"Stuck in a Dry Spell?"
God to the rescue
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, October 15, 2006
Text: Exodus 14:10-18
A number of years ago, I heard a lecture at Harvard Business School about those moments in our lives when we miss profound opportunities, and how unless we stay open and alert, very meaningful moments can pass us by without our realizing their significance. The professor told the story of a man who, in 1973, wrote one of the first and certainly one of the best programs for a personal computer. The man's name was Gary Kildall. He wrote this program and for a while kept it to himself. However, word got out that he had written it and so IBM phoned him. They were about to start making personal computers and they thought his program would be a wonderful application.
They arranged a meeting with him. Executives from IBM came from far and wide and technical specialists flew in specifically to meet with Gary Kildall. However, Gary Kildall was of two minds, because that very day he had also booked some training time in a private plane. And so he faced a conflict. Finally, he made his decision: The IBM executives flew in and Gary Kildall got in the plane and flew out!
Upset and angry that this man had not met with them, the IBM executives decided not to deal with him any more. They heard about another young man who had formed a company that nobody had heard of until that point, called Microsoft. The young man was Bill Gates. He had created a program called MS DOS. They phoned him. Gates was willing to meet with them any time, any place - and 14 years later he was worth $8 billion!
The fact is, it is very easy to not understand that an important moment is occurring. When we miss those moments, we pay the cost. But, if we seize those moments like Bill Gates did, then we have no idea where they will lead.
I would like to suggest to you this morning that the people of Israel, when they escaped from Egypt during the Exodus and fled into the wilderness under the leadership of Moses, had absolutely no idea of the import of what they were doing. They had no idea that we would be talking about the Exodus thousands of years later. They probably had no idea that nearly every form of Hebrew literature to follow would make some reference to the Exodus. It would be hard for them to conceive that all of Israel's history afterwards would look back to the Exodus as a seminal moment, an essential and pivotal moment, what is known in Greek as a moment of “kairos,” a moment of decision. I am sure they had no idea that one of their own, called Jesus of Nazareth, would in his ministry be the embodiment, the incarnation of that Exodus, relived through his life and his ministry.
I am sure they had no idea that when they left Egypt and moved into the wilderness that this was going to be when God revealed his purpose and nature and passion for humanity. When they left Egypt, when the Exodus occurred, it became one of the central moments in the whole of human history. It was an ultimate moment of redemption, the likes of which has not been seen since. There have been moments that have been important, like it, but this one was unique!
It was overwhelming and it was all-powerful and it was amazing. In fact, the Hebrew verbs used to describe the Exodus show how complete and overwhelming the moment was. One translates as “a breaking forth,” of bold movement, a breaking out of something, for clearly the people of Israel broke out of the tyranny of Egypt when they crossed over into the wilderness. It was without a doubt a moment of redemption. It was a moment where people were redeemed after having been suppressed, having been pushed down, having been told they were not a people and had no worth. Through the Exodus, they were people who had been redeemed. They were a people who had been delivered.
They had been delivered from the hands of tyranny, they had been, as the Hebrew words imply, “wrenched away” and brought into freedom. The sense in which another Hebrew verb describes it is the same way as we use the name “Joshua” or “Jesus:” They were saved, liberated from their oppression. Not just in political terms, not just in physical terms - the Exodus is about an overwhelming sense of freedom in all its spiritual, psychological and political manifestations, a complete and a total and an overwhelming salvation.
It was also a moment of “restoration.” The best way to describe the meaning of that Hebrew verb is to think of slaves who have been purchased in order to be set free. They are restored: Their dignity is given back and they are no longer held captive. Someone has paid the price to set them free from whatever it was that held them in bondage - they have gone from being slaves to being free people.
All these verbs taken together paint a picture of an overwhelming, total and complete sense of liberation, freedom, restoration, redemption and salvation. The Exodus is, as Walter Bruggeman says, “a wonderful moment in which God showed that he was capable to intervene decisively against human oppression.”
The Exodus, then, was a tremendous moment of salvation, but it was also a moment for all time. The writers of the Bible pick up this theme of the Exodus and use it to show the hand of God, not only the God who set Israel free from slavery in Egypt in that time, but also the God who sets others free when they are in bondage.
When Israel became haughty and corrupt, when it started to concentrate only on itself and to think that salvation was only for itself, a prophet like Amos came along. Amos, in passing a word of judgment on Israel, reminded them that they were not the only ones that God wants to liberate and set free. In the Book of Amos, Chapter Nine, this is what Amos says: “Are not you Israelites the same to me as the Kushites? Did I not bring Israel up from Egypt, the Philistines from Caphtor, the Aremians from Kir?” In other words, Israel needed to remember that its salvation was not just for itself. It was a sign, a symbol, a unique covenantal act by God, yes, but also an act that God could carry out at other times and in other places. That is why, when the writers of the New Testament looked at the ministry of Jesus, they saw it as a fulfillment of the Exodus, a carrying on of what God had done uniquely and specially in setting his people free.
In his death and resurrection, Jesus was setting people free from the bondage of sin and death. The Passover meal that I referred to a couple of weeks ago on Worldwide Communion Sunday was again another symbol of Jesus identifying himself with this Exodus hundreds of years before. Even the Apostle Paul picks up the theme of the Exodus in his writings. He sees that God's activity in Christ is once again a manifestation of this God who sets people free from captivity: The power of Satan and sin and death have been destroyed and Christ has set his people free. In other words, the Exodus is a moment in time, but it is a moment for all time. It is the way that God acts on behalf of those who find themselves slaves to oppression.
What about us? The Exodus was a long, long time ago. The gift of Jesus, his death and his resurrection, which is our salvation, has been carried out. But how do we now relate to this moment? Does it have the power to speak to us, or is it simply a moment of historical interest and nothing more? I would suggest to you that the Exodus is a living and a vibrant statement of how God deals with us; God still says, “Set my people free!” God still has something to say to a world that faces oppression and tyranny and constraint.
The first thing we need to understand here is that in the Exodus we have a God who listens profoundly. At the beginning of the Book of Exodus, God says to Moses, “I have seen the misery of my people, and I have heard their cries, and I will respond, and I will send you.” This is a God, then, who identifies with those who face oppression and suffering, who find themselves constrained, who find themselves in need of liberation and freedom.
Contrast that with the attitude of the people of Israel after God had set them free. When he brought them into the wilderness out of tyranny in Egypt and suffering under the hand of Pharaoh, no sooner did they get there than they came to him and started complaining: “Were there not enough graves for us in Egypt that you now have to give us more graves here? Were we not better off in Egypt than we are now in this wilderness?”
God had listened to the people of Israel's cry, but they had ceased to listen to God. They had become complacent and frightened. So often, my friends, when we look back at the great things that God has done in history, in the Exodus and in Christ, we become complacent. We do not realize that we have already been set free from whatever it is that binds us. God has already liberated us, but do we have the ears to hear, or are we complacent like the people of Israel?
I think that is the great challenge of our time. There are many people who find themselves bound, who find themselves oppressed, who find themselves constrained not only politically, but in the entirety of their souls and in their lives. In our own North America culture, I believe there is a pervasive and growing sense of fear about the outside world, and there is a sense that we need to closet ourselves from the world around us. Over the last week or so you can actually almost hear the sounds of fear - the rumble of fear like Pharaoh's chariots coming - when you hear what is happening in North Korea.
William Barry, a Jesuit writer and a great Christian, says nearly all of us feel that constraint and fear to some extent. He writes:
Many people experience the pervasiveness of sin and sinful structures in our world and in themselves. If personal sinfulness can seem so intractable or render us almost despairing of a conversion of heart, how much more powerless we feel before the enormous social, political and economical problems we face? It sometimes seems better not to read the newspaper or to watch the news on television. Consumerism, racism, nationalistic prejudices, immorality, the arms race - these cultural and social forces seem to rule us and our world. In our present world and church, the experience of being free from the tyranny of sin must include a relative freedom from the overpowering sense of being trapped by these dark forces.
We need, then, to re-examine the world with the goal of seeing the God who sets it free.
I read a story about a teenage Sunday school class where they were talking about what is moral and what is right and what is just. Trying to provoke these teenagers, the leader asked: “What would you do if you had only three days to live?”
Many of them answered, “Well, I want to be with my parents.”
“I would want to be with my friends.”
“I would like to go skiing.”
“I would like to go bike riding.”
“I would like to go to a rock concert.”
The teacher got all these responses, but there was one recalcitrant youngster who sat in the corner and refused to give an answer. So, finally, the teacher looked at him and asked, “Well, what would you do if you had only three days to live?”
He answered, “I'd go and get a second opinion.”
I think, my friends, we need a second opinion. I think we can become frightened and phobic. We can become overwhelmed by a sense of oppression and fear. Whether it is the demons that we have to deal with every day in our own personal lives, or the structures of society, or the injustices in the world, or the fear of the other, the fact remains the Exodus is still a defining statement about how God deals with the things that bind us.
Now, this does not mean that the things we might be frightened of won't come to pass. It means that we are given the strength to deal with those fears and those events in a profound understanding of the faith that God can give us. In response to the people who are in this dry spell in the wilderness, feeling oppressed, Moses simply says, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see God's saving action.” Well, as a people, as a society, as a nation and as individuals, that is the kind of faith we need to recapture, because it is the only way that we can ever truly live.
But not only do we have to listen to God, we also have to listen as God does, to the cries of other people. I believe that God still sets people free. I believe profoundly that God is still at work in the world, setting free those who are constrained by the power of tyranny. It is a staggering statistic, but according to the United Nations, the world has 13 million refugees. If you combine those who are refugees with those who are living in other countries because they are displaced, the number is 35 million. The number of people from Afghanistan who live as refugees in other countries is four-and-a-half million. From the Sudan, it is three million. From Columbia, it is two million. From Angola, it is two million. The numbers are staggering. And, I don't think we have any conception, any idea of just how people live in tyranny. Much of the discussion of this is facile and one step removed from the reality that so many people face.
Some time ago, I read about something that occurred at Los Angeles International Airport. The baggage carousel at the airport was going around and around, and on it there was a very big case. Nobody came to claim this case, and it just went around and around and around. Finally, the people who worked at the airport realized it was unclaimed, but there was no tag on it, no indication of where it had come from. So they decided to open it. They unzipped the bag, flipped it open and looked inside - and discovered the dead body of a young woman. There was a letter inside that said she had desperately tried to escape from Iran by locking herself inside a suitcase, in the hope that she would make it to freedom. She did not.
That is the extreme to which some people go in their despair because of the oppression they experience. It is hard, if you haven't seen torture and if you haven't witnessed oppression and tyranny, to know the depths and extent to which people will go. Unfortunately, I have some sense and experience of that and let me tell you, the Exodus is a powerful statement of what God thinks about it. It is a powerful statement that in the midst of fear, God wants to set the oppressed free.
When you are in a dry spell, my friends, and you are oppressed in thought and feeling, you can turn to God and he will set you free. When you hear of those who are trying to break the bonds of tyranny, think of God, and hear their cry and try and set them free. It is God's word from Moses to the Israelites. It is God's word for all time: “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see that I will set you free.” Amen.
This is a verbatim transcription of the original sermon.