Pentecost 9

Pentecost 9 SOMETHING TO REMEMBER August 3 & 6, 2006

When I read our Old Testament lesson, and all the background material leading up to it, I laugh and I cry…this story is both humorous and so very sad…from it, we are given such clear and deep insights into Almighty God and the fragility and fickleness of our faith! First, I want to identify a few simple, timeless lessons for our consideration:

1) By nature, we are prone to inaccurately recall the past as “the good ‘ol days”

2) God’s people have always been quite good at grumbling!

3) God raises up faithful, though fragile, leaders in the midst of His people.

4) God is aware of what we face day to day; seeing our situations, hearing our cries.

5) God meets and exceeds the needs of His people.

6) All people are invited, encourage, & expected to trust God.

7) We so often and easily miss God’s hand of blessing, even when it is literally delivered “at our feet”! AND

8) When we do recognize God’s miraculous work in our lives, we are, often, still not content. Jesus calls this to our attention in our Gospel lesson this week!

I, now, return to what I’ll refer to as our “selective amnesia”…selecting what we choose to forget from or how we revise our past. Hear the words of the grumbling Israelites, reading Exodus 16: 3 from 2 different translations--- The Message/ “Why didn’t God let us die in comfort in Egypt where we had lamb stew and all the bread we could eat?” and the Contemporary English Version/ “We wish the Lord had killed us in Egypt. When we lived there, we would at least sit down and eat all the bread and meat we wanted.”

Now, compare this to how God saw this same enslaved situation in Egypt:

“The Lord said, ‘I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers and I am concerned about their suffering.” (Ex. 3: 7) Two verses later, in Exodus 3: 9-10, God said to Moses: “And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.” Same events, but dramatically different recollections!

The Book of Genesis closes with Jacob’s 70-member family moving to Egypt. In the opening scene of Exodus, 350 years later, hundreds of thousands of Jacob’s descendants were toiling on Pharaoh’s huge construction projects…not as guests, but as slaves. Turn a single page in Scripture and the Israelites had endured nearly 4 centuries of oppression---almost twice as long as the history of America as a nation. When Egypt was at the peak of its power, Pharaoh used slaves to build massive monuments, enforcing his rule with an army of renowned charioteers and bowmen. Egyptian hieroglyphics reveal that the word-picture for “foreigner” was the same one used for “slave”…a word-picture portraying a bound man with blood flowing from a wound in his head. Clearly, from God’s viewpoint and the records of the Egyptians themselves, the Israelites felt the full weight of oppression, slavery, and bondage. Yet, the grumbling people of God have quite a different memory…Sitting down to dinner? Lamb stew? All the fresh bread they could possibly eat? Wondering why God didn’t let them “die in comfort in Egypt”?

When were, or are, your “good ‘ol days”? Might these very days be considered, or at least remembered, by some as “the good ‘ol days”? What makes “days ‘good’?” Alongside these questions, consider the way we so commonly conclude our conversations with one another: “Don’t work too hard!” What’s wrong with working hard? Honestly, I don’t see an over-achieving work ethic as among the major problems we face as a community or nation! “Take it easy!” I have all sorts of trouble with this one… “Take?” From whom? “It?” What’s “it”? “Easy?” What does that mean? What sort of wise advice is this? What a combination…avoid working hard and strive to “take it easy”!

Instead, may we as people of God consider, and consider implementing, the words of St. Paul, from Today’s English Version: “I urge you, then: live a life that measures up to the standard God set when he called you. Be humble, gentle, and patient always. Show your love by being helpful to one another. Do your best to preserve the unity which the Spirit gives, by the peace that binds you together.”

(Eph. 4: 1-3) By the grace and guidance of God, you and I can contribute to making today a “good ‘ol day”! And, by knowing, studying, discussing, accepting God’s Word…living each day according to God’s Word, what people remember regarding how we lived our lives will accurately align with how God sees things! Amen.