Exodus 14:5-7, 10-14, 21-29

When the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled, the minds of Pharaoh and his officials were changed toward the people, and they said, “What have we done, letting Israel leave our service?” So he had his chariot made ready and took his army with him; he took six hundred elite chariots and all the other chariots of Egypt with officers over all of them. 

As Pharaoh drew near, the Israelites looked back, and there were the Egyptians advancing on them. In great fear the Israelites cried out to the Lord. They said to Moses, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us, bringing us out of Egypt? Is this not the very thing we told you in Egypt, ‘Let us alone so that we can serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.” But Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid, stand firm, and see the deliverance that the Lord will accomplish for you today, for the Egyptians whom you see today you shall never see again. The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to keep still.” 

Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea. The Lord drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night and turned the sea into dry land, and the waters were divided. The Israelites went into the sea on dry ground, the waters forming a wall for them on their right and on their left. The Egyptians pursued and went into the sea after them, all of Pharaoh’s horses, chariots, and chariot drivers. At the morning watch the Lord, in the pillar of fire and cloud, looked down on the Egyptian army and threw the Egyptian army into a panic. He clogged their chariot wheels so that they turned with difficulty. The Egyptians said, “Let us flee from the Israelites, for the Lord is fighting for them against Egypt.” 

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the sea, so that the water may come back upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots and chariot drivers.” So Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at dawn the sea returned to its normal depth. As the Egyptians fled before it, the Lord tossed the Egyptians into the sea. The waters returned and covered the chariots and the chariot drivers, the entire army of Pharaoh that had followed them into the sea; not one of them remained. But the Israelites walked on dry ground through the sea, the waters forming a wall for them on their right and on their left. 

For the Word of God in scripture,
For the Word of God among us,
For the Word of God within us,
Thanks be to God.

***

Joseph is the bridge. He is the key figure in transitioning from the book of Genesis to the book of Exodus. Now, in the second half of the book of Genesis, we meet Joseph and his family. We read the story about his fancy coat, his favored position among his brothers, and how that turns his brothers against him. We learn that they then sell him into slavery, but even so, he ends up living like a prince in Egypt, where he then gets into trouble with the wife of a high-ranking official.

Now, last week, our guest preacher, Krista, preached about the story of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife. Using Dolly Parton’s movie 9 to 5, she talked about power differentials in relationships, reminding us that God is always on the side of the powerless over the powerful. God is always on the side of the oppressed, not the oppressor.

Make no mistake: God does love everyone. But that doesn’t mean that God is always neutral. God’s love compels God to take sides at certain times and in certain places.

Now, just to be clear, I’m not talking about sporting events here. I saw this cartoon last week. It’s a cartoon of a football player in a huddle looking over at the other team and saying, ‘Oh no, the other team’s praying too.’ That’s not what we’re talking about here, okay? We’re also not talking about Christian nationalism or manifest destiny. Those are all distortions of the faith.

What we are talking about is something closer to what Marilynne Robinson means in her novel Gilead when she writes that God is forever raising up those who are brought low. What we are talking about is what Jonathan Martin means when he writes, ‘If your Christianity makes emperors feel comfortable and oppressed people feel unsafe, it’s time for a grand reversal.’

And that’s what we see in today’s passage: a grand reversal, a great escape, a tale of liberation. God has heard the people’s cry and appoints Moses to go to Pharaoh and demand the release of the people. After a vigorous back-and-forth, including plagues, Pharaoh relents. But wait—Pharaoh and his officials then change their minds, and they send an army after the people, who attempt a daring and dramatic escape through the Red Sea, with God making a way where there was no way.

Now, we know this story. Many of us have heard it, in one way or another, for most of our lives. Even if we’re not particularly religious, it has seeped into our culture: movies, artwork, music, poetry, literature, on and on. It’s a foundational story of two of the world’s great religions, Judaism and Christianity.

We know this story, but remember: familiarity is not always our friend. We know that Moses and his people prevail. We know, of course, right, that the Red Sea parts. Once you know that the Red Sea is parted, you never forget that the Red Sea is parted. We know that they escape. We know that it’s successful. We know that they triumph.

We know even the bit about how the sea comes back over the Egyptians and Pharaoh. And did you notice, just kind of notice this time, that at the beginning they’re talking about the chariots and the chariot drivers and the horses, and then suddenly the horses disappear from it? It’s like the narrator doesn’t want to get us upset that the horses might have drowned too. I don’t know.

You know who doesn’t know that the story turns out all right? The people in the story. And we hear their complaints and their fears: ‘Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness?’ What’s so dramatic? They’re like a bunch of teenagers, aren’t they? ‘Oh, were there no graves in Egypt?’

But it’s true. They don’t know where they’re going. They don’t know what’s on the other side. They don’t know what’s waiting for them, or if it’s any better than what they have left behind. They don’t know how to get there. And they think that God is on their side, but how do you ever really know? The other side has a whole lot of soldiers and weapons and horses. I mean, even with all the hope and faith aside, it looks grim for Moses and the Israelites.

Professor Song-Mi Suzie Park writes, ‘The Israelites have to engage. They cannot just sit on the sidelines and let God do all the work. After God splits the seas, the Israelites have to have faith and courage to walk between the waters of chaos and death, waters that were held up by invisible divine hands. They have to choose to follow God, the one who promises a life of peace and wholeness, and they have to turn their back on enslavement, their past selves, the lives to which they were accustomed. They have to be brave and they have to choose freedom. And they have to join in and participate in the work of God to hold back the threatening waters of doom and disorder.’

I’ll be honest: I don’t know whether I really believe in miracles or not—supernatural miracles. I believe in science. I believe in the laws of nature. I like to say gravity keeps me grounded. That was bad.

And, if you thought that one was bad, I like the old joke about the man who insisted on staying in his house even though it was under a flood evacuation. Do you know this one? First, the police come and tell him to leave. He says, ‘Don’t worry, I’m staying put. I believe in God and that God will rescue me.’

Then the flood came and the man moved to the second floor, at which point the Coast Guard shows up in a boat, and they say, ‘Man, you better get in. The flood waters are only increasing.’ He says to them, ‘Thanks, but I’m good. God’s going to save me.’

The waters do continue, and the man has to go up onto his roof. Finally, a rescue helicopter hovers over him, and he waves them off. And then the man drowns. Upon getting to heaven, he asks God, ‘God, why didn’t you save me? I had faith in you. I told everybody you would save me.’ To which God replies, ‘I sent the police. I sent the Coast Guard. I even sent a rescue helicopter, for goodness’ sake. What more do you want?’

Perhaps, as Hans Christian Andersen once said, the whole world is a series of miracles, but we’re so used to them that we just call them ordinary things.

But something extraordinary seems to happen in today’s story. Moses and the Israelites were not rescued by regular means. We are told that the sea parted. We are told that a way appeared where there was no way.

So, let me tell you what I don’t think this story is trying to say to us today. I don’t think that this story is telling us to ignore the warnings, to send away the boat and wave off the helicopter. This is not a story that is meant to lull us into passivity.

It is to remind us that, in all circumstances, our job is to keep working, keep striving, keep trying—even when the way looks grim, even when it seems as though the other side has everything going for them. We have to keep working for justice. Keep trying to do what is right and good. Keep striving for equity. Keep working for liberation. We have to take sides with the powerless and the voiceless.

Professor Park writes, ‘Like the Israelites, we are called to be brave, to do our part to help God hold back the chaotic waters of the sea.’

A while back, Stephen King wrote a short story—I think it was a novella—called The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. It’s a story of a nine-year-old girl named Trisha. Trisha is hiking on the Appalachian Trail with her mom and siblings, and she gets lost. As darkness falls, Trisha has to summon her courage to face her mounting fears. The only thing that she has with her is her Walkman, which she uses to listen to the broadcast of the Boston Red Sox baseball game so that she can follow her favorite baseball player, Tom Gordon.

Now, if you don’t know, Tom Gordon is an actual baseball player—or was; he’s retired now—and he was a pitcher who is called a closer. A closer is the pitcher who comes in at the very end of the game, when you have the lead and you need to get those final, hard three outs. That’s their job. And if the closer does that and you manage to win the game, that’s called a save, right? You saved the win. If the closer doesn’t, that’s called a blown save, and you probably won’t have that job for much longer.

But Tom Gordon was a closer. I think he played for a couple teams, but famously he played for the Red Sox, and he was one of the best at the time. Trisha loved Tom Gordon, and so, as she sat there in the dark, lost and afraid, listening to the Red Sox, she imagined that her hero, Tom Gordon, was there with her, keeping her company and giving her courage.

And Tom Gordon says to her, ‘It is God’s nature to come in in the bottom of the ninth. It is God’s nature to come in in the bottom of the ninth.’

You know, that’s what I think this Exodus story is about. It is about the God who rescues. It is about the God who saves—by ordinary and extraordinary means.

You and I, we get so caught up in the means, like it’s only faith somehow if it defies logic and common sense. But let me tell you: you can believe in science and God. You can believe in the laws of nature and divine providence. You can heed the warnings. You can get in the boat. You can board the helicopter and still pray for God to rescue you.

You can fight for justice. You can speak for truth. You can speak the truth to power. And you can keep working toward the reconciliation of the world without giving in to despair. Because, as this story reminds us, God is the God of justice and of freedom and of liberation. That is who God is.

The Reverend Nadia Bolz-Weber puts it this way. She writes, ‘God simply keeps reaching down into the dirt of humanity and resurrecting us from the graves that we dig for ourselves through our violence and our lies and our selfishness and our arrogance and our addictions. And God keeps on loving us back to life.’

A way where there is no way. That’s what God provides. You can call it a miracle. You can call it a save. You can call it justice, equity, or peace, or shalom. You can call it love. Call it whatever you want. But Tom Gordon is right: it’s just God’s nature. Amen.

The post A Way Where There Is No Way appeared first on Roland Park Presbyterian Church.

But we’re still at the beginning of our journey, barely even launched off, and we encounter today in Genesis chapter 12 a very foundational and important text, not only for us as Christians, but also for our Jewish brothers and sisters, as well as our Muslim brothers and sisters. We all kind of trace our heritage and our beginning back to this foundational story: the story of an older couple whose names get changed halfway through the story. But this is still the beginning of the story, and so they are Abram and Sarai. We later come to know them, after they’re renamed, as Abraham and Sarah.

Genesis 12: 1-9:

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. Abram took his wife Sarai and his brother’s son Lot and all the possessions that they had gathered and the persons whom they had acquired in Haran, and they set forth to go to the land of Canaan.

When they had come to the land of Canaan, Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him.

From there he moved on to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east, and there he built an altar to the Lord and invoked the name of the Lord. And Abram journeyed on by stages toward the Negeb.

For the Word of God in Scripture, for the Word of God among us, for the Word of God within us. Thanks be to God.

***

For the past two Sundays, we’ve been talking about Noah and the ark. As somebody pointed out to me this morning, I probably should have saved those for today with all of the rain. But we’ve been talking about Noah and the ark, and I’ve been trying to give us a different perspective on it: that it is really a story about beginning again, about second chances, about new and unexpected opportunities.

We talked about how, from a biblical perspective, the flood is not an ending, but a new beginning in grace and gratitude. Well, today we discover in our reading what this new beginning looks like on the ground and in the flesh. We find out that second chances come with their own work and challenge, and we learn all of this through a man called Abram, later renamed Abraham.

Abram seems a decent fellow in our text. He has a pretty good life, a loving wife and family. He lost his brother, which is why his brother’s son Lot is coming with them. But they have land, they have work to do, they have familiar surroundings. Things aren’t perfect. As I mentioned, he’s lost his brother. Also, he and his wife Sarai wanted children, but they were seemingly unable. It’s life’s big disappointment for them, a bitter pill to swallow for sure.

Still, all things considered, Abram and Sarai have a good life. And so what God is asking of them is no small thing. Get up and go. Where exactly? Well, I’ll tell you that later. Why? I don’t want to get into the specifics just yet, but basically my plan is to bless the whole world through you. Just go with it.

Professor Susie Park writes, “Abruptly and without warning, God calls on Abram to move from his country, his people, his father’s household.” You know, any time in Hebrew where they repeat something three times, they’re really wanting to emphasize the point. So at the very beginning: your country, your people, your father’s household. Park continues, “That is, he’s called from all that he knows to make a clean break with everything with which he is familiar. Moving forward into an unknown future is not easy. It takes courage. It takes faith. It takes a willingness to walk in trust.”

Richard Rohr writes, “I believe that faith might be precisely that ability to trust” what he calls “the big river of God’s providential love” – to trust the visible embodiment, that is the Son; the flow, the Holy Spirit; and the source itself, the Father.

“This is a divine process,” Rohr writes, “that we don’t have to change or coerce or improve. We just need to allow it and enjoy it.” And that takes immense confidence, especially, he writes, when we’re hurting.

He says, “Usually I can feel myself getting panicky, then trying to quickly make things right. I lose my ability to be present, and I go up into my head and start obsessing. Soon I tend to be overly focused in my head to such a point that I don’t really feel and experience things in my heart and in my body. I’m oriented toward goals and making things happen and trying to push or even create my own river. Yet the big river that is God’s love, God’s care, God’s providence, is already flowing through me, and I am only one small part of it.”

One of the biggest challenges, one of the biggest hurdles we have, I believe, to trusting this divine flow is actually the direction of the current. Too often we think that the river flows toward us, that God’s favor and blessings are apparent through our lives, through our wealth and our power, our influence, our recognition, our success. Winning, right? Winning is evidence of God’s approval. That’s the way it works, right?

And that’s why us preachers need our own personal jets and gold rings and fancy Italian suits, right? I mean, if God loves me, I should be rolling in it, right? That’s what this story of Abram’s about.

No, we know that’s not true. Actually, the river flows in the other direction: not toward us, but away from us, or, as Rohr says, through us. The call of God is not so much to be blessed as it is to be a blessing.

In his book Do One Thing Different, Bill O’Hanlon tells the story of a widow who has fallen into depression. Not only has she lost her spouse, her children are grown and away, living in different states, and her friends – those who are still with us – are either sick or depressed like her.

Her pastor is worried about her. She used to be really active in church. Now she barely leaves home, and she doesn’t want visitors. The few who have managed to stop by have all reported to the pastor that it’s bad. She doesn’t even open the curtains in her house anymore. She was known for taking care of plants and being a good gardener, but her houseplants are starting to die. So they’re all worried about her.

The pastor decides he’s going to do something about it. He sends her a note announcing that he’s going to visit because he has a special message for her. He shows up on the day and time announced, and she reluctantly welcomes him in. The curtains have been cracked just a little bit, but it’s still dark and dusty. She’s made tea, but he isn’t there for the pleasantries.

As soon as they are seated, he launches into his spiel. “You are not being a very good Christian,” he tells her.

The woman’s stunned. How dare he? She’s been a faithful member for many years. She served as a leader in the church. She was even on the committee that called him to their church, for Pete’s sake. Who does he think he is?

But she doesn’t say this. She just sits there. And he continues, “You have so much to give,” he tells her, “and you’re sitting here in your house, hiding your light under a bushel.”

He looks around at her plants and flowers. “We have so many people in our church who are hurting and lonely, and you know better than most how they’re feeling. You could be writing them cards, sending them flowers or plants, and visiting them to cheer them up.”

The woman was shocked. He was right. How had she not seen it? She thought she was done and that no one needed her anymore, but nothing could be further from the truth. There were people all around who needed just what she could do.

Get up and go and be a blessing, God says to Abram. Get in the river. Trust in me to take you where you need to go. Trust the flow.

Bono, the lead singer of U2, the Irish band, gave a speech at the National Prayer Breakfast when George W. Bush was in office. He tells of a transformative encounter that he had had some years earlier. He says, “Years ago, I met a wise man who changed my life. In countless ways, large and small, I was always seeking the Lord’s blessing. I was saying, you know, I have a new song; look after it. I have this family; please look after them. I have this crazy idea.”

And this wise man said, “Stop. Stop asking God to bless what you’re doing. Get involved with what God is doing, because it’s already blessed.”

Get up. Go and be a blessing.

Friends, the Christian life is not about stockpiling blessings for ourselves. It’s about gratefully counting our blessings and then seeing how we can put them to use to bless others. I don’t know how we got so completely turned around that we’ve made people think that wealth and prosperity are signs of following Jesus. Do we not remember that Jesus himself said, “I have come not to be served, but to serve”?

That is who we follow. That is the life that we are called to lead. That is where God’s river takes us.

As Christians, each and every one of us is called to serve, to get involved in what God is already doing because it’s already blessed, to leave our comfortable confines, and to venture out into the flow of God’s love and be a blessing.

Amen.

The post What Is Already Blessed? appeared first on Roland Park Presbyterian Church.

So often when we read the Bible, familiarity is actually not our friend. It provides a challenge. That’s especially true with stories like Noah and the ark, which many of us have heard since we were little. It may be one of the first Bible stories that was ever read to us, maybe in a nice children’s book with wonderful pictures. But that familiarity can turn us deaf to new insights and to being willing and open to being surprised by the text.

That’s one of the reasons I’ve spread this reading over the past two Sundays. Last week we read about the flood and the building of the ark. Today we’ll read about the conclusion and the sign that is put in the sky.

After all these years of reading and studying this text, I was surprised this week. A commentator suggested that when God says in this passage—and we’ll hear this in today’s reading—“I have put my bow in the sky,” the reference is to a bow and arrow. I tested this with the adult ed group because I didn’t want to expose my ignorance if I was the only one. I had never thought of that before. Maybe you have. Good for you. But that was a new insight to me.

So the sign is not only there to remind us when we see a rainbow in the sky. It was also a symbolic act on God’s part in the story: to hang up the weapon. “I will no longer use this weapon. I will no longer use any weapons against you. We will resolve our differences peacefully and in other ways,” God is saying.

With that, I’ll turn us to the text and ask us to try, as best we’re able, to put on new ears and new eyes and new thinking, and be open to the new insights this text may have for us today.

Genesis 9:8-17

Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, “As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark. I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh, and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.”

For the word of God in Scripture,
for the word of God among us,
for the word of God within us.
Thanks be to God.

***

Why is the sky blue and the grass green? Where does the sun go each night, and where do the stars go during the day? And what about those stars? Are they like lanterns hanging in the sky? Or are they holes in the fabric of the sky that let light through from whatever is on the other side?

Why do rainbows come out after rainstorms? Why are there floods and earthquakes? In the ancient world, it was common to tell stories explaining the way things are. If you want to impress somebody at a dinner party, these are called teleological stories. Telos is the Greek word meaning “ending.” The idea is that they are stories told with an ending already in mind. They explain the way things came into being.

Before science, this is how people explained the world around them: through stories. This is the way wisdom and learning were passed from generation to generation. Now, as modern people, we too often dismiss these stories as fairy tales or myths, by which we mean they’re cute, sometimes fun and insightful, but aren’t really meant to be taken seriously. They’re not true vessels of truth.

But as John Dominic Crossan once pointed out, it’s not that those ancient people told literal stories and you and I are now smart enough to take them symbolically. They told them symbolically, and sometimes you and I are dumb enough to take them literally.

Noah and the ark is no different. Many of us learned the story of the flood as children. I honestly don’t know what about God destroying the earth with a flood says, “This is a good child’s nighttime story.” But I guess the picture of animals going two by two is too cute to ignore. Some illustrator somewhere said, “I can draw that.”

The reality—we don’t need to imagine too hard—would have been anything but cute: smelly, hot, dangerous, noisy. Not fluffy, adorable, or fun. And the meaning has a lot more to do with us than the origin of rainbows and floods. It speaks to us of the relationship between the Creator and creation.

Walter Brueggemann explains: We do not have before us in the story of Noah and the ark a history. This story is not concerned with historical data. And with equal firmness, we must deny that this story is merely a myth. What meets us here, he writes, is proclamation: the announcement of what God has done and is doing about a fractured world.

Scholars point out that there were a lot of flood stories already floating around—excuse the pun—in ancient times. Biblical authors were no doubt aware of these other flood stories, which usually featured people doing something wrong to displease the gods and the gods sending a flood to punish the people. Sounds familiar, right? But instead of just telling that story, the biblical authors make it a proclamation about how the God of Israel is different from the gods of the nations.

Those gods carry their bows and arrows and swords around with them. The God of Israel doesn’t just punish people when they do wrong. God does care about justice, but God balances God’s justice, punishment, and judgment with love and mercy and forgiveness. The two are never apart. We never meet one without the other.

This is how the God of Israel is set apart. The Lord, the God of hosts, the God of Israel, the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, no longer carries a weapon of violence. God has hung the bow in the sky, put it aside. “I don’t need it anymore.”

And yet God cannot allow wickedness just to pass by unnoticed or unchecked. God has to do something about it. Yet God does not leave humanity without recourse. God selects Noah and his family to build an ark and save just enough of creation to begin again.

Here we learn that God is the God of second chances. That’s where we left off last week. We’re reminding ourselves that despite what we first might think, or what we might have been taught, or how we learned the story originally, this is a story of grace and gratitude after all.

But the familiarity of this story is so strong. We’ve been carrying it with us for so long, along with a version of God that is harsh. We’ve been carrying these with us for far too long. It feels odd; it feels hard to read a story like this and find the God of second chances, and to know where we are in it.

Today I want to offer us another way into this passage that might help us find new relevance in this ancient story. This week I learned another thing. I learned two things this week, not just about the bow. I learned something else I want to share with you: in many Jewish communities, they have a different way of reading this story that makes it relevant for people of faith.

It’s obvious, right? We don’t need to build an ark. We have a much better understanding of meteorological events. We know floods aren’t sent by the gods. We can’t always predict flooding, but we know why it happens. We know why the sky is blue and the grass is green. We might not be able to explain it immediately to our children when they ask, but in general we know. We know why the sun sets, what the stars are—all these things.

So this isn’t just another teleological story. It isn’t history, it isn’t myth, it isn’t a fairy tale. It’s a proclamation. And the proclamation is this:

God knows that sometimes we need a vessel to get us to the other side of the storm. That’s why God had Noah build the ark: to protect him and his family, to help them weather the storm, to get through the flood. Perhaps not coincidentally, the word for “ark” in Hebrew is the same word for “word.”

And words are the vessels that we have to understand and reach out to God: the words of our lips, the words of our minds, the words of our hearts and spirits. In other words, our prayers. And in the Jewish community, that’s how they read this story. It’s about prayer. Prayer is the vessel.

According to Amy Robertson of the BibleWorm podcast, the Jewish tradition really digs into this. She says, “What does it mean to construct a word, a prayer life, a vessel that carries us through really difficult situations and helps us to keep somewhat apart from the wickedness that is all around us? How do we build a prayer that has an active life?”

Remember back to the instructions: God said not only all the cubits and all of that, but it has to have a window. How does our prayer life have a window in it so it’s not cut off from the realities of the real world, the outside world? How do we invite all of nature in, like Noah did—all of creation—so that we don’t imagine it’s just us and God sitting there, but we imagine ourselves sitting there in the midst of creation, surrounded by all of God’s creatures, knowing ourselves a part, not apart?

I love this interpretation. I’ve never heard that one before. I am grateful to our Jewish brothers and sisters and for their tradition for presenting that to us. It’s helped me move beyond all those little parts of my head—no matter how much I tell myself that this is proclamation—that try to reconcile this story to history or dismiss it as a fairy tale. It reminds us that God will not leave us without a vessel in a stormy world, a space for shelter and safety, a space to reflect.

So what I want to suggest is that this fall, as we begin this new program year together, we think of ourselves as an ark: this place, this community, the people gathered here to worship week after week. This is our ark. But God has some requirements. We don’t just get to build it to our own comfort and specifications. God has taught us how to build it, right?

It has to have a window in it. Our worship needs to be about more than us and the people here. It needs to have a window; it needs to be checked against the realities of the world. We need to always have one eye on the outside world. We cannot come here and turn our eyes from the suffering of others while we count our blessings.

Also, like Noah, we too must provide shelter and protection for all of God’s creatures, indeed all of creation. “Everyone is welcome here,” we say. Do we really mean it? Who is just outside of our doors looking for a vessel? Who has not been invited into our ark? And who needs to come with them?

I encourage us to think of this place as our ark, our vessel—not just the building, but our whole community. Because the truth is, our world is underwater: floods of violence and war, floods of animosity, floods of greed and injustice, storms of racism and sexism and religious bigotry. So many of us are drowning as well. We’re drowning in family entanglements, we’re drowning in our own issues, we’re drowning financially, we’re drowning in our jobs. We need shelter. We need an ark. We need a vessel to carry us through the storm to the other side.

We all know what it is to need an ark. I guess that’s why most of us are here. Because it’s all too much, and we need a break, a place to come, people to know us and help us keep our heads just above water. But this ark isn’t just for us, friends. It’s for others as well.

As we think about the image and the road ahead, as individuals and as a congregation, I want us to close today with a prayer inspired by the story of Noah and the ark. It was written by Rabbi Harold Kushner. You might recognize the name; he’s the author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People. Part of the prayer is on your bulletin cover. If you search for it, you can find the whole thing later. I would suggest that this prayer is kind of an ark for us, a vessel to guide us in the days and weeks and months, and maybe even years, ahead.

Prayer for the World
by Rabbi Harold Kushner

Let the rain come and wash away the ancient grudges, the bitter hatreds held and nurtured over generations.

Let the rain wash away the memory of the hurt, the neglect.

Then let the sun come out and fill the sky with rainbows.

Let the warmth of the sun heal us wherever we are broken.

Let it burn away the fog so that we can see each other clearly.

So that we can see beyond labels, beyond accents, gender or skin color.

Let the warmth and brightness of the sun melt our selfishness.

So that we can share the joys and feel the sorrows of our neighbors.

And let the light of the sun be so strong that we will see all people as our neighbors.

Let the earth, nourished by rain, bring forth flowers to surround us with beauty.

And let the mountains teach our hearts to reach upward to heaven.

Amen.

The post Begin Again: Flood and Promise, Part II appeared first on Roland Park Presbyterian Church.

Genesis 6:5–22; 8:6–12

The Lord saw that the wickedness of humans was great in the earth and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that he had made humans on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the Lord said, “I will blot out from the earth the humans I have created—people together with animals and creeping things and birds of the air—for I am sorry that I have made them.” But Noah found favor in the sight of the Lord.

At the end of forty days Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made and sent out the raven, and it went to and fro until the waters were dried up from the earth. Then he sent out the dove from him to see if the waters had subsided from the face of the ground, but the dove found no place to set its foot, and it returned to him to the ark, for the waters were still on the face of the whole earth. So he put out his hand and took it and brought it into the ark with him. He waited another seven days, and again he sent out the dove from the ark, and the dove came back to him in the evening, and there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf; so Noah knew that the waters had subsided from the earth. Then he waited another seven days and sent out the dove, and it did not return to him any more.

For the Word of God in scripture,
For the Word of God among us,
For the Word of God within us,

Thanks be to God.

***

If you are fortunate or blessed enough to get one, here is my advice: Take it. Make the most of it. Second chances are a gift. They are one of the purest forms of grace.

Now let me be clear: True second chances are not necessarily earned. They are not due and should not be expected. It is the same with forgiveness, which may or may not be a part of the second chance. We have spent a good chunk of this past summer looking at repentance and repair. In the process, we learned that forgiveness, too, is pure grace. It cannot be forced. It can only be freely given.

If you have caused harm to another, you can apologize. You can seek to make amends. You can offer to be a part of repair. The one thing you cannot do is demand or expect forgiveness. Even if you have apologized again and again, done what you can for amends and repair, forgiveness is up to the victim and the victim alone. It is tied to their own process of healing and repair. It is theirs to give if they see fit to do so. And if they don’t, that is just something that we have to accept.

Now, that applies to interpersonal situations, but what about between us and God? Things get even more complicated. You will hear some preachers say all you have to do is pray a certain prayer, or just genuinely repent in your heart, and God will wipe your slate clean. But is it really just that easy? I mean, if we can just say a few words and get forgiveness from God, then can’t we just ignore the victims?

The older I get, the more I am suspicious of those who want to privatize faith—those who say, “My faith is about my relationship to God and is no one else’s business.” When we speak or think like this, we mix up the definitions of personal and private. Faith is always personal. It cuts straight to the heart of the matter, straight to the human heart in a way that is deeply intimate, but in no way unique. Faith is always personal, but never private. It is never about me and me alone. It is always about how we relate to others. Jesus made this plain when asked the greatest commandment and quickly recited the Shema: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and soul, and mind.” But Jesus doesn’t stop there. “The second is like it,” he said. “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Reflecting on what this means for us today, Brian McLaren writes, “It’s not about the church meeting your needs; it’s about joining the mission of God’s people to meet the world’s needs… Imagine if organized religion organized billions of people and trillions of dollars to tackle the challenges that our economic and political systems are afraid or unwilling to tackle—a planet ravaged by unsustainable human behavior and an out-of-control consumptive economy, the growing gap between the rich minority and the poor majority, and the proliferation of weapons of all kinds—including weapons of mass destruction.”

That may sound like a mighty lofty plan, but God has had mighty lofty plans for us from the beginning, according to Genesis. Professor Dennis Olson writes, “God began directing a symphony of light, order, boundaries, flourishing life, creatures of all kinds, vocations, relationships, co-creative responsibilities, and blessing—a veritable garden of life teeming with possibility, hope, and promise. God’s gracious generosity and hospitality welcomed into existence a whole new creaturely world, a world different from God but a creation in relationship with God.”

Dr. Olson continues, “True relationship requires a degree of freedom and agency on both sides, both human and divine. While God assessed God’s creation at the beginning as ‘very good’ (Genesis 1:31) but not perfect, possibilities existed for wrong choices and negative consequences. Tragically, humans were tempted to become ‘like God’ (3:5). They experienced temptation, fear, distrust, shame, and a tendency to transfer blame to others rather than oneself.”

We are used to reading the story of Noah and the ark as a story of destruction and punishment—God’s wrath and judgment flooding down over the people, drowning the wicked. But what if, instead of a story about destruction, we read it as a story of re-creation; not a story of punishment, but a second chance, a chance to begin all over again? Because in the biblical narrative, that is exactly what it is.

Olson writes, “Other cultures surrounding ancient Israel had their own flood stories in which a hero builds an ark and survives a flood sent by angry gods. The biblical account adapts some elements of this flood story tradition but also reshapes the tradition to conform to an enduring biblical pattern… The flood was a whole-earth attempt by God to deal with the corruption and violence of God’s good creation by destroying nearly all of it and starting over again… God promises ultimately to work for creation’s flourishing and not its destruction, even though God knows that ‘the inclination of the human heart’ will continue to remain ‘evil from youth’ (8:21). Yes, judgment and consequences will follow from such human corruption and violence. But God will also be mercifully restrained and will work to ensure that the story of humans and creation continues in spite of human wickedness.”

The story of Noah and the ark is the story of second chances, of new beginnings and re-creation. It is “what the Gospels teach us,” according to Jonathan Walton. He writes, “Consider the ways Jesus often forms his disciples while they are in motion. Jesus walks alongside them, asks questions, and listens. In the process, the disciples misunderstand his teachings, debate with one another, encounter those with different views, and witness miracles that they cannot readily explain. Yet, along the way, they are transformed.”

The Gospel is the story of transformation, and transformation happens when we embrace the grace, the forgiveness and the second chances we have been given.

When we come to this table, we accept the divine invitation to begin again, to try once more to live as God intended. Here at this table, we are all recipients of God’s amazing grace. Here we are nourished to live in love, hope, and forgiveness. Because we all need second chances, where we can learn from our past without being bound by it.

And being given another chance, we begin where all great epic stories begin: in gratitude. Gratitude for the gift of life, gratitude for companions on the journey, gratitude to be able to grow and change, and learn, and be transformed. A whole new chance in life, just like that. You can’t earn it. You may never deserve it. But it is yours. It is a gift. It is always a gift.

Amen.

The post Begin Again: Flood and Promise, Part I appeared first on Roland Park Presbyterian Church.

Mark 14:32–42

They went to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” He took with him Peter and James and John and began to be distressed and agitated. And he said to them, “My soul is deeply grieved, even to death; remain here, and keep awake.” And going a little farther, he threw himself on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. He said, “Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me, yet not what I want but what you want.” He came and found them sleeping, and he said to Peter, “Simon, are you asleep? Could you not keep awake one hour? Keep awake and pray that you may not come into the time of trial; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” And again he went away and prayed, saying the same words. And once more he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy, and they did not know what to say to him. He came a third time and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? Enough! The hour has come; the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Get up, let us be going. Look, my betrayer is at hand.”

For the Word of God in scripture,
For the Word of God among us,
For the Word of God within us,
Thanks be to God.

***

Well, depending on your perspective, the words that I am about to say may make you a little sad or may make you very happy. This is the last in our sermon series on disputing with God.

Mixed reaction. Just what I expected.

But it’s been a fun journey this summer, so thank you for joining me on it.

Our last Scripture in this series comes to us from Mark, chapter 14. It is a familiar passage, although it is not one that we are used to hearing at this time of year.

From the Gospel according to Mark, chapter 14, verses 32 through 42:

They went to a place called Gethsemane, and Jesus said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.”

He took with him Peter and James and John and began to be distressed and agitated. And Jesus said to them, “My soul is deeply grieved, even to death. Remain here and keep awake.”

And going a little farther, he threw himself on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. He said, “Abba, Father, for you all things are possible. Remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want.”

Then Jesus came and found the disciples sleeping, and he said to Peter, “Simon, are you asleep? Could you not keep awake even one hour? Keep awake and pray that you may not come into the time of trial. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

And again he went away and prayed, saying the same words. And once more he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy, and they did not know what to say to him.

He came a third time and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? Enough! The hour has come. The Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Get up, let us be going. See, my betrayer is at hand.”

For the Word of God in Scripture, for the Word of God among us, for the Word of God within us.

Thanks be to God.

Well, as I said, it’s a familiar scene, though we’re used to hearing this in the springtime, toward the end of Lent or maybe during Holy Week: Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, praying for God to “remove this cup from me,” by which he means his impending crucifixion.

Then there are his disciples, who aren’t even able to stay awake through the night with him. We find Jesus finally, at the end, submitting himself to God’s will, and then the betrayer leading the Romans right to him.

The scene is familiar, but what does it all mean? How does it apply to us? What are we supposed to take from all of this? And finally, how does it fit into our disputing with God series?

Let’s take a minute and review where we have been this summer in this sermon series.

Abraham, Moses, Jonah, the psalmist, the Syrophoenician woman—they all took issue with God in one way or another. At times, as with Moses and Abraham, the issue is something that God is planning on doing, namely punishing the people.

In the case of Moses, he convinces God not to punish the people for their idolatry. Abraham pleads with God to spare the people of Sodom, whose great sin was inhospitality to strangers.

Then there was God, who wanted Jonah to go to the Ninevites and warn the people that God would not tolerate their wicked ways. But Jonah doesn’t want to go because the Ninevites are his sworn enemy.

Then we had the psalmist, who was crying out in anguish and pleading with God to be present, and yet God seemingly remained silent and absent.

Last week, we read about this foreign woman, Canaanite or Syrophoenician, who begs Jesus to heal her daughter. Yet Jesus ignores her until she annoys him so much that he’s forced to answer.

In all of this, we’ve learned that Scripture is not naive about the struggles we face in life and how much you and I can wrestle with our faith.

Many of us were taught, or simply picked up along the way, that disputing with God is a no-no. It’s not befitting a faithful Christian. Yet here we have example after example in Scripture of people—not just any people, but pillars of the faith—doing just that.

In today’s passage, it seems to be Jesus himself who is taking issue with God’s plan. He’s in the Garden of Gethsemane. His arrest, trial and crucifixion are imminent, and he goes there at night to pray.

He brings a couple of close friends with him and asks them only one thing: “Stay awake with me while I face this hour.”

But they can’t do even that.

Jesus prays to God, “Please, Lord, there must be another way. Take this cup from me. Yet, not my will, but yours be done.”

Then Jesus chides his disciples for falling asleep. He’s told them that his soul is deeply grieved, and he’s only asked them this one thing.

But they’re tired, and it’s dark and quiet there in the garden. We can imagine the noises of the wind going through the trees, and the animals and the crickets lulling them off to sleep.

When Jesus sees this, he’s upset. But then he thinks about it for a minute and says, “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

We assume we know what he means: that they just don’t have the spiritual strength to face this trial with Jesus.

But I want us to consider this. I want us to ask this: What if, instead of merely chiding his friends and disciples for not staying awake with him, Jesus is reflecting on something deeper—a more profound truth?

You see, in ancient Greek, the language in which this story was written, they don’t have any way of distinguishing between capital letters and lowercase letters. There’s no capitalization in ancient Greek.

So there’s no way for us to know whether the Gospel writer Mark intended to write spirit with a small “s” or Spirit with a big “S.”

What does that matter?

Simply put, we don’t know whether Jesus is referring to their all-too-human spirit or whether he is intending to invoke the Holy Spirit.

As I said, you and I tend to read this as spirit with a small “s,” meaning that they want to stay awake, but they just can’t.

We can all relate to that, right? We’ve had some time or another when we’ve had to try to stay awake, but our eyes get so heavy and we just find ourselves drifting off. I don’t know—maybe it was during some sermon or something.

But what if Jesus isn’t referring to spirit with a small “s,” but God’s Spirit?

What if he is saying that, on their own, they can’t stay awake, but God’s Spirit is available to them to help them in their weakness?

As Paul would later write in Romans 8, “The Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.”

It’s odd that so much could ride on something so simple. Is it a capital “S” or a lowercase “s”?

It reminds me of those grammar books that have become popular over the past 10 or 15 years. One of my favorites was Let’s Eat, Grandma, which made the point that if you remove the comma, you may go from a nice invitation to have dinner with your grandmother to cannibalism.

Sometimes small things make a big difference, right?

In this case, if we think Jesus is referring to spirit with a small “s,” then these poor disciples are left to their own devices in their time of need. But if we think Jesus is referring to Spirit with a capital “S,” then God is there with them, offering to help them through their time of want and need.

You’ll not be surprised that I would argue that the capital “S” is the way to go here. We need look no further than Jesus himself to back this up.

Jesus is facing his own dark night of the soul. He loves his friends. He doesn’t want to leave them. Yet his mission and his ministry have brought him into conflict with the Romans, and the consequences of that are fatal.

It has been said that Jesus is both a window into divinity and a mirror to our humanity. So it’s important for us to recognize that there may be no more human moment for Jesus than when he is praying in the garden.

He is honest with God: “I don’t want to die. I don’t want to be crucified.”

And yet he prays, “Not my will, but yours be done.”

You know, we can only truly pray that prayer when we know that God is on our side.

Too often, you and I think of God as an opponent of some kind—like God has nothing better to do than watch us all day long, just waiting for us to mess up so that we can be punished.

I would argue this is actually the predominant picture of God that many of us carry with us.

I’m sure that, at some point in human history, this was a really convenient theology. I can see what value that would have in keeping society in check. This is what led Karl Marx to claim that religion is the opiate of the masses: religion as a means of social control.

A vengeful, punishing God is really helpful for that.

But what if God is not in the sin-counting business? What if God has better things to do than catch us doing something wrong? What if God is really on our side and has been all along?

What if, as the quotation on our bulletin cover by Dietrich Bonhoeffer says, being a Christian is less about cautiously avoiding sin and more about courageously and actively doing God’s will?

Richard Rohr writes:

“Although Jesus made this quite clear throughout his life, we still largely turned Christianity into a religion where the operative agenda was some personal moral perfection, or attaining some kind of salvation, going to heaven, converting others rather than ourselves, and acquiring more health, wealth, and success in this world. In that pursuit, we ended up largely aligning ourselves with empires, wars, and colonization of our planet instead of with Jesus and the powerless.”

And he concludes, “It’s all caught up with us in the 21st century.”

I think that’s where I want to end this series on disputing with God.

As I pointed out at the beginning of the summer, you’ll notice that those we have encountered in this series—those who have had arguments with God—are not the uninterested or uninvested.

They are those who are already in partnership with God: Abraham, Moses, Jonah, the psalmist and now Jesus.

They are those who know that God is on their side. So they know that they can be honest. They don’t need to hide their feelings or thoughts from God for fear of God’s judgment or punishment.

They know that they’re not left to their own devices, even in the valley of the shadow of death. They know that God is with them.

And they know that when they pray, not only is their spirit, small “s,” activated, but it is God’s Spirit, capital “S,” that is activated in them.

Look, we all want a life that’s free from pain and suffering, and God wants that for us too—but not at the expense of a life of meaning and purpose and service to others.

God knows that pain and disappointment and failure are necessary parts of our journey. But God will never leave us to face them alone.

God promises to be with us.

God invites our questions, our doubts, even our arguments, because God doesn’t want robots as children.

God wants us.

All of us. Not our fake selves, not our pretend selves, not our masked selves that we put on when we go out the door to present ourselves to the world.

God wants our Garden of Gethsemane selves.

So we do not need to live in fear, because God is already with us. And as Scripture says, “If God is with us, who can be against us?”

We do not need to live in fear. We can trust. We can fully trust that the one who brought all things into being loves each and every one of us more than we could ever imagine.

Of course, knowing this does not mean that we will not struggle with our faith. We’ve seen plenty of examples of that this summer.

And if that’s not good enough, we need to look no further than Jesus himself for permission to do so. Because ultimately, his prayer is ours too:

“Not my will, Lord, but yours be done.”

Amen.

The post Disputing with God: God’s Will Be Done appeared first on Roland Park Presbyterian Church.

Mathew 15:21–28

Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.” But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed from that moment.

For the Word of God in scripture,
For the Word of God among us,
For the Word of God within us,
Thanks be to God.

***

All right, I know I’m just back from vacation, but pop quiz time. Let’s see how well you all know your Bible. How many Gospels are there? Four. Easy one, right?

Sometimes the most obvious things are staring at us right in the face, and we’re so used to them that we take them for granted. How many Gospels do we have? Four. Not one—four.

I think this says something really important and significant about our faith. Presumably, those who put the Bible together, deciding which books were in and which were out, could have chosen just one of those Gospels. But they didn’t. Or they could have combined those four Gospels and made one super-Gospel. But they didn’t. They let the four Gospels be and put them side by side.

Now, to be clear, we know that other Gospels were out there that didn’t make the cut. Perhaps those who were putting the Bible together didn’t know about those other Gospels at the time, or maybe they did know about them and thought they were more fringe. But what we know is that the four that are there are there at least partly because they were already widely read among communities of faith.

Still—and this is important—they do not always agree on important details. Where was Jesus born? Where did he start his ministry? Who were his first disciples? What are the names of the women who accompanied him on his journeys?

Sometimes those differences are telling. For example, in Mark’s Gospel, we are told that the woman who asked Jesus to have mercy on her and heal her daughter is a Syrophoenician woman. Syrophoenician is a mixture of Syrian and Phoenician. They were both neighboring countries to Israel—not really allies, but not really enemies. Just neighbors. So it’s kind of a neutral term.

In the context of the story, it means that Jesus doesn’t have to care about this woman because she’s not from the house of Israel. He doesn’t have to care about her, right? Which is kind of what comes into question.

But we didn’t read Mark’s version, did we? We read Matthew’s version. In Matthew’s version, the woman is not Syrophoenician. She is Canaanite.

Now, Canaanites were also from a neighboring region to Israel, but not so neutral. They were the historical and sworn enemies of Israel. When Matthew tells us that the woman is Canaanite, not Syrophoenician, he’s kicking Mark’s version up a bit. It’s not just your neighbor whom you don’t have to care about. This is your enemy whom you’re not supposed to care about.

So, what does this all mean?

It’s widely believed that Mark’s Gospel was the first one written. It’s the earliest. When Matthew sat down to write his Gospel, he was reading Mark. He knew Mark. He knew the stories that were in Mark.

That means the Gospel writer Matthew made an intentional decision to change this woman from being just a neighbor whom Jesus doesn’t have to care about into an enemy—someone who would make everybody reading the story think, “Yeah, Jesus, she’s a dog.”

If you’re like me—even if you’re not—you may be wondering when you read or hear this story: What is going on with Jesus?

We are conditioned to expect him to respond with kindness and compassion to all people. Never be mean. We don’t expect Jesus to be mean. Never short-tempered. Never biased, certainly.

So it’s shocking to read about him not only ignoring this woman who so badly needs him, but also calling her a derogatory name. This is not the Jesus whom we know or expect. So what’s wrong? Is he hangry? Does Jesus need a Snickers? Does he need a nap?

I think more is going on here than that.

We need to remember that when we read the Gospels, we’re not reading an unedited, unbiased account. That’s the brilliance of having four Gospels. That’s the wisdom of our forefathers and foremothers, who thankfully kept four Gospels and did not leave us with just one.

It tells us that we have to engage our brains. We have to engage our intellect. We have to engage our hearts. It’s a two-way street with the text. We have to engage it and wrestle with it.

We are acknowledging that these authors are biased, too. They’re all telling us their version of Jesus—which is something we all do, right? We all have our own version of Jesus.

What we have here with Matthew is that he’s taking a story about not ignoring a neighbor, which is significant in and of itself, and making it into one that threatens to stretch our ideas about who is in and who is out. It forces us to admit that God really does love everyone.

That means not only those whom we love, or even just those we don’t care about very much and are fine ignoring, but also the people we despise.

Now, I’m going to admit something here. This is not the sermon I originally thought I was going to preach today when I was planning this at the beginning of the summer.

I thought I would be preaching to you about this remarkable woman and her persistent faith: how she stood up to Jesus, but did so kindly and respectfully; how she called him out on his bias; and how such a give-and-take is part of our ongoing relationship and dialogue with God.

We need to be persistent in our faith. We shouldn’t be afraid of the questions, the doubt or the struggles. That’s a good sermon. I would have been happy to preach that sermon today.

But something happened this week, and the sermon I thought I was going to preach changed. Maybe it’s because of the summer I’ve had.

In many ways, it’s been a really good summer. I’ve had a good bit of vacation. I’ve gone to some of my favorite places. I’ve spent time with loved ones. I’ve been able to relax—all the wonderful things we want in summer.

But in other ways, it’s been a challenging summer for me. I’m reaching middle age, so these are all normal things, okay? I don’t want anybody to worry. I’m fine, I promise you. I’m fine, okay? Everybody got that? I’m fine. I’m good.

But it’s been challenging. There have been family health challenges. I’m at that stage in life where I’m ushering my children into adulthood, and it’s not easy. Last week, as many of you know—and you’ve been very kind to follow up with me and be compassionate toward me—I dropped my son off at school almost a thousand miles away.

These are all normal things at this stage of life. But as many of you know, they make you think. They make you ponder. They give you a new perspective. You reflect sometimes a little more deeply on things, and maybe your perspective begins to shift a little bit.

I will admit that in this process—and again, I think this is normal; this is nothing to worry about; we all go through it—I’ve had a few dark nights of the soul this summer when I’ve really wrestled with my faith. I’ve really wondered about my place.

Everybody needs a break and a vacation now and again. What I’ve found is that I have truly missed being with you all this summer. I’ve missed worshiping God in community.

That’s a weird thing pastors do. We don’t always go to worship when we’re on vacation. Some do. Some of the really pious pastors, maybe. I occasionally do, but mainly I take a break.

But as I’ve been wrestling with all of these life things, I’ve been struggling because I haven’t been here with you all, discussing these things that matter.

It has all led me to wonder about my image of God and all the things I put on God that are mine and not God’s.

Anne Lamott famously said, “When it turns out your version of God hates all of the same people you do, it’s safe to assume that you have created God in your own image.”

We all create God in our own image, and a big part of faith is deconstructing the God we have created and encountering the true, free, triune God.

I think that’s why Matthew tells the story the way he does—why he changes the woman from Syrophoenician to Canaanite. Matthew knows that we all do it. He knows that, when reading or hearing the story, his audience will be drawn into Jesus’ contempt for this woman. Their own contempt for her will bleed out as well.

They will be pleased that Jesus seemingly has the same enemies they do. Isn’t that nice? He doesn’t like the Canaanites either.

Except it turns out that Jesus was wrong. And so are we when we do the same.

So instead of a sermon about this woman’s persistent faith—and again, there’s nothing wrong with that sermon; it’s a good one—if that’s what you need today, go out and be persistent.

But it turns out that this sermon, which I need to hear today, and maybe you do too, is really about God’s persistent love for us.

Simply put, God never stops loving us. Ever. Not even at our worst.

God not only refuses to be boxed in by our projections and biases; God refuses to let us be confined by those barriers we make for ourselves. And we do it all the time.

Some of you may remember me saying: Every time we draw a line in the sand, the one thing we can be sure of is that Jesus is on the other side of it.

Every time we draw a line, every time we put up a wall or a barrier, every time we exclude somebody, Jesus isn’t with us. He’s with them. He’s on the other side of the line, the other side of the wall, the other side of the barrier, the other side of our prejudice.

That’s how persistently God loves us. God will not leave us to our own devices. God will continually challenge us in love, through love, and for love.

As we near the end of this series about disputing with God, there are many legitimate reasons we’ve come across to have disputes with God—to question God, to wrestle. That’s okay. That permission is important.

But today’s sermon in this series is kind of a caveat to that. It’s a warning that the God we might be arguing with is not the true God, but the God we have made up for ourselves. The God we may be arguing with is one of our own creation.

I have a pastor friend who, when he tells somebody he’s a pastor and they say, “Oh, I don’t believe in God,” responds, “Tell me about the God you don’t believe in.”

When they start saying, “Well, I don’t believe that God would do this or do that,” he says, “I don’t believe that either.” He finally tries to get to the point where he says, “Well, let me tell you about the God I do believe in.”

We all have to sort that out. Who’s the God we believe in? Who’s the God we don’t believe in? Who’s the God we’ve made up for ourselves? And who’s the God who challenges us—the God who doesn’t always say yes, the God who doesn’t allow us simply to wallow in the mess we have made for ourselves?

Thomas Merton uses this analogy. He says many of us will spend our whole lives climbing the ladder, only to find at the end, when we get to the top, that the ladder has been leaning against the wrong wall the whole time.

Thanks be to God that we don’t have to have it all figured out—that part of our journey is the struggle and the wrestling and, yes, even the dark nights of the soul. And the truth of the matter is that when we feel most alone, when we feel most afraid, the God who awaits us is the God who never, ever stops persistently pursuing us in love.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

The post Disputing with God: Persistence appeared first on Roland Park Presbyterian Church.

We continue today with our sermon series on disputing with God. The past two sermons in this series have been on the book of Exodus, and in particular with Moses and the people, as they struggled in the wilderness and tried to remain faithful through that time of unknowing and uncertainty. In some ways, we’re kind of moving backward to Genesis 18, but one of the things I wanted to point out that maybe we don’t often think about is that we open the Bible and there’s Genesis at the beginning.

It starts with the creation story, and we think that’s a very natural beginning narratively. But in terms of the way that the Bible was constructed, Exodus, and the Exodus experience of the people being released from slavery in Egypt and God liberating them, is actually kind of the beginning point of the story of the people of God, the Hebrew and Israel. But the book of Genesis then is kind of the prequel.

So it’s kind of like around Christmas time I’ll remind us that, you know, it wasn’t that the story of Jesus’ birth was written down at the time of Jesus’ birth. It was written years and years later, hundreds of years later, really, once people had kind of understood the importance of Jesus’ life and they said, “Gee, I wonder how he was born. We should figure that out and tell that story.” In the same way, also, the people who are liberated from Egypt say, “Well, gee, how did this all come about?”

And so they go back and they tell the stories that we have in Genesis. Most of the stories in Genesis, of course, revolve around a man named Abraham and his wife Sarah. Just preceding the passage that we are about to read, God has come to them, and this is just to help us kind of orient overall into the big picture. This is after Noah and the Ark and the flood, and then the rainbow, and God has promised never to again destroy the earth.

Then God seeks to begin again with this project that God is trying to carry out through humanity and says, Abraham and his wife, that’s where I’m going to start. I’m going to build a nation through them. And even in their old age, then God comes and visits them with two strangers. Abraham and Sarah open up their home to them, welcome them, feed them, and come to find out that they are messengers from God and that they are God’s chosen people to begin again and that through them, even though they are old, they will have many descendants, as many as the stars in the sky.

And then from there, the two visitors go out and we pick up the story from there in Genesis 18. This translation just calls them the men. Other translations might have visitors or even angels.

Genesis 18: 16-33                                                                                                                                 

Then the men set out from there, and they looked toward Sodom, and Abraham went with them to set them on their way. The Lord said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, seeing that Abraham shall become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? No, for I have chosen him, that he may charge his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice, so that the Lord may bring about for Abraham what he has promised him.” Then the Lord said, “How great is the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah and how very grave their sin! I must go down and see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me, and if not, I will know.”

So the men turned from there and went toward Sodom, while Abraham remained standing before the Lord. Then Abraham came near and said, “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city; will you then sweep away the place and not forgive it for the fifty righteous who are in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” And the Lord said, “If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will forgive the whole place for their sake.” Abraham answered, “Let me take it upon myself to speak to my lord, I who am but dust and ashes. Suppose five of the fifty righteous are lacking? Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five?” And he said, “I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there.” Again he spoke to him, “Suppose forty are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of forty I will not do it.” Then he said, “Oh, do not let my lord be angry if I speak. Suppose thirty are found there.” He answered, “I will not do it, if I find thirty there.” He said, “Let me take it upon myself to speak to my lord. Suppose twenty are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of twenty I will not destroy it.” Then he said, “Oh, do not let my lord be angry if I speak just once more. Suppose ten are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of ten I will not destroy it.” And the Lord went his way, when he had finished speaking to Abraham, and Abraham returned to his place.

For the Word of God in scripture,
For the Word of God among us,
For the Word of God within us,
Thanks be to God.

***

Genesis 18, the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, is perhaps one of the most misunderstood passages of the entire Bible. The two towns or cities become the focus of God’s anger because of their wickedness. Yet the exact nature of the wickedness is never specifically mentioned.

There’s mention of the way they treat outsiders, how they abuse them and mistreat them. There are certainly accounts of assault and violence. And of course, we all know that this passage has been used over the centuries to shame and exclude and other people of same-sex attraction. People who want to oppose homosexuality from a religious viewpoint point to this passage as their source to affirm homosexuality is a sin.

Now, given the sensitive nature of this topic, I don’t want to feel the need to move down this path, but let me just say this: To equate the actions of any two people in love with that of a violent assault of someone on a stranger does not hold water. It just doesn’t.

So let me relate this to more current events. The New York Knickerbockers—I like to say the whole name, the Knickerbockers—won the NBA championship for the first time in 53 years this past week.

And Knicks fans have lined the city streets in celebration. And as there is any time people drink and celebrate in public, fights have broken out. These fights have nothing to do with being a Knicks fan or a basketball fan and everything to do with being drunk and probably way overstimulated.

We would never say that God is angry with all Knicks fans because of these incidents. The only people who would say that are people who are already not Knicks fans. They will see these incidents as backing their bias. But the bias already existed.

Likewise, nobody reading Genesis 18 would come to the conclusion that God disapproves of same-sex relationships except for those who are already biased against gays and lesbians. It is the violence and assault that deserves God’s anger. Period. That is it.

Those who would use this passage to defend their bigotry or worse, their own physical violence or verbal violence against those with whom they disagree are actually guilty of the very thing that put Sodom and Gomorrah in God’s crosshairs in the first place.

When we widen out and read this story in context, we realize that the real issue at the heart of the passage is hospitality to strangers.

Hospitality to strangers, you see, is a biblical mandate. It could not be more clear. The Bible drives home this point time and time again. You take care of the stranger in your midst, the foreigner or the alien in your country. Why? Again, it goes back to that origin point for the Hebrew people because you were once strangers yourself. You were once foreigners in a foreign land, and you know what it’s like to be mistreated.

Right before the passage we read for today, as I explained in the setup, Abraham and Sarah offer hospitality to strangers. Strangers, who it turns out, were messengers or angels sent from God. And because Abraham and Sarah showed kindness to strangers and welcomed the foreigners into their home and fed and cared for them, God chooses them to begin again after the flood.

And in this passage, God makes a covenant with Abraham. God says, I will be your God, and you will be my people. He tells Abraham that through him he will build a great nation as numerous as the stars.

But this is the second covenant that God makes. The first one is after Noah and the flood, where God says, I will never again wipe out all the people because of their sin.

Now, as soon as the covenant is made, who do we expect to break it?

Abraham, right?

And don’t worry, Abraham makes his own mistakes. But biblically speaking, God is the first to be tempted to violate the terms of the covenant. Did you catch it? When God hears about the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah and the way they treat strangers, God decides to wipe them out. Well, that would break both covenants, wouldn’t it?

So God wonders, seemingly out loud, should I just go ahead and do it, but not tell Abraham?

Wow. That’s really interesting, isn’t it?

We think we’re the ones who should be afraid of God’s judgment. But according to Genesis, God seems to be a little bit afraid of Abraham’s judgments, not the other way around.

This is a turning point in Scripture and the basis for our faith and trust in God. To paraphrase the great Swiss theologian Karl Barth, we may choose to live without God. Humanity may prefer a godless existence. But God never chooses to live without us.

Perhaps the central characteristic and identity of the triune God is the refusal to ever be without humanity.

So one way to read this story of Sodom and Gomorrah, a good way I think, is to understand that this is actually a test for God. Prior to Abraham, God was free to do whatever God wanted to do. But now, now God is bound by the covenant that God has made.

God knows that if he lets Abraham in on his plan, Abraham will disapprove. And indeed he does. Abraham says, what if there are 50 righteous who live in these towns? Will you spare them then? God says yes, if there are 50. What about 45? 30, 20, 10.

Just, by the way, footnote, this is where the notion of a minyan comes from. A minyan is that ten people are required for certain prayers in the Jewish tradition. You have to have a minyan. And so, you know, there are some times where there’s a group that might be joining at a synagogue and there’s eight of them and they have to go out and flag down two other Jews to come in and have a minyan so that they can have prayers. That’s where this comes from: If there are ten, I will not destroy the city.

Like Moses, Abraham convinces God to show mercy. But let’s be clear, it’s not the case that God is vengeful and has to be convinced to show mercy. Rather, it is that God is merciful. But sometimes in the midst of anger, God forgets God’s self. It has to be reminded of God’s true nature.

Now it has been said to those who believe, no explanation is necessary, those who do not believe, no explanation will satisfy. I’m not sure if I buy that 100%, but I think it makes a good point. If we are inclined to faith, if we have a sense that we are a part of something bigger, if we believe that there is a benevolent presence that infuses the universe with life and meaning, we don’t need the Bible to convince us.

Rather, the Bible helps us work out what kind of God we believe in. And rather than just telling us what kind of God is, the Bible tells us stories about God that were shared throughout human history of people working out what kind of God is, considering what we know about God and what we know about the world. And if we approach the Bible this way, what we actually find is a treasure chest of the world’s biggest ideas and questions.

I mean, how limited and unhelpful is the interpretation that Genesis 18 is about how two people choose to share their love and affection. How mean-spirited and harmful is that interpretation? And what does it say about God?

Nothing good.

But it was the early Christian theologian and philosopher Augustine of Hippo who wrote, “whoever then thinks that he understands the Holy Scriptures or any part of them, but puts such an interpretation upon them as does not tend to build up this twofold love of God and neighbor, does not yet understand them as he ought.” In other words, if your interpretation of Scripture doesn’t lead you to love God and neighbor more, you have not yet understood Scripture correctly.

If your understanding of Scripture does not lead you to love God and neighbor more, you have not yet understood it correctly. Conversely, as the quote on our bulletin cover today states, “Hate, it appears, is the heresy.”

Friends, what I’m trying to get at here is that faith is not some static statement of beliefs to which we choose to ascribe or not. Not. Faith is a living, evolving relationship with God and one another. Faith, to put it in the language of the book of Genesis, is the living out of the covenant between God and humanity. “Faith,” writes Madeleine Lengel, “is what makes life bearable with all of its tragedies and ambiguities and sudden, startling joys.”

And one of the many ambiguities we encounter in life is the very issue of Sodom and Gomorrah. Not human sexuality, but how justice and mercy relate to one another. Because God has a point here. As much as we don’t want to admit it, I mean in the abstract, it’s easy to agree with Abraham. It’s not right to punish the innocent along with the guilty. That’s not fair. That’s not justice.

But neither is it fair to the innocent to leave the wicked go unpunished or unchecked, right? Bobby Williamson points out “there’s no discussion here about simply stopping the wickedness in one way or another. Or even just eliminating the people perpetuating wickedness while leaving the righteous alone.” That’s never even on the table. The assumption here is that they are all in it together. “But if mercy in this case basically means ignoring the land’s outcry and letting the wickedness stand, what does that say? And what does it mean for the innocent who continue to live there?” And he concludes with this: “In a modern society that so values individual autonomy, how do we think about the ways in which our fates are inextricably tied?”

Now that is a question worth wrestling with, don’t you agree? That will get us a lot further down the road than judging what we think about the way that two people love one another. How do justice and mercy relate? And how are our fates intertwined? With one another.

I don’t have answers to that. But I think that’s what we’re supposed to be wrestling with as people of faith.

It’s an odd notion to me that our image of God that we receive as children would not continue to grow and change with us as we get older and experience more of life in the world. We need an adult image of God to carry with us, to walk with us in this complicated and confusing world. But so many of us were never given permission, or whatever, to allow our notion of God to evolve, to wrestle with it in meaningful ways. And so we look like people who are trying to engage this complicated world with this very rudimentary image of God.

So if you’ve never received permission to wrestle with the image of God that you carry with you, please, please consider this sermon series your sign. Permission is granted. God welcomes your questions, your doubts, and your challenges because God has decided not to be God without you. So take it on good authority. Not mine, two guys named Moses and Abraham.

Amen.

The post Disputing with God: Advocating for Others appeared first on Roland Park Presbyterian Church.

Our reading this morning comes from Exodus chapters 33 and 34. This is the follow-up to what we read two weeks ago, where Moses was up on the mountain talking with God. The people were down waiting for Moses to return with a word from God. And it was taking longer than they expected. So they turned to Aaron, Moses’ brother, and said, “Moses and God seem to have abandoned us. Please fashion for us another God that we can worship.”

Aaron said, “Give me all your jewelry” and melted it down, made a golden calf, and the people worshiped. God looked down and saw what the people were doing and said to Moses… This really upsets me. And I think I’m just done with these people, and I’m going to just wipe them out like we did with the flood. And Moses reminds God of God’s promises and faithfulness to God’s people. At the end of the passage, we find out that Moses has changed God’s mind. God decides not to visit destruction upon the people again. But this is what happens next:

Exodus 33:1–23; 34:4–9                                                                                                                  

The Lord said to Moses, “Go, leave this place, you and the people whom you have brought up out of the land of Egypt, and go to the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, ‘To your descendants I will give it.’ I will send an angel before you, and I will drive out the Canaanites, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey, but I will not go up among you, or I would consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people.”

When the people heard these harsh words, they mourned, and no one put on ornaments. For the Lord had said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘You are a stiff-necked people; if for a single moment I should go up among you, I would consume you. So now take off your ornaments, and I will decide what to do to you.’ ” Therefore the Israelites stripped themselves of their ornaments, from Mount Horeb onward.

Now Moses used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp, far off from the camp; he called it the tent of meeting. And everyone who sought the Lord would go out to the tent of meeting, which was outside the camp. Whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people would rise and stand, each of them, at the entrance of their tents and watch Moses until he had gone into the tent. When Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the entrance of the tent, and the Lord would speak with Moses. When all the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance of the tent, all the people would rise and bow down, all of them, at the entrance of their tent. Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend. Then he would return to the camp, but his young assistant, Joshua son of Nun, would not leave the tent.

Moses said to the Lord, “See, you have said to me, ‘Bring up this people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.’ Now if I have found favor in your sight, please show me your ways, so that I may know you and find favor in your sight. Consider, too, that this nation is your people.” He said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” And he said to him, “If your presence will not go, do not bring us up from here. For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people, unless you go with us? In this way, we shall be distinct, I and your people, from every people on the face of the earth.”

The Lord said to Moses, “I will also do this thing that you have asked, for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.” Moses said, “Please show me your glory.” And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you the name, ‘The Lord,’ and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for no one shall see me and live.” And the Lord continued, “See, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by; then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.”

So Moses cut two tablets of stone like the former ones, and he rose early in the morning and went up on Mount Sinai, as the Lord had commanded him, and took in his hand the two tablets of stone. The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there and proclaimed the name, “The Lord.” The Lord passed before him and proclaimed,

“The Lord, the Lord,
a God merciful and gracious,
slow to anger,
and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,
keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation,
forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin,
yet by no means clearing the guilty,
but visiting the iniquity of the parents
upon the children
and the children’s children
to the third and the fourth generation.” 

And Moses quickly bowed down to the ground and worshiped. He said, “If now I have found favor in your sight, my Lord, I pray, let my Lord go with us. Although this is a stiff-necked people, pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for your inheritance.”

For the Word of God in scripture,
For the Word of God among us,
For the Word of God within us,
Thanks be to God.

***

The older I get, and the longer I have been in this gig of talking about God for a living, the more and more I am convinced that those that speak of God the loudest, those that speak with the most certainty and authority of eternal matters, those that claim the mantle of faithful and true, are actually most likely to be worshiping an idol of their own creation.

The god they proclaim is so often small and unworthy of the title. This god only cares for some people, not everyone. The god they proclaim is bound by formulas that make little sense and force God into making decisions that are cruel and capricious. The god they proclaim offers salvation by syllables: if you say the right words in the right order, forgiveness and mercy and salvation are yours, no matter what you have done or said previously. That magic incantation is like an eternal get-out-of-jail-free card.

This god is available to those who are willing to turn off their ability to think critically and freely, and just believe certain things to be true. If you call on the name of this god or pray in a certain way, this god will always answer.

Just listen to them and ask, “How big is this God, really?” And does this sound like the God we encounter in scripture? Barbara Brown Taylor makes it plain that it is not. She writes, “Only an idol always answers.”

The God that we encounter in the Bible is no idol. And let me be very clear, I am not talking about idols like the Hebrews built with Aaron, a statue made of their gold jewelry. I am talking about the kind of idol that we make with our minds, false gods of our own making.

Now, to be sure, we all make God in our own image to one degree or another. Recognizing the human proclivity to idolatry is, perhaps, the first step to a more authentic and robust faith. That is why the Bible talks about it early and often. There is little that makes God angrier than idolatry. But again, not for the reasons we may have been led to believe. It is not because God has such a fragile ego that God must be worshiped alone and given credit for everything. Again, what a small god that is. Rather, it is because making God in our own image is the first step into us believing that God is in our corner and on our side, which can be used to justify all sorts of atrocities. Anne Lamott reminds us, “You can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”

Passages like the one we just read remind us of the dangers of such idolatry, not only because they explicitly tell us so, but because they present us with a God which does not fit neatly into any of our boxes or preconceived notions. The God of Exodus is not a divine therapist sent to make everything in our lives better. The God Moses encounters is wild, free, and not subject to any limits we might set on the divine.

In today’s passage, Moses continues to argue with God over what should be done with the Hebrew people in the wilderness. Let me offer a quick recap up to this point. The people found themselves captive in Egypt, slaves to Pharaoh. Sent by God who heard their cry, Moses frees the people and leads them into the wilderness, where they wander for generations, guided by their hope in the promise of a better life.

But when things take longer than they expect, when they are hungry and tired, when they start to lose faith in Moses and question what kind of God would bring them out into the wilderness just to let them starve to death, they begin to hedge their bets. They start to crave a god who will do what they want them to do.

The biblical witness tells us that when people start to take matters into their own hands, when they start to remake God in their image, God gets angry with them. And not just angry, but furious. So much so that in the passage we read two weeks ago, Moses has to convince God not to wipe the people out. You may remember that Moses won the argument, and the text tells us that God changes God’s mind about the fate of the people. But the story goes on.

In today’s passage, God is still mad, and so while God has decided not to destroy the people, neither does God want anything more to do with them. God tells Moses, “Fine, they can find their own way to the promised land. I am done with them.” Again, Moses intervenes—this time listening to both sides, like a mediator.

Here is how one commentator summarizes what happens: “By the end, God and Israel seem to accept one another as they are. The people confess they are stiff-necked, but God commits to being with them in spite of their shortcomings. Likewise, God reveals a divine Self that is anger as well as compassion. This relationship is messier than we might like, but God and the people remain together in the messiness, committed to a future together.”

That’s all well and good, but what are we to do with this mess? How does it help us in our faith today?

Rabbi, professor, and leader of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement, Abraham Joseph Heschel, distinguishes between the God of wrath and the wrath of God. He writes, “When I consider the violence my own country, my elected officials, and my tax dollars now inflict on the world, I think of divine wrath. Divine wrath is the cry of the mother whose child has gone to war, to prison, to poverty, to hatred. It is the ache in the heart of the universe—when love is mocked, when power crushes the weak, when truth is twisted into a weapon, when life is thrown away like trash.

“I am told that wrath is not the final story, that God does not give up on us. That beneath the fury, there remains love—fierce and aching. A love that grieves what could have been and should have been, and works toward what still can be, even amid the tragedy. But we must taste the wrath in order to know the hope. We must feel the burn of divine pain before we can feel the balm of promise.”

Passages like those we are reading in our Disputing with God series, like the one we have read today with Moses and God, show us that our relationship with God is not a one-way street, but God invites our whole selves, including our brains and our experiences, into the relationship. Look again at our passage. God is displeased with the people who think of God as a far-off dictator. God is pleased with Moses, who feels free to disagree with God. As Richard Rohr reminds us, “The people who know God well—mystics, hermits, prayerful people—always meet a lover, not a dictator.”

Friends, this summer I invite you to shed the image of God as a taskmaster in the sky, the god who cares more for formulas of sin and righteousness, the god who needs you to change before you can be loved and accepted.

Moses shows us that the God we find in the Bible is a God of relationship. It is the God who loves us. All of us. Period. No qualifications and explanations. That is the beginning and end of everything. In between, there is a whole lot that matters too. God does not want us causing harm to one another. God does not want us taking creation for granted or damaging the world we inhabit and on which we depend. God cares about these things not because God cares about some arbitrary rules, but because God cares about us, about how we live together and treat one another.

This type of faith may be messier than we would like. It does not offer the comfort of certainty. True faith humbles itself before a mystery. To paraphrase Paul, “It is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way.”

What I think we will notice as we continue this series of Disputing with God is that it is the image of God that we carry with us that needs to change. It is not God, but our version of God, that is the problem. The move, counterintuitively, may be toward more doubt and less certainty. After all, which takes more faith?

As Barbara Brown Taylor reminds us, “Only an idol always answers.” The God of Moses, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of Jesus Christ, the God of you and me, is not an idol, but a partner. This God invites us into a relationship that is messy, yes, but is full of love and truth. Amen.

The post Disputing with God: Repairing Relationships appeared first on Roland Park Presbyterian Church.

Discussion Questions:

1. Recognizing Our Images of God:

• Pastor Mark says, “The god they proclaim is so often small and unworthy of the title.” What are some ways people, including ourselves, can make God too small?
• How can we tell the difference between the living God we encounter in scripture and an idol we have created in our own image?

2. Idolatry and Certainty:

• The sermon reflects on Barbara Brown Taylor’s line, “Only an idol always answers.” How does this challenge the desire for certainty in faith?
• Have you ever experienced a season when God felt silent, mysterious, or hard to understand? What did that season teach you?

3. Moses and Honest Relationship with God:

• In Exodus 33:1–23; 34:4–9, Moses argues with God and acts as a mediator for the people. What does this suggest about the kind of relationship God invites us into?
• Pastor Mark says, “God is pleased with Moses, who feels free to disagree with God.” How might disagreement, questioning, or wrestling become part of a faithful life?

4. Wrath, Compassion, and Repair:

• The sermon describes God’s anger not as fragile ego, but as grief over harm, injustice, and broken relationship. How does this change the way you understand divine wrath?
• What does it mean to say that God remains committed to relationship, even in the messiness?

5. Faith Beyond Formulas:

• Pastor Mark invites us to shed “the image of God as a taskmaster in the sky.” What images of God do you need to release in order to trust more deeply in God’s love?
• How does the idea that God loves us “period” — with no qualifications or explanations — shape the way we treat ourselves and others?

6. Applying the Sermon:

• This week, where might you practice a faith that is more honest, humble, and open to mystery?
• How can RPPC continue to be a community where people are free to ask questions, repair relationships, pursue justice, practice hospitality, and engage curious faith?

The post Sermon Discussion Guide: Disputing with God: Repairing Relationships appeared first on Roland Park Presbyterian Church.

Our reading today is from Exodus 32.

Exodus 32:1-20 & 30-35

When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered around Aaron and said to him, “Come, make gods for us, who shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” Aaron said to them, “Take off the gold rings that are on the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters and bring them to me.” So all the people took off the gold rings from their ears and brought them to Aaron. He took these from them, formed them in a mold, and cast an image of a calf, and they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it, and Aaron made a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a festival to the Lord.” They rose early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought sacrifices of well-being, and the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to revel.

The Lord said to Moses, “Go down at once! Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely; they have been quick to turn aside from the way that I commanded them; they have cast for themselves an image of a calf and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’ ” The Lord said to Moses, “I have seen this people, how stiff-necked they are. Now let me alone so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, and of you I will make a great nation.”

But Moses implored the Lord his God and said, “O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce wrath; change your mind and do not bring disaster on your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, how you swore to them by your own self, saying to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.’ ” And the Lord changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people.

Then Moses turned and went down from the mountain, carrying the two tablets of the covenant in his hands, tablets that were written on both sides, written on the front and on the back. The tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved upon the tablets. When Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said to Moses, “There is a noise of war in the camp.” But he said,

“It is not the sound made by victors
or the sound made by losers;
it is the sound of singing that I hear.”

As soon as he came near the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, Moses’s anger burned hot, and he threw the tablets from his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain. He took the calf that they had made, burned it with fire, ground it to powder, scattered it on the water, and made the Israelites drink it.

On the next day Moses said to the people, “You have sinned a great sin. But now I will go up to the Lord; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.” So Moses returned to the Lord and said, “Alas, this people has sinned a great sin; they have made for themselves gods of gold. But now, if you will only forgive their sin—but if not, please blot me out of the book that you have written.” But the Lord said to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against me I will blot out of my book. But now go, lead the people to the place about which I have spoken to you; see, my angel shall go in front of you. Nevertheless, when the day for punishment comes, I will punish them for their sin.”

Then the Lord sent a plague on the people, because they made the calf—the one that Aaron had made.

For the Word of God in scripture,
For the Word of God among us,
For the Word of God within us,
Thanks be to God.

***

There is an old Jewish teaching, which is almost like a koan. You all know what a koan is right? In Zen Buddhism, a koan is a thought or question which has no real answer, but which helps your mind concentrate and focus. The classic example is What is the sound of one hand clapping? Though koans are usually more profound than corny.  So the ancient rabbis, their koan, they wondered if God prays? And if so, what is it that God prays for?

But instead of leaving this koan unanswered, the rabbis attempt to fill in the blank. Their answer? God prays that God’s own mercy will outweigh and outlast God’s anger.

We see the struggle between divine mercy and divine anger in today’s passage. Moses, who at God’s sending, helped free the people from captivity in Egypt, led them out into the wilderness, has gone off on some sort of silent retreat. But really, we know that he is up the mountain receiving the Torah, the ten commandments from God. The rabbis say that the Torah is a gift of love from God to God’s people, but like an impatient child at Christmas or their birthday, the people can’t wait to open their gift. Actually, it is really Moses that they are missing. After all, it is Moses who has led them all this way.

Well, again, it is God through Moses, but practically speaking Moses is their connection to God. To them, no Moses, no God. And Moses has left them on their own for 40 days. One ancient commentator postulated, “How late was Moses after 40 days?” Six hours! Just six hours!

They have only been waiting six hours before they lose their ever-loving minds. But that just shows their level of anticipation, their level of dependence on Moses. And so fearing that Moses, and by proxy God, has permanently abandoned them after only six hours, they seek comfort in the next best thing, Moses’ brother Aaron. They go to Aaron and say, “Come, make god’s for us.”

Now if we were to pause here and speculate about Aaron’s response, I am guessing most of us would say that Aaron would refuse their request, remind them that the God of Moses, of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the one true God, and that God alone, led them out of Egypt.

Instead, Aaron says, collect all your gold rings, all your gold jewelry and melt it down so we can build a golden statue. What? I mean, I get the impatience of the people. They only seem to have a tenuous grip on what is going on, but Aaron? Aaron is Moses’ brother; he is part of the inner circle. Surely, he should know better!

But before we throw Aaron under the bus too hard, let me point out one redeeming factor: the people ask Aaron to produce for them gods, the generic Elohim in Hebrew. Aaron responds with the name Adonai, which is a direct reference to the God of Moses. So essentially, Aaron consents to the overwhelming need of the people to connect with something greater, but he does not help them build a statue to replace God, rather he does so as a substitute for Moses.

You see, what Aaron fails to recognize is that God acts through people, not inanimate objects like statues, even statues made of gold. God has used Moses, but God can use Aaron too. God can use any of us.

One of the fundamental claims of our faith is that God chooses not to be God without us. Presumably God could have. God didn’t have to create all that is, but God chose to. God could have just created beings which would do God’s will, no questions asked, but God chose to create beings that are free to make their own choices, free to experience joy and pain, love and loss.

Too often life makes us question, what kind of God would allow innocent people to suffer, children to die, disease, war, violence? What kind of God? The only answer I know to that question, and I admit it is not the one we are looking for, one that brings great comfort, is that it is a God who doesn’t want robots as children, but is willing to risk giving us freedom, which means the freedom to experience all the ups and downs. Because love is not love if it is forced or coerced.

So really, in this story, what we have is the sting and pain of rejection that God feels when the people God has chosen, so quickly abandon them and seek comfort elsewhere. The text tells us that God speaks to Moses saying, “I have seen this people, how stiff-necked they are. Now let me alone so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, and of you I will make a great nation.”

There is a lot going on in this short passage. God is clearly upset. We get that. But then God tells Moses to leave God alone so that God’s wrath may burn hot. In other words, God knows that Moses will try to talk God out of it. But not only does God tell Moses to leave them along, God makes Moses an offer. If Moses lets him wipe out the people again, like we are told happened in the great flood, God will appoint Moses as the new Noah, the new Abraham. He will raise up a new people, a new nation, through Moses. It is a temptation not unlike that which Jesus faces in the desert.

But Moses is the hero of this story. He refuses to give in to temptation. He refuses to leave God alone to stew in his anger. Moses argues with God and reminds God of God’s own compassion and mercy. And then we get this gold nugget: “And the Lord changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people.”

Moses won the argument. God is persuaded. Mercy wins. Love wins. Anger subsides. God’s own prayer is answered and God acts out of compassion, not judgment.

The picture that emerges from this text is that the relationship between God and humanity, between God and creation is much more of a two-way street than we may have been at first led to believe. If God chooses not to be God without us, if God wants a genuine, not forced or coerced relationship with us, if God gives us the freedom to choose, then God also chooses not to remain far off and distant. The god we first met, the god who is in charge of everything, and makes everything happen, who has us like puppets on a string, well it turns out, according to the biblical witness that this god may be as false as the golden calf the people built at the foot of Sinai. This god may be one we invented to absolve ourselves from responsibility. We say, God is in charge. God will fix it. If it happened, it must be God’s will. As pious as these sound, they are golden calves of our own making.

The true God, Adonai, the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the God of Moses, the God of Jesus Christ, is not a bully or a tyrant, but a partner. And arguing with God, disputing with God, is not blasphemy, but the living out of that relationship. Notice who in the text argues with God. It is not, as we often suppose, those who are against God, those who are far off. It is Moses, God’s own right-hand man in this scene. The one closest to God, who trusts God. Disputing with God is a sign of faith!

What does God pray for? I might answer that question a little different than those ancient rabbis. I think God prays for us to love God and to love one another, the way that God loves us. And that, I believe, is beyond dispute. Amen.

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