Walking with God Toward Freedom

 

This story (Exodus 14: 19-31) of the Israelites fleeing to freedom through the parted waters of the Red Sea is one of the most familiar stories in our scriptures.

There are two big themes here.

God will rescue you and God will do in your enemies. 

These days, the idea that God will do in our enemies – pick your favorite enemy because there are so many to choose from – can seem awfully attractive. And there are no shortage of stories in the early parts of the Bible of God smiting enemies. 

 

Here’s one of the fascinating things about the Bible. Over time, the way the Jewish people and then the early Christian community came to know God kept changing. 

 

Yes, in the early days of the Jewish people, they often looked to God not only to bring them to safety but also to do in their enemies.

 

This was a common theme among many ancient religions, but the Jewish people put an interesting twist on it. 

 

In most of the other religions, the gods brought destruction on those who threatened the powerful. In the Jewish stories, God is always on the side of the weak and the vulnerable. 

 

But then in the later books of the Bible, the Jewish and then the Christian understanding of how God used divine power shifted. 

When the leaders of the Jewish people were taken into exile in Babylon, their eventual freedom came not because God killed off their captors but because Cyrus, the king of Persia, came to respect the variety of religious traditions in the lands he ruled and let the Jewish exiles go back home to Jerusalem.  The people were rescued by tolerance, not by destruction.

 

You remember the story of Jonah? We know him best because he was swallowed by a whale, right?  But the essence of that story is that God wanted to Jonah to go to the city of Nineveh and encourage people to repent. Jonah wanted God to just do them in. 

 

Nothing doing, says God. You can help them be saved, he told the reluctant Jonah. And so there was this wild ride inside the whale. Salvation, not destruction.

And then there is Jesus. Remember, he talked about loving our enemies, which seems like a pretty hard concept. When Peter cut off the ear of one of the people coming to capture Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus healed the man’s ear. As he was dying on the cross, Jesus asked forgiveness for those who were executing him. 

 

The portrayal of God as the hit man had changed to the image of God as the source of love.

 

How we perceive God can matter in how we behave. 

 

If we think that God is there to get rid of our enemies, then it is way too easy for us to figure we can give God a hand and smite them if God seems too slowing in getting to it.

 

If we think that God is the source of love, then that can guide us in how we treat others – even those others we view as our enemies.

 

Let’s keep that in mind as we explore this story of the Israelites’ journey to freedom.

 

It’s a story that has lots of drama, of course. 

 

It’s a story that has particular resonance in the African-American community, where the journey from slavery to freedom sustained their hopes during the 250 years they were enslaved in this country and in the years afterwards as the struggle for equality continues.

 

It’s a story that I think can have resonance in our own lives as well, as we seek to go through the rough waters and threatening moments of each day. It’s a story that reminds us that God is with us in the midst of everything we experience, both good and bad.

 

For the people captured in Africa and then sold into slavery in this country and for their descendants born into slavery, the Jewish story of escaping from 400 years of slavery in Egypt continually offered hope. 

 

You may know a bit about Harriet Tubman, the woman who led some 300 slaves to freedom through what was called the Underground Railroad. This often involved walking through river water to hide their scent from the dogs their pursuers were using.  It was as if the waters were parting to lead them to freedom.

For us in Wisconsin, the Underground Railroad is very much a part of our history. There still is a place in Milton – near Janesville – that served as a stop on the Underground Railroad. There was a lot of action in the Racine and Milwaukee areas. 

 

Between 1842 and 1865, the Wisconsin Historical Society estimates that at least 100 formerly enslaved people found freedom on a journey that passed through Wisconsin.

 

And sometimes those fleeing slavery in the midst of great peril must have felt like the Israelites once they realized Pharaoh and his army were pursuing them. 

 

Just before the section from scripture we heard today, the Israelites complained to Moses, “What have you done to us, bringing us out of Egypt? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.”

 

Harriet Tubman is sometimes called the Moses of her people for her efforts to lead them to freedom against great odds. There were times she surely echoed the words of Moses to the frightened followers: “Do not be afraid, stand firm and see the deliverance the Lord will accomplish for you today.”

 

There’s another parallel here for the African Americans as the Civil War ended and they rejoiced in their new-found freedom. In the story from Exodus, after Pharaoh freed the Israelite slaves, he had second thoughts and began to pursue them, which took us up to the point of today’s reading. 

The same thing happened to the former enslaved people in our country in the century after the Civil War. The joy of freedom gave way to economic exploitation, segregation, lynchings. And while the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s knocked down many of the legal barriers to freedom, we are still struggling with the deep aftereffects of slavery in our nation.

 

The Exodus story touches lives in so many ways. I did not grow up in slavery nor have I faced the kind of discrimination and discouragement so many African Americans have faced. Yet I know there are times I feel as though I am facing a wall of water and that I am being pursued by an army of adversities that I could not outrun.

I’ll bet there are other folks here who have felt the same way, that maybe still feel the same way. There’s the disruption of illness, the grief of death, the worry about work and income, the anguish of divided families, the despair that has grown with political polarization.

 

Whatever army of misfortune is chasing me and you, I think there are glimmers of hope for us within this story of the Exodus. 

Think of the power of water in this story and in our life as followers of Jesus.

 

We sang at the beginning of our service today about the power of water in the hymn “Crashing Waters at Creation.” We sang how:

Parting water, stood and trembled

As the captives pass on the through

Washing off the chains of bondage

Channel to a life made new

 

In our baptisms, we had an image of water taking us through a channel from an old life into a new life.

 

When Jesus met the woman at the well, he offered her the water of new life.

 

Think of the water of the Red Sea as God’s grace surrounding people seeking a new life, closing on the old life they were leaving behind.

 

And remember in this story – which of course portrays God as performing a miracle to rescue a people fleeing and oppression and seeking freedom – that God did not act alone. It was only after Moses stretched his arms out over the sea  that the waters parted. 

After the waters parted, after the Israelites were on the other side, their journey was not over. They had years of wandering in the wilderness ahead. That can seem pretty discouraging – to them and to us. 

 

Yet they were not traveling alone. God was traveling with them – and with us. Sometimes they felt that God had abandoned them, but then they remembered the escape through the waters of the Red Sea, they recalled the song of Moses and his sister Miriam that “the Lord is my strength and my might and he has become my salvation.” 

 

They pushed on through the wilderness, much as we have to do in the midst of whatever obstacles we are facing. They pushed on trusting that God would be there with them.

 

I’d invite you to think with me for a moment about the ways we can act like Moses. I’m not sure we can part a vast body of water. But are there places where we can stretch out our arms and embrace someone who feels trapped by their circumstances? 

 

Are there places where we can stretch out our arms and widen the places where people who disagree can find common ground? 

 

Are there places where we can stretch out our arms and lead people through the hard moments in their lives so they know they are not alone?

And then can we let others do that for us? 

Can we accept the love and care others can offer us in our own hard times? 

Can we let them open the way for God’s grace to bubble up in our lives?

 

None of us may be at the level of a Moses or a Harriet Tubman, but each of us can be part of that vast gathering of people who follow Jesus, who share the water of abundant life, who try to heal the divisions in our world and who finally get to the next piece of solid ground.

 

We know the journey goes on, whether through the waters or in the wilderness, but we also know we do not have to be alone on that journey.

For me, the power of the story of the escape to freedom through the Red Sea is precisely that. We do not get to freedom in our lives alone. We get there together and with God’s help. That is true for us as individuals and it is true for us as a nation still trying to overcome the divisions among us and the things that keep people trapped in systems that exploit them.

 

We’re about to sing the hymn “When God Delivered Israel.” Notice when we get to the third verse, we will sing:

O God, restore our nation, 

come irrigate dry souls

That those who sow in sadness 

may reap their sheaves with gladness

 

May we join in that irrigation of dry souls so that all may reap with gladness. Amen

Creation, Relationships and Us

Genesis 2: 18-24; Mark 10: 2-16

Oct. 3, 2021 at Mt. Vernon Zwingli UCC

 

Those two scripture readings we just heard are such a mixed blessing. 

They offer hope – God made people to be together – and they get misused to create gender hierarchies – God made man first, so us guys get to rule.

 

They offer hope – Jesus equalizes the status of men and women in marriage – and they offer harshness – don’t you dare get divorced.

 

And they conclude with gentleness – Jesus holds and blesses the children.

 

There’s an awful lot to work with there. So let’s start at the beginning - with the creation story.

 

We all know the basics of the creation story that is told in the book of Genesis. It’s easy to forget that there are actually two creation stories told in the first two chapters. The people who put together the book of Genesis drew on the various stories that the Jewish people told about how the world – and humanity – came to be.

The one we heard today is from Chapter 2. 

 

In Chapter 1, God said “Let us (note the use of the plural – us) make humankind in ourimage, according to our likeness…male and female he created them.” God blesses them and tells them the whole world is theirs and they should tend to it.

 

In Chapter 2, before the reading we heard today, God gets a little earthier. God forms the first human out of dust of the ground and breathes life into that first person. 

 

Our story today picks after that first person – Adam, which literally means “the human” – is now living in this beautiful garden but beauty is not enough. Adam is lonely. So God took this first human and formed another one – the person we call Eve, which means “to breathe” or “to live.”

 

If I had a chance to ask Adam and Eve how they met – you know, was it on eHarmony, in a book group, at a bar - I imagine their response might be “well, God set us up.” Because for those first humans in this story, there really were no other choices. They had to learn to navigate the world – and their relationship to one another – without any role models. So there were stumbles along the way. But that’s not what we are focusing on today.

 

What sometimes happens with this story is that it is interpreted to create some really restrictive views of humanity.

 

God created Adam first – yay men! 

But did not God make two people of out of one? 

Are they not both fully human, both made in God’s image and likeness?

And yes, Chapter 1 says “male and female he created them,” but if God is described in plural terms and we are made in God’s image and likeness, then do we not include the full spectrum of masculinity and femininity that make up the complexity of who we are, a complexity that is not always easily defined?

 

Can you see how our understanding of this story really informs a lot of the debates we have in our time about sexuality and gender? 

I choose this broader understanding, recognizing that God said the humans in God’s image and likeness were “very good.” But I recognize that within our world today’s others take a more traditional reading and so our conversations need to continue.

At the end of the portion of Chapter 2 we just heard, the author says, “a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.” This frames the ideal for marriage and Jesus hearkens back to those words in the Gospel reading for today.

 

For us living in 2021, where we know the fragility of marriage and the heartache of divorce, these words of Jesus can sound awfully harsh. But let’s back up a bit to the context Jesus was in, to the traditions he was addressing, to the style of his teaching.

 

First, the Pharisees were not just asking a philosophical question. They were trying to trap Jesus. 

 

Just a few chapters earlier in the Gospel according to Mark, we heard the story of John the Baptist being executed by King Herod because John had challenged Herod’s marrying the woman who had been his brother’s wife. Herod was now on the lookout for Jesus, because some people were saying that Jesus was really John the Baptist raised from the dead.

 

So you can see that the simple question from the Pharisees – “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” – did not have a simple answer. If Jesus says yes, he has to takes side in debates over Jewish law. If he says no, he puts a target on himself for Herod.

 

That’s why, as he often does, he answers a question with a question: “What did Moses command you?” Now the burden is back on the Pharisees.

 

They give the culturally appropriate answer – a man could divorce his wife. 

A man could divorce his wife. Not the other way around. And once the divorce took effect, the woman was left on her own, facing societal rejection and economic poverty. 

 

And there were debates within Judaism about why a man could divorce his wife. Was it because she had been unfaithful? Or was it because he had simply found someone who might please him more – who made a better meal or was a better sex partner?

 

In tightening the rules, Jesus is protecting women. 

But in our time, these words of Jesus – “what God has joined together, let no one separate” – have often been turned into a trap for women in abusive marriages. 

I was deeply involved for several years in working with churches to make clear that when staying married threatened a woman’s health, even her life, using these words of Jesus as a cudgel to keep her from leaving was totally at odds with so much else of what Jesus said about caring for each other. 

 

He was addressing the mistreatment of women under the Jewish law of his time. Surely Jesus would also address the mistreatment of women in our time as domestic violence has become clearer as an issue that needs our attention.

 

But we know that marriages come apart for reasons other than domestic violence as couples find their lives changing over time. 

 

Here’s how I hear what Jesus was saying, both in his citation of the story from Genesis and his proclamation that what God has joined together, we should not tear apart.

 

I think that God had a vision of a world where human relationships reflected the love of that divine being we describe as a Trinity – a being where the a dance of divine love has these three manifestations of God swirling around as creation emanates from their love and their energy.

 

That’s the love God hopes for in our world. That’s the ideal.

 

Our Jewish ancestors knew they fell short of that ideal. It did not take long for those first humans to find their relationship fraying over who to blame for their shortcomings – you know, that apple that looked so tasty. Then one of their children killed his brother. And on it goes – imperfect human beings who still find their way back to God – and God always there offering redemption.

 

Yes, marriages in our time start out with that dance of love. Many of us know that sometimes we make missteps as the dance goes on but we find ways to recover. But sometimes, the missteps are too big, that dance of loses the rhythm of the music of love and we drift apart. 

There can be anger, there can be sadness, there can be confusion. No, this is not what God envisioned. But neither did God envision unhappiness for those humans made in the divine image and likeness. 

 

Jesus’ words about divorce seem pretty clear cut. But remember, Jesus’ style of teaching often reached for the extremes. If your eye is a source of sin, pluck it  out. If your hand is a source of sin, cut it off. He is making a point, not trying to create more business for hospital emergency rooms.

Enter the children. It is such a fine way to take this whole issue to another place.

Jesus’ followers want to keep the kids away. After all, children had even less value in their culture than women did. But Jesus says let them come to me – “it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs.”

 

Become like children, he tells his followers. Again, he is not saying jump into a time machine and reverse your aging process. He is saying look at the value each human has, even those you think are not worth much.

 

Then by his action, Jesus shows us what we might do with those we might be inclined to reject, those we think do not have as much worth as us, those who don’t fit the models of respectability or power or status.

He took them in his arms, laid his hands on them and blessed them.

 

That’s the Jesus who holds out high ideals, who sees God’s image in each of us and who walks with us through the good times and bad.

 

May we take this gift of God’s creation – our full humanity – may we find love in the relationships that connect us to each other and may we then reach out and bless those around us by living out God’s love and grace.

Amen.