What a strange few weeks it has been.
I have been praying for you, and your families, throughout this time, and you can be assured that I will continue to do so. If there is something specific about which you would like me to pray, please let me know.
Last week’s message, obviously, deviated from the series I had planned for Lent. I was only one message into that series when the coronavirus crisis took full hold of our country. It was clear to me, in writing the message for last Sunday, that the very abrupt change in circumstances required a different message than what I had originally planned. As we continue to move through these challenging days, it has become clear also that it is time for me to completely change the message series, and so I will do that this week, and for the coming weeks.
As we are now journeying through uncharted territory, the idea came to me for a series of messages called The Journey. I will take the messages from the wandering of God’s people through the wilderness, after leaving bondage in Egypt. After being liberated from bondage, Moses led the people through the wilderness and to the edge of the Promised Land (Moses did not lead them into the Promised Land. That responsibility fell to Joshua).
This morning’s Scripture text comes from the book of Exodus, which is where most of the texts in this series will come from. Many of the stories are lengthy, so I will only be able to hit some of the highlights each week. I will also condense the passages I use as my texts, as I am doing this morning. Follow along with me as I read from Exodus 12:40, 13:17-18, 14:10-12, 21-22
40 Now the length of time the Israelite people lived in Egypt was 430 years.
17 When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them on the road through the Philistine country, though that was shorter. For God said, “If they face war, they might change their minds and return to Egypt.”
18 So God led the people around by the desert road toward the Red Sea. The Israelites went up out of Egypt ready for battle.
10 As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up, and there were the Egyptians, marching after them. They were terrified and cried out to the Lord.
11 They said to Moses, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt?
12 Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians’? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!”
21 Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the Lord drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land. The waters were divided,
22 and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left.
When I was preparing to leave for college, in August of 1975, it occurred to me that I might need to increase my wardrobe a bit. I didn’t have much money to spare, but I went to the Fort Steuben Mall in Steubenville, Ohio to look for some clothes. When I counted the amount of money I had in my wallet, it quickly became clear that I only had enough to buy a couple of T-shirts. The mall had a T-shirt shop that you found in most malls in those days. On the wall were rows of iron-on designs. You chose the design you wanted, picked out a T-shirt, and the store would iron it on the shirt for you. Some of you probably remember those T-shirt shops. They were high fashion in those days! The first design I chose was a beach scene, with a few palm trees, and the moon shining on the water. The second design was a large ship on the ocean, also with the moon shining. I have no idea why I picked two designs with the moon, but hey, it was the 70s so what can I say? I guess I could have picked out one with the band Kiss, but I already had one of those. I took my two new T-shirts home with me and added them to my other belongings that were packed and ready to be loaded into the car. Looking at the small pile, it didn’t amount to very much.
My older brother was beginning his junior year at the same school, so we planned to travel together. As I loaded the car the night before we left,Idid take note of the difference between my leaving and when my brother left for the first time, two years before. When my brother left for his first semester at school, being the first of the five siblings to leave home, the entire family – all seven of us – loaded into the car for the almost 450-mile trip to campus. Things were much different when it was my turn to leave. No one seemed to notice that I was leaving home. In fact, as we loaded the car the night before our trip, I think my parents might have asked, are you going somewhere? In spite of the fact that my family seemed to have forgotten that I was leaving home, I was very excited about my journey. I had made several visits to the campus and for many months I looked forward to arriving on campus as a student.
This is the truth about most journeys – we look forward to them. We anticipate them. We get excited about them. Whether it’s a trip to the beach, a dream vacation, a new opportunity in life – whatever the destination – it is a journey we choose, a journey we plan, and a journey we look forward to taking.
But that is not the case for all journeys. Some journeys are not planned. Some journeys are not anticipated. Some journeys are not exciting. Some journeys are not our choice. Such is the reality of the journey we now find ourselves taking.
The title of this morning’s message is Preparing for the Journey. Here is the difficulty in this journey – how do we prepare for a journey that we did not choose, that we did not want to participate in, that we do not know where it is leading, when it will be over, or what life will look like when the journey is completed?
I’m not sure how well I can answer any of those questions, but I do know this about the journey we are now on –
1. Journeys always have an element of uncertainty.
I. Do. Not. Like. Uncertainty. I do not. If you do, there is something seriously wrong with you, in my opinion. There are always unknowns with any journey, such as the weather, unexpected expenses, and other matters that come about despite our best made plans.
This journey, through the wilderness, was filled with uncertainty. When Moses led the people out of Egypt, there was a lot of excitement and enthusiasm. Think about it – 430 years of captivity! And now they were free! That’s the really great news! But there was also some not so great news – they were setting off into the wilderness, without enough provisions, without adequate shelter, with a lot of people to move through that wilderness, and their former captors coming after them because they changed their minds about letting them go. The journey suddenly shifted from excitement to anxiety, anxiety that came about because of the multitude of uncertainties that were ahead for the people.
Though the people had actually longed for freedom, they did not realize the challenges that would be inherent in their journey to that freedom. Exodus tells us, in 12:40, that the Hebrews were in Egypt for a total of 430 years, and most of those years were spent in bondage. It seems to me that more than four centuries of bondage would be more than enough time to prepare for a journey to freedom and a new land. One of the difficulties, however, is that their future was an unknown commodity, full of twists and turns they could neither foresee nor anticipate, so how could they prepare for the unknown? Simply put, they could not. This is why the Hebrew people struggled so greatly at times, as there were challenges that came to them without warning and there were challenges that they had never before experienced. It is no different for us today, thousands of years later. We do not know how long our present crisis will last. Will it be two weeks, two months, or more? No one knows, but we will complete this journey, and will do so with faith, hope, and love.
The uncertainty that was before the Hebrew people caused them to do exactly what we see many people doing in this time – succumbing to panic.
Do not panic. Let me say that again. Do not panic.
Throughout their generation of wandering, Moses spent a lot of time giving pep talks to the people. He did so because the people were prone to panic, and why wouldn’t they be? They were wandering through a tough, difficult wilderness. Moses did not gloss over the difficulty of the circumstances in which the people found themselves. They were making their way in the midst of a lot of uncertainty, and though they had faith, sometimes that faith faltered, especially when they looked around and wondered where their next meal would come from. God would provide them with food, although the people continued to have a hard time keeping their faith, in spite of God’s faithfulness to them.
It is not wrong to acknowledge the difficult circumstances in which we now find ourselves. It’s okay to say to one another, I’m having a tough time dealing with this. I’m worried. I’m anxious. My goodness, who wouldn’t be worried and anxious? To express those concerns is not to demonstrate a lack of faith, however; it’s simply being honest. Honesty is good. But you know what is not good? Panic. Panic happens when there is so much uncertainty that the uncertainty overwhelms what can be seen about the future. As Moses and the people traveled through the wilderness it was a constant effort on the part of Moses to convince the people not to panic, and he was not always successful at doing so.
Panic never helps any situation. Never. So let’s hold to faith, knowing that God is with us, and will continue to be with us, no matter what might come our way.
2. Journeys require a lot of faith.
I’m not sure I can think of any journey in which I have participated in life that did not require a lot of faith. Every journey requires some measure of faith. Accepting a new job. Getting married. Having children. Moving to a new city.
It is not possible to sit down and chart out every journey on a piece of paper or on some kind of a bar graph in order to weigh the pluses and minuses before taking a step of faith. At some point, you just have to say, I’m going to take a step of faith. And then another step. And another step. And another. And before you know it, you are well into your journey.
The disciples certainly needed a lot of faith to follow Jesus. I often refer to Jesus’ call to Peter, Andrew, James, and John (Matthew 4:18-22). Peter and Andrew were on the Sea of Galilee, casting their fishing net. James and John were in their boat, with their father, preparing their nets. Jesus stepped into their lives and simply said, come, follow me (4:19). And, amazingly, they did. They walked away from their boats, their nets, and in the case of James and John, their father.
I’m not sure if the Hebrew people knew just how much faith it would take to follow Moses through the wilderness. Actually, I know they didn’t, because their faith so often faltered. There will always be those moments when faith falters, which is why God doesn’t call us to walk alone. Individual faith – solitary faith – is never a good idea because of the simple fact that we were created to be in relationship with one another. In these days, when we are so disconnected from one another, we understand this in a very dramatic way. It is hard to be disconnected from friends and family and our church family. We are, however, learning to connect in other ways. I hope you are not growing tired of me cluttering your inboxes with updates or your social media feeds with information, but I am trying to keep us connected. Let us remember as well that there are people who are less connected electronically. Not everyone is on Facebook, or Twitter, or Instagram. Not everyone has email. Not everyone is watching or reading our latest posts, because they do not have access to them. Let us, then, make an effort to keep in touch with those who are in special need of being connected.
3. Journeys teach us lessons.
When I moved to Louisville in August of 1981, to attend seminary, my two roommates and I took a drive around the area soon after our arrival on campus. One of the places we visited on that drive was Shelbyville, although I don’t remember much about our visit here. Most of the day, actually, we were hopelessly lost, and one of my roommates – who was our driver for the day – finally said, well, we’ve had an adventure. I asked him why something as discouraging as a day spent mostly lost would be considered an adventure, and his reply was an adventure is something you do that you eventually regret doing. That’s when you know it’s been an adventure. But you always learn something from it. I’ve always liked that definition. At least the part about learning something from our experience. We are certainly in the midst of an adventure, aren’t we? It is an adventure that requires a good deal of hope and a good deal of faith, but let us remember that there is much that we can learn as well. The lessons might not be immediately apparent, but there are lessons we will learn, and I hope they are lessons we do not soon forget.
For the Hebrew people, the journey from Egypt to the Promised Land was one that took a generation and was replete with challenges, difficulties, threats, and discouragements. To paraphrase my friend’s description, it was one really big adventure. The difficulties of that journey brought the people, on more than one occasion, to Moses to complain. And they could, at times, really complain. One of the refrains Moses grew accustomed to hearing was how they would have been better off if they had remained in Egypt. In 14:10-12, for instance, we read as Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up, and there were the Egyptians, marching after them. They were terrified and cried out to the Lord. They said to Moses, “was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians?’ It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!” When people prefer bondage to freedom, that is a sign that those people have faced great difficulties and challenges in their journey!
Moses and the people did not take the straight route on their journey through the wilderness. It does not take a generation to travel the distance that the people traveled through the wilderness. From Egypt to the Promised Land was a distance of about 380 miles, as the crow flies. I’m not going to say it was a walk in the park, but neither was it a forty-year walk. Here is one reason why it took so long – there were some lessons for the people to learn. One of the lessons they learned was how to truly become a people. There is something about shared suffering that really bonds people together, and it certainly did for the people as they wandered through the wilderness.
Now, I want to be careful to point out that I am not saying that this time of difficulty has come upon us because of lessons that we need to learn. I will say, however, that there are lessons to learn from this time. As a nation, we have taken much for granted. As a nation, we have failed to understand the depths of suffering of many millions of people in our world. As a nation, we have been too quick to believe we were insulated from such tragedy and difficulty.
Just as the Hebrew people learned important lessons from their journey, so will we. What will be the lessons we learn? Will we take those lessons to heart? Will we keep those lessons in mind?
4. What are the essentials we need?
When we distill life down to the absolute essentials, what are they? Faith, family, love, food, shelter – and toilet paper. Am I right? Judging by the empty store shelves, maybe toilet paper is the greatest essential!
My parents both grew up in humble circumstances. Neither grew up in a family that had much money. My mom, when she was still an infant, was adopted by her aunt. Her aunt was a widow who was already raising eight children on her own, surviving on the meager pension she received from her late husband. My mom used to tell my siblings and I about the hardships her family confronted, and as we listened to some of the stories, we thought she was just making up some of them. One story I remember is that they couldn’t afford much milk, so the oldest sibling would eat their cereal at breakfast and pass the bowl on to the next to use what milk was left, and on and on, until it reached my mom, who was the youngest. By the time it reached my mom there was nothing left, so she put coffee or water on her cereal (personally, I like my Captain Crunch plain, right out of the box, but to each their own). My siblings and I would chuckle and roll our eyes in disbelief, but as I look back on some of the stories, I’m not sure many of them actually were fiction. I can’t speak for my siblings, but I know this – looking back, I now realize that at that time, I could neither see nor understand how blessed I was. All I saw, much of the time, was what I didn’t have, and I never lacked for anything I needed. From my perspective today, I have great regret for my insular and clueless attitude.
As we adapt to our current situation, we are learning to define what is essential and what is not. As we continue in this situation, we will refine even further what we see as essential. Already, we are finding ourselves gravitating closer to the essentials of life – our faith, our family, our friends, our homes, and the blessing of having food to eat. I’m not saying we failed to understand these as essential. I am, however, saying that we had, perhaps, allowed other matters of life to come between us and life’s essentials.
For the Hebrew people, a 40-year journey through the wilderness brought the definition of an essential very clearly to them. When things are taken away in life, we very quickly find out what we really don’t need, and we also learn what we do need. There are some things now missing in my life that I have discovered are not very important in the larger scheme of things. There are others that I miss very much, and I have realized how essential they are to my life. And so as we continue on this journey, let us hold to what matters in life, to what is essential, and learn to let the rest go.
No comments:
Post a Comment