Coming to Terms with YAHWEH (Sermon)

“Coming to Terms with YAHWEH”

Exodus 32:1-14

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

9/28/14

          The Israelites have been camping at the foot of Mt. Sinai for months. Moses, God’s anointed leader, has spent more time on the mountain with God, than in camp with the Hebrews. Even God-chosen leaders have to make themselves available. Unattended followers will look elsewhere for guidance, and for the assurance that they matter.

          “Come make gods for us who shall go before us,” say the Hebrews to Aaron, “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.”

          The Hebrews’ demand reveals their desperation. They feel abandoned by both Yahweh and Moses. And it’s not hard to understand. When the parents of families or the elders of a community allow themselves to get too busy with careers, money, entertainments, political wrangling, and other divine entitlements, what happens to the youth of a community? What happens to others who are, for whatever reason, pressed to the margins of visibility and power? They create their own communities, don’t they? They create their own rules, and sometimes their own gods. And who can blame them? They’re just following the self-serving examples set for them by their absentee parents and elders.

          Maybe Aaron feels this way himself. Without apparent hesitation, he tells the Israelites to gather all the gold that folks are wearing in their ears. He makes a mold and casts the image of a calf.

          ‘Now there’s a god we can trust!’ cry the people, ‘a god we can see and touch! This is the kind of god who delivered us from Egypt and who will see us through.’

          Equally pleased, Aaron declares the next day to be a holy day, a day to celebrate the incarnation of their brand new god.

          It’s worth jumping ahead for a moment to recall that when Moses returns, he blames his brother for the people’s idolatry. What led to all this? he asks. Aaron’s frantic, damage-control sounds like something out of a Bill Cosby routine.

          “I said to them,” says Aaron, “whoever has gold, take it off’ so they gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!”

          Now, I did not paraphrase Aaron’s words. I quoted the NRSV word-for-word. It’s Exodus 32:24. See for yourself.

          The day after the calf springs from the fire like a phoenix, the people indulge in whatever it is that golden calves might permit. Yahweh sees all of this, and the problems begin.

          Here we must acknowledge something: This early Hebrew story was told and retold for many generations by word of mouth, then written and re-written by hand over many centuries. This ancient story does more than to remember events. It interprets them. Like scenes from the life of Jesus cobbled together in stained glass, this written story is part of a grand mural. It is one picture of many of the Hebrews in their long, lonely, and dangerous journey into the uncharted waters of monotheism. The first step of this journey is one that we are still taking. It’s one we keep coming back to, anyway. When leaving behind all our idols, large and small, human and otherwise, we tend to create very specific images of even the “one” God. For some reason, those images are usually masculine. Very often they are military, or at least caught up in retributive violence against human creatures. It seems to me that the one God we claim to worship and love often looks and acts a lot like ancient and recent idols.

          Years ago, a woman sat in my office. She was upset with me, again. It wasn’t hard to upset her. I must have said something about the value of feminine images of God – who is neither male nor female – because she looked at me through narrowed eyes and said, “No, God is a man.”

          It will not surprise you that her image of God, which was not just exclusively male, but explicitly a human male, was the foundation of a fearful, power-based theology endorsed and enforced by her husband, as well. I didn’t call her on all of that. She had enough to deal with. Besides, her male-imaged god only reflects the same kind of anthropomorphic struggles of the early Hebrews. Think about it: The Yahweh of Genesis and Exodus often says and does things that are far removed from the deep and brooding Spirit whose light shines in and through Jesus of Nazareth.

          Consider this contrast, which is but one of many: To Moses Yahweh says, “Your people, whom you have brought up out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely.”

          Moses answers God saying, “O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt…?”

          In Jesus’ memorable parable, a young man, burning hot with jealous, self-consuming wrath says to his father, “For all these years I have been working like a slave for you…But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!”

          The father responds, saying, “Son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.” (Luke 15:29a, 30-32)

          In the story of the prodigal, the elder brother mirrors the ancient view of God as accurately as the father reveals the new and renewing image of God made known in and through Jesus. That spiritual development continues today.

          We are still coming to terms with Yahweh.

          There are many images of God, because we have to imagine God. Imagining the Unimaginable, through story, is the best we’ve got. And how we imagine God determines how we live as human beings. How we imagine God determines how we love and how we relate to one another and to the earth. If we imagine God as a projection of ourselves – our fears, entitlements, and judgments – God will become entirely too imaginable. Indeed, God will become manageable. The word for that is idolatry. And at its heart, all sin is nothing more than a variation on the theme of idolatry. That’s why the first commandment states so directly, “You shall have no other gods [besides] me.” (Exodus 20:3)

          By implication, that commandment also states that Yahweh is not an idol, nor is Yahweh to be treated as an idol – as something small enough to be defined and understood by the human mind, much less by one image, characteristic, or pronoun. Idols allow the creation of religions of conformity and control. But Yahweh, who creates and recreates the universe, gives birth to faith communities that participate gratefully in the creative process, communities that recognize and celebrate the God-imaged holiness within every human being and even in all of matter.¹ Jesus of Nazareth, God Incarnate, arises from the very same stuff as you and I. And in being uniquely born and reborn of the creation, he embodies promises of transformation and resurrection, promises which lie beyond our full understanding, beyond our control.

          I am coming to understand that that last, troubling line in today’s reading, And the Lord changed his mind, has more to do with Israel’s mind than with Yahweh’s. It has to do with the resurrection of faith within the people of God. Along their journey, the Hebrews experience the community-destroying effects of idolatry. And through a prayerful dialogue of repentance, they also experience the healing grace of redemption. This story illustrates that God’s judgment is not some kind of show-stopping wrath. God’s judgment is game-changing love.

          What are our idols and idolatries?

          How do we project onto God our own characteristics, prejudices, and fears?

          How will we embody prayerful repentance so that we might reunite with the holiness within ourselves, one another and the very earth around us?

          God has equipped us with redeeming, resurrecting, game-changing Love. How will we use it?

¹For more on the inherent holiness of the created order, see the writings of John Philip Newell. Of particular interest: The Book of Creation: An Introduction to Celtic Spirituality [Paulist Press, 1999], Christ of the Celts: The Healing of Creation [Jossey-Bass, 2008], and The Rebirthing of God: Christianity’s Struggle for New Beginnings [Christian Journeys, from SkyLight Paths Publishing, 2014].

Revelation (A Prayer)

Revelation

I don’t know, God.

You’re not going to, either.

What?
Well you’re not.

Not even after…well…you know.

Not even then.

How can it be that I won’t know even then?

Because THEN it won’t occur to you wonder.

Because I’ll know, right?

No, because knowing is different in here.

How different?

All the way different.

What does that mean?

There’s no way to explain that to you now.

So, what matters out here if knowing doesn’t?

The same thing that matters in here.

And that would be…

You know.

Yes! Wait...WHAT? (Sermon)

“Yes! Wait…What?”

Exodus 3:1-15

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

9/14/14

          There is a connection crying out to us in this text. It may have been obvious to some of you, but remember, I’m from Georgia. Heat and humidity often slow my people down a little bit. So, I discovered this only three weeks ago during Sunday school. Listen to the revealing harmony as we overlay portions of two stories.

          “Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro…he led his flock beyond the wilderness…”

          “In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night.” (Luke 2:8)

          “There an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire…”

          “Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them…” (Luke 2:9)

          “[God] said, ‘I will be with you; and this shall be a sign for you…when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain.’”

          “This will be sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” (Luke 2:12)

          “Then Moses said, ‘I must turn aside and look at this great sight…’”

          “The shepherds said to one another, ‘Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place.’” (Luke 2:15)

          “Then the Lord said, ‘I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry…I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them…’”

          “My soul magnifies the Lord, for the Mighty One has…helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.” (from Luke 1:46, 49, 54-55)

          Jesus is frequently called “The Second Moses.” It seems fitting, then, that the stories of Moses’ call and of Jesus’ birth mirror each other so closely. What’s more, they are two of many biblical reminders that the call of God tends to surface, or at least becomes uniquely irresistible, in the midst of wilderness. And that irresistibility tends to evoke a response of eager cooperation.

          “Here I am,” says Moses.

          “Here I am,” says Samuel.

          “Here I am, send me,” says Isaiah.

          “Here I am, the servant of the Lord,” says Mary.

          “Here I am,” says Ananias.

          None of the twelve disciples says, Here I am, but their drop-everything-and-go responses convey their willingness.

          In virtually every one of these stories, however, the Here I am character experiences a kind of spiritual hiccup. Moses gives voice to that hiccup, ironically enough, when he reverses the Here I am statement to ask the question, “Who am I?”

          “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”

          Does that feel like familiar ground to any of us: To say, “Yes!” then, “Wait! What? Who am I to do that?” If it does feel like familiar ground, it is also, says God, “holy ground.”

          On the holy ground of call and response, the Who am I? question marks the moment when the one who is called confronts, barefooted, the demands of new responsibility. At that point, any blinders a person may have get peeled away. They see the moment and the future very differently. To move all the way through the holy land of Here I am/Who am I requires the empowerment of deep memory, and a fierce hope.

          I recently heard someone famous refer to hope as a “beggar in the universe.” I think I understand his intent, but I also think that what he calls hope we would call wishful thinking. Biblical hope has nothing to do with begging. Biblical hope is the very Yes! of discipleship. Hope is the Here I am of faith, and it includes the inevitable “Who Am I?” of doubt.

          After getting Moses’ attention with something that defies description, God turns and calls Moses to work that is even more incredible. And the only assurance God offers is a sign that does not give Moses much to dig his bare toenails into. “This shall be the sign for you,” says God, “when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship [right here] on this mountain.”

          The “sign” is a promise toward which Moses must not only live, but lead others. It is not some talisman to wear around his neck, or a compass to guide him. The sign God promises requires pure trust. It’s more of a, “You’ll know it when you see it” thing. And that’s perfectly appropriate, because, and forgive the cliché, but the life of faith is a journey – a journey of risk, and discovery, and memory-fueled hope. And it’s this all-important memory, that layer of identity, which turns Moses from Here I am to Who am I.

          “They won’t believe me,” says Moses. “I need a letter of reference or something.”

          And here God gets in on all the existential talk: “Tell them,” says God, “tell them my name is I AM WHO I AM. Tell them I AM sent you,” ‘the I AM of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the one who was, and is, and is to come. Now go.’

          Having been raised in an Egyptian household, Moses’ well of memories is barely even damp at the bottom. So I AM begins to remind Who am I of the old story of Abraham, the man who simply leaves when God says, “Go.”

          God calls Moses to do more than remove the Israelites from Egypt. God calls Moses to establish a brand new set of memories by which God’s people may live forward into new hope. And through the ragged arc of Here I am’s and Who am I’s, I AM eventually speaks another word: Emmanuel. Through Jesus of Nazareth, God says “I AM with you, in person.” So begins yet another chapter of the ongoing Exodus of creation.

          Humankind is always somewhere on the Exodus continuum. We are either slaving away in some Pharaoh’s kingdom of power, wealth, and fear. Or we are crossing some sea trying to escape that land. Or we are building golden calves because pillars and cloud just don’t persuade us anymore. Or we are simply wandering, complaining about the food, or eating manna. Sometimes, though, we are settling in to a new way of life, remembering gratefully the faithfulness of God, and looking hopefully toward a future we can’t yet see, but which we trust because we trust that we didn’t get to where we are at this moment completely by accident.

          Here in the early 21^st century, being the Church is no easy calling. We inhabit an uncharted wilderness. Sometimes the best we can do is to throw up our hands and say, “Here we are,” then work through every moment of “Who are we?” with memoried grace. So we keep telling the stories, trusting and even helping I AM to create new and renewing memories for generations to come.

          Please remember this: The issues that seem irresolvable now will, in time, find resolution. And they will be resolved because they are, necessarily, part of the human journey to which God has called us. Issues do not define us – how we deal with one another in the midst of them does.

          “In remembrance of God’s mercy, [and] according to the promise [God] made to our ancestors,” here we are. Let us, then, be defined by the Here I am of faithfulness to God and of grateful and humble love for one another and for all creation.

Liberating Fear (Sermon)

“Liberating Fear”

Exodus 1:8-2:10

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

9/7/14

          There’s a new Pharaoh in town, and he has amnesia. Or maybe he’s been too hastily cast upon the throne, or been poorly schooled in his nation’s history. Or maybe he’s just willfully ignorant. Whatever the case, the new Pharaoh has neither memory of nor appreciation for Joseph, the Hebrew servant-turned-prisoner-turned-royal confidante and economic deliverer of Egypt. Because the past appears to be irrelevant to this new king, the unknowable future yawns before him like the dark maw of some terrifying beast.

          Such fear is understandable enough, but it creates problems. When we choose to live in anxiety and dread, we inevitably project our personal fears onto other people and other things. We blame and often persecute whatever them most closely represents our fear – different races and religions, different political parties and economic classes, spiders and snakes. The categories are as numerous as our anxieties.

          Pharaoh chooses the Hebrews as the source of everything frightening and evil. Once convinced of the righteousness of his fear, he can justify trying to solve the problem of fear by creating more fear. So he says to the Hebrew midwives, “Kill every Hebrew baby boy.”

          “But,” says Exodus, “the midwives feared God.” So they keep delivering boys and girls alike. And the Hebrew people keep growing and thriving.

          There are two kinds of fear in this story, and they cannot be more different. Yet they both impact the present, that continuing now which represents the threshold of a past that offers rich witness, and a future we hope will offer its own richness, but which lies beyond our control and beyond our knowing.

          When the witness of the past has been forgotten or dismissed, more than likely the future becomes a threat. So we slash into that future with swords drawn and tongues afire. In the face of an unnerving present, some will try to control the future, or beat it back. “We just don’t know where this will lead,” they say. Now, I do understand that. Uncertainty often overwhelms me, too. Not knowing what the future holds can cause us to imagine all manner of foreboding outcomes. It is much more comfortable to stick with what we know – or what we think we know – and to try to ensure that the future remain as much as possible like the past as we romanticize it, or at least like the present as we endure it.

          The reality, of course, is that such preservations are not possible, especially not with God, whose work of creation, redemption, and re-creation never cease. Humankind must remember the past, but we cannot live there. Blind to the gracious reality of that truth, the terrified Pharaohs of the world frequently turn to indiscriminate violence. And they cloak it with equivocations such as “necessary evil,” and “collateral damage,” or even “in God's name.”

          But the midwives feared God.

          Here we meet the other kind of fear. I call it liberating fear. In refusing to obey Pharaoh’s orders, the midwives defy the anxious dread of the visible, tangible, and brutal Powers That Be. They opt instead to trust the inscrutable power that continues to create, that continues to bring forth the new life and liveliness that they help to deliver into the world every day. Their bold stance of faith declares to every Pharaoh, including the Pharaohs within us, that God’s power to create and renew always outmaneuvers and outlasts Pharaoh’s power to intimidate and destroy.

          The fear of the midwives does not represent the anxiety and dread we almost always associate with the word fear. Precisely the opposite, the fear of the midwives proclaims their complete trust in the gracious purposes of God. Sure, they lie when Pharaoh asks them why they have not been killing baby boys. Nonetheless, they are willing to be found out. The liberating fear of trust equips the midwives to risk their own executions for the sake of delivering love into the present. And doing so, they remember the past with gratitude while leaning hopefully toward the future.

          The creation is rife with Egypts and Pharaohs, isn’t it? Anxiety and dread define much of our daily experience. And if that’s true for the likes of us, how much more so for those who truly know poverty, abuse, the constant threat of violence, and the dehumanizing sting of prejudice and apathy? It’s the Pharaoh’s fear within humankind that so enslaves us to anxiety and dread that we become forced laborers. We build his “supply cities” and all the violent systems and means required to sustain them.

          Among the many quotations for which Albert Einstein is famous is this gem, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking that created them.”¹ To me, that sounds like a first cousin to Paul’s admonition to the Romans: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God.” (Romans 12:2)

          You and I, we are called to the new-minded, liberating fear of the midwives. We are called to live in bold, death-defying trust that God is not only real, but faithful, loving, and just. We may not, in our lifetime, witness the final revealing of God’s fullness, but through our intentional and daring trust, God equips us to help deliver into the world one new promise after another – even when Pharaoh says “Kill them! Who knows what will happen if they continue to increase?”

          In a few minutes we are going to participate in a dramatic enactment of liberating fear. We are going to take a loaf and a cup and declare to Pharaohs without and within that we entrust ourselves, the creation, and the future itself to God’s grace. “Come what may,” we declare, “Jesus is Lord, and his here-and-now kingdom is our home.”

          As you pass the elements to one another, I challenge you to claim and proclaim your trust by saying to your neighbor, “Trust this gift. Live this promise.”

¹http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/alberteins121993.html