourteenth Sunday After Pentecost

Genesis 45:1-15 - link to the NRSV text

"I am Joseph."

With those three words, everything that the sons of Jacob thought was true was overturned, and the moment the reader has been anticipating since chapter 42 has come: Joseph is revealed to his brothers as alive and well and as the Egyptian official they had been dealing with in trying to procure grain for their family.

The dream they had tried to squash, that one day they would bow to Joseph, was revealed has having come to pass.  But more than just a revelation of Joseph being alive and having great power, Joseph's revelation to the brothers is also a divine revelation.  The statement "I am Joseph" harkens back to the revelations of God to the covenantal revelations of the generations before:

"I am the LORD who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess" (Genesis 15:7).
"I am the God of your father Abraham; do not be afraid, for I am with you and will bless you and make your offspring numerous for my servant Abraham's sake" (Genesis 26:24).
And the LORD stood beside [Jacob] and said, "I am the LORD, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring" (Genesis 28:13).

There is no direct revelation of the covenant in the Joseph cycle, at least not to Joseph.  Nowhere does God appear to Joseph and definitely declare that he was the person through whom the promise would continue.  God instead had been working behind the scenes and on the down low, working through and among human plans and manipulations. 

And maybe Joseph doesn't need the direct revelation, because Joseph seems to get it instinctively in a way that his precursors didn't.

"God sent me before you to preserve life" (45:5).
"God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors" (45:7).
"So it was not you who sent me here, but God; he has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt" (45:8).

Instead, Joseph is the agent of revelation to the brothers.  "I am Joseph.  God sent me before you to be the bearer of the promise in order that we all might live." We don't know how Joseph felt about his brothers' betrayal all those years ago while he was shuffled around and sold and taken off to prison.  But at some point during his rise from lowly slave to Pharaoh's right hand, Joseph has come to terms with his brothers' evil actions and has extended them forgiveness and compassion.

Instead of focusing on the bitterness that could have arisen from old hurts, Joseph decided to move to a new place for he had seen his brothers' care for Benjamin, his full-blood brother.  The old family animosity that had characterized their past was no longer.  Both Joseph and the brothers had changed by the time they met each other again.

All things look different on the other side of grace.  Joseph had experienced God's presence over his years in Egypt and saw how God had worked in his circumstances, and thus Joseph was able to look beyond his brothers' actions to see a larger picture.  All the years of toil and trouble have come to this point, where grace and love can be extended and can heal over the wounds of the past.  Now, all Joseph wanted was his family to be reunited.

In some ways, it is a miraculous end to the Jacob narrative, whose family relationships had for so long been defined by conflict and trickery.  But now that family is at peace, and the dream of God for God's people has been upheld even in the midst of human efforts to derail it.  Joseph puts it well later in the book, a thought that Paul would later echo in his own writings: "Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people, as he is doing today" (Genesis 50:20; cf. Romans 8:28). 

At the center of the Joseph story is the dream, which is God's way of continuing the covenant promises laid out to the generations before.  The dream would still take time to come to fruition, and it would still have its bumps in the road (see Exodus through Joshua), but God is at work in the midst of it all.  And for this present world with so many broken dreams and shattered hopes, that is good news that we can find hope in.

Shalom,
Geoff