Moses and Rahab

St. John's, Athol

Today is the Tenth Sunday After Pentecost, and I am serving two congregations that share clergy leadership: St. John's, Athol and St. Paul's, Gardner. 

My sermon text is Hebrews 11:29-12:2, although I've also included Hebrews 11:23-28, 

Last weekend, I was with the good folks at St. Stephen’s in Pittsfield. I know that my friend, the Rev. Nancy Strong, was here. In fact she shared her sermon with me, which I thought was a good one about trust. She covered all the readings but I want to remind you about the middle one. Last week was the first of four weeks in a row that we are reading from Hebrews. Last weekend we heard these words:

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval. By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.

Our stories intersect with God’s Story and in some real sense they are the same story, since God’s Story is an ongoing saga about forming a people after God’s own heart. And I think that is what the writer of Hebrews 11 means to convey. We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, not only on All Saints’ Day, but every time we gather to remember the Story and break the bread. 

St. Paul's, Gardner

I don’t believe that faith is best understood as listing the seven doctrines you need to affirm to be counted as “in.” In fact, I don’t believe that faith and belief are synonyms. This is not to suggest that beliefs don’t matter. But beliefs change over time. Sometimes very sincere people tell me that they aren’t sure they are really Christians because they either don’t believe (or maybe don't understand) what it means to say that the Son was “begotten, not made and of one Being with the Father.” But it is a serious misunderstanding of faith to think we have lost our faith when what we are in fact doing is questioning our beliefs.

Rather, faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen. Faith, in other words, is about trust. As you heard last weekend from Mother Nancy. 

So today, that litany of saints continues – and there are a lot of names that we heard. I want to focus on two of them. Moses and Rahab. Actually, poor Moses got cut by the lectionary committee because we skipped over the verses that are all about his life. But it’s in the Bible, in chapter eleven of Hebrews, even if not in our reading today. You can look it up at your leisure. And I assume that most of you here today are pretty familiar with him already. By faith, Moses was hidden by his parents; by faith, Moses (when he was grown up) refused to be called son of Pharaoh’s daughter; by faith, he left Egypt unafraid of the king’s anger, by faith he kept the Passover, by faith the people of Israel crossed the Red Sea…

Whether we first heard the story from The King James Bible or Good News for Modern Man or from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, most of us know something about Moses and the Exodus. It’s a story immortalized on film by Charlton Heston in The Ten Commandments and for another generation in The Prince of Egypt.  A new Pharaoh arose in Egypt who didn’t know Joseph, the dreamer, and that Pharaoh became nervous about an uprising. He did what dictators always do when they get scared; he flexed his muscles and started coming down on hard on the Israelites until finally he started ordering the deaths of male children. The people cried out to God and God heard and saw their misery. And then God called Moses. You remember at the burning bush, how Moses turned aside and encountered I AM, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? God said, “I’m sending you to tell old Pharaoh to let my people go.” And so the story goes...

We learn something about God in this story: God cares about the plight of human beings, especially people who are being oppressed. God cares about justice. God intervenes on behalf of those without access to political power. So while all lives most definitely matter to God, God takes the side of the most vulnerable lives. It’s not that Egyptian lives don’t matter; it’s that slave lives need someone to advocate for them. But God doesn’t do these things by waving a wand. So we also learn something about ourselves, about what it means to be human—because God does these things by arousing the concern of people like Moses and Aaron and Miriam. They become instruments of God’s peace. God hears and God sees, and then God sends.

The story of the Exodus and the subsequent time in the Sinai is a long one. In fact, it takes up four of the first five books of the Bible. All those plagues and Pharaoh’s hard heart, a heart that would not be softened with reason. An escape filled with intrigue and followed by forty years in the wilderness. Faith isn’t a short-term fix, the story seems to suggest, but a long-term commitment. It’s a story passed on to children and grandchildren, a story re-lived by every generation. Faith like Moses and those Israelite refugees takes the long-view and requires patience and courage. And trust.

Perhaps not everyone here knows who Rahab the prostitute was. After forty years in the desert, after the death of Moses, his assistant, Joshua, becomes the new leader in the sixth book of the Bible, appropriately named the Book of Joshua. Joshua’s ministry is very different from that of Moses. Moses led the people out of Egypt; Joshua will lead them into the Promised Land. Their gifts are different and their leadership styles are different because the work they are called to do is different. Joshua will fight the battle of Jericho because as it turns out, the Promised Land isn’t an empty parking lot; there are people living there (the Canaanites) and it turns out they like living there. So the long battle begins, a theological and political conflict that has still not been resolved thousands of years later.

Whose land is it? The theological answer the Bible gives, of course, is that it is God’s land and at best humans are called to be stewards of it. But nonetheless, the writers of the Bible believed that God promised the Israelites to take care of it, not the Canaanites. And so they take to battle because when you want something that someone else has it doesn’t usually work to tell them, “God said you should give it to us.” Before Joshua ‘fit the battle of Jericho, there is reconnaissance work to be done. Even if you believe God is “on your side” that doesn’t mean you forsake good military practices. So Joshua sends some Navy Seals into Jericho to see what they are looking for.

And they head to the home of Rahab, the prostitute. Now somebody sees them and calls the police, who promptly show up at Rahab’s door. She’s smart and she sees which way the wind is blowing. So she lies to the police. She tells them that the men were in fact there, but they’ve left and if they head out really quickly they might be able to catch them. But in fact she has hidden the spies on her roof. (Now having spent some time in the Middle East, let me just add that middle eastern roofs are not sloped because they have no worries about snow; they are flat and often have little terraces where you can go and sit and drink and smoke.)

But the main point here is that if Rahab is caught, she is guilty of treason. She has hidden two enemy spies who are in her city doing reconnaissance work, spies who intend to destroy her city and conquer it. She tells them all she wants in return is for her life and the life of her family to be spared. She tells them the whole city is worried, but she heard about their God and about what he did to the Egyptians and she’d rather be for ‘em than against them.

By faith, Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient, because she had received the spies in peace. With no disrespect intended to good old Moses, I worry a bit about hero worship that paralyzes ordinary people from being faithful in ordinary ways. When we turn people into superheroes we tend to worship them, rather than emulate them. I love St. Francis but he is the most revered and least emulated saint in the Church. Don’t forget that before he started talking to birds he stood stark naked in the public square and gave away all of his money. In our own day, Martin Luther King gets a holiday, no doubt well deserved. But King was like Moses, and if that’s the case then maybe Rosa Parks is something like a modern-day Rahab, an ordinary woman who just got tired of being told where she could sit. She wasn’t a superhero; just someone who said, “enough is enough already.”

Now I don’t want to push the comparison too far. But I do want to push the notion that you can find saints anywhere you choose to look and if you are only looking for Moses and Martin you will miss the most amazing people who cross your path every day. You can meet them at work or at school or at tea (or over coffee.) And sometimes even at Church.

Faith compels us to better learn the story of God’s people, not only Abraham and Sarah and Moses but Rahab and Gideon and Judith and Hannah, a list much too long to tell on a summer weekend. We cultivate faith when we pay attention to the births and marriages and deaths that are part of our extended lives in community. When we pay attention to that first day of college or the last. And better still, all those parents’ weekends in between and the challenges with a roommate and the giddiness of a new romance. When we pay attention to changing a diaper or teaching that same child to hit a golf ball or to drive; when we unload the dishwasher or take a long walk along the beach or pick up our kids from summer camp and can see it in their eyes, they have been changed somehow. And by God’s mercy, so are we.

We are part of a pilgrim people—a communion of saints, a great cloud of witnesses. And I think the journey itself is home, which is to say that it is along the way that we discover the God we seek. By faith we, too, do the best we can and by faith we sometimes even do great things. But more often faith is about doing the small things, things that at the time it isn’t even clear make a difference.

By faith we do the work God gives us to do. By faith we press on, even when we feel tired or bored or fearful. Because people like Moses and Rahab and so many countless others were lights in their own generation, we pray that by faith we might allow God’s light to shine through us in this time and in this place, so that the next chapter of the story—of God’s Story—may continue to unfold here, in this time and place.  

Pray, Without Ceasing

This morning, on the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost, I am at at St. Stephen's Parish in Pittsfield, MA.  The readings for today can be found here. (Please note that the lectionary gives two "tracks" for the Old Testament reading in summer months - we read Isaiah 1 at St. Stephen's, which was my sermon text.)

Miroslav Volf is, for my money, one of the most important theologians of our time. He’s from Croatia, but now teaches at Yale. I had a chance to spend some time with him for a continuing education event a decade or so ago, and it was transformative for me. While he was raised in a Protestant denomination, on the evangelical side, he makes his home now in the Episcopal Church.

Anyway, I know that sermons that work should not be too theologian heavy. I get that. But I want to tell you about the most important metaphor he’s given to me in the most important book he’s written, and then I want to share a Facebook meme of his. And then we’ll be off. OK?

So Volf wrote a very powerful book trying to reflect on his own experience in the former Yugoslavia, which came unglued after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The book is called Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation. It’s a difficult read, but in the midst of it is a metaphor that anyone can grasp. He speaks of the drama of an embrace, the ultimate symbol of reconciliation. He says that if you slow it down, it unfolds as a drama in four parts: (1) open arms; (2) waiting, (3) closing of arms, and then (4) release. An embrace is an outward and visible sign of reconciliation. It begins when we open our arms. And then we wait. That's a risk, but a  true embrace cannot proceed if the other person doesn’t respond. Otherwise it’s a bear hug or worse, a violation of someone’s space. We cannot force an embrace. So we may be left hanging. It's a risk. 

But we open our arms and wait for the other person to open their arms. And if by God’s grace they do, then we close arms. Again, both parties need to participate. And then we open and release – because an embrace is a moment – a symbol of reconciliation, but life goes on and we are not the same. Yet in a world of difference, of otherness, of xenophobia and worse – there are moments of grace – moments of embrace. They must always be mutual. Open. Wait. Close. Release. 

In a world of otherness, an embrace gives us hope. In the former Yugoslavia, and even in our own divided families and neighborhoods and world.

All of that is a bonus on Volf – and there is no test at the end. Use it as you will. But I wanted you to know something of who he is, in order to share a meme I saw on Facebook this week, of a quote from him which also made it's away around on Twitter. I’m not sure where the quote comes from – such is the challenge of Facebook, but it is his. He writes:

There is something deeply hypocritical about praying for a problem you are unwilling to resolve.

In other words – as I read that quote and with all I know about Volf – he’s clear that we can’t just dump problems on God as if God is going to be a magician or Santa Claus. Praying for God to fix something but not being willing to hear that we might need to change, we might need to participate, is hypocritical, he says. I'd say it's spiritually immature. Either way, it’s not what authentic faith is about.

So it’s pretty good theology for Facebook. Our vocation as the people of God is to form disciples so that prayer leads us to action. It leads us, in a world where otherness divides, to be agents of healing and reconciliation and of hope.

Practically speaking, what this means is that we pray for the sick. Of course. But that prayer must always lead to action. It might lead us to go visit our friend, or make a casserole for their family as they await chemo. It might also lead us to work for better healthcare so that they can afford the treatment they need.

We come here, week after week, and we pray for the hungry. And so many parishes collect food and serve meals to their neighbors and that is a response to the prayer for them because just words doesn’t put food in their stomachs. We need to feed the hungry and in so doing we serve Christ. And if we reach a point where we start to ask, what is going on here and why are kids hungry in the richest nation in the world? - that’s not socialism! It’s Christian faith in action.

We pray for the planet: this fragile earth, our island home. But then we join in the work of being faithful stewards – of doing our part, of becoming part of the solution. You all know this. I know you know it. Because I know the work this parish is so committed to – as so many of our congregations are. But I also know that we spend about six and a half days a week in a very polarized world so I think we come here to remember. To remember our Baptism. To remember our faith and to try to live it with more integrity, one day at a time.

There is something deeply hypocritical about praying for a problem you are unwilling to resolve.

We don’t come here to dump a bunch of stuff on God. We come here to open ourselves up to the living God who calls us to share in the work of healing and reconciliation – of embrace. Of loving God back, and of loving neighbor because we have first been loved. Loving all of them regardless of which side of a border they may live on. Loving them enough to make sure no one is put in a cage because they fled for their safety.

When we hear the words from the first chapter of the prophet Isaiah this morning it helps to keep all of this in mind, because the subject switches from spiritual autobiography to God – at least in the imagination of Isaiah. We read of a vision that Isaiah has concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah – which is just shorthand for saying the political context in which Isaiah worked. It's not abstract; the Bible never is.

Like Isaiah in Judah and like Volf in the former Yugoslavia, we need to ask: what does the Lord require of me in this time and place? 

Hear the Word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom! Listen to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah! Here we do need just a little help from the Biblical scholars because we got off-track and let the Bible be co opted by the fundamentalists. The sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was not about same-sex relationships. It was about not showing hospitality to the stranger. About treating the stranger with violence. Look it up! What Isaiah is saying is that God’s people need to get their act together. God’s people need to remember the whole of Torah: Love God. Love neighbor. And act from that place in a broken world – to be agents of healing and reconciliation.

In this vision, Isaiah imagines that God has had enough of thoughts and prayers. God has had enough of the hypocrisy of words and liturgy without becoming part of the solution. God has had it. It makes God sick. Now some may feel this is a bit Old Testament but the point is, I think, that what Isaiah is working out is what he’s going to do about the mess that the world is in.

And I don’t know about all of you but I think this is a very relevant question in our day. What God wants from us is not “thoughts and prayers” or better liturgy. What God wants is that we:

• Learn to do good.
• Seek justice.
• Rescue the oppressed.
• Defend the orphan.
• Plead for the widow.

Those last two are code-language in a patriarchal world without social security: those most vulnerable are women without a husband and children without a father. God says that faith isn’t about piety. It’s about how we act.

Again, I know you all know this. I know what this parish is committed to. But I also think we Episcopalians need to find our voices again. We need to not be so afraid to speak like Isaiah did. My favorite line in today’s Old Testament reading is when God says, “come now, let us argue it out.” I take that to mean that God is wanting to start a conversation – even an argument – that leads us to change our minds and then change our lives.

I am fully aware that a sermon from a guest preacher on an August morning rarely changes much. I’ll get back on the Mass Pike and head home to Worcester and if someone is offended I won’t be back for a while. Life will go on. But here is what I propose: find someone with whom you can argue in a more constructive way. In a way that teaches you to learn how to embrace. I realize we all get our news where we get our news. I’ve been in too many Facebook arguments that are really about who we trust for information and what we think is real and what we think is fake. And too few moments that feel like reconciliation – like embrace. We have our work cut out for us. But we need to learn again, I think, in this nation, how to talk with each other. Our lives depend upon it. We need to learn how to argue it out – how to have serious conversations. And ultimately how to embrace, even across our differences.

I have a confession to make. I spent this past week on vacation. Knowing I was going to be with you today, I wrote a sermon – on Hebrews – about faith. It was about the work ahead – about welcoming an interim and working through this clergy transition. And it was ok. I finished it up on August 1, after the shooting in Gilroy, CA but before the shootings that followed last weekend in Dayton, Ohio and El Paso, Texas.

To be honest, it just didn’t seem like the right sermon anymore when I returned last night from the Cape. So you get this one instead – perhaps not as polished, but from the heart. I don’t care if you are a Republican or an Independent or a Democrat. Really. I'm weary of it.

What I care about here, in this room, on this day, is that we are people who know that “thoughts and prayers” are not enough anymore. That our allegiance is to a higher power far greater than any ideology. We must be more courageous and more active because faith is about learning to do good, and standing with those who are hurting in this world. If you want to find a widow or orphan to defend or to plead for, start at our southern border. Or by insisting on reasonable gun laws. 

Because, my friends in Christ: there is something deeply hypocritical about praying for a problem you are unwilling to resolve.

We should not pretend that the answers are easy. But let us commit ourselves to praying, without ceasing. And then arguing it out by staying with it with God and with one another, until we find ways forward. Until we can embrace, even the one who pushes all of our buttons. So that we are practicing ways that lead us to reconciliation and healing. Because the world needs us to be the Church, now more than ever.