Service on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/100064617886792/videos/1738378513909066
Use your imagination, if you can, to enjoy this exchange from the Sheep Detectives. I wish I could be showing you the actual clip, but
that’s beyond my skill level, but in this scenario, sheep are walking together past a village church.
Sheep 1: What is this?
Sheep 2: This is the church where someone named God lives.
Sheep 1: Who’s God?
Sheep 2: It’s a big confusing. God is a shepherd.
Sheep 1: So he could be our shepherd?
Sheep 2: No, because he’s also a lamb.
Sheep 1: What?
Sheep 2: And he’s also invisible. And he’s made of bread. And he damns things.
Sheep 1: Dams things? Like a beaver?
Sheep 2: Yes,
Sheep 1: So God is a big, invisible lamb-beaver made of bread?
Sheep 2: Yes. And they eat him on Sundays.
Sheep 1: Poor God!
Poor God, indeed! I know these sheep were making New Testament references, but I think we can apply it equally to those fleeing Egypt in Exodus. Where it’s similar, I think, is in idea that the mystery of God and mankind’s relationship to that God have challenged people since the beginning of time. Apparently we just want to know.
Exodus 19 begins when the Israelites have wandered toward Mount Sinai for three months. According to the preceding chapters, their numbers included 600,000 men on foot with children. Given that large number, Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, helped him learn to establish a shared system for resolving problems, which appears to be the beginning of their learning to live in freedom AND in community.
Perhaps we need to be reminded at the outset that the stories in the Bible are often meant to express a people’s figurative encounter with the divine, rather than an historically accurate description. Many of you will remember what Father Dick Hawkins says, “Everything in the Bible is true, and some of it even happened.”
So here we have God, through Moses, reminding the people that it was God who took the initiative and who now invites them into deeper relationship, saying, “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.” Note that God says keep my “covenant,” not keep my “commandments.” The question for us would be, how do we do this—hear God’s voice and learn to be in relationship with God and others. Covenant with God would seem to be more than just blind obedience to a set of rules—even if they are meant to help us live in harmony as community.
God has said we have been borne on eagles’ wings, so we can look to our experiences of God’s mercy to hear God’s voice, albeit not usually literally. God is said to have written His words on our hearts. I sense what is right for me in several ways—through my thoughts, in my heart, and through my gut. As they say, I don’t always know what the right thing to do is, but I sure know when something is the WRONG thing! Obviously, spending time in prayer—and studying Scripture—can help us discern the right path. Sharing with others and listening to their counsel can help guide us, too. For me, I love to reflect on Jeremiah 29:11-14, which says, “I know the plans I have in mind for you, plans for peace not disaster, reserving a future full of hope for you. Then when you call to me, and come to plead with me, I will listen to you. When you seek me you shall find me, when you seek me with all your heart, I will let you find me.” That always feel so gentle to me: “I will LET you find me.”
I believe we need to be in good relationship with other people if we are to be in good relation to God, however we understand God, and in a healthy relation to all of creation. And I think we’re told how to do this in Micah 6:8 where God asks that we “act justly, love tenderly, and walk humbly with our God.” Sounds like a plan to me!
Stories of rescue and freedom permeate history. In our country, for example, we have the Emancipation Proclamation. Here formerly enslaved people had to navigate procuring a living wage from their former “owners” or leave their known surroundings and venture to new land, just as the Israelites had done under Moses. But where the Israelites had wandered for three months, news of the emancipation here took 2-½ years—from January 1, 1863 until news of it reached Galveston, Texas on June 19, 1865. It has always moved me to read President Lincoln’s words about the Emancipation Proclamation, where he wrote, “I sincerely believe it to be an act of justice.” Amen, Micah!
The Israelites’ struggles to escape enslavement and live in freedom and harmony are echoed throughout history—from the Workers’ Movement in Poland in 1959 and the Solidarity Movement of 1989 that started there in 1980 under Lech Welesa and ended Communist rule throughout that country. That movement was paraphrased as “a collective experience of living within the truth.”
Other non-violent parallels include the anti-Apartheid movement in Africa, the Civil Rights Movement in our country, and various liberation theology movements throughout South America. Learning to live in covenant with God and others is obviously a long, long process.
Freedom to live life differently, free from whatever kind of bondage we endure, comes to us individually, as well as collectively. Take my friend, Sandy, for example. Sandy always reminded me of our Sharon Logemann—sweet, grandmotherly, and very gentle. Sandy, however, had spent 7-½ years in prison for murder and had made the cover of “Detective” magazine back in the 60’s. When she was released from prison, the matron gave Sandy a set of clothes that included a pair of pantyhose—something that had been introduced during her period of incarceration and something that totally befuddled poor Sandy—as did simple tasks like shopping for groceries when there was so much variety for someone who had not made those decisions in many years. I forget how hard readjustment can be for our prison population—and I worked in that field for close to 30 years! Prison reform also needs Micah!!!
Anyway, Sandy was doing fine, making friends, holding down a job, being financially responsible, etc. But she lost contact with her friends and with her God. We reconnected when she was terminated from her job at the railroad after throwing a wastebasket at a co-worker. When asked in her termination hearing why she’d thrown it at him, she said simply, “Because the typewriter was bolted down!” and that was her wake-up call. Sandy again reached out to God and to the people in her life—showing that we can all begin again . . . and again . . . and again.
I notice that today’s reading does NOT talk about commandments. Rather, God says, “If you obey my voice and keep my covenant,” that is, the relationship with God that is offered to each of us—to live in harmony with our Creator and all of creation. Learning to do that is the challenge, but most importantly, we do not—and, I believe, cannot—do this alone. That is why we are a community, a treasured people of God.
I like to recall what drew Terry and me to Emmanuel almost 20 years ago. It was the sign on the front door—which thankfully is still there—and which reads, “No matter where you are on life’s journey, you’re welcome here.” Until now I’ve always associated that with each of you. This week I heard it in a new way. I heard it as GOD saying to us—to all of us—“No matter where you are on life’s journey, you’re welcome here.” To which I say, gratefully, “Amen!”