Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Glory and Shadow


October 19th, 2014            “Glory and Shadow”     Rev. Heather Jepsen
Exodus 33:12-23
          Our journey with Moses and the people of Israel continues this week.  After many Sundays of difficult readings, we finally arrive at something that we can be comfortable with.  Finally in this morning’s passage we find the God of grace and mercy that we have been looking for for so long.
          Our reading happens right after the actions of last Sunday.  Moses came down the mountain with the 10 commandments carved in stone only to find the people having a loud and ruckus festival centered around a golden calf.  Both God and Moses were extremely angry and the people of Israel suffered greatly for their sin. 
          At the beginning of chapter 33, God is ready to abandon the whole project.  God tells Moses to take the people on into the Promised Land but that God will not be with them.  God is still so angry that God cannot stand the presence of the people of Israel.  God declares, “I will not go up among you, or I would consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people.” 
          Once again Moses pleads with God on behalf of the people.  Moses places an ultimatum before the Lord.  If the presence of God will not go with the people, then Moses refuses to lead the people into the Promised Land.  It is a wonderful theological issue.  Without the presence of God, the people of Israel are nothing.  Without the sign of God within their midst they are simply a rag tag band of strangers.  The presence of God is integral to their identity and Moses refuses to take “no” for an answer.
          When God relents and agrees to send his presence out with the people of Israel, Moses takes the opportunity to ask for one more thing.  To the Lord, Moses says, “Show me your glory, I pray.”  It’s a bold request, as bold as anyone has been with God this far along in the story of humanity.  And the amazing thing, the wonderful thing, is that God agrees; and the glory of the Lord passes before the man Moses.
          After months of traveling with the people of Israel, we finally find a God we can know and love.  It has been a long journey for us through Exodus and we have faced many a negative portrayal of the God we worship.  We have been challenged with the killing of the innocents at Passover, and we have been challenged with the anger and vengeance of God that has been a part of most of our readings.  We have struggled to find a God that we would want to worship, and things came to a head last week when we began to wonder if we even knew this God at all.  Perhaps the God of love and grace was only a golden calf we had fashioned for ourselves.  But no, that can’t be the case.  This morning we find the God we have been looking for.  This morning we find the God of love, the God of grace, and the gentle God of mercy.
          In our series of readings, Moses appears to be closer to God than anyone.  In fact, in the whole of scripture, one could argue that no one except for God’s own son Jesus, has been closer to the Lord than Moses was.  We read earlier in this chapter that “the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend.”  No one is closer to God than Moses, and yet Moses desires even more from the Lord.  Moses asks for even more closeness, even more familiarity; Moses asks to see the actual face of God.
          God agrees, but with certain stipulations.  God will make the whole of God’s goodness pass before Moses, and God will say God’s name aloud, but Moses must remain at some distance, he must be protected, and he may only see the “back” of the Lord.  For as God says, “no one shall see me and live.”  Here we come up against one of the great dilemmas of our faith: although God is familiar and near to us, God is also profoundly other.  God is both very intimate with the character of Moses, as well as very distant.  God is presented in anthropomorphic terms, especially here as the hand of God will shield Moses from God’s power.  But God is also complete otherness, as the power of God’s glory and goodness will be what passes by.
          This is one of the main difficulties with our faith.  As people, we struggle with this duality in our relationship with God.  We long to know God as fully as possible and to be ourselves fully known.  We long for God to say things to us like God says to Moses, “You have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.”  And sometimes we are gifted like Moses, and we experience a sense of that presence.  But often we only experience that sense of otherness, that unknowable side of God.
          In fact, I think it is that shadow side that we have been bumping up against for a few months now.  And I say shadow not in the sense of evil darkness, but rather in the sense of a place where the sun does not penetrate, a darkness of mystery that remains unknown.  I am thinking of something like the far side or the dark side of the moon.  In our experience with God, there is always a part of God that we can never know.  We have been bumping up against that profound otherness, that shadow side of God, all throughout these readings from Exodus.  That is why we have been so uncomfortable. 
As we have read these strange stories, we have confronted an image of God that we are less familiar with.  The jealous God of punishment, the God of angry wrath and fire, the God who smites people for the sins of their fathers, the God who condones murder in the name of justice; all of these are the shadow side of the God we preach most Sundays.  These shadow stories of God are no less real than the stories we love to tell.  It has been a challenge for us to hold these two things together, as two sides of the God we know and love.
I might be digging myself into a big hole here, but I think the text agrees with me.  God says not that God’s whole self will pass before Moses, but only God’s goodness.  “I will make all my goodness pass before you.”  The light and love of God is what will pass before Moses, not the shadow side of wrath and anger. 
And the lovingness of God treats Moses gently, as a mother would.  While the glory passes by, God places Moses in a cleft in the rock so that Moses can hide.  God will cover Moses with God’s hand until the glory has passed, and then Moses will be permitted to see the back of God’s glory from a protected distance.  It is such a wonderful story, such a loving gesture, such a needed balm in our wilderness wandering.
This act of love is a high point in the narrative of God and Moses.  After the glory passes by, God agrees to restore covenant with the people.  You may remember from last week that, in his anger, Moses broke the tablets that the 10 commandments were written on.  Now God commands Moses to begin again, to carve two new tablets from stone, and to prepare to restore the covenant.  This is the grace and love we have been looking for.  This is the God of second chances that we so desperately want and need.
And so this week we consider the two sides of our God: the God of glory, who passes by with radiant, loving care; and the God of shadow who demands justice and obedience and who uses fear as a motivator.  Both of these are very real pictures of God that we can draw from these stories in Exodus.  While we are certainly more comfortable with the God of glory and goodness, we would do well to remember that the shadow side of God’s wrath exists as well.
I don’t think it is such a stretch to consider God in this fashion.  We tell stories about the fact that we are made in God’s image, and the truth is that we each have a shadow side in our own hearts as well.  My role as a mother is what immediately springs to my mind.  Most of the time, I am a gentle and loving presence.  Like God in the story I use my hand to shield my children from a world that would harm them.  But, push me too far and suddenly I can become a mother who asks for strict obedience and demands punishment when things get out of hand.  There are moments when I want to run away and forget it all.  And yet I always return to my children in love.
Is God so different?  Loving the Israelites one minute and then storming off in a huff the next, only to return with love and a renewal of covenant.  The prophet Isaiah reminds us that the Lord cannot forget the people of Israel any more than a mother can forget her nursing child.  Though God may feel wrath and anger at our sin, God always returns to us in love and grace.
Of course, that movement of love and grace is epitomized in the person of Jesus Christ.  In the fullness of time, God sends God’s son to reach out to us again, to show us the ways of love and justice, and to offer us a path by which we may draw closer to God.  I am sure you are familiar with that wonderful old hymn “Rock of Ages” that combines this story about Moses with the miracle of salvation through Jesus Christ.  In the hymn author Augusts Toplady compares the forgiveness through Christ to the cleft in the rock that shields Moses from the glory of God.  It is through Christ that we may hide in safety, and it is only through Christ that we may approach our Lord.
Today let us give thanks for this God that we are growing more familiar with.  The God of glory and goodness who draws near to us in love and protection; as well as the shadowier side of God which calls us to honest repentance and obedience.  May we honor and recognize the whole of the God that we worship this day; glory and shadow.  Amen.

 

Monday, October 13, 2014

Fashioning gods


October 12th, 2014      “Fashioning gods”        Rev. Heather Jepsen
Exodus 32:1-14
          This morning we continue our journey with Moses and the Israelites.  Last week we read about the 10 commandments.  In a great show of power and might, in the midst of what appears to be a volcanic eruption, the voice of God speaks and the people are gifted a law.  The people have agreed to this covenant but it only takes a few days before their memories fade. 
          Moses has been on the mountain for 40 days and 40 nights talking with God.  God has been busy expanding the 10 commandments.  Not only are the basic rules given, but also all of the little details about what happens when you lend money to someone, or how many festivals they should celebrate each year.  You will notice we’ve skipped more than 10 chapters of material, and the honest truth is that this is some pretty boring stuff.  As the people wait below, God drones on and on to Moses about all the details of the tabernacle Moses is supposed to build.  From the details of the curtains, to the type of wood to be used in each area, to the detailed descriptions of all the decorations of the priestly garb; God appears to be paying very close attention to every little detail of the worship space and totally ignoring the people below.
          Just like modern readers of the scriptures, the Israelites start to get bored.  Moses is gone and this is taking forever.  Are they all just supposed to sit around and wait?!?  The people start harassing Aaron, Moses’ brother and second in command.  “Come on, make a god we can worship.  Who knows what happened to Moses?  Let’s do something else.”
          Aaron gathers an offering of all the gold in the camp.  Rings, earrings, and necklaces are melted down in a fire and Aaron uses the tools of a metal worker to form a golden calf.  He himself seems confused as to what this all means.  At first he tells the people “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!”   And then he says “Tomorrow shall be a festival to Yahweh.”  So is the calf a new god or simply a stand in symbol for the God Yahweh?  No matter what it is, it is certainly a big “no-no”!
          Now I’ll admit I have a strange sense of humor, but I have a hard time imagining this next scene without laughing.  Meanwhile, up on the mountain . . . God is sitting up there droning on and on like an interior decorator who can’t get over the curtains when suddenly, “Oh snap, what are your people doin’ down there Moses?”  “My people?!?” Moses replies, “You were the one who brought them out of Egypt.  Those are your people, brother!”
          It’s not supposed to be funny, but it sounds to me like God and Moses are acting like an old married couple.  God clearly says to Moses, “Your people, who you brought out of Egypt are sinning!”  And Moses clearly says to God “No, You brought them out of Egypt with your mighty hand.  You are the one who made promises to them!”
          No one is happy about this big Golden Calf festival.  The Israelites are whooping it up so loudly that when Moses and Joshua descend the mountain, Joshua thinks the people are under attack.  Things have gotten way out of hand and Moses accuses Aaron of letting the people run wild.
          This is a strange story with a lot of strange characters, and the parts that aren’t funny are actually really scary.  God is acting a bit out of sorts here.  When God finds out what the people have done, God is so angry that he wants to kill them all right then and there.  He basically tells Moses to get out of the way so he can burn up the whole nation of Israel with fire.  “Now let me alone, so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them; and of you I will make a great nation.”  God is going to kill the whole population, and start again with Moses.  That doesn’t sound like the God I know.
          God seems to have forgotten himself and the promises he made.  Moses has to remind God, that God made commitments to this very people.  “Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, how you swore to them by your own self, saying to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.”  Moses reminds God of covenant, and God finally relents and changes his mind about what kind of disaster he would bring on the people.  We read at the end of the chapter that God sent a plague on the people, instead of death by fire.
          Moses too, is acting a bit out of character.  On the one hand he is reprising his traditional role.  He stands between the people and God, as mediator, a place he is very familiar with; and he argues with God on behalf of the people of Israel.  But when Moses descends the mountain, his wrath and desire for justice mirror the initial reaction of God. 
In the parts of the scripture the lectionary leaves out, things get really scary.  Moses is coming down the mountain and he is so mad at the people he smashes the tablets that God himself had written the Ten Commandments on.  He then takes the calf statue, burns it up, grinds it into a powder, and he makes the whole company of Israelites drink it.
Things get even worse than that.  Moses calls for followers and the sons of Levi come to his side.  He then calls them to get their swords and “Go back and forth from gate to gate throughout the camp, and each of you kill your brother, your friend, your neighbor.”  Moses has ordained a blood bath in the name of God’s justice.  Even more offensive, the willingness of the Levites to kill their friends and family is what earns them a spot in the priesthood.  “Today you have ordained yourselves for the service of the Lord, each one at the cost of a son or a brother, and so have brought a blessing on yourselves this day.”  That’s certainly not a priesthood I want to be ordained into!
Of course, the third really interesting character in this story is Aaron.  When I began studying this passage this week I kept coming back to the same question, “What in the world was he thinking?!?”
But, the more I thought about it, the more I seemed to understand where Aaron was coming from.  At first I saw a duality between Moses and Aaron; sort of a “good pastor / bad pastor” routine.  Moses is the good pastor because he is leading the people in the holy ways of God, and Aaron is the bad pastor because he is leading the people to sin. 
If only it were that neat and simple.  The stories of the Bible are a lot like our own lives in that they are never simple and they are often messy.  By the end of the chapter, Moses turns out to be the bad pastor because he encourages people to kill their families, friends, and strangers even though they are all equally guilty of participating in the Golden Calf fiasco.
In fact, the more I read the story and thought about the characters, the more I began to identify with Aaron.  The people are restless, they need a focus.  The calf might have been a bad idea, but the desire to have a festival to the Lord, the desire to refocus the people’s energy into a celebration of God, their redeemer, was a good idea.  Moses had been gone for 40 days and it is really hard to understand God’s plan which seems to be for everyone to just sit around and wait while he discusses interior design.
Communities need leaders to function.  Absent leaders can’t be leaders.  And worship communities need a place to focus their worship.  Aaron builds an altar.  The calf is a misguided focus for sure, but the people gathering around it is not so different then the way we gather around this cross each week.  This is a place to focus.  Cross, table, font, pulpit; they are all concrete things that help draw our attention to God.  Aaron takes a wrong step with that calf, but his intentions were good.
I wonder how many pastors take a similar wrong step with good intentions.  I am thinking of Joel Osteen for example, preaching a prosperity gospel because that’s what people want and need.  I am thinking of the way the Catholic Church lifts up saints and popes, for people to pray to, because that’s what people want and need.  I think of the ways churches rally around issues like abortion and gay marriage while ignoring issues like poverty, homelessness, and hunger; because that’s what people want and need.
In fact, this week I was thinking of the ways that I might skew the faith to please the people around me.  What issues do I lift up and what things do I choose to ignore?  Perhaps I try too hard to soften the justice of God, to soften the horrors of the cross, and to soften the rough edges of the stories we tell.  In what ways have I inadvertently fashioned a calf for the people to worship, because that’s what people want and need.
Perhaps all religious leaders are a lot more like Aaron, than we would choose to admit.  We all have a tendency to fashion God in such a way as to appeal to the most people.  We want to give the people a God they can worship, a God they can love.  And sometimes that means leaving out all the scary stories, like this one about a forgetful vengeful God and a Moses who authorizes slaughter of the very people he has come to serve.
As we continue to study Exodus, we continue to be challenged with the picture of God we find here.  From the killing of the first born in Egypt, to the drowning at the Red Sea, to the plague that strikes the camp; the God of Exodus is one who holds power through the threat of death.  This is a God to be feared.  This does not appear to be a God of love.
It is good to remember that all these stories together, Old and New Testaments make a whole picture of the God we worship.  We can’t just pick out the warm and fuzzy Jesus parts and call that God.  We need to remember these stories too, and we need to take our God seriously.  We need to be honest and aware of the idols we have created, and of the gods we have fashioned to suit our own needs.
Thanks be to God for these frightening and strange stories that have the power wake us up to who we are, and who we have made our God to be.  And thanks be to God that the overarching story of the scriptures is one of love.  When we have got the God picture wrong, which we probably do most of the time, God offers us forgiveness and grace anyway.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

Monday, October 6, 2014

Prescription for Peace


October 5th, 2014       “Prescription for Peace”    Rev. Heather Jepsen
Exodus 20:1-21
          This morning we continue our journey with Moses and the Israelites.  Last week we read and wondered about the gifts of manna and water from the rock.  The people had been in need and cried out to God, and the Lord had consented to meet those needs.  In this morning’s reading, God continues to give the people what they need, though it is not necessarily something they are asking for.
          Our reading for today is very familiar territory.  This is the 10 commandments, sometimes called the Decalogue, and it appears here in the narrative journey of the people of Israel as well as in Deuteronomy 5 where the law is revisited.  While we are familiar with the law that God sets before the people, we are probably less familiar with the setting in which these commandments are received.  This is a time of great terror and fear for the people of Israel, as it would be for any of us in the situation.
          Let’s back up a bit and read what happens before the law is given.
“On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning, as well as a thick cloud on the mountain, and a blast of a trumpet so loud that all the people who were in the camp trembled.  Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God.  They took their stand at the foot of the mountain.  Now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke, because the Lord had descended upon it in fire; the smoke went up like the smoke of a kiln, while the whole mountain shook violently.  As the blast of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses would speak and God would answer him in thunder.  When the Lord descended upon Mount Sinai, to the top of the mountain, the Lord summoned Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up.  Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go down and warn the people not to break through to the Lord to look; otherwise many of them will perish.  Even the priests who approach the Lord must consecrate themselves or the Lord will break out against them.”  Moses said to the Lord, “The people are not permitted to come up to Mount Sinai; for you yourself warned us, saying, ‘Set limits around the mountain and keep it holy.’“  The Lord said to him, “Go down, and come up bringing Aaron with you; but do not let either the priests or the people break through to come up to the Lord; otherwise he will break out against them.”  So Moses went down to the people and told them.”
That’s quite the dramatic scene, it sounds like a volcanic eruption.  In fact, reading the accounts of the folks who survived the eruption in Japan last week sounds a lot like this.  Smoke from the mountain and a blast of a trumpet so loud that the mountain shakes.  Once again in Exodus we don’t find a friendly, understanding, “buddy” God.  Rather this is a God of power and might, a God to be feared, a God to be wary of.  God warns Moses to keep the people at a distance, get too close and you will be killed.  In this midst of this awesome event, the commands are given.  Imagine an erupting volcano as the people hear “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.”  If that doesn’t convince people I don’t know what will.
It’s an interesting contrast that in the middle of this tremendously frightening and otherworldly scene, the commands that God gives are actually very ordinary.  Rather than asking the people to do amazing things and take great leaps of faith, the Lord encourages the people to take everyday actions that make the world a better place.  Worship your God alone and treat each other with care and respect; from your parents to your neighbor you are called to honor those around you.  And more than that, you are called to treat yourself with honor as you take a day of rest. 
Even though fear may be a motivator in this dramatic delivery of the law, the real goal of the Lord is for people to respond from a place of gratitude.  Theologians love to point out that the law is given after the people have been saved.  We’ve been journeying with these folks for several weeks now, and we know they are no prize, but God continues to love and care for them.  Through love, the Lord has saved the people from a life of slavery in Egypt.  And now, through love, the Lord gives them a law in the hopes that they will follow it as a grateful response to salvation.  In a classic example of Paul’s theology, salvation cannot be earned, it is a gift.  Salvation comes before the law, not the law before salvation.
As you know, today is World Communion Sunday, a day we consider our faith in conjunction with and in community with Christians from all over the world.  It is also a day that we devote to Peacemaking, through the giving of our offering toward the work of peace, and in considering the role of peace in the life of the church.  Today’s reading on the 10 commandments is a wonderful tie in to those themes.
We have been following a story of creation, and this morning’s reading is part of the continuing creation of the people of Israel.  In a culmination of sorts, God is giving the people the laws for a just society.  If only we would all live in accordance to these commandments, then we would all live in a world of peace.  If the laws are viewed as freedoms granted rather than restrictions given, then we are given an image of a just future.  This is the prescription for life in the promised land; this is a prescription for peace.
As a clergy person, it really annoys me to see folks post these commandments at courthouses, schools, and front lawns and yet continue to totally ignore them.  Although these rules are fairly simple, we are just as bad at following them as the Israelites were.  Lying, stealing, dishonoring parents and neighbors, worshipping idols, coveting goods, and dishonoring the Sabbath are all things we are really good at and do often.  Our faith calls us to more, and though we don’t like to think of these as simply a bunch of rules, we would do well to remember them and consider the ways we could improve our obedience in gratitude for our own salvation.
On this World Communion Sunday, I can’t help but consider these commandments in light of our nation as a whole and its standing in the world community.  What would it mean for us as a nation to follow this prescription for peace?  Think of the ways we covet neighboring nations’ resources like oil and cheap goods.  Think of the ways we steal the life of other nations’ peoples by employing them in unfair and unsafe labor conditions.  Think of the ways we murder innocent bystanders in the march of the war against terrorism.  Think of the ways we trample on the poor in this very country, our own home, ignoring the needs of the most vulnerable around us by declaring that life itself is a privilege and not a right.  Think of all the idols of money, power, greed, that this “Christian” nation worships.  If only we would strive to live out these commandments for Israel, this nation and the world would certainly be a better place.
When faced with the 10 commandments, and considering God’s desire for the lives of people and nations together, we find ourselves sorely lacking.  Not only do we as individuals fail to meet the mark, as a nation we have failed on a global scale.  The wounds we have inflicted living in our ways of sin have all but blotted out our opportunities to create a world of peace. 
Thankfully, the story does not end here.  I cannot drag you this far down in a hole and leave you today.  No.  While it is important to be aware of our individual and corporate sin, it is also important to be aware of the forgiveness offered to us, and thankfully today we are gathering at the table of forgiveness together.
Of course on World Communion Sunday, we remember that we gather with the whole world at this table.  People will come from all places to share in a feast of peace and justice in the kingdom of our Lord.  People will come from Malawi and Sierra Leone, they will comes from China and Japan, they will come from Israel and Palestine, they will come from Iraq and Syria, they will even come from Missouri and join together at table.  I love that we get out our old communion set on this day because it serves to remind us that this feast is a timeless event.  People have been coming to this table for generations, our ancestors gathered here.  And people will come for generations more, our children’s children will share in this celebration.  This feast is a feast of peace which encompasses all time and space.
So come to the table today in the joy of grace and forgiveness.  Yes, we have failed to follow the prescription for peace we find in the 10 commandments.  Thankfully God decided to send his Son, to try again to show us the way of peace, to love our God and neighbors.  And thanks be to Jesus Christ, for opening the door to us when we fail at those two simple commandments as well.  The amazing thing about this table is that no one deserves to eat here, and yet all who are hungry are invited.
Today let us remember that God has given us a prescription for peace as individuals and as a nation.  Let us be honest about our own behavior and the practices of our country, admitting our sinfulness and asking God to forgive.  And let us gather at the table with our brothers and sisters from around the world to pray for justice and peace and to feast together, a foretaste of the kingdom we believe will one day come.  Thanks be to God for forgiveness, and thanks be to God for this glorious meal that we share with the world today.  Amen.