GOD WILL LEAD US ALONG THE WAY
The Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser
Aug 25, 2019 Pentecost 11C Ex.13:17-22
A pastor back in Norfolk told me about a phone call he’d received from a fairly new member at his church, JIM, a younger man who didn’t have a church background. So Jim called this pastor and said he was at the religious bookstore and wondering which Bible to buy - he was confused by all the different kinds. So my pastor friend is thinking about the various translations of the Bible available, because there are quite a few. Usually in seminary we use the NRSV, the New Revised Standard version, as its considered the most accurate translation, and from the most recently available scholarship. Another popular translation is the NIV, the New International Version, and I have friends who like the way the CEV, or Contemporary English Version, phrases things. Another newer one is called The Message, which is the work of Eugene Peterson, a remarkable pastor whose books have been well-received, and whose death last year was deeply mourned. Its quite up to date in its word choices and idioms. So my pastor friend starts on all this explanation about translations from the old languages and such, and Jim stops him - “What are you talking about? I was just wondering if I should get, like the blue jean cover, the one with spiritual helps for men, the one with study helps, the one with red letters or what.” My pastor friend cracked up and they figured something out.
See, marketers have invaded the world of Bibles and added layers of attractions on the world of various Bible translations, and the result can be confusing to folks who are rather new to Bible reading. Meanwhile, while attempting to help the Bible be more readable to today’s people, others of us know that translation is not a simple thing, and that the translator's own prejudices and assumptions do affect their word choices, and this affects what people read and think and quote.
On the other hand, I’m glad Jim, who was a friend of mine also, wanted to read the Bible for himself and learn more about the world of the Scripture. Its a sad truth that although the Bible is the best-selling book year after year, Bible literacy in our times is quite low. People aren’t growing up in Sunday School in the numbers they used to. My niece went to worship with her grandmother, my mom, and went up for the children’s time where they heard a story about Abraham. Afterwards, she said to my mom, “Grammy, I never heard that story about Abraham Lincoln before.” She had no idea of the Abraham in the Bible, the patriarch of Judaism. Another illustration, one of my favorites, comes from the early part of Raiders of the Lost Ark, where Indiana Jones is meeting with the G-men who comes to recruit him, and he’s explaining the Ark of the Covenant. The G-men look blank, so Indy says, “Didn’t you guys go to Sunday School?”
Biblical allusions are all over literature - it used to be assumed that readers would know what you were talking about if you mentioned making bricks without straw, for example; or something being a Damascus road moment. Those are just a couple I’ve come across recently when I’ve been thinking about all this. Oh, and a book I was reading the other night had someone say they were sent “empty away”, like the wording in Mary’s Magnificat, where we’d be more likely to say “we went away without anything.” Even if folks weren’t really devoted church-goers, they knew the Bible at least as literature that educated people would recognize. The pillars of cloud and the pillars of fire would have been well-recognized as the way God guided the wandering Hebrew people in their 40 years in the desert. We can’t assume these are recognized anymore.
Familiar readers of the Bible would also realize that although the stories in the Bible are based in common human experiences, they are also metaphorical for religious and human experiences we may have now, too. For example, many of us have had times when we felt we were wandering and feeling lost, or in a desert-like time of dryness in our lives; we may long for signs as clear as pillars of fire or cloud. We know about the courage it takes to leave a place that’s known, even if it has been harmful to us - and how difficult it is to build a new life and sense of identity. Themes of movies about a good son and a “bad” son come out all the time, like the story of the prodigal.
There’s a meme going around (PICTURE IN PHONE) where God is talking to a Biblical writer about allegory…. “Of COURSE they’ll know its not literal,” Moses says...Yeah, that one….
So many of the stories of the Hebrew people, wandering in search of that vision of the future called the Land of Promise, can be taken not just as history, but also as prototypes or archetypes of the human quest. Look at the larger story here - What’s going on? The patriarch Jacab, aka Israel, and his extended family go to Egypt as refugees during a long and hard famine, where his son Joseph, though thought to be dead, has risen to prominence by storing up food ahead of time. Joseph is well-loved by the current Pharoah, and his family is welcomed and given choice land to live in. So the tribe grows and grows, and eventually, as time passes, a couple Pharoah’s down the line don’t remember Joseph and the famine time, and only see the large number of Israelites as a potential enemy from within, so enslaves them. There are lots of stories about how they were treated badly, and cried out to God. God prepares the deliverer Moses and brings plagues on Egypt until the Pharaoh is broken, and says Moses can lead the Israelites to another land. There are more signs and wonders, and then the people who have seen the deliverance of God first hand are being led by Moses and these pillars of cloud and fire, another clear sign of God’s presence and care for them.
Listening to the section we read today, we hear a summary paragraph about people leaving a place of hardship, overwork, mistreatment and enslavement to others’ wills, and setting out on a journey towards a place of fulfillment and blessing, in which God guides them. We’re told that God took them a bit out of the way at first, to avoid a face-to-face conflict that might end things before they started. And we’re told they took their identity, history and tradition with them, ie the bones of their founder. There’s a lot of chapters about this journey, as the group of formerly enslaved people forge a new identity. Its neither an easy journey nor an instant journey - they live daily trusting God’s promise of what’s to come and their trust in the goodness of God towards them, even when the way is rough.
This journey is an archetypal journey of faith, hope, deliverance, and trust; a metaphor for the human quest for that place of fullness and security, where we can stand in both our history and our strong future, secure in faith and with the hand of the Divine blessing us. Its a story of transition, of finding ourselves, defining ourselves and walking in trust of that spirit of life, God, which draws us.
This is the story that the African American people, who were brought here as slaves, chose as an inspiration for their journey to freedom. In fact, the 400th anniversary of the first slave ship to land on our country’s shores was just this week, with ceremonies of both lament and apology occuring in towns. “Let my people go,” Moses’ words to the Pharaoh who had forgotten Joseph, was the longing of their hearts, too. This Scriptural story is a potent story of setting out towards a time and a life of promise.
It can also be a personal inspiration for us as individuals, when we bravely chose a new path for ourselves, and set out from the known into a journey to find ourselves and our own promise. Setting off to a new school, leaving what we knew behind; setting off for college, leaving the sheltering years at our home; changing career in mid-life because of a longing for something that wasn’t being met; finding ourselves alone after a long marriage and having to figure out who we are now. I’ve read that retirement is often as stressful as any other changes in life, despite what we’ve been told about our “golden years.” None of these are quick or easy journeys, but filled with twists and turns and doubts and struggles.
Our transition time here at Jamesville Community Church can be such a journey, although of course we’re not fleeing mistreatment and slavery like the Hebrew people did. We can still look at ourselves and our church as being on this journey between time before and time ahead, this interim and transitional time. We can see in this scriptural story that God was a part of things from the start, and with the people in their present and in their future. I believe that is true for us as well - that God was there at the start of the changing, that God knows where we are going, and that God is with us every step along the way. God is with us in our grief and in our hope; God is with us in the yin and yang of darkness and light (ie night and day). There is no time when Jamesville Community Church has been, is or will be, out of God’s hands.
Like the journey of the Israelites, we can look at our journey as a time of discovery, of defining ourselves as a people of God with a history and a future. We can learn to live more and more in faith and hope in God as we walk each day, whatever it brings. Its a time when God can speak to our hearts and imaginations of the possibilities in our future as individual persons and as a congregation, with all its ins and outs, with all its hopes and despairs, with all the steps and missteps. Its a time we trust ourselves to the care and oversight of the One who loves us and desires good for us, individually and communally.
I spoke earlier of the lack of biblical literacy in our civilization ss well as in our churches. And even some of those who can tell the details still don’t get the idea of religious language as inner experiences, but fight over literal details while missing the whole point. This is a big concern of mine, my friends. This collection of writings that has come down through the centuries of faithful people who both loved these texts and wrestled with them, who both loved God and struggled to live that love in the world - this is Christianity’s holy book, our faith’s book of the truth of living in God’s world, the truth of seeking and being sought by God. While its no substitute for the actual spiritual life of journeying with God, this book IS the record of the experiences passed down by those gone before us. Our forebears in faith have walked this path before us - we’re not the first people to seek God, or be sought by God. There is much wisdom for us in here, wisdom that can save the world.
So its crucial that we read it, know it, wrestle with it, hear it deep into our souls. Not just in a trite Bible-thumping way, not just in sound-bytes taken totally out of their context, not as a weapon to divide and cast out, not to proof-text our enculturated hatreds and fears - - But to hear its total message of hope for humanity, of God’s seeking to restore the world and be known by all. The invitation to live in wholeness and peace calls from here towards the Land of Promise; the invitation of the One who created it all and called it good.
If we feel this longing inside our soul, I urge us to take it seriously - it is the Holy Spirit of God calling, seeking to reveal Godself to us. Its not just a preacher thing or a “religious career” thing - it is truly the journey to capital-L Life itself. And its a call to everyone. I would love to teach more about our Scriptures to those hungry for it, and talk together about our journeys, even while we corporately work towards calling a new pastor. Let me know your thoughts, okay? AMEN.
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