RVCC Pastor's Sermon

Sermon - September 14, 2008

“Claiming Our Story”

By Rev. Nancy Foran
Exodus 14:19-31

When I was very young, my father taught me a little verse to remember the names of the four gospels. It went like this:

Matthew, Mark, Luke, John
Saddle the horse, and I’ll jump on

Not very religious, I admit, but it served its purpose well. Unfortunately my Dad had no similar poem to help me remember all those letters of the Apostle Paul included in our Biblical canon, and he certainly had nothing to help with the books of the Old Testament.

After all, the Old Testament was just that – old, outdated. For us children who had been brought up as Christians, its stories had long ago been supplanted in importance by the Gospel writers’ recollections of the travels, sermons, and parables of the itinerant Nazarene, Jesus.

Other than the story of Noah’s ark, which left us children believing that at our core we were all destined to be true animal lovers – having it in us to be an elephant and mosquito whisperer, a speaker of parseltongue, and able to muster the personal strength to muck out a large wooden boat for forty days and forty nights….Other than that story, the Old Testament held little allure for us – other than being the clearinghouse for stories meant for a subset of classmates we knew little about – only that they celebrated different holidays than we did and were not expected to be in school on days they called Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur.

It was not until many years later – when I was an adult – that I began to understand why our Bible consisted of more than the four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, the letters of Paul and other early writers, and the apocryphal Revelation of John. I learned that the Old Testament was not just a Hebrew or Jewish Bible but, on the contrary, was just as important to us– even to us who were Christian.

The Old Testament was not just THEIR story – my Jewish classmates with their strange holidays. Partly because Jesus was a Jew himself and partly because as Christians we also worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the Old Testament was OUR story as well – and the most important piece of that story for US, just as it was for THEM, was the story of the Exodus, the story of Moses having the guts to stand up to Pharaoh ten times over until the Egyptian ruler finally got so sick of the whole situation that he told Moses to get out, get out of the fertile valley, get away from the Nile, he would find another way to get his pyramids built.

Even the old Pharaoh crumbled in that awful night of death and blood soaked doorways, the night his own son died. And so, after all those nearly 400 years of bondage, in one grace-filled moment, freedom was within the grasp of the Hebrew slaves.

Barry Robinson describes the scene as one that fairly bursts with its own descriptive power. “You can almost hear the Egyptian parents,” he writes, “even Pharaoh and his family wailing laments over their lost children, hear Moses and his lieutenants jostling and exhorting the people.

"This is it! Let's go! Let's go! Fast, faster!"

The race against time had started. It was late, later than anybody thought. They had one night in which to break the vise that had held them for almost four hundred years, one night to escape a prison so familiar that it had become like home to them. It was now or never. Everybody knew that by tomorrow Pharaoh would change his mind. Tomorrow he would come to his senses and realize what he had done. Tomorrow would be too late. Tonight was the night.

You can almost see the people running breathlessly, grabbing whatever they could, without even glancing backwards. They had to make for the sea. God knows, the sea was their only chance. Not the straight road to Canaan, which would have taken them there faster, because that would have meant having to get past six (count them), six, heavily-armed Egyptian outposts…They would have been run down like animals.

No, their only hope of survival was the wilderness of Sinai; and to get there meant going by the sea. What they would do when they got there nobody knew, not even Moses. All they knew was that it was their only chance.

Then, finally, after a night of running in the dark, that long, straggly band came to an abrupt halt. There was the end right in front of them. The sea was there waiting; and already they could see the dust of Pharaoh's chariots behind them. Terrified, they clung to the banks while Moses' leaders urged them on.

"Come on! Into the water! Into the water! God will lead the way!" "Do not be afraid, stand firm, and see the deliverance that the Lord will accomplish for you today..." Moses exhorted them.

(Finally), terrified and panicking, the people did as they were asked”…and God protected them, and God saved them.

This story of the Hebrews’ escape from Egypt is not a story for just some of the world’s people. Rather it is a story that lies at the very core of our humanity. This story of bondage and freedom, this story of God’s protection, this story of having faith enough to step into the sea when every fiber of your body is telling you that is a crazy idea, this story is our story, and the truth of this story is our truth.

And what is this truth?

First, when our backs are to the sea, God protects us. That pillar of cloud the writer of Exodus describes is meant to be a visible reminder of the power of God Almighty. God protects us, and our defense is sure. We are not alone in our pain and sorrow and desperate moments. God is still listening – listening and responding to our cries and whispers.

Second, when our backs are to the sea God delivers us. When it seems as if there is no way out for us, and all the doors are locked, if we look around, somewhere, somewhere we will find an open window. God is still acting - acting in history, our history.

Third, when our backs are to the sea, God destroys our enemies. Oh, I do not mean that God will be taking out or eliminating the people we personally despise. You see, the people are not our enemies. It is the fear and the greed and the hopelessness that causes the desperation that causes the hate that needs some sacred attention. God is still speaking, speaking to us.

So the next time you find your back to the sea, look to God. And if God calls you to walk across the bottom of an ocean, well, remember that God will protect you, God will deliver you, and God in Christ has already given you the tools to defeat your real enemies. After all, remember that way back when, God parted the waters and gave the Israelites dry land to walk on when they thought that all was lost.

However, know as well that the story does not end here. Remember that in order for the Israelites to be saved, they had to take that first step. God might have pulled back the waters, but it was up to the Hebrews to move forward. You can lead a horse to water, but you can not make it drink.

You see, buried in the inescapable Cecil B DeMille drama of this story is a piece of its truth that is often overlooked. When we think of the story of the Parting of the Red Sea, we recall a bearded and wild-eyed Charlton Heston with robes blowing and billowing in the salty air, cast as Moses who exhorts the ragtag band of former slaves to stand firm and not to fear.

What we often do not recollect from the Biblical passage is that at one point God quietly takes Moses aside and asks in the midst of the furor, “Why are you crying out for help? Tell the people to move forward.”

Rabbi Michael Siegel reminds us that “the answer to their prayers was to walk into the water. God’s answer was for the people to be participants in the fulfillment of their drama. No less miraculous than the sea splitting open was the site of a people taking that first step into the water. In that moment, an entire people responded to the voice of God, and to their own prayers for salvation.”

He goes on to say that, “Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel captured this idea beautifully by suggesting that we take not leaps of faith, but rather leaps of action. Had the Israelites not taken that first step into the water…those who would have survived Pharaoh’s onslaught would have been returned to Egypt, and this slave people would not have even amounted to a footnote in history.”

Some of us live our lives as spectators, half expecting that, if we just stay mostly awake through enough Sunday worship services, salvation is bound to come through some rapturous event from beyond.

However, some of us have the faith and the courage to be the masters of our own destiny by responding to God’s call with the taking of a single step. (Whether our issues be personal or global), when we respond with action (born in the faith and confidence that God will be at our side), it can change everything.”

Surely we, like the ancient Israelites, are meant to be participants in our own drama, in the unfolding of our own story. So let us muster the same courage, the same faith, and the same vision as did Moses’ generation and claim our story. Let us walk forward, seeking to credit and never to shame the one who always walks at our side.

Sermon - September 14, 2008

“Claiming Our Story”

By Rev. Nancy Foran Exodus 14:19-31

By Rev. Nancy Foran
Exodus 14:19-31