September 11, 2011
Exodus 14:10-15
On
this tenth anniversary of the horrendous, evil attacks that threaded through
the common heart and shared security blanket of America, and with all of the freshly
scratched grief and restoked fear it brings, I invite us to revisit a
powerfully compelling, blessedly reassuring biblical story.
In last week’s sermon, we focused on the first part of this story. We focused on the mysterious way God got Moses’ attention and how Moses had to then choose to examine this more closely so he could decide whether or not to faithfully assist God’s good will.
This morning’s lesson from the Book of Exodus picks up this epic story right after he indeed chose to help God and God’s people. It tells what happened after he, along with his older brother Aaron, confronted the evil, enslaving Pharaoh of Egypt and demanded liberation of the Hebrew people. It also tells what happened after Pharaoh gave consent to this demand (after his being plagued by good reasons to do so), as well as about God leading the Hebrews in a roundabout way to the Red Sea, or to be more accurate, the Sea of Reeds.
At that shoreline, at that point in the great deliverance from evil oppression, the Hebrews fell into a tremendous fit of panic. Exodus 10 tells us they looked back from where they had come and realized the evil they had left behind had not been eradicated. It was very much alive and very much advancing in on them. The reality of this triggered a full, faith-blinding panic. They could not see an escape, a way ahead to safety. Feeling trapped, they bitterly complained to Moses that being enslaved was a better fate than being caught, captured or killed by their enemy while standing in the wilderness, at the edge of uncertainty. So enormous was their fear, so pounding the pulse of their collective panic, it seems they had quickly forgotten the good, loving, saving, ever-present and almighty power of their God that had been helping them to move forward with hope and strength.
In reply to the widespread panic, Moses cried out, “Do not be afraid … stand firm … the Lord will fight for you and you have only to keep still.” Calling out for faithful trust in the Almighty seems a good enough leadership decision. Yet Moses missed the mark. His was not the best faithful response to this crisis. God did not want the faithful people to stand firm and keep still. God did not want them to just wait for something miraculous to save them. So God corrected Moses. God demanded that he tell the people to go forward.
Yes, they all were to hold fast to faithful trust in their Lord. But God demanded it be an active, whole-hearted and full-bodied trust instead of anything weaker and more passive. This was God’s decree for how to move beyond full, faith-blinding panic. This was the decree for how to be with, to be in the Lord as the divine plan of salvation from sin and evil continued to unfold.
As we recall and relive the national tragedy of the terrorist attacks that happened ten years ago to this day, I wonder how many of us felt then as though we were suddenly standing in a wilderness, at the edge of uncertainty. Like our faithful brothers and sisters of Moses’ time, did the evil that had advanced upon us, evil we knew existed but we perhaps otherwise felt was at some distance, cause us to experience a full, faith-blinding panic? If so, in what ways, did God tell us to move forward in faith and trust and togetherness despite feeling so vulnerable to attack?
I was in my fourth year of ordained ministry at the time and serving as an associate pastor of one thousand member suburban church outside of Philadelphia. Anna was approaching three years old, and Rebecca had been born just that July. As it turned out, the senior pastor was on the other side of the country that week with no designs on coming directly back. Care of the congregation and its leadership, the church’s response in the community, and the worship service and sermon on the 16th fell to me to faithfully carry out.
Initially, like most everyone I’ve talked to about that day, I was very much gripped by shock and horror and down to the bone fear. I had a fine looking Master’s degree in Theology on my office wall, but in those moments it didn’t feel like any sort of protection or much like a manual for how to lead in such a previously unimagined crisis. Did I feel a good deal trapped by evil and on the edge of doom? Did I flat out question God how on earth to move myself and my church family faithfully forward? Absolutely.
But by the grace of God, we did move forward in faith. You all moved forward. During such difficult times, moving forward is less like taking leaps of faith across the Grand Canyon. It’s more like taking leaps of the faith the span of our footsteps. Like Moses, Aaron and all the ancient Hebrews that day by the Sea of Reeds, we stepped forward trusting in the care of God’s redeeming plan and gracious power. We did so by being together for mutual comfort and strengthening, by meeting for prayer, by meditating on the Scriptures, and by assisting the needs of neighbors near and far.
Unlike in Old Testament times, these footstep-sized leaps of faith were also done with greater knowledge of God’s great plan to deliver this world from evil. God’s will for goodness and reconciliation, for healing and peace, was known more powerfully and more personally. We knew the way forward, the way of being delivered from shock and fear that was even more dramatic than what Moses and the Hebrews experienced. I’m speaking of the way of Jesus Christ, the way we today continue to follow as we keep faithfully moving forward in the complex, still very painful aftermath of September 11, 2001 and in this world so full of present and future edges of uncertainty.
What does it mean to move forward in our Lord Jesus Christ? There is a special issue of Presbyterians Today magazine available to you all for free in our Community House. In this issue, in a section titled “The Problem of Evil,” we are reminded that the “Spirit of Jesus enables us to persevere in our grappling with the sinful and sorrowful conditions of human existence, in ways that we never could by our mortal strength alone.” It reminds us, quoting one of our denomination’s historic confessions, of how “God provides for the world by bringing good out of evil, so that nothing evil is permitted to occur that God does not bend finally to the good.” (Study Catechism, question 22). And this helpful article reminds us that Jesus’ lordship is “not manifest in supernatural protection” so much as in “the divine strength we are given to persevere in the midst of a fallen world … the same strength that enabled Jesus to endure (not escape) the crucifixion” and thus undermine evil’s intention to “obstruct God’s reign.” One of my seminary professors, Dennis Olsen, once wrote about this enduring strength by saying “that the relatively small and mundane acts of ministry done by God’s people in particular times and locations participate in a larger cosmic drama involving God’s defeat of evil and the redemption of the world.”[i]
When we faithfully listen to people’s stories from 9-11 and from all other worldly tragedies and atrocities, we hear about how relatively small and mundane acts done by God’s people gave strength and hope where and when it was needed most. Of course, we also hear of and give respectful gratitude to big heroic acts. For many people, though, the faithful responses of ten years ago were less heralded but no less important.
I recall the women in a prayer group that laid hands on me that fateful Tuesday, asking God to fill me with courage and strength to lead.
We recall co-workers in the Twin Towers who didn’t just escape while they could, but stopped to help whoever else they could down narrow flights of stairs.
We reflect on thousands upon thousands of hugs and warm conversations of solidarity.
We rejoice in many desperately needed drops of donated blood, as freely given as Jesus shed blood for us.
These ways of moving forward, and more, continue today.
Soldiers confront evil this very hour with not just their training, but also their pocket Bibles, their faith in God’s love for them, and the prayers of their loved ones soldiering with them in the Spirit.
Intelligence and security personnel keeping vigilant watch over God’s flocks.
Pockets of people gather this weekend for 9-11 memorial services, honoring life with their love and the lighting of candles.
And here we are, this day, this hour … praising and petitioning the good, loving, saving, ever-present and almighty power of our God.
In last week’s sermon, we focused on the first part of this story. We focused on the mysterious way God got Moses’ attention and how Moses had to then choose to examine this more closely so he could decide whether or not to faithfully assist God’s good will.
This morning’s lesson from the Book of Exodus picks up this epic story right after he indeed chose to help God and God’s people. It tells what happened after he, along with his older brother Aaron, confronted the evil, enslaving Pharaoh of Egypt and demanded liberation of the Hebrew people. It also tells what happened after Pharaoh gave consent to this demand (after his being plagued by good reasons to do so), as well as about God leading the Hebrews in a roundabout way to the Red Sea, or to be more accurate, the Sea of Reeds.
At that shoreline, at that point in the great deliverance from evil oppression, the Hebrews fell into a tremendous fit of panic. Exodus 10 tells us they looked back from where they had come and realized the evil they had left behind had not been eradicated. It was very much alive and very much advancing in on them. The reality of this triggered a full, faith-blinding panic. They could not see an escape, a way ahead to safety. Feeling trapped, they bitterly complained to Moses that being enslaved was a better fate than being caught, captured or killed by their enemy while standing in the wilderness, at the edge of uncertainty. So enormous was their fear, so pounding the pulse of their collective panic, it seems they had quickly forgotten the good, loving, saving, ever-present and almighty power of their God that had been helping them to move forward with hope and strength.
In reply to the widespread panic, Moses cried out, “Do not be afraid … stand firm … the Lord will fight for you and you have only to keep still.” Calling out for faithful trust in the Almighty seems a good enough leadership decision. Yet Moses missed the mark. His was not the best faithful response to this crisis. God did not want the faithful people to stand firm and keep still. God did not want them to just wait for something miraculous to save them. So God corrected Moses. God demanded that he tell the people to go forward.
Yes, they all were to hold fast to faithful trust in their Lord. But God demanded it be an active, whole-hearted and full-bodied trust instead of anything weaker and more passive. This was God’s decree for how to move beyond full, faith-blinding panic. This was the decree for how to be with, to be in the Lord as the divine plan of salvation from sin and evil continued to unfold.
As we recall and relive the national tragedy of the terrorist attacks that happened ten years ago to this day, I wonder how many of us felt then as though we were suddenly standing in a wilderness, at the edge of uncertainty. Like our faithful brothers and sisters of Moses’ time, did the evil that had advanced upon us, evil we knew existed but we perhaps otherwise felt was at some distance, cause us to experience a full, faith-blinding panic? If so, in what ways, did God tell us to move forward in faith and trust and togetherness despite feeling so vulnerable to attack?
I was in my fourth year of ordained ministry at the time and serving as an associate pastor of one thousand member suburban church outside of Philadelphia. Anna was approaching three years old, and Rebecca had been born just that July. As it turned out, the senior pastor was on the other side of the country that week with no designs on coming directly back. Care of the congregation and its leadership, the church’s response in the community, and the worship service and sermon on the 16th fell to me to faithfully carry out.
Initially, like most everyone I’ve talked to about that day, I was very much gripped by shock and horror and down to the bone fear. I had a fine looking Master’s degree in Theology on my office wall, but in those moments it didn’t feel like any sort of protection or much like a manual for how to lead in such a previously unimagined crisis. Did I feel a good deal trapped by evil and on the edge of doom? Did I flat out question God how on earth to move myself and my church family faithfully forward? Absolutely.
But by the grace of God, we did move forward in faith. You all moved forward. During such difficult times, moving forward is less like taking leaps of faith across the Grand Canyon. It’s more like taking leaps of the faith the span of our footsteps. Like Moses, Aaron and all the ancient Hebrews that day by the Sea of Reeds, we stepped forward trusting in the care of God’s redeeming plan and gracious power. We did so by being together for mutual comfort and strengthening, by meeting for prayer, by meditating on the Scriptures, and by assisting the needs of neighbors near and far.
Unlike in Old Testament times, these footstep-sized leaps of faith were also done with greater knowledge of God’s great plan to deliver this world from evil. God’s will for goodness and reconciliation, for healing and peace, was known more powerfully and more personally. We knew the way forward, the way of being delivered from shock and fear that was even more dramatic than what Moses and the Hebrews experienced. I’m speaking of the way of Jesus Christ, the way we today continue to follow as we keep faithfully moving forward in the complex, still very painful aftermath of September 11, 2001 and in this world so full of present and future edges of uncertainty.
What does it mean to move forward in our Lord Jesus Christ? There is a special issue of Presbyterians Today magazine available to you all for free in our Community House. In this issue, in a section titled “The Problem of Evil,” we are reminded that the “Spirit of Jesus enables us to persevere in our grappling with the sinful and sorrowful conditions of human existence, in ways that we never could by our mortal strength alone.” It reminds us, quoting one of our denomination’s historic confessions, of how “God provides for the world by bringing good out of evil, so that nothing evil is permitted to occur that God does not bend finally to the good.” (Study Catechism, question 22). And this helpful article reminds us that Jesus’ lordship is “not manifest in supernatural protection” so much as in “the divine strength we are given to persevere in the midst of a fallen world … the same strength that enabled Jesus to endure (not escape) the crucifixion” and thus undermine evil’s intention to “obstruct God’s reign.” One of my seminary professors, Dennis Olsen, once wrote about this enduring strength by saying “that the relatively small and mundane acts of ministry done by God’s people in particular times and locations participate in a larger cosmic drama involving God’s defeat of evil and the redemption of the world.”[i]
When we faithfully listen to people’s stories from 9-11 and from all other worldly tragedies and atrocities, we hear about how relatively small and mundane acts done by God’s people gave strength and hope where and when it was needed most. Of course, we also hear of and give respectful gratitude to big heroic acts. For many people, though, the faithful responses of ten years ago were less heralded but no less important.
I recall the women in a prayer group that laid hands on me that fateful Tuesday, asking God to fill me with courage and strength to lead.
We recall co-workers in the Twin Towers who didn’t just escape while they could, but stopped to help whoever else they could down narrow flights of stairs.
We reflect on thousands upon thousands of hugs and warm conversations of solidarity.
We rejoice in many desperately needed drops of donated blood, as freely given as Jesus shed blood for us.
These ways of moving forward, and more, continue today.
Soldiers confront evil this very hour with not just their training, but also their pocket Bibles, their faith in God’s love for them, and the prayers of their loved ones soldiering with them in the Spirit.
Intelligence and security personnel keeping vigilant watch over God’s flocks.
Pockets of people gather this weekend for 9-11 memorial services, honoring life with their love and the lighting of candles.
And here we are, this day, this hour … praising and petitioning the good, loving, saving, ever-present and almighty power of our God.
Let us continue moving forward in faith by joining our voices in song, and then in a memorial litany as we prepare to share in the sacred, strengthening, communing meal of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
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