"I Will Try Them" (Ex 16:2-15)

So Freely from So Little

Danielle Mayfield grew up wanting to be a missionary. She wanted to travel overseas to strange and wonderful lands, to save all the innocent souls who had never heard the name of Jesus. When she was seventeen, she went on a mission trip to India. Her group visited a tiny village to perform an evangelistic play. It was a drama, she says, “about the temptations of money and women and alcohol, and how Jesus has the power to overcome them.” Never mind that this village was dirt poor and had more pressing concerns.

She remembers eating dinner in the village before their play. Sitting on a swept dirt floor, she and her companions ate the rice and curry that had been carefully prepared by a scrawny old woman with only a few teeth left intact. The curry was “hot-as-hell,” she recalls, and seemed to be composed of little more than okra. Having heard that spice is often used to disguise rotting vegetables, she was thankful for the fire in her mouth. She cooled it as best she could with the tall metal cup of water, which must have been drawn from a well outside the village.

Later in the evening, after she and the team had performed their play and no one had come forward at the altar call, they climbed into their SUV and rolled out of the dusty village back to their flat in the city. On the way home, their guide and interpreter remarked in his singsong voice: “That was their one meal of the day, and they shared it with you.”[1]

There are infinite variations on this story. I’ve heard friends share similar anecdotes from their mission trips. It seems to be a common experience. Rich folks from the “developed” world are overwhelmed by the generosity of their dirt-poor hosts, who give so freely of what little they have.

Two Freedoms

These stories of precious gifts so freely given draw a striking contrast to our scripture today. It has been only one month since God delivered the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. Their freedom is fresh. No more impossible brick-laying quotas to meet. No more taunting and tormenting. For the first time in their lives, their bodies are their own.

And yet we discover here in the freshness of their physical freedom, that they are actually still enslaved. Their complaints in today’s scripture are not simply the cries of hunger. They are the cries of delusion. The Israelites long for the land of Egypt, the land of their slavery. They may be free in body, but they are not yet free in soul. They are free from constraints without, but not from constraints within, such as their own selfish impulse. I find really helpful Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’ observation that the exodus story is really a story of two freedoms. The first freedom comes in a single chapter, as God liberates the Israelites from slavery. The second freedom, however, takes over three books—over forty years in the story world, over an entire generation of Israelites. It takes a long time for the Israelites to learn what the dirt-poor hosts in India know, which is that true freedom consists not in the absence of difficult conditions but in a faith and joy that can endure any condition. Paul shows us this second freedom, this soul freedom, in his letter to the Philippians. He writes from prison, and yet his letter is filled with joy. “Rejoice in the Lord always; again, I will say, Rejoice,” writes the man who is sitting in chains, who is sitting behind bars (Phil 4:4).

The Wilderness as a Training Ground

In today’s scripture, God shares with Moses his plans to “test” the people of Israel. I prefer the alternative translation “try” instead of “test,” because the word “trials” seems to me a more accurate theological description of what we daily endure. As the Lord’s Prayer suggests, God does not “lead us” purposefully into “temptation,” or trials. Rather, trials happen, but God is with us to “deliver us” (cf. Luke 11:4). And perhaps to teach us. To help us change and grow. Paul actually talks about the wilderness trials of Israel in his letter to the Corinthians. He says we all go through wilderness trials. “No trial has overtaken you that is not common to everyone” (1 Cor 10:13). I read this to indicate that trials are not purposefully planned by God, but rather are common experiences, such as loss or need or unexpected change. Paul continues, “With the trial God will also provide a way out so that you may be able to endure it” (1 Cor 10:13). In other words, while trials are difficult, sometimes even bad or evil, they are also experiences from which God can always draw good. God may not cause them, but God can always use them to teach us soul freedom.

A few chapters earlier in Exodus, there is a little aside where God thinks to himself. What he thinks, turns out to be a big clue to the meaning of the wilderness and its trials. Here’s the verse: “When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by the way of the land of the Philistines although that was nearer”—in other words, God did not take them directly to the Promised Land. “For God thought, ‘If the people face war, they may change their minds and return to Egypt.’ So God led the people by the roundabout way of the wilderness” (Ex 13:17-18). The Jewish philosopher Maimonides suggests that this verse shows us the true meaning of the wilderness. It is a training ground. God worries that the newly liberated Israelites are not strong in spirit. God worries that when they face adversity, they will want to return to Egypt, to relapse into old patterns of thought and behavior. So God chooses the “roundabout way of the wilderness” in order to train the Israelites through their common trials, to teach them soul freedom, to teach them how to trust in God’s provision and guidance even when conditions are difficult.

One Day at a Time

It will take the Israelites forty years to learn this soul freedom. In the meantime, we will find them complaining, again and again. Perhaps more than anything else, complaining characterizes the Israelites who wander in the wilderness. Their complaints boil down to a desire for control. But the lesson of the manna that God gives them in today’s scripture challenges this desire for control. This trial in the wilderness teaches them that they must relinquish control and trust in God one day at a time. In the wilderness, there is no stockpiling, no silos of grain like there were in Egypt. There is no rationing according to status, no honor-shame meritocracy like there was in Egypt. There is even no method to master, no intellectual know-how that secures their food. The very name, manna, means “What is this?”—which is to say, “Where did this come from? How?” Trusting in God one day at a time runs counter to everything the Israelites learned in Egypt, everything they learned from the way of empire, where goods must be accumulated, where individuals must be ranked and earn their separate living, where planning and efficiency secure the future. 

The Church in the Wilderness?

The more I think about Israel in the wilderness, I find myself pondering the church today, who is entering a wilderness of its own. For a long time—over a millennium—the church was the darling of western civilization. Just think about it in the context of our nation’s history. There used to be blue laws against business and recreational activity on Sunday, to safeguard the church’s day of worship. Oaths in the courthouse used to be performed exclusively over the Bible. Christian prayers have regularly been offered in the public sphere, everywhere from school assemblies to presidential inaugurations. National holidays have made special accommodation for Christian holy days like Christmas and Easter. The money we carry is stamped with a religious confession, “In God we trust.”

I do not mean to challenge these laws and customs. I follow Jesus and render unto Caesar—and Congress—what is theirs. What they decide is not my business. I mean only to observe that the church has long held pride of place in our world. But today it is losing ground. It is no longer the darling of our culture. The longer you’ve lived, the better you probably have a sense for this change, this loss of public favor. But it’s becoming evident to everyone now, as church attendances decrease each year, as funds dry up and buildings are closed, as church loses Sunday to sports and yoga and breweries and brunch. It really is a watershed moment in history. Many Christians are worried. Many are taking an increasingly defensive and combative posture, making plans for how they might battle with culture and win votes and reclaim what they consider to be their rights.

But I must confess, this defensiveness feels “off” to me. I see no such defensiveness in Jesus, whose way is not force but bearing witness. I see no such defensiveness in Paul, who writes in Philippians (one of our lectionary texts today), “[God] has graciously granted you the privilege not only of trusting in Christ, but of suffering for him as well” (Phil 1:29). For Paul, the only privilege we bear is to follow Christ, even when that means hardship at the hands of a world that insists on competition instead of collaboration, vengeance instead of forgiveness, looking out for one’s own instead of taking interest in the other.

Nearly five hundred years ago, a group of Anabaptists (whom we might consider our forebears) saw something similar happening among the established church of their day, as Roman bishops made plays for power and pulled strings all over Europe in order to achieve the aims of the church. They concluded of the church: “The sheep [has taken] on a thoroughly wolfish nature.” In other words, it has never been the way of Christ to rule over others. The lamb is not a wolf. To fight for power and to wield it is already to have lost the struggle, for Christ invites us not to enforce his way on others but to celebrate it before them and invite them onto the way too.

I think the story of Israel in the wilderness might be good news for the church. It reminds us that, at its essence, the community of God never was about buildings or budgets or paid, professional clergy. These institutional trappings have more to do with the way our world likes to operate, whether in ancient Egypt and Rome or in the United States today. When God delivered the Israelites from slavery into the wilderness, God stripped them not only of their chains but also of grain silos and building projects and all the other means of security that are sought in the midst of empire. Similarly, the church is being stripped of its traditional securities: bricked buildings, filled pews, growing budgets, favors in the public sphere. Perhaps we are being invited to learn the freedom that God was teaching the Israelites, the freedom that Paul knows in prison, the freedom that the dirt-poor hosts in India showed their guests. Perhaps we are being invited to learn the simpler life of faith. Manna. One day at a time. For every person.

Prayer

Gracious God,
Who leads us on the “roundabout way” of the wilderness
That we may grow in faith—
May we know our trials,
Both as individuals and as a church,
As opportunities for change and growth
…
Teach us the trust that Jesus had,
That we may shed our wolfish ways
And rejoice in your simple provision,
One day at a time.
In Christ, of gentle and humble heart: Amen.

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[1] D. L. Mayfield, Assimilate or Go Home: Notes from a Failed Missionary on Rediscovering Faith (New York: HarperOne, 2016), 173.

Man of War or Prince of Peace? (Ex 14:19-31)

“The Lord Is a Man of War”

“Stretch out your hand over the sea, so that the water may come back upon the Egyptians” (Ex 14:26). God’s words to Moses. A death sentence for the Egyptians. The narrator explains their fate in a single sentence: “The waters returned and covered [them]; not one of them remained” (Ex 14:28). Immediately following this scene, in the next chapter of Exodus, Moses and the Israelites sing a victory song: “Horse and rider [the Lord] has thrown into the sea…The Lord is a man of war” (Ex 15:1, 3).[1]

I heard once the story of “a dedicated lay leader in an evangelical church, who in mid-life set out to read the Bible for the first time. He was first surprised, then shocked, and finally outraged by the frequency and ferocity of divinely initiated and sanctioned violence in the Old Testament. About halfway through the book of Job, he shut his Bible never to open it again and has not set foot inside a church since.”[2] Today’s scripture may not offend our sensibilities as much those other Old Testament texts in which God commands the annihilation of an entire people. After all, we generally like seeing the bad guys get their just desserts. It might feel sort of good to watch those Egyptian bullies drown from a distance. But today’s story portrays precisely the kind of God that disturbs many Christian readers. A God who is—as Moses and the Israelites put it—“a man of war.”

Christ “Is the Image of the Invisible God”

Is this “man of war” the same person we see in Jesus Christ? Paul tells us that Jesus was the very “image of the invisible God,” in whom “all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell” (Col 1:15, 19). In other words, if you want to know what God looks like, look to Jesus. The Jesus who says things like, “Love your enemies, do good to those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you” (Luke 6:27-28). The Jesus who says, “Turn the other cheek” (6:28).  The Jesus who tells us (in our gospel lectionary scripture for today) to forgive one another not seven times, but seven times seventy (Matt 18:22)—which is to say, even after we lose count. If you want to know what God looks like, look to the Jesus who blesses the peacemakers and calls them “children of God,” which suggests that God is the supreme peacemaker. Look to the Jesus who did not fight back against the Roman and Jewish leaders who put him to death but proclaimed forgiveness on the cross. Look to the Jesus who did not breathe vengeance or threats against the ones who betrayed him, the ones who deserted him, and the ones who killed him; rather his first public word after the resurrection, was, “Peace” (John 20:19). Look to the Jesus whose “salvation” is prophesied to take the very form of “forgiveness” and will—so the prophecy goes—“guide our feet into the way of peace” (Luke 1:77, 79).

I could go on and on, but you get the picture. The “man of war” depicted in Exodus, who purposefully brings down the waves on all the Egyptian army, seems a far cry from the Christ whose way is forgiveness and the patient, painstaking process of peace.

There is a simple resolution to this dilemma. Even among the earliest Christians, some readers have concluded that the God of the Old Testament is different than the God of the New Testament. One is barbaric, one is loving. One is vengeful, one is forgiving. The problem with this approach is that it runs counter to Jesus’ own understanding. Jesus was a faithful reader of Jewish scripture. When he articulated his mission, he used the words of the prophets (e.g., Luke 4:18-19). When he prayed, he used the words of the Psalms (e.g., Mark 15:34; Luke 23:46). When he spoke about God, he drew from the stories of Father Abraham and Moses (e.g., Matt 8:11; 22:32; Mark 1:44; 7:10). Make no mistake, the God with whom Jesus was one, whom Jesus addressed with the intimate “Abba,” “Daddy”—that God is the God of the Old Testament.

The Bible Is a Conversation of Different Interpretations

So we’re left still with the dilemma, “How do we reconcile these different pictures of God? On the one hand, a man of war who destroys enemies. On the other hand, a crucified man who forgives them.”

A helpful starting point for me is the word “Bible.” Did you know that Bible comes from the Greek word biblia, which means “books”? The Bible is plural. It is a library rather than a single document. It is a conversation rather than a speech. In fact, it sometimes resembles a noisy debate filled with many different voices and perspectives. All of this points to a really important fact. The Bible is not God. It is inspired by God (cf. 2 Tim 3:16). It is like an ancient, sacred journal, filled with human experiences of God. What we are reading is ordinary humans like us trying to make sense of extraordinary experiences, experiences which they conclude must be divine. We are not reading science or even history (in the modern sense of that word). We are reading interpretation. And the Bible is filled with different interpretations of God.

A Merciful God in the Old Testament

Consider these two consecutive sentences from today’s scripture. “Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore. Israel saw the great work that the LORD did against the Egyptians” (Ex 14:30-31). The first sentence is fact, more or less. The Israelites saw Egyptians who had died. But the second sentence is interpretation. Israel interprets the dead Egyptians as “the great work that the Lord did against the Egyptians” (Ex 14:31). But elsewhere in the Old Testament, judgment is interpreted less as the damage wrought by a warrior God and more as a natural consequence of hurtful behavior. The wisdom tradition in the Old Testament, for instance, talks about judgment in terms that are comparable to karma. Listen to these verses: “The nations have sunk in the pit that they made; in the net that they hid has their own foot been caught” (Ps 9:15). “Whoever sows injustice will reap calamity” (Prov 22:8). From this sort of perspective, Egypt’s demise is a natural consequence of their unjust ways.

The larger point to make here is that Old Testament does not present us with a unified portrait of God. (Neither does the New Testament for that matter. There’s arguably more divine violence in Revelation alone than in all the Old Testament, if you consider that over a third of the human population dies in its pages; cf. Rev 9:18.)

Because many people commonly assume that the God of the Old Testament is vengeful and violent, a plain and simple “man of war,” I would like to highlight just a few of the places in the Old Testament that present a very different portrait of God. Perhaps it is best to begin with what might be called the creed of the Old Testament, a description of God’s character that is repeated so often in the Old Testament that some scholars think it was a statement of confession. You’re probably familiar with it. God is “merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love” (e.g., Ex 34:6; Num 14:18; Neh 9:17; Ps 86:15; Ps 103:8; 145:8; Joel 2:13; Jon 4:2; Nah 1:3). Surely it is this merciful God whom Jesus has in mind, when he tells his followers, “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6:36). We find this merciful God all over the Old Testament, if we pay close attention. Listen to Micah, “Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over…transgression…[who] does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in showing clemency? You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea” (Mic 7:18-19). Fellow prophet Hosea gives voice to this merciful God: “I will not execute my fierce anger…for I am God and not a man…and I will not come in wrath” (Hos 11:9). Or in the Psalms, we find again and again that God’s forgiveness is always on offer, if we but turn toward God: “I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not hide my iniquity…and you forgave the guilt of my sin” (Ps 32:5).

It must have been this more merciful portrait of God that inspired Rabbi Yochanan in the third century to reinterpret Israel’s passage out of Egypt. A great Jewish teacher in his time, Rabbi Yochanan seems to have been disturbed by the suggestion of a violent warrior God in the Exodus story. He fills in some of the gaps to the story in a way that seeks to rehabilitate God’s character. He writes that as the Israelites left Egypt, the angels began to sing for joy, but God stopped them, saying, “The work of my hands, the Egyptians, are drowning at sea, and you wish to sing songs?” (Megillah 10b).

The Criterion of Christ

It is not my place to judge how others interpret scripture. I really appreciate the Romans text in today’s lectionary, where Paul reminds the church in Rome not to quarrel over interpretation and not to judge those who interpret differently, because God welcomes all who interpret in good faith, and they should do so too (Rom 14:1-12). I only want to share how I have come to interpret some of the Bible’s more difficult passages, to show that our tradition (both Christian and Jewish) is not nearly as narrow and rigid as some might suppose. There are many different interpretations of God’s character within scripture itself as well as without.

How I interpret the difficult passages in the Old Testament (and New Testament) that represent God as violent and vengeful, is simple. I interpret them by the criterion of Jesus Christ, whom I believe is the “image of God,” in whom “the fullness of God was pleased to dwell” (Col 1:15, 19). And I believe that the God whom I see in Jesus, “the prince of peace,” is all over the Old Testament. (We might do well to remember that that title comes from the Old Testament, from Isaiah 9:6.)  When I read a story like today’s story, I would heartily affirm its central message: “Thus the Lord saved Israel that day from the Egyptians” (Ex 14:30). But according to the criterion of Christ, God saves not through violence but through forgiveness and peace. In my interpretation, Israel’s salvation comes when by Moses’ leadership they awaken to God’s love for them, and they believe they are worthy of freedom, and by God’s grace and a series of unusual events that undermine the power of Pharaoh and Egypt, they walk free.

And I’m with Rabbi Yochanan here. As they leave and the Egyptians are drowned in the sea, God is conflicted. God feels joyful, of course, for the Israelites’ freedom. But also heart-broken for the Egyptians, who are God’s children too.

Prayer

God who is merciful and gracious,
Slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love—
Our experiences are many and diverse,
But they all point to you
And your salvation.
May we be mindful today
Of the ways you have saved us,
And also of the ways that we need saving still.
…
And may we find hope for the future
In scripture’s witness to all the ways
Your salvation has reached us in the past.
In Christ, our savior: Amen.

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[1] The NRSV abridges the literal “man of war” into “warrior.”

[2] C. S. Cowles, “A Response to Eugene H. Merrill,” in Show Them No Mercy: Four Views on God and Canaanite Genocide, by C. S. Cowles et al. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2003), 97.

What We Remember (Ex 12:1-15)

The Most Important Memory

On eve of the Israelites’ emancipation from slavery in Egypt, God gives Moses and Aaron some final instructions regarding the grand escape. Every family shall sacrifice a lamb and put its blood on the doorposts and eat it hurriedly with sandals on and bags packed. But God’s instructions are not only an escape plan now. They are also instructions for eternity. God tells the Israelites, “Remember this day” (cf. Ex 12:14). “Mark it on your calendar. In fact, make it the beginning of your calendar, the first month of the year. Make it the founding event, the most important memory, go through its motions every single year” (cf. Ex 12:2). “Celebrate it ‘til the end of time” (cf. Ex 12:14).

Fast-forward over a thousand years from Moses to Jesus, and the Israelites are still remembering that Passover day. Jesus and his disciples go to Jerusalem to remember it. For them, Passover is not an idle memory, a pleasant recollection. It is a living memory, a memory that is true again and again. As the Israelites suffered in Egypt, so Jesus will suffer on the cross. As the Israelites were delivered, so Jesus will be resurrected. Over a thousand years later, it is still true. God is the liberator, the life-giver.

Today, three thousand years after Moses, the Jewish faith still celebrates the Passover. For them too, it is a living memory, a memory that they have lived over and over again. As their ancestors suffered in Egypt, they too have suffered: persecution in ancient Rome, organized massacres in Russia and Eastern Europe, the Holocaust. And as their ancestors found freedom from Egypt, they continue to find life too. How else would they have survived these atrocities? It is still true for them. God is the liberator, the life-giver.

In fact, if you consider that the Lord’s Supper is a Passover meal, we also celebrate the memory. We celebrate it every week—or perhaps even more often: “Whenever [we] eat this bread or drink this cup,” Paul says (1 Cor 11:26). Just as the Passover was originally ordained as the beginning of the calendar, the memory that would define time and life itself, so the Lord’s Supper begins our every week, reminding us that though the times may change, this memory will be true again and again: God is the liberator, the life-giver.

The Lord Still Dies

Every week, at the very end of the Lord’s Supper, we quote scripture: “For as often as [we] eat this bread and drink the cup, [we] proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (1 Cor 11:26). That conclusion has long puzzled me and left me feeling a bit empty. Why do we only remember the Lord’s death?  Why not his resurrection?  Why not new life?

Here’s my theory. It’s because the Lord still dies. It’s because there is still suffering in this world. There are still many Egypts, many Pharaohs, many chains in this world. We proclaim the Lord’s death not because we’re pessimists or doomsayers, but because we are rigorously honest and we are praying and hoping for more liberation, for a fuller resurrection. Our memory of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection is not an idle recollection, a pleasant reminiscence. This memory is a defiant act of faith, a commitment to a different world—what Jesus called the kingdom of God.

Every week, we remember the Lord’s death so that we might be faithful to the work of the kingdom. When we hear about the folks who have lost their homes and their land to wildfires and floods, we remember the Lord’s death. When we hear about another school shooting, we remember the Lord’s death. When we hear about a community targeted with violence because of their difference—Asian, Jewish, Latino—we remember the Lord’s death. When we hear about another life lost to addiction, we remember the Lord’s death. When we hear about the utter poverty of factory workers and the dangerous conditions they daily endure, we remember the Lord’s death.

Johann Baptist Metz, a German theologian who has spent his life wrestling with the memory of the Holocaust, calls the memory of Christ “the dangerous memory of suffering.”  It is a dangerous memory because it sees in the face of every suffering person the face of Christ, and it will not rest until they do. It is a dangerous memory because it defies the injustice of the world and commits to a different way, the way of Christ.

Not Just Back Then, but Now

For the rest of the sermon, I would like to share with you some personal reflections. Here I am going to take a page from Paul’s book, and preface what follows with a reminder: “This is me speaking, not the Lord” (cf. 1 Cor 7:12; 2 Cor 11:17). So, take what rings true, and leave the rest. (That goes for all my sermons, of course.)

When the Israelites celebrate the Passover or when we celebrate the Last Supper, what we’re really celebrating is not an event shrouded in the mists of history. What we’re really celebrating is a God who liberates, who gives life. Not just back then but now. What we’re proclaiming is that as sure as the week has seven days, or the year 365, suffering and oppression do not have the last word. God is always present, always redeeming.

If that’s true, then where are the liberation stories of recent generations? There’s one in particular that is meaningful to me as a native of Richmond, and I would like to share it with you today. April 3, 1865, is often cited as the day that Richmond fell, and with it the Confederate States of America. That is certainly how I was taught to remember the day. But as I read through the story of that day now, I cannot help but hear echoes of an older memory.

One woman living in Richmond at the time remembers that day as a day of darkness: “We covered our faces and cried aloud,” she writes. “All through the house was the sound of sobbing. It was the house of mourning, the house of death.”[1] Such words could easily have been written of the Egyptian houses on that dark night of the Passover (cf. Ex 12:30).

But Reverend Garland H. White, a former slave who was serving as a chaplain in the Union Army, describes a very different scene: “A vast multitude assembled on Broad Street, and I…proclaimed for the first time in that city freedom to all mankind. After which the doors of all the slave pens were thrown open, and thousands came out shouting and praising God.”[2] Another chaplain writes also of divine deliverance, “We brought…heaven-born liberty. The slaves seemed to think that the day of jubilee had fully come. How they danced, shouted…shook our hands…laughed all over, and thanked God…!”[3] And then in a passage that recalls the divine command to remember the Passover forever (12:14), he writes, “It is a day never to be forgotten by us till days shall be no more.”[4]

Indeed, forty years later, on April 3, 1905, Richmond hosted the Emancipation Day Parade, commemorating the day that many slaves in Richmond and across the south were actually liberated. Thousands gathered for the festivities and celebrated with a procession through the city streets that ended up at the Broad Street Baseball Park. (If there are any history buffs among you, I’d be curious to learn where that was exactly.)

Emancipation Day Parade, Richmond, Virginia, April 3, 1905[5]

 

A Passover in Richmond 

As a native of Richmond, I was taught to remember April 3, 1865, as the fall of this city and the fall of the Confederacy. But as a follower of Christ, I am invited to remember the God who liberates, who gives life. Which means I am invited to remember April 3, 1865, as a day of divine deliverance, a holy Passover. A heavy day and a day of great cost, yes, as it seems to have been for Egypt thousands of years ago, but a day when the God the liberator, God the life-giver, passed over the city—this city!—bringing freedom to thousands.

I am honored to call Richmond home, if for no other reason than that here happened a Passover. And this memory, which is but one of many in the long line of memories going all the way back to Egypt, a host of memories which ring most loud and most true in the Last Supper of Christ—this memory is for me a defiant act of faith, a commitment to a different world. It means remembering the Lord’s death in the subjugation and suffering of those today who still share the struggles that those slaves did: educational barriers, labor inequalities, presumptions of guilt and dangerousness—and perhaps more than anything else, the unjust inheritance of shame. This memory means believing that God the liberator and life-giver is against that suffering still, that Jesus Christ is in that suffering still, and that his love will raise new life from a history of hurt. It means that while many dismiss or minimalize the suffering of others, I remember the death of my Lord, who is still dying in so many places. I try hard to see the face of Christ in the anger, the sadness, the resignation of others, and I defiantly trust that this is not how the story ends. Not for the Israelites. Not for Jesus. In God’s calendar, this is just the beginning.

Prayer

Lord Christ,
Whose death is a dangerous memory
That protests the suffering of the world
…
May the memories
Of Passover and the Table and April 3
Inspire us to celebrate
The God who liberates and gives life,
And to share in God’s liberation
By living in the way of your love,
Which is stronger than death.
Amen.

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[1] A Virginia Girl in the Civil War (ed. Myrta Lockett Avery; New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1903), 362.

[2] A Grand Army of Black Men: Letters from African-American Soldiers in the Union Army, 1861-1865 (ed. Edwin S. Redkey; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 175-176.

[3] The Military and Civil History of Connecticut during the War of 1861-65 (eds. W. A. Croffut and John M. Morris; New York: Ledyard Bill, 1868), 791. These are the words of Henry Swift DeForest.

[4] The Military and Civil History of Connecticut, 792.

[5] James Branch Cabell Library, Special Collections and Archives. 

"I Know Their Sufferings" (Ex 3:1-15)

A Man Who Has Cooled Off

Today’s story begins with a peaceful, pastoral scene. There against the wide backdrop of wilderness Moses moseys along, his eyes resting on the flock of sheep and goats around him. If you knew Moses from his younger days, then this relaxed, easygoing shepherd might surprise you. A long time ago, Moses had a very different reputation.

You know the story: Having grown up as a Hebrew orphan in the Egyptian palace, Moses one day went out and saw the slavery of his people. Nothing out of the ordinary. Just some Egyptian taskmasters bullying their Hebrew slaves. One Egyptian, however, went a bit too far. His bullying became beating. And Moses became inflamed. His heart burned within him. He fixated on this one Egyptian man, and when the coast was clear, he killed him.

As it turned out, though, the coast had not been clear. The murder became well known, and Moses fled from Egypt to the land of Midian, which is where we find him today. By now, he has settled down. He has made friends with a local shepherd, married this man’s daughter, and had a son. This is no longer the man who stood up to Egyptian brutality. This is a man who has cooled off, who has put down roots and is happy to live out his days in peace (cf. 2:11-22).

God and the Chessboard

And so here he is, ambling alongside his flock in the wilderness, when suddenly something catches his eye.

The rest is history: Moses and the burning bush. It’s a familiar story. If you had asked me how it goes before I had read the scripture this week, here’s what I would have said. God tells Moses to return to Egypt to bring his people out. I thought of this moment as a scene of divine recruitment, when God the employer contracts Moses to a very special job, when God the commander hands Moses a mission impossible.

What I discovered this week is that God is not at all a distant operator, a God sitting above the chessboard of our world, cool and calculating, making moves, transferring players from one square to another. What I discovered is the opposite: a God on the chessboard. What I discovered is a God who suffers.

An Odd Repetition

Religion has long held fantasies of a God who is above all and all-powerful and who will fix everything in the blink of an eye. When God tells Moses, “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt…and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians,” I imagine that Moses nodded his head approvingly, thinking to himself, “Amen! Do it!” That’s the God Moses wanted. That’s the God we all want. The God above who will come down in power and fix it all in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.

But as Moses finds out, that’s not quite who God is.

There’s an odd repetition in the story of the burning bush. First, in verses seven and eight, God tells Moses that God has seen the Israelites’ misery and will come down to deliver them. At this point, Moses and we both are pretty happy. That’s the God we want. But God continues in verses nine and ten, saying, “I have…seen how the Egyptians oppress” the Israelites—at which point, I imagine Moses was blinking, thinking, “Yeah, you just said that.” And then God says, “So come, I will send you!” Wait, what?

God’s tune has changed. First, it was: I have seen their suffering, I have come down to deliver them (Ex 3:7-8). But then the second time around, it becomes: I have seen their suffering—“so come, I will send you” (Ex 3:9-10)!

A Tale of Two Fires

Well, which is it? Is God coming down to deliver the Israelites from Egypt, or is Moses going to bring the Israelites out of Egypt? In a word: Yes. Both.

God and Moses together. Not like a tag team: God pulling one punch, Moses pulling the next. But rather like a call and a response. To the outside observer, only Moses will be leading the Israelites. But he would not be leading them if he hadn’t first stumbled upon that blazing fire that called to him in the wilderness.

Speaking of fire...I can’t help but wonder if this is not really a tale of two fires. Remember how long ago, Moses like God had seen the suffering of the Israelites? Remember how that had inflamed him? But the fire within his heart had long cooled, as he settled down in Midian and married and had a son.

God’s heart, however, has not cooled. The God whom Moses encounters is a never-ending fire. It’s a fascinating comparison. God and Moses had shared the same fundamental observation. Both of them witnessed the suffering of the Israelites. But one ran away from the suffering and settled down, cooling off. The other stayed a blazing fire.

The secret to this eternal divine combustion? I think we hear it early on in God’s message to Moses: “I know their sufferings” (3:7).

We and Moses Run Away from Suffering

“I know their sufferings.”

You’ve probably heard the question before: “Where is God when it hurts?” If today’s story is any indication, the answer is simple: in the hurt. “I know their sufferings.” Where is God in our world today, our world of hurricane-flooding and systemic poverty and racial injustice? According to today’s scripture, God’s heart beats in sync with the hearts of the suffering.

Maybe a better question would be, “Where am I when it hurts?” Because when I see suffering, whether my own or others, I am often inclined to do as Moses did: to run far away from it and settle down where things are more comfortable. I don’t know about you, but for me it’s almost a reflex. When someone shares a story of illness, my reflex is to respond, “I hope it gets better.” When someone shares a story of difficulty, my mind races for solutions, “Have you asked a professional for help? Have you considered this, that, or the other?” There’s nothing wrong with trying to help, of course. It’s just that I’m suspicious about my motives, sometimes. I think that, like Moses, I am afraid of suffering. I don’t know what to do with it. So I run away from it. I mask it with platitudes and plans and wishful prognoses.

Bryan Stevenson, a public interest lawyer deeply concerned with racial injustice, makes a case that I find personally find compelling that racism and slavery never died, they just evolved: first in the form of Jim Crow laws, then in housing laws and mass incarceration and other measures that have inhibited the very folks who, when they were first granted freedom, bore a deep, deep wound, both material and emotional. Stevenson contends that the reason our nation has not found healing, is because it has never really addressed the wound. He points out that on the whole our nation does not do sorrow and suffering very well. It does business and gold medals and victory well, but it does not do sorrow and suffering very well. As a result, there remains a deep wound in our nation. The recent tragic shooting in Jacksonville is just the latest testament to this wound. To put it very simply, our nation like Moses has run away from the suffering. Whereas South Africa regularly remembers the suffering of its apartheid history as a part of its truth and reconciliation process; whereas Germany memorializes the suffering inflicted by the Nazi regime; the United States, until recently, has done very little to tell the honest truth about the theft and genocide perpetrated against the Native Americans or the enslavement and lynchings of black Americans.

God Shares the Suffering

But God does not run away from the pain. “I know their sufferings,” God says, which can only mean one thing. If God really knows their suffering, that must mean God is suffering too. God shares their suffering. Is that not the story of Jesus? The gospel writer of Matthew offers a fascinating observation about Jesus when he goes about healing people. Citing a verse from Isaiah, he says that when Jesus healed people, “He took [their] infirmities and bore [their] diseases” (Matt 8:17). In other words, he shared their suffering. That is how he healed. Jesus was not a magician curing people with the impersonal wave of a wand any more than God is a chess-master, high above the board, cool and calculating, moving pieces at will.

The gospel of Jesus is the same gospel that we read in today’s story. It’s that even when we like Moses run away from the suffering of our world, God does not. God knows the suffering. Shares it. That is how the healing begins.

Called to Know Others’ Suffering

This is good news, of course, to the suffering. But chances are, this news alone won’t make them feel much better. If the only thing I take away from this story, is that I should give a pat on the shoulder to people who are suffering and tell them that God is with them, before I go on my merry way, then I think I’ve missed the point.

The point isn’t simply that God suffers with the Israelites. The point is that Moses feels called to join God, to share the suffering of God and the Israelites. When God promises Moses, “I will be with you” (3:12), I think what God is really saying, is: I am with the suffering, and when you stop running away and return to know their suffering too, there you will find me. There, “I will be with you.”

Our nation does success well. We do fundraising dinners and charitable programs and tax-deductible donations pretty well. But I wonder if sometimes this is a way to run away from suffering. I wonder if these things are not just an escape route into Midian, into a life of contentment and happily ever after, a reflex by which we might avoid sharing the pain of others.

The good news of today’s scripture is not that God fixes things instantaneously from on high, or that Jesus waves a wand and cures all our problems. Those are fantasies that have long tempted religion, fantasies that bear a curious resemblance to our own methods of throwing money or quick-fix programs at a problem. The good news is that rather than keeping a safe distance from our suffering, God enters into it. Knows it. Shares it. And if we want to find God, that’s where. We will find God in the company of a friend who grieves and needs not to be alone. We will find God in the company of a person who has endured loss and needs a ramp built or a home repaired. We will find God in the company of the gay youth who has been left burned by his family and his church. We will find God in the company of our black neighbors, many of whom suffer quietly each time they learn the news of another life lost to hate and see the response of a culture that is seemingly indifferent to their plight.

“I know their sufferings.” The good news is not a fix or a cure. There are some things that have no fix or cure—not in the way that we would want. The good news is a God who does not run away. The good news is a God who suffers with those who suffer, and who draws us into their presence, just as God drew Moses back to the Israelites, just as Jesus draws us to the least of these. As good as any donation or plan or program may be, what the suffering need even more than that is not to be alone, but to have companions who know their suffering. That is how God’s healing begins.

Prayer 

God who knows our suffering,
Kindle within our hearts
The fire of your love,
Which burns with desire
For the well-being of others
…
Draw us out of isolation
To know the story of others
And to share with them
The journey of your salvation.
In Christ, who took our infirmities and bore our diseases: Amen.