Sermon For September 12, 1999
Sunday School Anniversary
HEBREW TESTAMENT: “Rejoicing in Our Salvation” ~ Exodus 14:19-31
In addition to completing the bulletin error contest, this week marks the start of a different preaching style. Throughout the summer I’ve done first person addresses, as biblical characters from the book of Genesis and Exodus. Story telling can speak to us in a special way, sometimes in a way that someone who is trying to interpret or explain, cannot speak. So it was a special time for me to be able to try to become the characters. Some weeks I was more successful, and some less, but there were times where I almost felt like I was not present in front of you, but instead Moses or Joseph was here, sharing with you what it meant to live through these stories that you’ve read about from the time that you were children.
It is appropriate for me to come back to you today to interpret scripture again. It has been part of the historic role of the Pastor in the United Church of Christ and the Congregational tradition to be an interpreter of scripture. There are some who think that all you have to do is read the Bible and the message will come clear to you, but if you have done any Bible study, you recognize that some passages are just difficult to understand. In order to make sense of them need more information that scholars can provide. You can study the background of the scripture passage: who the audience was; who the author was. Then you can begin to understand the intention of the Biblical passage.
Throughout the years, education has been important in the Congregational tradition. Not only have Congregationalists been involved in starting Sunday Schools across the country, but they have also been involved in starting colleges and universities. Harvard, Oberlin, many of the schools that are very familiar to you, were started by Congregationalists, who believed that it was important for people to have knowledge in order to be good citizens. We stand in a long tradition of education for the public as well as religious education.
What kind of thing can drive a person to want to spread the Christian faith, as Samuel Greene did when he rowed across the lake. Why would someone want to spend time starting Sunday Schools here, and here and here. I think that we can look through this passage from the book of Genesis to find an answer. Now if you are looking for a story, this is a great one. Cecil B. Demille and the Ten Commandments created an image that I am sure is etched on most of your minds. The waters are a wall on both sides of the people of Israel, as they leave bondage in Egypt to go to the promised land. What a powerful picture! Water parting from one shore to the other. Wind even drying the mud so the people could walk across with out getting stuck. When I was in college, I read a newspaper article that said the “Red Sea” was a mistranslation, it wasn’t the “Red Sea”, it was the “Sea of Reeds”. It was talking about a kind of a marshy area, up near the Mediterranean. If the people were leaving Egypt and going over to Sinai, they would have had to have passed through this area. There are people who have tried to explain away a miracle of spreading waters, by saying that there are times where there is a great change in tidal flows. We know that this past year mud flats that were exposed in Elliot Bay that hadn’t been exposed in years.
So what could have happened? A wind blowing to spread the waters, the tide dropping? All sorts of physical things could have happened. The point of the story is not to give us a scientific account, or an historical account, but instead we look at the story that has been saved for us in a faith book. We ask, “What does it say to us about faith?” The Hebrew people had been in bondage in Egypt for over 400 years. Finally after all of the plagues, finally after Pharaoh has lost his own first born, they are granted the right to leave the country. Now after celebrating their departure they find themselves coming up against a body of water and the Egyptians are in pursuit. How much more desperate could a situation be? People cried out to Moses and said, “Wasn’t there enough room for graves in Egypt, did you have to bring us here, to this place, so that we might die out in the wilderness?” Instead we have this miracle, the spreading of the waters. The Hebrew people cross the Sea, then stand and watch as Moses commands the water to return to its place. The chariots, the armies of the Egyptians are caught in the mud, and they die in the water.
For the people of Israel this is a time of celebration. God has snatched them out of certain death, and given them a victory and new life. Anybody who has celebrated a sports victory knows how much of a thrill can fill you when the winning homerun is hit in the bottom of the ninth. A touchdown pass. Those of you who remember the horrors of WWII can remember what it felt like to have victory declared and the war over. It feels wonderful to come out on top of the odds. It feels wonderful to be victorious. The Bible is a faith book that talks about how God has been with this people, the Jewish people, from the earliest times, from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. From Rachael, Rebecca and Sarah. It is not surprising that you would find story after story about how God helped the people to be victorious over the enemy.
Now our sensibilities today might not have as easy a time with God’s victories, when it means the death of hundreds or thousands of the enemy. We know now that when we hear reports about conflicts going on in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, that there sometimes is a short lived celebration, because when the oppressors are overthrown, sometimes the ones who were being oppressed become new oppressors. Certainly, while we can celebrate with the Jewish people, we can also realize the pain and the sorrow of the Egyptians, who lost brothers, husbands and fathers, to the waters of the Red Sea.
The point of the celebration, I don’t think, is in the death of the Egyptians, and I certainly wouldn’t want it to be. The point of the celebration is in God’s power to be victorious, to pull us out of bondage, to give us freedom and new life. That is where we can find a message for ourselves today. In many ways we are the most blessed people upon the earth. Certainly we experience one of the highest standards of living, any where in the world. Often we recognize that we have more belongings than we can even take care of, much less enjoy. At the same time we still experience all the ups and downs of life. We experience insecurities, failures, disappointments and doubts. There are times that we worry about our children, our family. We feel guilty that we haven’t been better parents, better employees, more successful in the world, better at using our gifts. We live in bondage to so many different things. In bondage to expectations. We live in bondage to fashions, to styles. We live in bondage to our culture. And just like the Jewish people, we also yearn for freedom.
The words of joy, of jubilation, should also fill us with jubilation. God does give us new life. God will help us overcome all of these things that are difficult for us. It doesn’t mean that they disappear. It doesn’t mean that everything will be the way we want it to be, that we will achieve great success, that all of our children will be stellar. It means that God will always be with us. God’s word of love, and truth, and mercy will be the last word, and we have reason to rejoice for what God is doing in the world.
How do we teach all of these things? If we come together as a people, how do we pass this along to our children? It’s important to recognize God first of all. To look for beauty in the world. To stand on the side of justice. To open our hearts to show mercy. None of that is easy, in fact our society pushes all those things out of us, telling us to look out for ourselves. To take care of our family first. But in the church we can remind people what God calls us to be. We can remind each other that God has already freed us from all of these things that bind us, that hold us down. A couple of years ago I had a chance to hear one of the articulate speakers in our faith, William Sloan Coffin, speaking in Norfolk, Virginia. He said, “When you try to live a faithful life, do not conform, and do not despair.” Do not conform and do not despair. We need to look at the world differently as people of faith. We need to look at the world as ones who believe in God’s victory. We need to act in the world as if we believe that we are empowered by God to do miraculous things, because God does empower us to do miraculous things in the world. We try to share these things with each other in so many different ways. We do it in worship, we do it in bible study, we do it in fellowship groups. But we can do it in so many more ways. The United Church of Christ, in 1988, was looking at the level of education within our church and said that things had been static for too long. We were not able to pass on the excitement of the faith. The jubilation. The celebration of what it means to be filled with God’s love, with God’s life. Jesus said that he came so that we might experience life, and experience it abundantly. I don’t think that that means just a lot of money in the bank, or a nice house. To experience life abundantly, to celebrate new life, is to recognize beauty. To figure out ways to give of ourselves to the world, to help other people. To celebrate all the many ways in which God is at work in the world.
The first congregation that I served, the whole month of December was used up in getting ready for the Christmas Pageant. The Christmas Pageant was always a big production. For the month beforehand each Sunday School class would be rehearsing their part. The week before the pageant the whole Sunday School was spent with everybody going through the performance, so that it could be as near perfect as possible, for the friends and family members in the church. One of the things that resulted from that was the Sunday School classes never talked about Christmas. Never talked about the story of Jesus’ birth. Never talked about what it all meant from a faith perspective. They were always getting the performance ready, and never studying about Advent or Christmas. So we decided to plan a Vacation Bible School that would be based on the themes of the Advent wreath. Hope, peace, joy, love, with Friday being a celebration of Christmas. So in August we gathered together. We had learning centers, drama and puppet plays. We took slides of the children in shepherds costumes with live sheep, with Mary and Joseph and a donkey. We made cardboard cutouts of the whole nativity scene and put them on stakes so that they could be set in position in holes already in the ground. On Friday evening we gathered together with parents for a potluck dinner and sang Christmas songs, and talked about the week. Then we went outside, behind the fellowship hall. Right to the edge of the cemetery that filled the back of the church property. As we read the Christmas story all the young people took their cutouts, and placed them in position, so that by the time the story was over the whole nativity scene was set before us. Then we gathered together in a large circle. Parents and children, we grabbed hands and in the August evening we sang Silent Night together. It felt like Christmas. Like Christmas away from the stores. Away from the muzak. Away from the Santa Clauses. Away from everything else that clutters up the month of December. We felt like a family. We were tied together, not only with all those in the circle, but tied together with Christians throughout time who had celebrated the birth of a tiny baby. One of the young girls came up afterwards and said, “It was so beautiful, and we didn’t even practice.”
This is the kind of education that the church can do. The church members can share their stories. Can share their artistic impressions. Can share their love of life. Their laughter, their songs, their prayers. All of those things build us up as the body of Christ. Build us up as the Church. That is the educational mission. That is the life of faith. Amen.