Call

Exodus 3:1-15   

Last week I talked to you about the best first lines of novels. Today I want to tell you about one of the best book titles I have heard: A Good Walk Spoiled. It’s a book about the game of golf.

I don’t play golf, but I like the title very much. It speaks to me, and I’ll tell you why: The author writes, “One week you’ve discovered the secret to the game; the next week you never want to play it again.”  This could be said about ministry. And when I say ministry, I mean every Christian who is called to walk the walk of faith. Sometimes it feels like a good walk spoiled.

Moses would relate. There he was, out for a walk – just Moses and the flock – and the angel of the Lord calls to him from this burning bush. He just had to look. I know he was sorry, because once he looked he was hooked.

And Moses was living a good life, perfectly content with his wife, his family, his work. He didn’t need this – whatever it was God was offering him. But once he looked, he couldn’t look away. He couldn’t not walk over that way and heed the voice of the Lord saying to him: take off your sandals for you are standing on holy ground. He couldn’t not listen.

And once he heard it, he couldn’t unhear it. The Lord called him to a new vocation: to deliver God’s people out of the bondage of slavery and into the promise of freedom. Moses was going back to Egypt, like it or not.

He didn’t really like it. In fact, he had run away from it years earlier. Moses, who was lifted out of the river and taken by the Pharaoh’s daughter, raised in the lap of power and privilege in the land of Egypt –

Yet knew who he was. When he was grown, he went out among the building sites where the Hebrew slaves were working. He watched an Egyptian beating a Hebrew slave and Moses intervened, killing the Egyptian. Maybe he thought this would endear him to the slaves, but it didn’t. And when Pharaoh learned of it, the text says, he sought to have Moses killed. So Moses fled. He found a new home in the land of Midian, where he was safe and comfortable.

It seems like the last place Moses wanted to go was back to Egypt.

He tried to talk his way out of it, just as many others have done when faced with the call of God. Not too many of us say, “Thank you, God, for this opportunity,” when God calls us into our particular ministries. You don’t see the prophets of Israel raising their hands, begging God to choose them. They whine, they make excuses, they act like they don’t understand. But God is persistent.

They say, “I can’t do this,” and God says, “I will equip you.” They say, “I don’t know how,” and God says, “I will show you the way.” They say, “I am afraid,” and God says, “I will be with you.” You see – it doesn’t all depend on you, it isn’t even about you, when you are following the call of God.

This past week I watched the film Harriet about Harriet Tubman. She escaped slavery and fled to the safety of the north. Then she returned to the land of slavery again, and again, and again to lead more than 70 others to freedom. They called her Moses because she was following God’s call to deliver God’s people.

The film portrays how Harriet Tubman always believed that God was guiding her and protecting her. God led her to freedom not just for her own sake, but so that she could be an instrument of liberation for others. I believe this is how it always is with the call of God.

People of faith should recognize that what riches we have in this life are gifts from God, who is the source of all blessings. If we feel that we have been blessed with good things – a loving family, a secure home, material abundance – we must also recognize that God doesn’t bless us to become self-satisfied and complacent. The whole story of the Bible tells us that God blesses us to be a blessing to others. and God’s call will always lead you to, somehow or another, be that blessing.

Moses took his blessing and went back to Egypt to become an irritant to Pharaoh and eventually lead God’s people to freedom. Harriet took her blessing and went back down to the plantations to take slaves out of the fields, out of their chains, and lead them to freedom.

In one scene of the movie, a minister tells Harriet, “Fear is your enemy.” This is true. If Harriet had given in to fear she would have been captured. If she had given in to her fear she would not have returned to liberate others.

It is important to say this because fear is not uncommon when faced with the call of God. There is a reason the angels in the Bible always say, “Be not afraid.” It is natural to be afraid because God is always calling us to venture out into unknown territory, for the sake of God’s people. God is often calling us to step out into a place where we will be criticized and scorned for acting against the majority interest – against what may even look like our own personal best interest.

And as I said, when I talk about God’s call to ministry I am not just talking about pastors and prophets and missionaries. I am talking about every Christian who is called to walk the walk of faith.

Each of us must ask ourselves repeatedly whether the decision we are making, the direction we are taking, is guided by God. How are we serving God, and the people God loves, in our actions? The question of the day is: How is God calling you?

God calls some to walk into the land of Egypt and deliver people to freedom – but God’s call takes many different forms. God calls some to simply refrain from acts of violence. God calls others to sacrifice their presumptions about others and just listen to their stories, imagine their journeys. And God calls others to stand up and say, “I will not entertain you while my people are suffering and dying.” As professional sports leagues did this past week. As the psalmist says, our tormentors demanded songs of joy, but how could we sing?

And I commend these men and women for deciding they will not just play it safe and protect their assets. They will risk something for the sake of those whose very lives are at risk.

God’s call will always call you out of your little safety zone and invite you into a bigger place. It may seem scary. It may seem like too big a sacrifice to make. But it will always, surprisingly, lead you into a place of greater love.

Reverend Dr. King said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” And so the call of God will always lead us toward greater justice, greater light, greater love. My prayer today is that you will hear God’s call to you; that you will turn aside from whatever you are doing, just as Moses turned aside to see that burning bush; and that you will open your heart to the power of God’s love moving you toward freedom.

photo: Reflection on Sand and Water.  © Tomas Castelazo, www.tomascastelazo.com / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=46457765

By the Grace of God

 

Exodus 1:8-2:10

A favorite pastime among readers is to list the best first lines of novels – sentences that are so good they hook the reader instantly. Think of the opening line from Anna Karenina: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Or Moby Dick: “Call me Ishmael.” “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” from A Tale of Two Cities, and my personal favorite: “124 was spiteful,” from Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved.

And chapter 1, verse 8 from the book of Exodus, is also one of the best: “Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.” Now, you might say it doesn’t count because it’s not the first line – it’s the eighth line of the book. Technically you are right – but I think verses 1-7 are more like a prologue to the story. The real story begins in verse 8.

“A new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph” – this sentence says it all. All the fears and dread, all the worst possibilities for Israel are contained in this sentence. A new king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph. It didn’t happen right away. It didn’t happen in anyone’s lifespan. But eventually, inevitably, it happened.

A new king arose over Egypt who did not know how much gratitude was owed to Joseph – and to Joseph’s God. A new king who did not know that, had it not been the Lord who was on their side, they would be gone. Egypt would have been no more, they would have died out in the terrible famine that had happened those many years ago. A new king who did not know that because of Joseph, and by the grace of God, Egypt survived the drought.

He did not know because that was so many years ago – and, really, who cared anymore? It was such a long time ago. Why bother to remember something that doesn’t fit the story they would like to tell about themselves. This little detail about some foreigner who had to rescue a great nation from its own shortsightedness – is it really important?

Willful amnesia, perhaps? We all practice it sometimes; Egypt certainly did at this time. The collective conscience of a nation can be dangerously weak when they decide not to remember, when they turn the other into their enemy. When they let their fear get the upper hand, as nations sometimes do, and are willing to sacrifice compassion in the bargain. To read the story of what happened to Israel these many years after Joseph is to take a walk on the darker side of humanity. There is much evil on display in these first two chapters of Exodus.

Yet, there is also hope.

The story of Moses is a miracle story, from beginning to end – and sometimes the miracle is the fact that ordinary human beings resist the forces of evil. This first part of the story, the conditions under which Moses arrived in the world, highlight a few individuals who resisted the evil surrounding them and chose to do something good. To borrow some words from the psalm, let me put it this way:

If it had not been Puah and Shiphrah who midwifed the Hebrew women, every baby boy of Israel would have been stillborn.

If it had not been Moses’ mother who was brave and resourceful and strong, the infant Moses would have been thrown into the Nile.

If it had not been Moses’ sister, Miriam, who loved her brother and watched out for him, he might have died in the papyrus basket.

If it had not been the Pharaoh’s daughter who found Moses in the reeds, he might have been just one more lost boy of Israel.

It’s a story with a lot of “ifs” in it. It’s the kind of story where all the parts are held together by the grace of God.

But I am hesitant to use the phrase, because talking about the grace of God can be a risky thing; it can so easily be misunderstood. It’s a phrase people use when they have avoided some catastrophe, that it was by the grace of God. It’s what people say when they see someone who has been dealt a horrible fate – “There but for the grace of God go I.” It is as if to say the grace of God has chosen us and passed over that other miserable wretch.

It doesn’t make sense to talk this way, because we all know that even we who claim God’s love suffer our share of hardships and heartbreaks. St Theresa of Avila, who worked herself nearly to death for Christ’s church, committing her whole life to it, is said to have heard the voice of God speaking to her at a particularly difficult time. “This is how I treat all my friends,” the Lord said, to which Theresa replied, “Then it is no wonder your Lordship has so few.”

Seriously, I don’t know how far we want to go down the road of crediting God for every good thing and blaming God for every bad thing that happens, keeping a tally of pluses and minuses. The biblical text says God gave the midwives families as reward for their courage and faithfulness, but we might say this is too quaint. We might claim that we have a more complex, more sophisticated view of things now.

But do we? I wonder if I should say we just don’t leave much room for ambiguity anymore.

In our world where everything is crisply outlined in black and white; fact or fiction; where one plus one must always and only ever equal two; we may have lost the ability to say –

The hand of God has saved Moses and

the hand of God has rewarded the midwives and

the hand of God has chosen Israel even while

the hand of God has allowed the suffering of Israel;

to say that the grace of God is present in all things because

the grace of God is not in what actually happens but in how we experience what happens.

And how we experience what happens will certainly affect the choices we make.

As the prophet Micah says, “God has shown you, O Mortal, what is good.” God has equipped us with the ability to discern evil from good. And what we see in this story about a time when a new king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph – - - - it is very much like what we see in life: when things get hard, some will become the instruments of evil, but others will stand up and say no.

And so, I say to you that it is not by the grace of God that we stroll through a valley of sunshine and lollipops and unicorns and butterflies.

Unicorns aren’t real, anyway.

But it is by the grace of God that we know what is good and have the choice to step forward and say so.

May it be so. Amen.

photo: I have been making a collection of these hope signs that have been appearing during the pandemic. Hope is a good response to hard times.

Meaning and Purpose

Genesis 45:1-15

Some years ago When I was a campus minister, I knew a student named Megan – a very dear young woman. She had this ability to find the silver lining in everything. Megan could find something hopeful in every disappointment, and she would always say: “In a way, I’m glad this happened,” and then she would tell me how she had found some new opportunity in the setback. Megan had a talent for reframing her disappointments.

Of course, these were all relatively minor disappointments. I don’t know how she would have handled a real crisis, the kind of thing Joseph was thrown into again and again and again.

So much has happened to Joseph since last week, when he was trotted off to Egypt with the Ishmaelite caravan. There he was sold to Potiphar, an official in Pharaoh’s court, and Joseph rose quickly in Potiphar’s household, soon put in charge of everything. But then Mrs. Potiphar came along and, as the book says, she “cast her eye” on Joseph. When Potiphar found out, he had Joseph thrown in jail.

Where he languished for years. But during that time his gift for interpreting dreams was recognized and put to use. Other prisoners would seek him out to help them understand their circumstances better. It was here that Joseph interpreted dreams for Pharaoh’s chief cupbearer.

Years later, the chief cupbearer was back in his position serving Pharaoh, and he remembered the man from prison who had interpreted dreams – and that’s how Joseph finally came to Pharaoh’s court. It was a long road of suffering for Joseph. We have to remember that to imagine how it felt:

When the day arrives that Joseph sees his eleven brothers in the palace of Pharaoh. The eleven brothers who had thrown him into a pit, and then pulled him out to sell him into slavery. The eleven brothers who had then gone home and lied to their father, telling him Joseph was dead. The eleven brothers who, for all these years Joseph had been exiled, enslaved, imprisoned, they had been in the comfort of their family home, surrounded by loved ones. Imagine how Joseph felt.

To see these eleven brothers who treated him so cruelly, now all of them bowing to the ground before him – at this moment, imagine how he felt.

How would you have felt?

I should add that this scene when Joseph reveals his identity to the brothers is not the first time he has seen them – that’s important. And the fact that they don’t recognize him – that’s important too.  This all gives Joseph some time and space to figure out how he feels about this.

And what he figures out … is how the hand of God has moved through all of this.

Joseph sees God in everything that he has been through. He sees how every single thing that has happened to him has led to the next thing and the next thing and the next thing – and finally taken him here, in the same room with his brothers and in a position to save his whole family from famine.

Joseph sees the hand of God in all of it – he sees design instead of malice. He sees purpose and meaning. And because he can see all this, he can forgive his brothers for their deeds. Joseph is able to let go of it, and to experience gratitude instead of resentment.

What is it like to be able to exchange resentment for gratitude?

I can think of conversations I have had with people who carry their bitterness for years. They cannot forget, they refuse to forgive for how they have been hurt. I can recall people who have carried around resentment for the losses they have experienced in their lives, never forgetting them and never letting them go.

But, on the other hand, I remember a story shared with me by my friend Jean, who has a son with schizophrenia. At a certain point, the family decided that it was best for her son to move out of Jean’s home. She inquired about getting him into a group home but discovered there was a years-long waiting list. So instead Jean helped him get an apartment, and tried to make it work. She drove over every morning to bring him coffee and cigarettes. When I asked her why she couldn’t just do it every few days or once a week, she said that if she gave him a week’s worth of cigarettes he would smoke them in a day.

But her son was an easy target for anyone who would take advantage of him. Pretty soon he was befriended by some people who wanted to do just that. They began using his apartment to make drug deals. When the police showed up and arrested the drug dealers – Jean’s son was evicted.

Jean was in crisis. She made a phone call to find out where they were on the waiting list for a placement in a group home, hoping it was moving faster than expected. She explained the situation over the phone and she was told that now everything was different. Since he was evicted, he was considered homeless, and that put him at the top of the list. Jean’s son was placed in a group home within a week.

Jean told me this story as a way of saying this is how God sometimes works. If her son had not been abused by the drug dealers, and if the police had not come in, and if he had not been evicted, he would not have been moved to the top of the list and found the home that was right for him.

Sometimes a terrible thing opens the way for a good thing to happen – not that we should minimize the terrible thing. But, perhaps, we can see it as a part of a process, part of a greater whole. And the truth is, you are the only one who can do that for yourself.

Joseph was only able to forgive his brothers because he was able to see that every one of us has our part to play in God’s great design. And I would even say that, probably, every one of us takes our turn playing the villain in some way.

There is an incredible gift for Joseph when he declares that God has given his life purpose and meaning. It is the gift of grace, gratitude, forgiveness.

How can you receive this same gift?

May you look back on the hardships and losses of life and ask if there is a way God was present in it.

May you reflect on present hardships and losses and ask God to show you the blessings in it.

May you look beyond the hardships and losses, and trust that God will work through it all, bring you through it all, and carry you into the presence of Jesus. 

Picture: Joseph Embracing Benjamin. Painting by Yoram Raanan

Dreamers

Genesis 37:1-38

When I ask people about their dreams, often they say, “I don’t have dreams, I just don’t dream.” Or, if they do have dreams, they don’t remember them. But, sometimes, if we continue talking they will remember a dream they had … then maybe another dream will come to mind. When it comes to dreaming, I think we all do it – it’s a matter of being mindful of our dreams

During the past six months, I have read, many people have been experiencing pandemic dreams. Some of them are pretty obvious – like dreams about being sick, or having a loved one sick with the virus, dreams about being unable to breath or desperately trying to find your lost face mask. But some are weird and funny dreams – like being wrapped up in toilet paper and being the envy of all who see you. Being surrounded by swarming bugs, symbolizing the virus. Dreaming about hands, because of the fear of touching things.

Sometimes, in our dreams, our fears come out in ways we might not let them out in the light of day. But dreaming can also be a way for the unconscious mind to cope with a problem. Sometimes we find answers or relief in our dreams.

Sometimes our dreams help us understand something in our lives. For example, last night I dreamed that I was knocking on people’s doors, then just walking in without an invitation. I walked around their houses, opening doors, poking my nose into rooms and closets. This weird dream was probably related to the fact that I have been asking other people about their dreams this week. I have been poking my nose into something that is usually private. My dream helped me realize the vulnerability of sharing something so personal, and what a gift people are giving me when they share it.

Dreams are important and helpful for many reasons, but most of all because God speaks to us in our dreams. Without question, the people of the Bible believed that. Dreams can be powerful things. And that is why Joseph’s family was so disturbed when he told them his dreams.

If wasn’t just because he was a twerp of a little brother. It wasn’t just because he was papa’s pet. It wasn’t just because he had that fine multicolored coat that he wore all the time. All those things were true – but aside from all that, Joseph had some powerful dreams. And the meaning of his dreams was clear to all of them. That Joseph, the youngest of them all, would somehow rule over the rest of them. That all of these men who were bigger, stronger, older than Joseph, would bow down to him. What a crazy notion – what a threatening notion.

And it got him into a lot of trouble.

For, what do people do with someone they find threatening? They try to get rid of them.

This is just what Joseph’s brothers did. They got rid of the boy with the dreams – but the boy never stopped believing in his dreams. Joseph was a dreamer – no matter how much trouble his dreams would cause for him.

You know, when you think about it, dreamers are often troublemakers. Because dreams allow you to see something different than what already is.

There is no question that dreams can get you into trouble. Both the sleeping kind and the waking kind.

Martin Luther King, Jr spoke of his dream, a dream of equality, of peace and harmony in our land. Martin had a dream of a time when the rough places would be made smooth and the crooked places made straight, and the glory of the Lord would be revealed, and all people would see it together.

And his dream did get him into trouble. A lot of trouble. But, trouble isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

The late John Lewis was known to speak of, what he called, “good trouble.” He recalled how, when he was a child, his mother told him not to get into trouble, and he tried not to. He tried to be obedient to his mother. But when he was a teenager, he heard about Dr. King; he heard about the dream and he was inspired. John said, “Dr. King and Rosa Parks – they inspired me to get into trouble. Good trouble.”

As he embraced the dream, John Lewis came to realize that sometimes trouble is necessary. Sometimes, the dreams God gives you, make it necessary. Sometimes trouble is good.

Joseph’s trouble was necessary, we will learn, because it would put him in the right place at the right time. Joseph’s trouble was good because it saved the people of Israel. Joseph the dreamer was one more essential link in the covenant God made with Israel. Thankfully, Joseph never stopped paying attention to his dreams, and his dreams remained his guiding light.

You know, if you keep your dreams to yourself, never speaking them out loud, never sharing them with anyone or doing anything with them,  you may stay out of trouble. But wouldn’t the world be a poorer place if we never shared our dreams?

What if Martin Luther King had never spoken of his dream? How would we be deprived?

What if John Lewis had never heard of the dream? And what if he had kept his head down, determined to do like his mother said – stay out of trouble? How would we be deprived?

What if that dreamer, Joseph, had never opened his mouth and spoken up about his dreams?

The world would be a different place.

Do you dream?

I encourage you, friends, pay attention to your dreams. Share them with others, if that feels like the right thing to do. Or hold them close, like Mary did, and ponder them in your heart. But don’t dismiss them. Don’t bury them.

Let yourself dream … let God open your eyes, illumine you and guide you and set you free.

The world is blessed by the dreamers and their dreams. 

Alone Again

Genesis 32:22-31       

Matthew 14:13-21     

Since this pandemic began, I have developed a certain kind of sensitivity. That is, when I see people get close to one another, touching one another, it sets off an internal alarm, like, “danger, Will Robinson, danger!” This happens when I’m watching TV and see scenes of people crowded into rooms together or embracing each other. “Six feet apart!” I want to shout at the screen.

I had that reaction to the gospel story, with the mention of the crowds that Jesus couldn’t get away from when he went in search of solitude.

We have all had quite a bit of time to think about solitude this year. It has its place, but not too many of us are cut out to be hermits, practicing solitude as a way of life. Of course, those who have children at home might be thinking a little time alone might be nice.

Some of us, introverts, crave time alone; others of us, extraverts, crave time with others. Introverts and extraverts get their batteries charged in different ways. But everyone needs some time alone with themselves as much as time with other people, for the sake of balance. We all need to charge up our batteries, but we also have to spend some of that energy.

I think we need both because important things happen in both the alone realm and the together realm. We know when we are together with others we can show our love and support for them, we can serve others and work together with others to make a better, more loving place.

But when you are alone you can become more aware of yourself and your identity. It gives you time to listen to your heart speak. It also gives you time to listen for the voice of God.

This is what the story of Jacob is about, in large part. When he fled from home as a young man, he spent a night alone in the middle of nowhere. It could be that this was the first time Jacob had ever spent a night alone. It led to a life-changing encounter with God. In his strange vision of a ladder to heaven, Jacob received the assurance that he was neither forgotten nor alone. Now, years later, on his journey back home, he has another life-changing encounter, but this time, he set himself up for it. He sent the rest of his family across the river, and went back to the other side to be truly alone on this one last night before he would see his brother again.

The Bible says he spent the night wrestling with a man, until daybreak. For a time it would seem that Jacob was winning, then the stranger would be winning, and on it went through the night. Toward the end of the night, they speak. Jacob was asked his name (to see if he knew who he was?), he was given a new name (a new identity), and he was given an injury that would remain with him as a souvenir of this encounter. Finally, he was given a blessing. It was clear, by the time it was over, that Jacob had been wrestling with God.

We know that, somehow, this was what Jacob needed to prepare himself for the reunion with Esau and to fully live into the identity God had in mind for him. Jacob was an essential link in the covenant God made with Abraham, and the times he spent alone were essential experiences for him.

But, of course, time alone is not all that matters in life – far from it. I think it is always the case that time alone prepares us for time together again. When we read the gospels, we see how Jesus periodically tried to get some time alone, because he needed it too – for prayer, for rest, perhaps sometimes for his grief. In the 14^th chapter of Matthew, it seems to be grief that sends him off by himself. He has just learned of the death of John the Baptist, and he withdraws from the crowds to find a quiet place alone. He doesn’t get much, because the crowds just won’t leave him be. They are so needy. They are hungry, in so many ways.  The disciples want to send them away, let them fend for themselves. But Jesus, we are told, had compassion on them.

It’s a very familiar story, one that we never grow tired of hearing, a story that always feeds us. Jesus guides and supports his disciples and together they feed the more than five thousand people gathered that day.

One of the great takeaways of this story is that out of our scarcity Jesus provides abundance. It is a truth that we reaffirm Sunday after Sunday in church – but do we know it is a truth for all aspects of our lives? even when we are not together in this place? That when we are feeling our own inadequacies and emptiness we may turn to Jesus and be restored to fullness? No matter where we are?

If you have any doubt this is true, consider this: An emergency room nurse in a busy city hospital completely overwhelmed by COVID-19 cases. You’ve heard the stories – patients dying before they could even get a bed, body bags kept in refrigerated trucks because the morgue was full. One day this nurse slips into a supply closet to watch a livestream of her church worship service. They are celebrating the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. She holds in her hands a dinner roll and a cup of cranberry juice, the bread and the cup. Afterward, she returns to her work. Did this woman find resources in that supply closet that she needed to carry on? I believe so.

We have a God who satisfies our hunger. Whether we are together or apart, the Lord feeds us with the Words of scripture. And, whether we are together or apart, Christ feeds us with the bread and the cup, and strengthens us to live into our baptismal identity, to love and serve the world in Christ’s name.

Let us celebrate at Christ’s table, that we may not forget who we are.