Jane Youtz Riecke

Holy and Just

Exodus 19, 20 Psalm 31, 32

God spoke to Moses in a burning bush, but now a whole mountain is ablaze as God speaks to his people. God is calling an entire nation to be his, not just an individual. God reveals himself to the Israelites in thunder and lightning on the mountain, in an awesome reminder of whom they are dealing with. This is holy ground where God's purposes for this fledging nation are revealed.  

The Israelites are called to be a "holy nation."  To fulfill their special purpose, they must live in accordance with God's law. The first four commandments remind them (and us) of their direct responsibility to God; the last six of their responsibility to one another. In following these commandments they are set apart as a holy and just people. The rest of the Old Testament will be a recitation of their faithfulness and their failures.

Isn't it interesting how when Jesus was asked what he thought the most important commandment was he answered, "Love God with all your heart, mind and soul and your neighbor as yourself."  Jesus summarized the Ten Commandments right there.  He alone knew how far the people had strayed and what price had yet to be paid to fulfill the vision of a holy and just people of God.  We're still on the journey. 

 

Crisis in the Wilderness

Exodus 16, 17, 18

They were hungry. They were lost. They were grumbling and they wanted to return to Egypt.  You can almost hear them now..."no water, no food...who does Moses think he is taking us into the desert like this?  Why did we have to leave?  We didn't have it that bad." Ahhh...the "fleshpots of Egypt" we all long for them...better days, better times. When it comes to the good old days, we all have selective memory. After a few weeks in the wilderness, gnawing on "bread of heaven" maybe we'd long for the stability and convenience of Egypt as well. 

The people's faith was being tested. Could they endure these few hardships and recognize how God does provide or would they grumble and fight among themselves until they died?  Some have said that the people of Israel remained lost in the wilderness forty years because it took them that long understand who they were and what they were called to do. They were a thick-skinned and hard-hearted people used to abuse and misery.  It would take a generation to break through their anger and their mistrust of a God they did not remember or know until their wilderness journey. This crisis in the wilderness became an opportunity for Moses to remind them of God's enduring faithfulness and lead them toward a promise they could no longer imagine.

Israel's Deliverance

Exodus 13, 14, 15

Who can forget Charlton Heston in The Ten Commandments and the parting of the Red Sea?  Every time I read Exodus 14: 21-31 I am reminded of that great movie epic and Charlton Heston's long white beard and hair whipping in the wind as he raises his staff and the waves part. Since this scene has become such a part of our cultural history, it is difficult, as it is so often, to separate fact from fiction. What happened that day on the edge of the sea of "reeds'? Did the waters part because of a strong east wind or was it the very breath of God?  Did the presence of God truly appear to the Israelites in a pillar of cloud or was it, as one suggests, a smoking brazier like many carried before armies to lead the way? Did an angel of God protect them as it says? And if so, how? Or was it merely a small army of men sent to the rear?  If you've watched the history channel, you've heard many of these details debated many times.

We could make ourselves crazy thinking about each detail and whether it is true or not. The point of the deliverance of Israel is not whether there was an angel or whether Moses parted the waters or whether the water stood up on either side of the people like walls.  The point is that this victory came to be seen as a mighty act of the God who was fighting for his people in a contest with the powerful Pharaoh.  The point of this narrative is contained in the final verse of chapter 14, "And Israel saw the great work which the Lord did against the Egyptians, and the people feared the Lord; and they believed in the Lord and in his servant Moses." 

The Song of Miriam, Exodus 15: 21,  is one of the oldest poetic couplets in the Old Testament and is thought was probably composed by an eyewitness of the event. The words give witness to an act of God and were written with through the eyes of faith. Is this perhaps what we are lacking today? Is the Christian faith passing into obscurity in the western world because Individuals are no longer willing to tell their story?   To witness to the power of God in their lives? I sometimes wonder...

To Change or Not to Change, That is the Question

There was an interesting piece of furniture in our hallway when I was growing up.  It was a “telephone table.”  This of course was the era of telephones that were tied to the house and to the hallway where they were wired.  They were big, black and bulky and had a rotary dial.  Next to the “telephone table” was a chair because if you wanted to talk for any length of time, you had to sit down next to the phone.  Then came the era of a phone in the kitchen with fifteen foot cords that wound around objects like fingers and chairs and legs in interesting configurations.

Mothers across America could be found in their kitchens every evening busily making dinner with one hand and holding a harvest gold or avocado green phone to their ear talking to their sister/mother/friend.  Well….we’ve moved on.  We’ve moved on to annoying little devices called cell phones that can be slipped into a pocket, answered in the grocery store while you are in line, used to surf the internet and are difficult to master.

You might have already guessed, I bought a new phone last week and I’m still trying to figure it out. It came with two books of instructions.  My parents phone came with no instructions other than the admonition not to stay on the line too long.  Hopefully, I’ll figure out most of the buttons on my new phone soon because I’m fighting the irrational fear that if I push the wrong button I’ll cause a mass blackout throughout the east coast or some such nonsense.

Cell phones are just the latest innovation in a long line of innovations that are constantly evolving.  The friendly receptionist has been replaced with voice mail.  Cash at the grocery store has been replaced with debit cards.  And bills no longer need to mailed but can be paid “online.”

In a world of such fast paced change, how do we keep up?  We don’t.  It’s been proven we’ll never be able to keep up with every change because there are just too many of them.  Change in this post-modern period is exponential, meaning it’s so much change that we’ll never comprehend all the changes taking place.  So if we can’t keep up, what do we do in the midst of all this change.

Well, we can’t ignore change and we can’t go back. We can only move forward because if we don’t move forward, if we don’t change at all, we die. We can only hope that as we move forward we carry with us the values that have sustained us in the past and will sustain us in the future. We hold onto such values as faith in God, showing hospitality toward the stranger among us and caring for the least and the lost of our world.  We hold onto such values as the importance of our families, serving in our community and a having a good education. 

I invite you to make your own list of values because it is these very core values that anchor us and allow us move through periods of great change with strength and courage. I might not ever figure out my new phone, but I won’t be afraid to try something new because I know that despite my irrational fear of pressing the wrong button there are more important things in life to which I cling and which give me strength…like my faith, my husband of 31 years, my family, my ministry at FUMC and the people in my life I’ve come to love and care for.  We might not always know what the future holds but we’ll know that together we can face that future with strength and courage because we know what's truly important.

Pharaoh Must Concede

Exodus 8, 9, 10, 11, 12  Psalm 29, 30

The Pharaoh is responsible for maintaining what the Egyptians called "ma'at" or order in creation.  When the cosmic order is disrupted, nature behaves strangely.  This is clearly evident in the plagues.  In this showdown between Yahweh and Pharaoh,the Pharaoh is losing.  Pharaoh can not maintain "ma'at." Yahweh is winning the cosmic struggle.  Yahweh is demonstrating who really controls the forces of nature. The plagues show that what the Egyptians think to be true about heir gods is actually true only of the Lord God of heaven and earth.

Defeated at last, Pharaoh lets the Israelites go.  

According to Exodus 12, this deliverance is the basis for he annual Feast of Passover, in which Israel is to remember God's mighty act of deliverance.  The term passover, of course, comes from the final plague, in which the disease which takes the first born males Egyptians and animals "passes over" the Israelites.  This experience of deliverance from oppression and slavery profoundly shapes the Israelites. It is this great act of redemption that awakens hope for a final redemption in the future and is remembered year after year in a memorial meal eaten in the first month of spring.  

Note:  In modern Judaism, the Passover meal or seder (order) calls to mind the sacrificial lamb by placing a roasted shank bone, bitter herbs and a roasted egg, as well as other elements, on the seder plate.  Questions are asked by the youngest at the table as a way of hearing the Passover narrative and explanations of the Passover meal by the father.  This is a festival that began its long history in the home and has remained centered in the home since 70 A.D. and the destruction of the temple.   

Pharaoh or God?

Exodus 5,6,7

Pharaoh stands in the way of the Israelites leaving. His power is absolute in Egypt. Pharaoh is supposed to be the son of Re, the sun god and therefore divine. When Moses and Aaron ask Pharaoh to let the Israelites go so that they can hold a festival to the Lord in the desert, Pharaoh replies: "Who is the Lord, that I should obey him and let Israel go?  I do not know the Lord and I will not let Israel go" (Exodus 5:2). This sets up a face off between Pharaoh and God.  Both claim they have ultimate power over life and over death. Both claim Israel. Both demand Israel's service and allegiance for their own. The plagues that come, as a result, make it self-evident who has the real power.  

God sends Moses (and Aaron) to confront Pharaoh, who hardens his heart and refuses to acknowledge the Lord or let his people go. Through a series of ten plagues, the first of which we read about today, Pharaoh is confronted with the fact that the Lord is God. The first nine plagues are: blood in the Nile, frogs, gnats, flies, diseased livestock, boils, hail and thunder, locusts, and dense darkness. The final plague comes upon the firstborn males in the whole of Egypt, both human and animal--except the Israelites.

How do we explain the plagues? Several suggestions have been made about how to understand them. Some observe that the plagues can be understood as a result of natural catastrophes that we know happen from time to time in Egypt. But, as people of faith, what we must do is understand the plagues as extraordinary events where God is at work manifesting his power over the whole of creation to Pharaoh and the Egyptians. That is the point...not how they happened, but how God revealed God's self to Pharaoh as the Lord of all Creation.  Keep that in mind as you read through the next chapters.  

Holy Ground

Exodus 3, 4   Psalm 28

A friend recently told me how they now take off their shoes to preach.  They said, "I've found preaching to be holy ground and I want to remind myself of that every time I preach."

Moses is standing on holy ground.  The God of his ancestors has revealed himself to Moses.  God tells Moses that he has heard the cry of his people and he is sending Moses to Pharaoh to bring his people out of Egypt to the land that is promised them.  But Moses is a  reluctant liberator.  He wonders, as any of us would, how he alone can do this. He wants to know who is sending him. Moses questions his abilities.  In response, God says, "I am who I am.  This is what you say to the Israelites: I am has sent me to you" (Exodus 3:14).  

"I am."  How enigmatic.  How mysterious.  How confusing. "I am."  Others have translated it "I will be who I will be" or "I will cause to be what I will cause to be."  But the best translation is probably, "I will be who I am."  The name does not describe God's eternal being but God's action and presence in history.  In other words, the people can count on God to be who God is. God will be present and faithful.  God will act on their behalf.  And to act...God has chosen Moses, the reluctant liberator.

 

While standing on holy ground, God arms Moses with the powers to excel the secret arts of Egyptian magicians.  He provides Aaron as his aide. To every question and doubt, God provides an answer. And finally, Moses can not ignore the call upon his life. The cry of his people has been heard.  Moses must set his people free.

What holy ground lays beneath your feet?  How are you denying the call upon your life?  What doubts keep you from acting on behalf of God's people?  

The Liberator is Born

Exodus 1, 2 Psalm 26, 27

Of all the historical events of Israel, the most crucial event is the Exodus.  Although Egyptian records make no reference to this border incident, there can be no doubt that Israel's faith rest upon an actual historical occurrence.  Various lines of evidence point to the period of the 19th Dynasty (about 1350 - 1200 B.C.) whose Pharaoh's were Seti I and Ramses II. 

The book of Exodus gives witness to the religious meaning of what took place; namely, God's action to deliver a people from bondage and to bind them to himself in covenant.  At the center of these events is Moses, called to be an agent in delivering Israel from slavery, to be the interpreter of God's redemptive work and the mediator of the covenant.  

In today's readings we see how despite their bondage, the Israelites (as they have become known) have multiplied and prospered in fulfillment of the divine promise.  Over 400 years have passed since the time of Joseph and his memory is long forgotten by the Egyptian people.  A new Pharaoh arises and fears the numbers of Israelites and embarks upon a vicious policy of killing all the new born males.  Although it seems that this oppression will be an obstacle to God's fulfillment of his promise, it is actually the impetus to the Israelites escape from Egypt.  

Moses, the liberator, is born.  Like the stories of other national heros of the period, Moses was saved by being put in a basket of rushes sealed with pitch and floated in a river. Despite his Egyptian upbringing he identifies with his people but it will take many years of being a "sojourner in a foreign land" before he can return to set his people free.

A Dying Man's Wish

Psalm 49, 50 Psalm 25

A dying man might think of many things...the goodness of life, the love of family, the work he has accomplished, the promises he did not keep...but Jacob thinks of none of these things. The first task of the dying father was to bind the coming heirs to the promise. This took place in chapter 48 and in different way takes place in chapter 49. In the form of a poem, the blessing of Jacob's sons, was probably written at the time of David and reflected the character of the tribes in the person of their ancestor. There are blessings and curses, past events and present circumstances in this death-bed blessing. Judah will have pre-eminence over the tribes. Zebulun will have access to the sea. Dan will rise in strength to judge his people. And Gad will prove his bravery. 

The second task for the dying man is to provide for his own burial and resting place. The narrative of Jacob's death is majestic and serene. It is divided in two parts, first the blessing and then the implementation of his request by Joseph. The first is to all the brothers, the second, only Joseph can accomplish. Jacob's last wish is that he be buried in the land of the promise and with his fathers. Jacob's reference to a particular piece of land is a reference to the promise. It is as if Jacob wants to be on the land when it is fully given to the people. He dies as he has lived...believing in the promise of God to give this land to the ancestors of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and now his sons.

Like any family, with the death of the patriarch, the politics of the family are scrambled.  New possibilities and new dangers emerge.  Matters must be settled between Joseph and his brothers.   (Genesis 50: 15-21).  They need reassurance from Joseph that he will not exact retribution.  It's a very formal exchange between Joseph and his brothers.  Joseph seems sobered by all he has endured.  Although he claimed a capacity to forgive earlier, now he seems aware of the limits of his authority.  He clearly lets them know that their reckoning will come with God.  For his part, he reassures them that they will be cared for. Although famine and death surround them,  the family is destined for life.  Neither the Pharaoh or Joseph's brother could deny the plan of God.  Although Joseph dies, like his father Jacob, the promise remains alive.

The Blessing Moves On

Genesis 46, 47, 48

There are three themes in today's readings:  Joseph and his family, Joseph and the empire and the family and the empire.  On the one hand we are looking to the past to settle Jacob in Egypt and on the other hand we are looking to the future for a blessing.  We also need to be conscious of the tension between the family and the empire and troubles yet to come.  It feels as if many threads of many stories are coming together here.  While Jacob is the mouthpiece of the "promise" tradition, Joseph demonstrates his mastery of Egyptian enterprise and the brothers are thrust into a dilemma between the faith of the "fathers" and the success of their brother and the temptations of the empire.  

Overall, is the overarching theme of promise.. to be  great nation, to return to the land of Canaan, to have the blessing of a future with well-being for all. It is almost as if Jacob and his family is already looking toward the exodus.  Of course this is a function of the editors (those who gathered the Genesis traditions together and wrote them down) and their knowledge of the history of the Hebrews.  This has definitely been written with the end in mind. So, it is important to connect Jacob to future generations.  It's important for Manasseh and Ephraim to receive Jacob's blessing. The blessing is a baptism into hope.  

From the beginning, Jacob has lived for the generation to come.  His task in the end is to bind the generations of the promise together.  This family was begun in blessing (Genesis 12: 1-3) and now the blessing is on the move again. The blessing has moved to the next generation. Jacob will lay his hands on Joseph's sons.  The grandsons are a sign of how richly blessed Jacob is beyond every expectation.  Despite famine, despite all of life's calamities Jacob has endured, his family and the promise of God for his family endures.