How many of you went on your first
date with your spouse and then got married as your second date? Unlikely!
Even if you knew each other a long time before your first date you still
want to get to know each other better!
And yet, this idea is what comes to my mind when we read the Exodus text
for today. While God certainly has
perfect knowledge of the people, they know almost nothing about God. They don’t know what they’re getting
themselves in for. There’s no religious
law yet, no 10 Commandments, no social structure. And yet God asks them to make a commitment.
God says to the people through Moses, “You have seen what I did
to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to
myself. Now therefore, if you obey my
voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the
peoples.”
What should they say? How
about, “Let’s have some details about this covenant and what do you expect us
to obey?” Indeed, consider it from the
perspective of the Israelites. They’ve
lived in slavery for centuries. They had
no real religion, no social structure, and really no god. Then suddenly this old man shows up out of
the wilderness with a stick in his hand and his brother beside him and says
that God is going to set them free.
Yeah, right! Things get worse and
worse.
But then all these calamities start happening to their owners,
the Egyptians. Supposedly this God is
causing all this destruction on their behalf.
And one day, after a particularly devastating plague, they are set free
– no, they are driven out by the Egyptians.
It’s a time of celebration until they get to the Red Sea and
discover Egypt’s army pursuing them. But
this God again rescues them and hurts the Egyptians. Then further into the wilderness; no food, no
water. But this God always provides.
Okay, they’re getting an idea of what this God is like, sort of
like a first date, but they want to know more.
Up till now this God’s actions are quite possibly like the actions of a
bully – beating up on the Egyptians. And
when God says he wants them as a possession, doesn’t that sound more like an
abuser than someone you’d want to be in a relationship with?
Given all that it’s kind
of surprising the people say a few verses later, “Everything that the Lord
has spoken we will do.” And yet it’s not
at all surprising. Again, consider that
this God has led them into a wilderness.
There’s no food or water. God
alone is able to provide. And now out
there with no options they’re given an offer – be my people. Can they really say no? Nope, they have no other options.
In short order the people will be given the religious law,
including the Ten Commandments. And they
will discover that God is merciful, caring and forgiving. But at this point they don’t have a choice. Indeed there are threads of Jewish thought
throughout their ancient writings that suggests they didn’t feel like they had
a choice to be God’s chosen people. It
is more like something thrust upon them than gladly accepted.
Well, though God is one of the partners, and it is God’s idea
from the beginning, let’s not say this is a match made in heaven! God frequently gets frustrated with the
people. The people repeatedly get frustrated
with God. They break the rules. They aren’t faithful. Yet it continues on and on.
Though we are Christians, not Jewish, I think we may sometimes
have the same feeling. We follow God –
like we had a choice. Like Peter says to
Jesus, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You
have the words of eternal life.” It
wasn’t like we got to be on the TV show The Bachelor and we got to pick our
favorite from a bunch of stunning candidates to be our god. Nope, no choices.
So we turn to God in prayer.
Often we don’t get an answer we like, or we don’t get an answer at
all. We do our best to be faithful, but
we mess up all the same. If only God
would be more visible, more obvious, we think, being faithful would be so much
easier.
I said a little bit ago that in time the Israelites would come
to understand God as being not only strong but also merciful, caring, and
forgiving. They would learn that the
religious laws God laid out were to create good order for their society. They would create safety and promote
justice. And they would also learn that God
wasn’t a stickler for technical following of the laws. They discovered that behind the law was
actually love. By the time of Jesus it
was a common answer to say that the greatest two commandments were to love the
Lord your God with all your heart and mind and soul; and to love your neighbor
as yourself. Those are open ended
commandments, not “Thou shalt nots”.
But there was still something missing. The whole attitude was still backwards. It was still forced. And it was still all about doing things to
make God happy with you, as if that were an end unto itself.
Enter God’s new revelation in
Jesus. Notice Jesus does not drag people
into the wilderness after showing great deeds of power and say, “Will you
follow me… and I’ll tell you where we’re going later.” No, Jesus comes, as just a man; no using power
for plagues and destruction. And Jesus invites rather than commands. While the first covenant was made with love,
the new covenant embodies love.
Still, the old thoughts die
hard. I cringe every time I hear someone
say, “I want to do what pleases God.” It
should be a commendable thought, but
it’s still rooted in Exodus thinking.
God has not created you and set out a bunch of rules and regulations for
you to follow. And if you do them God is
happy with you. If you don’t, maybe God
will forgive you but reluctantly. It is
as if some people think of all of us as God’s children, and they know in some
sense that God loves us all, but they want to do things to be sure they’re
God’s favorite. But it just doesn’t work
that way.
The revelation that comes through
Jesus is not so much a release from the rules but a new foundation for the
relationship. Yes, God still wants you
to be loving and caring and constructive, but what is the root reason for why
you do it? That is what changes. Do you do it to please God, or do you do it
because you know God is already pleased with you?
That may not seem like much of a
difference, but it is all the difference in the world. Maybe I can borrow an image that J.K. Rowling
wrote into the 6th Harry Potter book – it is the difference between
being drug into the boxing ring against your will, and going in voluntarily.
Our relationship with God is not one
caused under duress. It is one of
invitation. God says I choose you. I love you.
You are a delight to me. Now,
will you come and work with me?
And what work it is! I sometimes think people discern too long and
too hard about what God’s will for them is.
It should be obvious, and it’s all around. Just pick!
The world, God’s creation, is a
broken place. God invites us to have a
part in its restoration. That’s a huge
and multifaceted task, but it is what God is up to with us.
I want to turn our attention to the
next hymn we will sing. It’s one I’ve
pretty sure we’ve never sung before: The
Lord Now Sends Us Forth. At the time
the Red Hymnals were published the publisher didn’t know the name of the
composer. Since then he’s been
discovered. It’s Jose Aguiar, a
Pentecostal pastor from Cuba of all places – that explains why we had a hard time
tracking down its origin!
These aren’t the thoughts of the
composer, but of Gerhard Cartford, the one who translated it into English, and Pablo
Sosa, through whom it came to be in our hymnals:
Though
the message is simple and almost too obvious, it is nonetheless profound, we
who receive Christ’s body and blood at the communion table are that body and
blood in the world – not angels, but we who are the baptized ones grafted into
Christ the vine, freed to be what we are in a world of pain. This is not a strong declaration of a hero
ready to change the world, but a confession of someone who is sharing a mission
with us. There are no heroes in this,
just the seemingly impossible task that “falls to you and me,” with God’s help,
to “make of all the earth a better place to live.”
May you feel God’s love for you and
may it inspire you do work with God in God’s great task of restoration and
redemption!
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