A Way Forward

Pentecost 19A

A Way Forward

The Rev. Linda Campbell

The scriptures say that the pillar of cloud came between the army of Egypt and the army of Israel. Putting these two armies together in the same sentence almost makes you think that they were comparable. But the army of Israel consisted of rag tag slaves, men, women and children, oppressed by years and years of massively hard work, intended to cow them into utter submission – while the army of Egypt consisted of battle hardened soldiers, equipped with the finest and latest weaponry the Empire could afford – and as it was a very rich Empire, it could afford the finest and most modern that were available.

While we may read this as a metaphor for spiritual battle – spiritual freedom from fears or addictions – for the slaves – this was no metaphor. There was real water in front of them and a real army behind them and no way of escape – no way through. Can you imagine the terror? The mother’s with their babies and toddlers, the men who had nothing to fight with, the weeping of this people who were now certain of their death.

This morning’s reading continues the central organizing story of Judaism – the exodus from slavery into freedom, THE STORY of protection and power wrought on their behalf by God.

The account began when Pharaoh ordered the slave boy babies killed because he was afraid of the growing strength of his slaves. But one baby’s mother hid her baby and set him afloat on the water, hoping for a miracle. A miracle did happen – and the boy lived and grew up in Pharaoh’s courts. As a man, he awakened to the plight of his people, became enraged and killed an overlord and then escaped into the desert – trying to put all the misery of slavery and ill fortune behind him. But God would not let him go – he called him back from the desert to lead his people. Then the multiple disasters of pollution and death befell the Kingdom and there was much mourning throughout the Empire – but these disasters opened the way for Moses and his people to escape. God inspired and God protected they hurriedly packed what they could carry and lit out, in the dark of night.

But they did not get very far before they hit a stone wall – which is where they are in this morning’s reading - the sea in front of them and the pursuing army of their captors behind them. The raucous joy of their escape must have died in their hearts when they saw the impossibility of their situation.

There is nothing about our lives or our nation’s life that comes close to approximating this position – or is there? I visited this week with Michael Barlow, who is the Diocesan staff person in charge of congregational development – and he said that he had just had a conversation with Bishop Marc in which the Bishop said that we had about 100 months left in which to address global warming before the planet reached a tipping point in which nothing we do will stop the disastrous effects. 100 months. And the headlines that grab the news have to do with lipstick and moose hunting. Does this make you feel crazy? Does it make you feel doomed? Honestly, sitting in the beautiful offices at 1055 Taylor Street in San Francisco, with a fellow Christian, and hearing him say this - I wanted to reach over and say, well, Michael, that can’t really be the case. Surely the Bishop didn’t actually mean 100 months to doomsday. And of course, at one level, he didn’t. Doom doesn’t usually arrive all at once –

unless you are in Haiti living in cardboard and a wall of water washes over your island – or you are in a marketplace with your friends in India or Baghdad or Kandahar and a bomb goes off and you are left standing, but you cannot find your friend anywhere. Or you are one of the 90,0000 Iraqi non-combatants killed in the last six years, or one of the 4,000 American soldiers ripped apart by a roadside bomb or mortar fire. Doom can arrive suddenly and swiftly.

As it is about to for these Israelites.

But then, “The angel of God moved and went behind them, and the pillar of cloud came between the army of Egypt and the army of Israel. And so the cloud was there with the darkness, and it lit up the night.” Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea – and the Lord drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night and turned the sea into dry land…The Israelites went into the sea on dry ground…”

A way opened. A way where there was no way. A path where there was no path. A road to freedom where there had been no road, no way, no path, no escape. God acted, intervened, on behalf of an impoverished, powerless people. God acted before they were a people, before they had been formed in faith. God acted on their behalf before they were even capable of praising him. Their response of faith and praise would come later. First, they were only able to put one foot in front of the other, carrying their children along with them as they took their first steps forward, driven as much by fear and the impossibility of going back, as by anything else.

That God acted on their behalf before they could properly respond has been the good news carried forward for millennium by the Judeo faith. It is a gospel that cannot afford to ever, ever be lost. It is the Gospel that Christ carried forward in his own body as it was nailed to the cross. “Father, forgive them because they do not know what they are doing.”

I have no idea what to do about the 100 months left to stop the rapid warming of the planet. I have no idea what to do about moose hunting headlines rather than substantial debate on issues. I have no idea what to do about terrorist bombings or massive civilian casualties. What I do know is what I am fed on week by week – the Word of God carried in the people of God, the scriptures and the sacraments. I am fed by the Gospel that God acts on behalf of the poor and powerless. And that I am called to do so as well. That God, through Christ, forgives us poor sinners who can’t tell our right hand from our left. And that I am called to do so as well. I am fed by the Gospel of praise and thanksgiving that the people of Israel sang on the far side of the sea. And I am called to do so as well.

We belong to a beloved community that follows whatever pathway God opens up into what looks like an impossible future. We belong to a beloved community that forgives because that’s what Jesus did. We belong to a beloved community that sings in faith and praise trusting in God’s overarching goodness and salvation.