Tag: Lent 3

Exposed and Naked: We are Unsafe

“‘Dear Lord God, I wish to preach in your honor. I wish to speak about you, glorify you, praise your name. Although I can’t do this well of myself, I pray that you may make it good.’”[i]

Introduction

We are not in control; this bothers us. Further, we are not safe, to others or to ourselves; this angers us. To be out of control is one thing, but to be wildly unsafe, too? Offensive. So, we do whatever we can to create an atmosphere around us that feels safe, that causes us to feel okay, like everything is fine. But it’s not; nothing is fine. As politicians and pundits spin narratives and weave tales causing our attention to be diverted from the real problems plaguing our land and location, we hide behind our own mythologies and cover ourselves up with our various blankets of ignorance. The heavier the blanket, the safer we feel; the taller the myth, the more secure we think we are. We vacillate between having to know increasingly more (the more we know the more we can control) and not wanting to know anything and sticking our heads in the sand (if we can just not know we will regain some sense of safety and maybe even comfort). But this drive to cover up and hide from that which causes us to feel unsafe means that our community with others breaks down: as we hide from and deny the disasters swirling and twirling around us, we—ourselves—become our biggest problem not just to ourselves but especially to our neighbors, the ones fighting for their right to live in this world, the ones most visibly threatened by nationalism and extremism.

So, our lack of control wedded to our being and feeling unsafe makes us feel hopeless. In a world where it feels that World War III is always one strike away, where unstable and erratic egos leave more death in their wake than life, where one’s power and privilege are more valuable than the life of the least of us, our sensations of feeling unsafe surge. Surely, if they are coming for my neighbor…then am I next? In this surging feeling of unsafety, our hypervigilance turns to hyperarousal, and we lash out at anyone and anything. Humans need to feel safe; it’s the fundamental level of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. The divides and divisions caused by viewer driven news rooms that plague our communities get worse because we must view everyone else as a threat and patch-work some modicum amount of safety no matter how tattered that sense of safety is. But this makes us exceptionally unstable creatures and no mythology (no matter how it glitters and sparkles in the light) will cause use to feel and thus to be safe (to ourselves and to others). We are always just one moment away from complete break-down. We are nuclear weapons charged and ready to go off at any moment. Our lack of control bothers us; our unsafety angers us.

Is there any help for such as these?

Exodus 17:1-7

Moses[ii] begins by telling us of a journey and of a problem, From the wilderness of Sin the whole congregation of the Israelites journeyed by stages, as the Lord commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink (v1). Being without water is no small issue. Rephidim is the last stop before entering the terrain of Sinai.[iii] Thus, being without water here—about to travel through the terrain of mountains and sand dunes in a climate that is demanding being of high elevation and often cold—is life threatening. In normal circumstances a person can survive 3-5 days without water, add in exertion, a challenging climate, and tough terrain, and that number falls.

The Israelites have every right to be disturbed by this, as Moses tells us, The people quarreled with Moses, and said, “Give us water to drink,” (v 2a). Humans without water (assuming they did not have much water to begin with as they embarked on their journey) become easily angered as dehydration sets in; thus, quarreling makes sense as a characteristic of dehydration and the fruit of the fear that is setting in. They feel unsafe and thus they are becoming unsafe to themselves and others. However, Moses appears to be rather unphased by the dire situation. His reply? “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?” (v2b). Not the most pastoral response.

So, the people ramp up their complaints against Moses, and it’s understandable. With no foreseeable way to get water, and with a leader who seems to consider their needs to be mere “quarreling” and disobedience to God, the Israelites escalate—which happens when fear and anger are not addressed but exacerbated. As the Israelites feel the impending doom of their being unsafe, they respond from that place of fear and anger and the situation gets worse. As Moses, tells us, But the people thirsted there for water; and the people complained against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?” (v 3). If Moses doesn’t act now, he’ll be facing a full-on uprising and rightly so. Can we blame the Israelites for their reply of desperation?

Here, Moses senses just how serious the problem is and does what any good leader of God’s people should do (even if a moment delayed): call on God to help. Our text tells us, So Moses cried out to the Lord, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me,” (v4). The narrative doesn’t really give a glimpse of how bad the situation is until Moses mentions to God that the people “are almost ready to stone me.” The community—the people and its divine appointed leader, Moses—are in a tenuous situation. Death threatens to rear his head, anger and fear are the emotional monarchs, and the situation is far from safe; it’s perilous. So, in this moment, Moses throws himself at God’s feet in desperation; he’s failing to deescalate.

Thankfully, God does step in and instructs Moses to cause water to flow,

“Go on ahead of the people, and take some of the elders of Israel with you; take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink. Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. He called [Rephidim[iv]] Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarreled and tested the Lord, saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?” (vv5-7)

Seems God does not have a problem providing God’s people with water to drink; what if anyone had just asked God? Moses accuses the people of testing God; it seems to me that Moses is the being tested. The people did demand to see that God is present by invoking quarrels with Moses because they were thirsty;[v] thus why Rephidim is then called “Massa and Meribah”, being wordplays on quarreling and trying from v2.[vi] However, the people are also asking a deeper question of Moses: Are you with us? Do you see us? We are about to die of thirst, and do you care? Ignoring and dismissing the needs of the people is not the right way of faithful leadership; it is the slipperiest of slopes to the people devising not only their own solutions and building their case for disbelieving God.[vii] God’s chosen leader must represent God to the people and the people to God; Moses failed this test in this moment. Moses could have heard their cry (the voice of an unsafe situation from people who are scared and angry) and have asked God to help him and them. But now Moses’s leadership is being questioned and doubted. Notice that there are elders to be selected to go with Moses to witness[viii] the striking of the limestone rock that causes the water trapped within to flow;[ix] God is aware that the people need to see (and know) that not only is God with them but God is with Moses thus Moses must be with them. These witnesses will be testament to the reality that both God and Moses are with the Israelites, through thick and thin, in good and bad, when things flow with milk and honey and when water seems scarce.

Conclusion

The Israelites are caught in their fear and anger because the situation they find themselves in is precarious: they are unsafe and they become unsafe to themselves and to others. Fear and anger are born here and cause stones to be lifted to make one’s point known; fear and anger when things are unsafe do not know any limits and boundaries, the rational and reasonable components of the human intellect and mind are bound and gagged. The human being, whether ancient Israelite or post-postmodern person, cannot overcome, on their own without intervention, their anger and fear born from feeling and being unsafe. Trapped in unsafety, the human being will resort to their primal instincts and fight, like any trapped animal would.

As it was for the Israelites, so it is for us.

Lent commands us into a state of being exposed and naked, into an honesty that will peel back our facades and remove our masks, bringing us to a very naked state that will feel like complete and total death. We are brought to our most dreaded confession: we are not in control, and we are unsafe creatures, afraid and angry. But it’s out of this death, this confession, out of this naked and vulnerable place, where God’s word liberates us out of death and into life by God’s love. This word that brings this divine life to dead creatures, God preaches through God’s son, Jesus the Christ; it is this incarnate word that becomes the source of our sure ground when we are at our most unsafe, most exposed, and most naked. It is the very source of our new life, new love, and new liberation. God is coming to clothe God’s own in the righteous garments of divine love, life, and liberation so they can become creatures who have new eyes and ears to see and hear the pain around them, bringing love where there is indifference, life where there is death, and liberation where there is captivity.

[i] LW 54:157-158; Table Talk 1590.

[ii] Using Moses as the traditional author because it is both easier and makes for more interesting story telling

[iii] Jeffrey H. Tigay, “Exodus,” The Jewish Study Bible Jewish Publication Society Tanakh Translation, eds. Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler (Oxford: OUP, 2004), 142. “Rephidim, the last station before Sinai…and, to judge from v.6, near Sinai.”

[iv] Tigay, “Exodus,” 142. “The place, Rephidim, not Horeb.”

[v] Tigay, “Exodus,” 142. “Try. i.e. to test, demanding proof that God was present among them and controlling the events.”

[vi] Tigay, “Exodus,” 142. “Massah and Meribah, meaning ‘The Place of Testing and Quarreling.’ These names, playing on the verbs ‘quarrel’ and ‘try’ used in v.2, became by words for Israel’s lack of trust in God.”

[vii] LW 11:55 “For to tempt in the hearts is something else than tempting in words. The children of Israel in the wilderness always doubted that they had been led out by the hand of the Lord indeed, they did not believe it…They came to this unbelief because they argued form a human point of view: ‘If the Lord were with us, and if we had been led out by the hand of the Lord, would we be bothered with hunger and thirst in this way? Would we thus lack everything? If the Lord had done it, we would undoubtedly have everything we want, and we would be in a land flowing with milk and honey, as He promised us. But no, since everything is opposite, it is not true that the lord has led us out, but you have done it.”

[viii] Tigay, “Exodus,” 142. “Moses is to take some of the elders, perhaps as witnesses, and set out for Horeb (Sinai), ‘the mountain of God’ 3.1), to obtain water.”

[ix] Tigay, “Exodus,” 142. “Strike the rock: In the Sinai there are limestone rocks from which small amounts of water drip, and a blow to their soft surface can expose a porous inner layer contained water. A similar but enigmatic episode, with differences suggesting that its an oral variant of this one, appears in Nu. 20.2-13…”

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“Prone to Wander…”: Desecrating Sacred Ground

Psalm 63:7-8 For you, Abba God, have been my helper, and under the shadow of your wings I will rejoice. My soul clings to you; your right hand holds me fast.

Introduction

I mentioned recently that, “Come Thou Fount” is not only one of my favorite hymns but is the inspiration for my messages through out Lent. As our sign out front says: “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it; Prone to leave the God I love.” While the third verse is my absolute favorite, the other two are remarkable. For this week, the first verse aligns well with our First Testament passage.

Come thou fount of every blessing,
tune my heart to sing thy grace!
Streams of mercy never ceasing,
call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! Oh, fix me on it,
mount of God’s unchanging love.[1]

Remember that the season of Lent is about taking a deep, long, hard look in the mirror. The reality is, while we may not think about it often, we are prone to wonder from God. And by “we” I mean *all of us*–you, me, and whoever is sitting next to you. And this verse exposes us in a very subtle yet real way.  The verse weds the concept of teaching through singing and music making with being fixed on God’s mountain. The solicitation of the fount of every blessing—God—is the source of our blessing, of our singing, and the ground of our sure foundation. As in, as our feet are anchored in and on the “mount” of God’s unconditional, never stopping, always and forever love, we find ourselves on terra firma. God’s love for us is the solid ground from which our life, love, and liberation spring eternal; from this place, we should not wander.

But we do. Sometimes we wander because we forget that where we stand and on what we stand matters. Forgetting that we stand in and on the firm foundation of the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ, leads us to treat the very ground under our feet—the ground from which springs our very sustenance (food, shelter, clothing)—as if it has no essence of its own and is *only* there to be an object in our grand schemes to acquire power, prestige, and privilege, mere product for our grist mills. In forgetting where and on what we stand, we find ourselves tromping about and treading all over other people (our neighbors, the beloved of God), devaluing their alterity, their identity, their irreplaceable presence, demanding that they look and act more like the dominant group. When we forget that the mount on which we are fixed is the mountain of God, we desecrate sacred soil, leaving our shoes on as we step wherever and on whomever we need and want.

We are prone to tromp and tread about because we are prone to wander from our God of love.

Exodus 3:1-15

Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; he led his flock beyond the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of God appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed. Then Moses said, “I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up.” When God saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” Then God said, “Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.”

The First Testament text is from Exodus and highlights God’s calling of Moses. An interesting story in its own right; nothing beats a spontaneously combusting bush from which God’s voice beckons a person minding their own business. In my research, I discovered that this story is not a smooth, cohesive unit. Rather, it’s a merger from two different sources according to the Hebrew words—there’s different names for God and Pharoah, textual redundancies, and a textual intrusion.[2] I know that sounds like mundane, academic chatter; yet, knowing this actually helps the goal of this sermon. This splicing together of the text indicates that there’s an important theme being preserved and emphasized: God’s self-identification to Moses, Moses collision with God, and Moses’s subsequent sending by God.[3] From this moment on, the ground under Moses’s feet is going to be the mount of God’s unchanging love for God’s beloved, the people of God whom Moses represents and to whom Moses will (soon!) represent God. For it is there on Horeb—“the mountain of God”—where Moses comes face to face (flame?) with God on sacred, holy land.[4]

The text tells us that as Moses is on Horeb, he notices a bush that’s burning. This isn’t just any spontaneously combusting flora; it’s God’s presence,[5] and it’s intentionally trying to get Moses’s attention.[6] As the bush burns and doesn’t burn up, Moses is curious and comes closer. Then the text tells us that this is part of the reason for the flame: to get Moses’s attention—not just anyone but this one, the son-in-law of Jethro, the one called Moses. So, the bush calls out to Moses using his name twice. (The double use being an affectionate calling.) After Moses responds to the divine voice coming from the bush, God stops Moses from coming any closer and commands him to take off his shoes. Why? Because there are some places that are holy and sacred where one must walk carefully and tenderly; places where one must come and enter humbly and vulnerably. Everyone walks a bit different with shoes on, faster and with less concern for where they place their feet. But as soon as shoes come off, we walk slowly and with more concern for where we place our feet, being aware of both our ability to damage and be damaged.

In this sacred place and in this vulnerable position, Moses receives God’s self-disclosure. God tells Moses, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” In this self-declaration, God also becomes the God of Moses. Standing on the mountain of God, face to face with the divine flame, shoeless and vulnerable, Moses received not only God’s self-declaration thus God’s self (coming into personal contact and experience with God like his forefathers[7]), but also his calling. After explaining that God has heard (and felt! cf. Ex. 2:25) the painful and tormented cries of Israel dying under oppression and alienation, God is going to deliver God’s people into liberation, and Moses will be the one through whom God will conduct this promised exodus. Here, Moses goes from shepherd to prophet.[8] Everything Moses does and says—from this moment onward—will work toward the liberation of God’s people from the oppression of Pharoah. From this day forward, everywhere Moses walks is sacred ground for God promises to be with Moses[9] for God will be who God will be:[10]that is, the one who will go with Moses and Israel.

Conclusion

None of what is in this passage from Exodus is about Israel forgetting where and bon which they stand. In fact, it’s about Moses being made aware that he’s on holy ground and will be as he walks into Pharoah’s throne room and demands the children of God be released and all in God’s name for God is with him. But here’s the thing, the bulk of Exodus is about exhorting Israel to stay with God, to keep their eyes on God, and walk with God thus walk with their neighbor and correct the wrongs in the world. But why? Why is this story a focal point in Israel’s history? Because, well, Israel has a history of finding themselves tromping about, shoes on, causing violence to the neighbors and to themselves, eager to bring glory to themselves, and forgetting the holy ground on which they stand with God. They will forget that their ground is hallowed and that they should tread tenderly and vulnerably. I say this not only because I’ve read the book; I say this because in a few chapters in this text, Israel will be liberated and will rejoice with singing and dancing and then swear that Moses is trying to kill them by leading them into this wilderness. Whether intentional or unintentional, Israel will begin to forsake God, to forget, and to wander away from their God whom they love and thus to also begin to see their neighbor as a threat, their land as theirs, and live as if they (and the promised land) weren’t intended to be a blessing through whom all the world (including other nations) will be blessed. Israel will get caught up in the lie that power and military might equal peace and safety, tall walls and ethnic purity equal security and blessedness. They will forget God is the source of their identity and create their own identity by their own means, with their shoes on, disconnected from the hallowed ground, the mount of God’s unchanging love. They will stand on their own land and wander from God and thus from their call. Moses knows this, God knows this.

So it is with us. And as we go through this third week of lent, let us consider our times of forgetting the hallowed ground we stand on, the times we forgot that there is tender earth under our feet, the very ground God walks with us as our neighbor. Let us consider how we’ve forgotten our calling to be a blessing of love, life, and liberation to our neighbors especially the least of these. Let us consider how we’ve forgotten the good story, forgotten that our terra firms is, was, and always will be God, and that without the heart of our Christian identity (Christ, God of very God) we cannot bear such an identity. As wonderful and miraculous as we are, we’re fleshy, meat creatures prone to wander. The good news is, God knows this and comes to do something about it.

[1] https://hymnary.org/text/come_thou_fount_of_every_blessing

[2] Jefrey H. Tigay, “Exodus,” The Jewish Study Bible Jewish Publication Society Tanakh Translation, eds. Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler (Oxford: OUP, 2004), 110. “The current narrative is the result of an artful combination of the two early sources, J and E. This is intimated by the different names used for God in 3.4a and b, but the clearest indication is the fact that 3.9-15 seem intrusive: vv. 9, 10, and 15a are redundant with, respectively, vv. 7, 18b, and 16a; the people never ask for God’s name as Moses expects in v. 13; and vv. 10 and 18 describe the goal of Moses’ mission to Pharoah differently and use different terms for the Egyptian king. VV. 16-18 in fact read like a direct continuation of v. 8.”

[3] Tigay, “Exodus,” 110. “The consistent use of the name ‘God’ (‘elohim) in 3.9-15 identifies its source as E; the remainder of this section is mostly from J with a few other passages from E (such as vv. 1, 4b, 6b, and 20b). By incorporating material from both sources the redactor preserved important themes, such as the explanation of God’s name in v. 14 € and the fact that God both ‘appeared’ to Moses (3.2, 16; 4.1, 5 from J) and ‘sent’ him (vv. 10, 12-15, from E).”

[4] Tigay, “Exodus,” 110. “Horeb, alternate name for Mount Sinai (in E and in Deuteronomy). It is generally thought to be located in the Sinai Peninsula, though some believe it is in northwest Arabia, near Midian. Its designation mountain of God may indicate that it was already considered a sacred place, or it may be anticipatory. The first possibility may gain support from Egyptian inscriptions of the 4th  century BCE that refer to an area, apparently int his region, as ‘land of the nomads, Yahwe’; this might also be understood as ‘land of the nomads who worship Yahwe.’”

[5] Tigay, “Exodus,” 110. V.2 “a manifestation of God. Angels (lit. ‘messengers’) usually take human form, but this one takes the form of fire, a substance evocative of the divine because it is insubstantial yet powerful, dangerous, illuminating, and purifying.”

[6] Tigay, “Exodus,” 110. “The burning bush is both a means of attracting Moses’ attention and a manifestation of God’s presence.”

[7] Tigay, “Exodus,” 110-111. “The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob: This phrase later became the way that God is addressed in the ‘Amidah prayer. The repetition of ‘God’ before each patriarch is explained in ‘Etz Yosef a commentary on the Jewish prayerbook, as meaning that, like the patriarchs, each person should believe in God on the basis of personal investigation, not merely tradition.”

[8] Tigay, “Exodus,” 111. “I will send you as a Prophet, Moses’ primary roles is to serve as God’s emissary. Phrases with ‘send’…typify the selection of prophets…”

[9] Tigay, “Exodus,” 111.

[10] Tigay, “Exodus,” 111. “God’s proper name, disclosed in the next verse, is Yhvh (spelled ‘yod-heh-vav-heh’ in Heb; in ancient times the ‘vav’ was pronounced ‘w’). But here God first tells Moses its meaning: Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh, probably best translated as ‘I Will Be What I will Be,’ meaning ‘my nature will become evident form my actions.’ (Compare God’s frequent declarations below, that from His future acts Israel and Egypt ‘shall know that I am the Lord [Yhvh]’…Then he answers Moses’ question bout what to say to the people: ‘Tell them: ‘Ehyeh’ (‘I will Be,’ a shorter form of the explanation) sent me.’ This explanation derives God’s name from the ern ‘h-v-h,’ a variant form of ‘h-y-h’, to be.’ Because God is the speaker, He uses the first person form of the verb.”

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