Proper 20A / Ordinary 25A / Pentecost +19 September 21, 2008

Exodus 16:2-15

Dieric Bouts the Elder. Gathering Manna, c. 1464-68

The Exodus story has become for us, primarily a story that speaks to our deepest personal & spiritual needs.  Each & every one of us, somewhere along in our own life’s journey, has had the experience of feeling enslaved; of being held in bondage by certain situations or by the course of events.  We know what it means to feel “trapped” by powers or systems beyond our control.
Each & every one of us, somewhere along our life’s journey, has experienced the wilderness.  We know what it means to be put to the test; to find ourselves in situations where there are no friendly skies or familiar contours; where no one speaks the language of the desert.  We are acutely aware of what it means to feel all alone.  And we have known the pangs of emptiness, as if in a desert, dry and barren.
We also have known the existence of barriers & obstacles in our lives, when we can’t go back to the way things used to be & are deathly afraid of going forward into the unknown future.
But lest we forget, the Exodus experience was also a political & an economic event.
The Exodus event had political & economic causes & it continues to have political & economic effects.  Slavery & oppression; the disparity between the rich & the poor; the experience of hunger & thirst, &  homeless wanderings are not merely biblical metaphors, they were the harsh realities for the ancient Hebrews, and they are with us still.
The people’s first lesson outside of Egypt concerns economics.
Moses’ instructions give us the defining characteristics of this alternative economic practice.  First, every family is told to gather just enough bread for their needs (Exodus 16:16-18).  In God’s economy there is such a thing as “too much” & “too little.”
Second, this bread should not be “stored up” (16:19-20).  Wealth & power in Egypt was defined by surplus accumulation.  It is no accident that Israel’s forced labor consisted of building “store cities” (Exodus 1:11), into which the empire’s plunder & the tribute of subject peoples was gathered.  So Israel is called to keep wealth circulating through strategies of redistribution, not concentrating through strategies of accumulation.
In a world that is still filled with too much exploitation; where lives are broken or enslaved; where tyrannical Pharaohs are never really that far away, the Church follows a different voice, is sustained by a different source.

Proper 19A / Ordinary 24A / Pentecost +18 September 14, 2008

Exodus 14:10-15:21

Yohanan, Moses Parting the Sea

Moses, according to the story, stretched out his hand over the sea, & the Lord drove the sea back &  the waters were divided.  And the people of Israel went into the midst of the sea on dry ground.

There is however, another interpretation of this event which comes from the ancient rabbis.  When Moses lifted his staff, nothing happened.  He tried again, & again… nothing.  The sea didn’t move.  The people renewed their cries of lament and desperation.

Then out of the crowd, comes one, identified by the Midrash as Nachshon ben Aminadav, a prince of the tribe of Judah.  To the astonishment of the people gathered on the shores of the Sea, Nachshon jumps into the water.

He understood, as did no one else, not even Moses, why the Sea would not split.  He understood that all of redemption to this point had been enacted by God – God had sent Moses to Pharaoh, and God had sent the plagues that shattered the arrogance of Pharaoh, and God had brought His people to the shores of the Sea.  But now God waited…. waited to see if one of the Israelites would take into their own hands the task of redeeming the people.  God waited to see if any one of the Israelites would be willing to risk themselves to bring freedom to their people.

Nachshon knew this, and so he jumped in, and waded out until the waters reached his waist.  He waded out even further and the waters reached even higher.  Finally, the water covered his nostrils.  Only at that point, with Nachshon’s life in peril, did the Sea opened and the Israelites crossed in safety.

This story isn’t found in the Torah, but in numerous variations of rabbinic midrashim.  As much as they loved the Torah’s Exodus story, something was missing.  Missing was the human role in the process of redemption.  The Rabbis believed that God only creates the conditions for the redemption of the world.  If redemption is to come, someone must jump into the water.  Someone visionary &  brave must be willing to put life on the line & jump into the waters to bring us out of slavery.  Only when one is willing to jump in, will redemption be ours.

Proper 18A / Ordinary 23A / Pentecost +17 September 7, 2008

Exodus 12:1-14

Throughout the Exodus event, at significant points in their journey of faith, the ancient Hebrews stopped & intentionally thought of ways in which they could pass their story on to future generations – how they could keep the experience, or at least the memory of the experience, alive.
That is the meaning behind an old Hasidic tale told of the rabbi Baal Shem, who when faced with a significant task, would go to a certain place in the woods, light a fire and meditate in prayer, and what he had set out to perform was done.
When a generation later, another rabbi was faced with the same task, he would go to the same place in the woods and say: “I can no longer light the fire, but I can still speak the prayers,” and what he wanted done became reality.
Again, a generation later, another rabbi had to perform this task.  And he too went into the woods and said: “We can no longer light the fire, nor do we know the meditations belonging to the prayers, but we do know the place in the woods to which it all belongs, and that must be sufficient,” and sufficient it was.
But when another generation had passed and another rabbi, three times removed from the original experience, had the same task, he said: “We cannot light the fire, we cannot speak the prayers, we do not know the place, but we can tell the story of how it was done”.  And… the story which he told had the same effect as the actions of the other three.
Throughout the Exodus event, at significant points, Israel stopped, reflected and meditated on their experience of God’s gracious deliverance, and sought ways to commit to memory the story.
When the ancient Hebrews painted their doorposts and lintels with the blood of the sacrificed lambs, saving them from the angel of death which “passed-over,” we read:
“And when you come to the land which the Lord will give you, as He has promised, you shall keep this observance.  And when your children say to you, ‘What do you mean by this observance?’  You shall say…” and the story was told.
On the night of the Passover Seder, it is the youngest child who asks: “Why is this night different from all other nights?”  And the story is told.
This way of instruction does not assume that the child must find the answers in his or her own experience.  Children are not expected to do this in Israel because truth is not about individual, private conjurings or feelings.  The secular world, which has taught us, has taught us well, so that we assume that what each of us feels or thinks is true.
The biblical understanding of education believes that truth – that which is really real, that which is ultimately important in life – lies outside the individual.  Biblical education is not primarily about self-actualization, but rather about revelation & disclosure.
The Church, as a story-telling community of faith, from generation to generation, tells the old, old stories of Jesus and His love; and, as with the Hasidic tale, the story has the same effect, is as real, as the experience itself.