What Belongs to God?

Matthew 22:15-22

October 18, 2020

 

            Unless you watch absolutely no television whatsoever, it’s hard to not know these four words, “What’s in your wallet?” A few years ago, this became a cultural catch phrase due to some funny commercials featuring Vikings and a few celebrity spokespersons. The ads were for the Capital One credit card, and it promotes the idea that shopping and banking with this credit card earns you rewards. If you have this credit card in your wallet, even Christmas shopping is easier, and shopping with it earns the user so many travel rewards that you can bring your whole Viking gang on trips. Vikings in Hawaii? Why not? Vikings hanging with an Elvis impersonator in Vegas? Absolutely. Each commercial, whatever its particulars, ended with that catch phrase, “What’s in your wallet?” 

            Of course, the point of the commercial is to get people to apply for Capital One credit cards. But I think that the underlying message it makes is that it is not enough to just have a credit card, it is the brand of credit card that counts. To be hip, cool, fun, fashionable, smart, and money savvy, you must have the Capital One card. The name, the image that is emblazoned on that credit card also counts; maybe even more than the card itself. So, what’s in your wallet?

            This idea is played out in our story from Matthew’s gospel. For the first time in a while, our passage is not centered on Jesus responding to his questioners with a parable, however our story does involve a confrontation with the Pharisees. The Pharisees have been confronting Jesus since he came into Jerusalem and into the temple. But this confrontation is different. Not only are the Pharisees trying to trap Jesus, this time the Herodians have joined in as well. We do not read about the Herodians very often. In fact, I think this story may be the one time they are mentioned at all. Perhaps in a casual reading of this story, we might just accept their presence without question, but it is significant that this group we know little about are siding with the Pharisees against Jesus. Consider the name; Herodians suggests Herod.  Herodians were Jewish leaders who allied themselves with Herod and the Roman Empire. The Romans were the occupiers, the alien force who held them and their land under the empirical thumb. Just as tax collectors were despised and given their own special category for sinfulness because they collected the taxes demanded by the Roman government, the Herodians would not have been popular or loved by the common folks. Certainly, the Pharisees, the religious leaders and authorities of their day, would not have cared for them. But here they stand together trying to trap Jesus. Their collaboration gives new meaning to the phrase,

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

            Both the Pharisees and the Herodians hated Jesus. Both were threatened by him. He had been stirring people up for a long time, but at first he was just a nuisance, an annoying thorn in their collective side. Now this itinerant rabbi had become dangerous. So, as Matthew tells it, they plotted to entrap him. 

            “‘Teacher, we know that you are sincere and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality. Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?’”

            Jesus knows what they are trying to do. The text says that he was “aware of their malice.” Jesus does what Jesus did best; he turns the question back on them. As one commentator pointed out; the question he was asked was extraordinarily clever, but his response was ingenious. Jesus asks them to show him the coin that they used to pay the tax to the emperor. They produce a denarius, and he asks them to tell him whose head and whose title is stamped on the coin. The emperor’s. Then, Jesus says perhaps some of his most well-known words.

“Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s. Again, and again, Jesus’ words have been interpreted through the lens of separation of church and state.

“See, even Jesus implies that there is a dividing line between them. The two should not mix. Keep them separated.”

Yet that kind of political and religious separation is our modern understanding. Given the context and the culture of the time, I doubt that anyone listening to Jesus or even the first hearers and readers of Matthew’s gospel would have thought in those terms. Religious law was the law.  There would have been no separation between the two. But that is also why the empirical tax was so odious. 

This tax was the Roman census or the “head tax” that was instituted when Judea became a Roman province. The tax was not only considered unfair, it went against Torah. The land of Israel belonged to God alone. Since Caesar was a usurper, paying the tax was considered an act of disobedience to God.  Not only would Caesar’s image have been on the denarius, the inscription would most likely have read something like, “In Caesar we trust.”

Caesar was not just the governing ruler; as emperor, he was, for all intents and purposes, a god. Paying the Roman head tax meant that the Jewish people consistently broke the first two commandments. They put another god before the Lord God, and they used a coin that bore a graven image. When Jesus asked to see the coin, he essentially asked the religious leaders what was in their wallet. How interesting that they could produce this coin which went against the Law and he could not? How interesting that they could produce this coin in the temple? The hypocrisy of that, of the religious leaders having a coin like in this in the holiest of places, was not lost on Jesus. 

Yet even when this passage isn’t interpreted as a reason for separation of church and state, it is used as a way for believers to find their way through a complex world that is driven by money. Just give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and the rest goes to God. Sounds simple, doesn’t it?  But real life is a different beast altogether. We are, like it or not, driven by money. It is a reality of our lives. You need a certain amount of money just to survive. If you don’t have it, survival can be tough to say the least. Anyone who has spent time in our church office knows how many requests Erlene gets for assistance with utilities and other necessities. To be without money is to know firsthand and up close how necessary having money is, and, more importantly, what it means not to have it.

            Yet we don’t like to talk about money in church, not unless it’s stewardship emphasis season. Even with stewardship we’d prefer that the money talk only happen on one Sunday.  Once that Sunday is over, we can return to not talking about money the rest of the year. But money is being talked about in this passage. While I think that it is a critical element of this confrontation, what I really think is being called into question is allegiance. Perhaps when Jesus questioned the Pharisees and the Herodians about what was in their wallets, he was also questioning their allegiance? Who do you belong to, God or the emperor? 

            Jesus was the master at turning questions meant to trick him back onto those doing the questioning. But the question of allegiance, the question of priorities is also asked of us?  Who do we belong to? Where does our allegiance lie? The big question is what belongs to God?
 

            We might glibly answer that we, of course, belong to God. Along with that everything we have, everything we are, everything in God’s creation belongs to God. Yet how does our answer play out in our daily lives?    

            I must be honest, when it comes to my daily life the idea that I belong to God, that everything I am and everything that I hold dear belongs to God, does not always factor in. When I make a decision, whether it is about a purchase or what to have for lunch, am I thinking, “what does this mean considering the fact that all I am belongs to God?” No. Do I think on a regular basis about how what I do and say reflects on my allegiances? No. As much as I want to live mindfully and intentionally, I know that I fall short of that over and over again.

            What belongs to God?

            Seven years ago, I went to CREDO. CREDO is a retreat conference for pastors hosted and run by the denomination. It is designed to help pastors take care of themselves in four different areas: vocationally, physically, financially, and spiritually. The reason it was designed in this way is because clergy are leaving the ministry in record numbers. To reach the 25 year anniversary as I just did is a feat. I don’t say that to brag. There are plenty of times I desperately wanted out; I just did not know how to make that happen. So CREDO. CREDO saved my ministry. I tell people that it was an intervention of grace when I needed it most.

            While I was there, our faculty member who worked with us on our physical well-being, had us write three statements about how we feel about our bodies, our physical selves. How have treated our bodies? How we do feel about our bodies?

            I wrote something like that I have hated my body. I have mistreated my body. I have denied my body.

            After we wrote our statements, she had us replace the word “body” with the word “creation.”

            I have hated creation. I have mistreated creation. I have denied creation.

            Although it is not translated in this way, Jesus used the Greek word for “likeness” when he looked at the coin. The coin bore the likeness of the emperor. God also created us in God’s likeness. We bear the handprint of our creator. We are part of God’s glorious creation. We belong to God. But how quickly and how easily we forget that. I certainly do. The statements I made in CREDO prove that. I forget that I am made in the likeness of God. I forget that I bear God’s image. I forget that I belong to God, body and soul. And if I forget that about myself, how easy it is to forget that about others.

            In this time of worry and stress and fear and uncertainty and contentiousness and so many unknowns, in a time that is scarier than anytime I can remember in the half century I have lived, we have to ask ourselves, “What belongs to God?” In whose image are we made? If we believe that we belong to God, if we claim that we are made in God’s likeness, then how does that affect how we treat ourselves and how we treat one another? How do I care for myself and how do I care for others? Could this world be a better place, could we make a difference, no matter how small, in the lives of others and in our own, if when asked the question, “What belongs to God?” we answered, “We all do. Every single one of us. We all belong to God?”

Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia!”  Amen.

The Guest List

 

Matthew 22:1-14

October 11, 2020

 

            I remember the first time I became aware of the abbreviation RSVP. Sadly, it was not because our family had received an invitation that required an RSVP. No, I first heard this combination of letters one afternoon after school when I was watching Gilligan’s Island.

            It was a classic and timeless episode. The Howells, Thurston and Lovey, were holding a fancy soiree, and they delivered invitations to the other five island dwellers. Gilligan read his to the Skipper and wanted to know what a rizvip was. Skipper patiently explained to him that it was not rizvip, it was R. S. V. P. RSVP, as you may know, is from the French phrase repondez sil vous plait, “respond if you please.” This whole episode, like so many episodes of Gilligan’s Island, was full of surprises and unexpected turns. Skipper’s invitation did not arrive. Everyone got upset, thinking he had been excluded. The other islanders, who normally loved the Howell’s parties, expressed their dismay through their RSVP’s, declining the Howell’s hospitality. It turned out it was a huge misunderstanding, and soon everyone figured out what happened, friendships were mended, and the party was a huge success. However, and this is a big spoiler alert, they still don’t get off the island.

            I chose a kind of silly story to lead us into a really disturbing and even frightening parable. Was it last week that I said how tempted I was in the face of the parable about the vineyard to skip the gospel passage altogether and preach on something else? It was just last week. Well, I do believe that this week’s text is worse. Matthew’s parables are getting darker, but the times in which Jesus is telling them are getting darker as well. The plots to have Jesus killed are fomenting. He is angering the religious authorities. He speaks truth to those in power, and therefore he is a threat to those in power. This parable, which is dark and hard to hear, is right in line with what is happening in the world around Jesus.

            “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son.  He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come.  Again he sent other slaves, saying, ‘Tell those who have been invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.’  But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, while the rest seized his slaves, mistreated them, and killed them. The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. Then he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.’ Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests.”

            The context in which Jesus is speaking this parable and the others that we have read is dark. As much as the crowds around him have lauded him, followed him, sought after him, and beseeched him, Jesus knows that his ultimate rejection by the world is fast approaching. As I said earlier, he is angering the powers-that-be. He is making enemies, and those enemies are plotting to seek their revenge. That is the context in which Jesus is speaking these parables. But we are dealing with a larger context as well because Matthew is writing his gospel account to a particular audience in a particular context too.

Scholars believe that Matthew’s gospel is the most Jewish of the four gospels. He is a Jew writing to other Jews. And in his community, his church if you will, a split is happening. His community is splintering and dividing. Matthew and those others who have heard the good news of Jesus and believed are most likely the minority. It seems that the majority are not willing or unable to hear or believe the good news, and the result is a theological and emotional battle for the soul of the community.

            Although a similar parable to this one is found in the gospel of Luke, Matthew takes this parable and makes it a grave, even sinister, warning. If you do not accept the invitation to the king’s feast, if you decline, even though you were supposed to be on the guest list, you will not only be replaced by someone else, you will be destroyed. Yikes.

            And, just as in last week’s parable of the vineyard, the emissaries of the king who brought the invitations were not only dismissed, some of them were abused and mistreated. So it is understandable, sort of, why the king would be angry, but it is still a struggle – at least for me – as to how to grasp or understand the terrible turn that takes place in the parable. The king is not only angry. The king sends out his troops and destroys those who declined, those who murdered the emissaries and burns down their city. Then, while the city is on fire, others are invited. The party doors are thrown open to a brand-new guest list.

            But as I said, Matthew is writing to a community that is splintering over who believes and who does not. Matthew Skinner, a professor at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, and one of the contributors to WorkingPreacher.org. said that we must read this parable and indeed this gospel with empathy. We must have empathy for what the community Matthew is writing to is going through. We must have empathy because in moments of division and polarization, do we not also wish that those on the other side of the line might suffer consequences for what we feel are their wrong beliefs or lack of belief entirely

And while it might be hard for us to consider the possibility that Matthew would be manipulating this parable to awaken the collective conscious of those in his community who have turned away from the gospel, that may be some of what is happening here. Does this mean that Matthew is putting words into Jesus’ mouth to evoke a particular response from his community? No. But I think he is putting into words what the group of believers in his community must have felt. We have told you the truth, and you won’t believe, so here are the consequences … the kingdom of heaven is like a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son …

            Skinner’s admonition to read this parable and indeed the whole gospel with empathy struck a chord with me. I realized that as disturbing as I find this parable to be, I also know that I am guilty of wishing for these same results to happen to those whom I believe have distorted the gospel message. Maybe all of us do. Perhaps we do not wish for total destruction or for their cities to burn to the ground, but we may wish that they feel the sting of repercussion for their own actions. I’ll be honest, I certainly have wished those things.

            That is a tough thing to admit, but unless I am in total denial, I have to be willing to own up to the fact that it is true. Because there are a whole lot of people out there who proclaim to be Christian, to be a disciple of Jesus as I do, but their take on what that means, their interpretation of the gospel, is so radically different from mine that I despair of ever finding a common ground other than in the name “Christian” itself. I suspect they may feel the same way about me.

            Because the truth is when it comes the kingdom of heaven, when it comes to the idea that the kingdom of heaven is like a wedding banquet thrown by a king, before I say yes to the invitation, before I give my RSVP, I would really like to know who is on the guestlist. I want to know who is going to be there. Who will I have to sit next to? Who must I socialize with? What if I fundamentally disagree with him? What will I do? What will I say?

And when it comes to the guest list, the real truth is that I would like to have some say in who is on it, and more importantly, who is not. But that isn’t how a banquet in the kingdom of heaven works, is it? I usually love this kind of imagery. I love the idea of the kingdom of heaven being a great banquet, a feast, in which there is always room at the table for every person. I have had dreams of feasts like this, where we sit at the table with friends and family, with neighbors and strangers who we realize were our neighbors all along, with those who are living and those who are living in God, and it is the most beautiful and wonderful dream. There is no thought to the guest list because we are all invited, and we have all accepted the invitation. But that is in my dreams, and I am far from living out that dream in my waking life.

            You see as hard as this parable is, to hear, to read, to understand, to contend with, we also hold it in tension with what we believe and know about God. What we believe and know is that God is a God of grace. God is a God of love and mercy, and yes, judgment too. But judgment in Matthew’s gospel is not solely fixed on punishment but on opening the eyes and heart and mind of the one being judged so that person can change course, can turn back to God. And if this is what we believe, that God is a gracious, merciful, loving, and reproving God, then we have to let go of our need to see who is on the guest list. We must be willing to accept that God has invited others to come to the wedding banquet, even others who challenge us. We have to accept that God may just show grace to others that I would not show grace to if it were up to me. God may invite others that I would not invite.

            But what about that guy at the end? The man who shows up for the feast but is kicked out for wearing the wrong clothes? What do we do with this? This seems to take the parable from difficult to downright impossible. In my study of this passage, I have heard a few theories. One is that if we accept the invitation, then we have to be prepared to follow through in every way. Being a disciple of Christ is not just about saying, “yes,” then sitting back and resting on our laurels. Being a disciple means striving to live the life we have been called to, in our words and in our deeds. It is not enough to just show up at the banquet, we have to dress ourselves accordingly.

            A second possibility is that the idea of the king representing God is wrong. When it comes to the guest who is thrown out of the banquet, we must consider that the party goers are us and the man banished from our communion is Jesus himself. If Jesus, a Middle-Eastern itinerant, hard truth speaking, temple cleansing, parable telling, welcomer of society’s outcasts, misfits, and rogues preacher were to show up at our doors, would we welcome him in? Would we make room at the table for him especially since he would not look like us or sound like us or think like us?

            I don’t know which of these ideas is technically “correct.” I suppose they both hold truth. But I do know that what we must lean on when it comes to parables like this one is God’s grace. This is not grace that excuses all our misdeeds no matter what. This is not a grace that helps us just enough that we learn to tolerate the differences of others. This is a grace that not only forgives us our weaknesses but reminds us that others have weaknesses too. This is a grace that calls us back to the party, to the banquet table, and restores our name to the guest list. Thanks be to God for this grace, for this abiding grace, for this amazing grace.

            Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.” Amen.

           

           

           

The Vineyard -- World Communion Sunday

 

Matthew 21:33-46

October 4, 2020

 

We are no strangers to warning labels in our society. It seems that just about everything we use or consume or touch or even smell has a warning attached to it. Pharmaceutical advertising is a stand-up comic’s dream come true, because while an ad spends 50 seconds of a 60 second spot touting a new medication’s amazing, miraculous, curative benefits, it spends the last 10 seconds listing every conceivable side effect. Often, the side effects sound worse than the illness that warrants the medication. But if the warnings were not given, whether it’s on a new medication or something else, there would be a public outcry. It is in the best interest of everyone to be warned about something potentially dangerous or threatening to our health or well-being. 

            I sometimes think the same should be true for scripture. A warning label should be pasted both on the outside cover and on the inside. Before we turn one page of our Bible, whatever the translation, there should be a warning that if we’re going to read it, we read at our own risk.  Maybe we need an even stronger admonition, like the robot on the old television show, Lost in Space.  “Danger, danger, Will Robinson.” 

            I don’t say this to be irreverent. I say this because I believe that being faithful means that we must read scripture on its terms, not ours. It is not easy to do. I would much rather read the passages and stories in the Bible that confirm my understanding of God and skip the ones that challenge my preconceptions and firmly held notions. Yet if I want to be faithful in reading scripture, then I have to also read the passages and stories and parables that challenge me, that push back at me, that make struggle. I have to read scripture on its own terms, not mine. That is where the warning label comes in. Reading scripture on its own terms may force us to not only see God differently, but to see ourselves differently as well. This passage from Matthew has the power to do both, so you have been warned. We read it at our own risk.

            As I studied this passage, what I repeatedly read in commentaries is that this parable has been used to justify anti-Semitism. If we read this story as pure allegory, it is easy to see how that interpretation has been reached.

To better understand the parable itself, we need to understand the scene in which it is set. Jesus is in the final days before his arrest and crucifixion. He is in the temple. He is in a confrontation with the Pharisees and scribes, the religious authorities. They want to stop him, silence him, at any cost. They have been challenging his authority. Jesus has responded to their challenges with parables. Jesus responded to their challenge with a parable about a vineyard, and a father and two sons. Our parable today is also about a vineyard. It takes place in a vineyard.

The vineyard would have been a relatable, familiar example to the people listening to Jesus. In this story a vineyard was planted by a landowner. The landowner plants it, puts a fence around it, digs a wine press, and builds a watchtower. This was what any responsible landowner would have done. He leaves the vineyard in the hands of his tenants and goes to another country.  When harvest time rolls around, he sends his servants to the tenants to collect his share of the harvest. Again, this would have been standard practice. But the tenants turn on the slaves. They beat one, they kill another, and they stone a third. Yet the landowner does not retaliate. Instead he sends more slaves to them, and those slaves are treated the same way. 

            I suspect that everyone who heard Jesus tell this was thinking that surely the landowner would now rain down punishment, rain down vengeance on the heads of the tenants. It was bad enough that they beat and killed the first slaves sent to them, but to do that a second time? No landowner would put up with that. But here’s the twist; not only did the landowner not retaliate, the owner of the vineyard sent one more emissary: his son. Surely, he thinks, his son will be respected. Surely, they won’t harm the landowner’s own flesh and blood. But when the tenants see the son approaching, they hatch a plot.

“Let’s kill the son, and then we’ll receive the inheritance.”

They seize the son, throw him out of the vineyard, and kill him too. 

            When Jesus finishes his story, he asks the Pharisees,

“Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?”

The Pharisees respond,

“He will put those wretches to death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.”

            Just as Jesus did in the parable of the father and the two sons, the other parable of the vineyard, the question that Jesus asks of the Pharisees puts them in a position to condemn themselves. The ones who refuse to give the share of the harvest to the landowner, the ones who kill the slaves and son of the landowner, then have the audacity and sense of entitlement to believe that the inheritance will still come to them, are the ones who will be put to a miserable death. They are the ones who will lose their place in the vineyard to others. The point of the parable seems obvious. Jesus says it. The Pharisees are the wicked tenants. 

            If the Pharisees are the wicked tenants who kill not only the slaves, but the son, then it’s not difficult to make the leap that the Jews are the ones who are sent out of the vineyard, and the Christians are the new tenants who “produce at the harvest time.” Reading the parable this way makes it an “us versus them” scenario. But here is where the warning label is needed. What makes us think that we – Christians, good church goers, etc. – are always the good guys? I have asked this question of us before. What makes us assume that we are the “good guys” in every story or parable?

Jesus pushed the Pharisees and the religious leaders and all those who thought they knew God’s will to realize that God was and is doing a new thing. God would not be limited by their dogma. Nor will God be limited by ours. Jesus goes on to quote,

“The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.” 

            The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. 

            Yes, reading this parable strictly as allegory makes it far too easy to point fingers and make judgments and assume that we understand it in the right way. Warning. We should never assume. But do you know what is really troubling to me about this passage?  Do you know what really bothers me about the story that Jesus tells?  What bothers me is that the landowner must have been a fool. Why did he persist in sending people to these tenants? Why did he not learn from the terrible results the first time?

I read nothing in this passage that suggests that the vineyard owner was secretly oppressive or evil or deserved this kind of violent response from his tenants. Yet violence was their response. Every person or persons he sent to them was met with terrible violence. I don’t think anyone hearing this parable would have blamed the landowner if, after the first time his slaves were beaten and killed, he had retaliated in kind. But he didn’t. He just sent more people, and when they were horribly killed, he sent his son. What a fool. 

            But if this story, whether it is meant to be heard and read allegorically or not, reflects on God in any way, shape or form, then doesn’t that mean that God is foolish?  Is God foolish?  Is God’s love, God’s persistent, unending, unconditional love, foolish? 

            Maybe it is. But then again, it all seems foolish, doesn’t it? It is foolishness that God is born as a helpless, homeless baby. It is foolishness that God suffers and dies. It is foolishness that God takes on this weak and finite flesh of ours to show us what it really means to be human, to open our eyes to the kingdom right here in our midst.

God does everything a fool would do. God does not give up on us, even though we deserve it. God does not stop loving us, even though we would stop loving someone else who treated us the way these tenants treated the landowner; the way we treat the Creator and the Creation. God persists for our sake, foolishly. Does this mean that there is not judgment for our actions? No, but that judgment is always tempered with mercy, with love. And by the world’s standards, it is a foolish love. God shows us an undeserved and unreserved forgiveness, and an extravagant grace. That is foolishness, isn’t it? Paul wrote that the cross is foolishness. As the cornerstone of God’s new thing, Jesus said,  

“The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.” 

            I have always heard those words as a terrible and violent punishment, a terrible, violent judgment. But perhaps what it really is foolish. Perhaps the only way that we can truly recognize and feel and respond to God’s foolish love is when we our hard hearts and our closed minds are finally broken open. I know that in my own life, it has been those moments when I feel the most lost, those moments when I have felt the most alone, that I found God right there beside me. And I realized that beside me was where God had been the whole time, loving me: extravagantly, unreservedly, foolishly. 

            Today, as we come to the table to take bread and wine, we do so knowing that Christians around the world are doing the same. To many people, it must seem like a foolish thing to do.  How can just eating a piece of bread and swallowing a bit of wine be sacred? How does this one act proclaim hope when the world is so hurting, so broken? Maybe in the eyes of the world it is foolish, but this bread and wine reminds us that we are more alike than we are different.  Whatever our language or culture or worldview, we come to this table in hope that love still has the power to overcome evil, that light can still conquer the darkness, that peace is not just a fleeting dream. We come to this table hopefully, trustingly, foolishly, knowing that the good news, the amazing, wonderful, overwhelming good news, is that God loves us foolishly first.  Praise be to God for that foolish love. 

Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia!”  Amen.

           

 

Are We There Yet?

 

Exodus 17:1-7

September 27, 2020

 

            Some of the memories that loom large over my childhood are the car trips we used to take to Minnesota. Although I did fly with my mom to Minnesota a few times, as I will do tomorrow, when the whole family went – Mom, Dad, Jill, Brad, and Amy – we piled into the car and drove all day from Nashville to Minneapolis. And when I say, “all day,” I mean “all day.” My mom would often stay up most of the night before, doing loads of laundry, cleaning, packing. My dad, who was always the primary driver, would sleep. The rest of us would sleep, although I remember hearing my mother as she worked. Before the first light of dawn could make its way across the sky, we would be in the car and on the road.

            I remember seeing Nashville go by through the car window. Jill and Brad would go back to sleep. I would move up to the front seat between my parents. This was in the days of cars with bench seats and no mandatory child restraints, so I would put my feet in my dad’s lap and my head in my mom’s lap, and once I was held down I would sleep as well. Sometime around Paducah, Kentucky, we would stop and have breakfast. Then we would keep driving … and driving … and driving. Minneapolis is a long drive from Nashville. The drive from Shawnee, Oklahoma to Nashville was about ten hours of driving. Add about four more hours of driving onto that, and you can imagine the length of time spent in our car.

            When it was light outside, you could read or color to make the time pass. But when darkness fell, it got harder. Much harder to stay still in the car. We would play games, our favorite being “I’m Thinking of Somebody,” which was my family’s version of Twenty Questions. When the game finally faded away, my mom could tell that I was getting restless, so she would say what she said on every road trip.

            “Let’s sing.”

            We sang. Generally, the most popular songs from Sound of Music were our favorites. But we probably sang Christmas carols – even in July – and anything else my mother could think of to keep me going for the last few hours of the drive. It was a long drive. And no matter how hard my mother worked to keep my occupied, I’m sure I asked more than once,

            “Are we there yet?”

            I know that this is probably not what the Israelites were asking in their 40-year sojourn through the wilderness. It probably was not mentioned in their grumbling and complaining, but I can’t help but think of these words whenever I read these narratives from Exodus.

            Are we there yet? The people thought that Moses was leading them out of slavery into a new world that was just their own, into new lives that were just their own, but they have lessons to learn. They biggest lesson they must learn is to trust God. They must trust this God who called Moses and led them out of bondage in Egypt. They must trust this God who has made it clear that they have been chosen to be God’s people and to fulfill a larger purpose in this world God has created.

            The Israelites who followed Moses of out of Egypt may have grown up hearing the old stories of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. But those were stories. Those people who bore those names had lived a long, long time ago. They had been living in slavery for generations. Pharaoh had ruled the world that they had known, the life that they had lived. Now they were free from Pharaoh, but what next? What would happen to them now? They had to learn the lesson of trust in God.

            It was not an easy lesson to learn. In stories before our passage today, the Israelites had to trust that God would provide them with food. And God did provide. God provided manna and quail. But now their bellies might be full, but full bellies will not protect them from dehydration. I read somewhere that the longest a person can live without water is about three days. The Israelites were traveling through harsh wilderness. There was no water in sight. They were traveling with children, whose bodies would dehydrate even quicker than their own. They were thirsty. They were scared, and even though God has provided before, their thirst was greater than their trust.

            So, they argued and quarreled with Moses. Give us water, they demanded. Why didn’t you just let us die back in Egypt? Why did you bring us all the way out to this no-man’s land if you were just going to let us, our children, our livestock die from thirst?

            And even though they don’t say this in particular, you can imagine that they are at least thinking,

“Working for Pharaoh was horrible and brutal, but at least it was a horror we knew. We knew where we stood. We knew what we were in for. We knew what to expect. Better to stay in the hell you know.”

Moses is beside himself. The people are so angry. He fears that in their desperation they will come after him. But God speaks to him once more. Take some of the elders and the staff that you struck the Nile with, and go to the rock at Horeb that I will show you. Strike the rock, and water will flow from it. The elders will witness it. The people will be able to drink.

Moses did what the Lord told him to do. And the people drank. Their thirst was quenched. And Moses did what others had done before him. He named this place, this holy place. He named it Massah and Meribah because there the Israelites had quarreled God. There, the Israelites has asked,

“Is the Lord among us or not?”

Is the Lord among us or not? Is God with us or not? Has God forgotten us? Has God left us? Are we there yet?

It would be easy from this great distance to judge the Israelites harshly for their lack of faith, their lack of trust. God led them out of slavery! God vanquished the Egyptians pursuing them! God had caused miracles to happen in their midst over and over again. God fed them and God protected them. Of course, God would make sure they had water to drink. How foolish they were, how easily defeated and forgetful.

Except I am the Israelites. Aren’t we all? Doing something new sounds exciting and great. Doing something different, following a different call, a different path seems to promise so much, and at first all you can see is the promise. But then real life sets in. It gets hard. Problems arise. Challenges appear. It is too hard. There is too much unknown. I want to go back. Sure, God was with me before in other times and other circumstances, but where is God now? I’m not sure anymore. I don’t know if God is with me anymore or not. So, I want to go back. I want to go back to what I knew with a k instead of trusting God in this something new, just the n.

Are you an Israelite too?

I read a statistic that said it takes a woman in an abusive relationship at least 5 times to leave her abuser and stay gone. And that isn’t because she wants to be abused. It is because leaving is so hard. The new life she is trying to forge can feel as hellish as the old life, but the old hell was a hell she knew.

Is the Lord among us or not? Are we there yet?

I cannot condemn the Israelites and their fear, their lack of trust, because I experience that as well, more times than I like or want to admit. But that is the struggle, the challenge, of faith. Faith is not something that you get just once, and you’re done. At least that’s not how it has been for me. Faith is a process of going forward and moving back and doing some sidesteps and dance moves along the way. When I’m feeling strong in my faith, I might even do a spin or two. And when I am struggling, I shuffle, barely able to lift my feet off the ground.

Faith is a daily choice to keep going, keep trusting. And there are some days when I am better at that than others. There are some days when I feel God’s presence, and many more days when I ask, “Is the Lord among us or not?”

Writer and blogger Debie Thomas wrote that God gives us the water from the rock, but that God also gives us the wilderness. Trust in God is not something that can be infused into us. We have to learn it. We have to experience God keeping God’s promises so that our trust will grow. I am not saying, nor do I think that Thomas was implying this, that we get arbitrarily tested in our faith. God doesn’t just throw terrible situations at us and say, “Okay, let’s see how you get through this.”

No, I think the hard times come because living brings hard times. And I think God calls us to hard places and hard situations because that is where we are needed. And I think that God wants us to believe that God is with us even in the hardest, most difficult moments, so we have to work through it and look for God and trust that God is there even when our looking feels in vain. I don’t believe that God creates the wilderness moments, but I do believe that God wants us to trust that God is there in the midst of them; to trust that God does not abandon us to ourselves and our own limits. God is there with us, even and most especially, when we forget or quarrel or question. God is there. God is here. Water is gushing from the rock, we just have to trust, close our eyes, and drink.

Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.” Amen.