"An Absent God?"

Preached July 29, 2012, at Rennie Memorial Presbyterian Church in Amelia, VA

Texts: Exodus 2:1-10
          Psalm 13
          I John 4:7-12

Our Old Testament text this morning is a familiar and beloved story - the story of Baby Moses in the Bulrushes. Aside from the Christmas and Easter stories, this is one of the very first Bible stories that I remember learning as a child. It's endearing, a wonderful story - it kind of has the ring of a fairy tale to it. But I invite you to take a close look at the story with me this morning, because there's something, or should I say someone who is inexplicably and perhaps even troublingly missing. Can any of you see who it is?

That's right, it's God! God is conspicuously absent from our text! In fact, aside from two very brief, almost passing, mentions of God's name in chapter 1, God is not mentioned in the book of Exodus until Moses has fled Egypt, married Zipporah the Midianite, had a baby boy himself, and is about to head out to the burning bush! The Hebrews, God's own chosen people, are suffering under a terrible oppression in Egypt. They have been forced into slavery, and now the new Pharaoh is conducting a genocide of their male children! Why is God, who made a covenant with their ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, absent?

Well Ginna, you could say to me, there are plenty of stories in the Bible that don't always mention God explicitly, but God is there in the background, mysteriously working out God's purposes. And you would be exactly right in saying that. In the stories of Joseph, Esther, and Ruth; the books of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon; God is this sort of background figure. God is there in the text but not really doing anything, per say.

So maybe I shouldn't be troubled, that God is not mentioned in this story of Moses' birth and rescue from the Nile, and maybe I wouldn't be, if it weren't for the fact that it is this story of Moses' birth, that launches the exodus into action.

The exodus, the story of God delivering his own people from their slavery in Egypt and leading them through the wilderness and into the Promised Land, is one of if not the central salvation story of the Old Testament. The rest of the Hebrew Scriptures constantly refer back to it. The 10 Commandments begin, "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other Gods before me." In the books of the Torah, the Law, there is a repeating refrain for why the Hebrews should obey God's Law. God says, "Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you; for this reason I lay this command upon you today." The rest of the history of the Hebrew people, and of Jews and Christians today, continues to look back to this powerful, liberating act of God in the exodus.

The exodus has become a powerful symbol in our own time, too, for all those striving for liberation from oppression of any kind and looking to God to lead them and sustain them along their journey. Think of the spirituals that the African American men and women who were enslaved in our own country sang as they worked and as they worshipped - "Go Down Moses," "Wade in the Water," and many more classic spirituals drew on God's powerful act of liberation in the exodus and proclaimed the hope that God will liberate his people again from this new slavery and oppression.

And then a century later, in the Civil Rights Movement, our African American brothers and sisters sang these same spirituals and even more as holy bread for their journey, reminding them that God was with them, was working alongside them, and would ultimately liberate them from the oppression of segregation, discrimination, hate crimes, and racism. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s final sermon before he was killed echoed the experience of Moses as the Hebrew people were about to enter the Promised Land. "I have been to the mountaintop," Dr. King said, "And I have seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you, but I have seen the Promised Land."

Yes, our ancestors knew, and as we still know today, that the God of the exodus is a powerful, active God, directly taking part in our human history to give life, to let the oppressed go free, to lead God's people out of Egypt and into the Promised Land.

Which brings me to my original question. Where is God in the story of Moses' birth? Why, at the very beginning of a story of such an active, liberating God, don't we hear anything about what God is doing to protect this vulnerable, defenseless baby, the very person through whom God will work to liberate his people? Why is God absent?

I think many of us can recall times in our lives when it felt like God was absent. Perhaps some of us are living through one of those times right now. The psalm that Sandra read for us this morning, Psalm 13, is a prayer from someone who was experiencing this same absence of God. The psalm reads, "How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I bear pain in my soul, and have sorrow in my heart all day long? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?"

Has this ever been your prayer? Is it your prayer today? I know some days it has been mine. It has been my prayer when people I love have had to endure horrible suffering, be it from an illness, a family crisis, or an unjust economic or political system. It has been my prayer when I've seen the faces or heard the stories of innocent people caught in the crossfire of senseless violence, whether that violence be on a personal scale, as it was with the recent shooting in Aurora, Colorado, or a political scale, as it was in the case of Moses and the other Hebrew children and as it continues to be today in places ravaged by genocide and war.

"How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?" I wonder if this was Moses' mother's prayer, when she saw the precious baby boy to whom she had just given birth, but then remembered Pharaoh's decree that all Hebrew boys be drowned in the Nile. Later in the story, when God speaks to Moses from the burning bush, God tells him that he has heard the cry of his people who are enslaved in Egypt. I imagine the cry God heard sounded something like the cry we hear in Psalm 13. And I imagine the cry of Moses' mother sounded something like that as well. She had the precious gift of a child in her arms, a tyrant ruling over her was trying to kill that child, and all the while, God seemed to be absent.

But you see, I don't think it's an accident that Scripture fails to mention God in our story today. I think that just might be the author's way of communicating to us, so many thousands of years later, what the women in this story were experiencing. But there's something wonderful about this story -- there's a reason we call the Bible the Good News, after all, and I invite you to look with me at the text to see what it is.

Moses' mother didn't just cry out to God in the midst of her suffering. She saw that injustice, that suffering, the danger in which her defenseless baby boy constantly lived, and she decided, at great risk to herself, to do something about it. And you see, she wasn't the first Hebrew woman to do this. Before our reading this morning, before Pharaoh's decree that every Hebrew boy be thrown in the Nile, Pharaoh had tried another strategy to kill all male Hebrew babies. First, he called the Hebrew midwives, Shiprah and Puah were their names, and he told them to take the babies that the Hebrew women bore, and to kill all the boys, but to let the girls live. But these midwives feared God more than they feared Pharaoh, and even though the God they worshipped seemed absent, they decided they were still going to live as this God commanded. They didn't kill the baby boys - they didn't kill any of the children! And when Pharaoh called them back and asked them why they had disobeyed his order, they had the faith and the courage to lie to this oppressive leader. They told him that the Hebrew women were not like the Egyptian women, that they were so strong and vigorous that they gave birth unassisted, before the midwives even came to them!  Now I've never given birth to a child, but most people I know who have find this clever tale that Shiprah and Puah tell the Pharaoh to be quite funny!

And then we come back to our story for this morning. Moses' mother gives birth to a baby boy, and he lives, because these two midwives were determined to do God's work. And when Moses grows too big to be hidden any longer, Moses' mother shows that she too is determined to God's work of upholding life, of protecting the vulnerable, of caring for her child who she loves. She seals a basket with tar so that it will remain waterproof, puts her son in the basket, puts the basket in the river, and sends his sister to watch over him and see what happens. In a way she is actually following Pharaoh's orders! She does, after all, put her son into the Nile, just as Pharaoh decreed, but instead of throwing him into the river to die, she carefully and lovingly places him there for his own protection.

And then Pharaoh's daughter comes down to the riverside. Imagine the fear that must have seized Moses' sister's heart. Of all the people that could have found this baby, I can think of few more dangerous than a member of Pharaoh's own household! Surely she will tell her father, and he will kill him, right?

But that's not at all what happens. Pharaoh's daughter sees the baby, sees that he is crying, and she has compassion for him. She knows he is a Hebrew baby, but in perhaps the most incredible act of all, she openly defies her father's decree, declaring that she will not live by this policy of violence and oppression. And it is at this moment that Moses' sister boldly comes forward and offers to find a Hebrew nurse for the child. This conversation that Moses' sister and Pharaoh's daughter have is incredible, for it overcomes the boundaries of race and class that should separate these two women. One is Hebrew, the other Egyptian. One is a slave, the other a princess. But these women realize that when you work together to accomplish God's purposes, none of that matters. And so it is that these five women: the midwives Shiprah and Puah, Moses' mother and sister, and Pharaoh's daughter, cooperate to save the life of the baby that will go on to liberate the Hebrew people from their slavery in Egypt and guide them through the wilderness to the Promised Land.

Did they know what they were doing? I guess we can never know for sure, but Scripture doesn't give us any indication that they knew who Moses would become. I don't think that's what was important to them. I think what they cared about was protecting this beloved and vulnerable baby. Preserving life even in the face of oppression and death. Even when they felt that their God was absent, had abandoned them, this group of four Hebrew slave-women and an Egyptian princess worked together to do the work of liberation, the work of love. To act in ways that bring about and preserve life.

And seeing them do so can we really say that God is absent in this story? No, the more I read this story, the more I examine the life-giving actions of these women, I become more and more convinced that God is present in this story, but in a way we don't expect. God is not named or explicitly active. God is not lurking in the background, moving the characters around as pawns of Providence, forming a facade to keep God's activity hidden. No, I would encourage us not to discount what these women are doing. They are humans, just as normal and as sinful as you and me, and their action is genuine, is human, is subject to failure. These are real humans doing real human things.

But I believe that God is present in their actions precisely because of the real human things they are doing. Their action is born of love and compassion. It gives life. It liberates. And in some mysterious way, far beyond our understanding, this life-giving action is the embodied presence of God. As our New Testament reading this morning from I John proclaims, "No one has ever seen God. But if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us."

God is present in this story because these women are willing to risk everything to be the embodied, incarnate form of God's love.

So what about us? Can we do the same? Can we have the faith, the courage, the devotion to God's work and God's will, to open up our lives, and let God be present in us, live in us, through our love for one another?

When a tragedy strikes, when something happens that we are truly unable to comprehend, we ask, as we have always asked: "Where is God?" "Is God absent?"  The next time you find yourself asking that question, I encourage you to look around at the people surrounding you, for I suspect you may see God living in them.

And then I encourage you to take a good, long, prayerful look in the mirror. Look at your own response to the situation. Is what you are doing inspired by love and compassion? Does it liberate in the face of oppression? Does it give life in the face of death?

If so, you may just see a glimmer of the very face of Christ, smiling back at you.

"A Miracle in the Wrong Verse"

Preached July 22 at Rennie Memorial Presbyterian Church in Amelia, VA

Text: Luke 24:13-35

I imagine our Gospel Lesson today is a familiar text for many of us. The story of the Road to Emmaus has many times been called a paradigm of Christian worship: Bread is broken, the Word is proclaimed, our Lord Jesus Christ is present. Some have even called it a paradigm of Christian mission, of the whole Christian life. We proclaim the Gospel, we engage in table fellowship, and again, our Lord Jesus Christ is present.

I've been wondering, though, as I've studied this text this week, is this story, in fact, too familiar? Are we so focused on the ending that we know will come that we hardly pay attention to what happens as the story progresses? Do we know it so well that we can hear it and say "This is the Word of the Lord, thanks be to God," and completely miss the miracle?

Yes, I believe a miracle takes place in this text, an everyday miracle that we just might miss if we blink too long, or if we let our minds wander for a minute, because we know how the story will end. But the real, fundamental miracle of this text isn't perhaps the miracle we expect, and doesn't occur where we might think. So where is it? What is the miracle that takes place on the road to Emmaus?

My first inclination, and maybe yours, too, is to locate the miracle in verse 31 - when, after Jesus has blessed and broken the bread and given it to his disciples, their eyes are opened, and they recognize him.

This is truly a miracle, no doubt, when we come to know Jesus Christ in the breaking of the bread. We will do this today, in just a few minutes, as we take part in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. We will break bread together. We will all partake of the same bread and the same cup, from the same table. And somehow, miraculously, we will receive the hospitality and experience the gracious presence of our Lord Jesus Christ. We will be in a holy fellowship, in divine communion with our triune God and with those who have gone before us and will come after us in the faith. We will experience a foretaste of the very Kingdom of Heaven. This is undoubtedly a miracle. But I don't think it's the fundamental miracle in this text.

Perhaps then, we'll turn to verse 32, after Jesus' disciples have recognized him, and he has vanished from their sight. For it is at this moment that the disciples reflect together, and they say to one another, "Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?" It is here, through that sacred practice of memory, of recalling the stories of the past and seeking to discern what they mean for us today, that the disciples retrospectively recognize Jesus in the way he proclaimed the Word of God to them.

This, too, is a miracle, isn't it? When we read Scripture, or hear Scripture, or memorize it and recite it to ourselves, and our hearts burn within us, and we know God is present. When, in the midst of illness or family crisis, of poverty or of hunger, we hear God's word, and we are changed. We have no reason to fear anymore because perfect love drives out fear; we can no longer sit in our sorrow because in our encounter with the Word, we have found cause for joy, our weeping has been turned to dancing. Certainly this does not happen every time we open the Bible, every time we look for God's Word. Often we are just like those disciples on the road to Emmaus. They knew their Scripture, but they had not yet had their eyes opened to the Resurrected Christ. We, too, can scour the Word of God and come back with nothing. Sometimes our eyes are closed, and just like these two disciples, we are kept from recognizing Jesus. But then as we reflect, as we remember, our hearts burn within us, and in the midst of the many words of our lives and our generation, we hear God's one unchangeable Word speaking directly to our hearts.

Encountering God in the Word - this too is a miracle. But I don't think it's the central miracle of this passage, either. No, you see, because in order to encounter Christ in the breaking of the bread, or to experience God's presence in the proclamation of the Word, something else has to happen in our story, something essential to everything else that unfolds.

You see, this story, this encounter on the Road to Emmaus, could have ended very differently. In verse 28, we are told that Jesus and the two travelers came near to the village that was the disciples' destination, and Jesus walked ahead, as if he were going on. And the disciples could have just let him go on his way. He'd been a good travelling companion for awhile, sure - the conversation had been entertaining, to say the least - but they were home now, and after such a difficult past couple of days and a seven-mile journey back home, they were tired. They needed a break, some time to sit, to decompress, to mourn their loss.

The disciples could have let Jesus go walking on his way. They could have said, "Go in peace," and returned home to eat dinner, just the two of them, and get a good night's sleep. They could have continued to grieve the death of the one they had hoped would be the Messiah, the one who would redeem Israel. They could have continued to hear the women's reports of an empty tomb as idle tales, the wishful thinking of those who are delirious with grief. And the story could have ended. And if it had, we might not be sitting here today.

But, thanks be to God, that's not what the disciples did. Verse 29 tells us that, as Jesus is walking on as if to leave the city, they urged him strongly, saying, "Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over." And Jesus went in to stay with them.

And it is only when they invite Jesus into their home, only because he sits with them in table fellowship, as the recipient of their hospitality, that they are able to recognize him in the breaking of the bread, and to remember the way their hearts burned within them as he proclaimed God's Word. And if I understand the text, that is where the fundamental miracle lies. Jesus' disciples, discouraged as they are by the death of their Lord only two days before, open their home and their hearts to a to complete and total stranger.

A stranger. There's the punch. That's the essential part. Remember, at this point, they don't know that it is Jesus they're inviting into their home. If they hadn't extended their hospitality to the stranger on the road, if that hadn't set down to engage in conversation and in table fellowship with this man, they never would have recognized their Risen Lord.

Why, then, did they do this? Why did these two disciples offer the hospitality of home and table to their strange new travelling companion? We can't know for sure, but I am inclined to believe that it is precisely because they were disciples of Jesus Christ. They'd heard him teach about feeding the hungry and welcoming the stranger, about how just as they fed, and clothed, and welcomed one of the least of these, they fed and clothed and welcomed Jesus. They'd seen him feed five thousand people because of his deep compassion for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd. They'd seen him in table fellowship with prostitutes and tax collectors and sinners of every kind, and they'd heard his instruction that when they throw a banquet, they ought not invite their friends or relatives or rich neighbors, who could one day return the favor, but rather to invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And on that Resurrection Day, on the road to Emmaus, they saw a stranger who needed shelter for the night, and they heeded their Lord's instructions.

Because these two disciples followed Jesus and responded faithfully to what he taught them during his life, they are now able to recognize their Risen Lord in the glory of his Resurrection.

We, too, encounter the embodied presence of Christ in one another. When we share the Word, when we break bread together, and when we offer hospitality to the stranger in our midst. We are Christ's witnesses and Christ's body; he has no hands and feet in this world but our hands and our feet. Jesus has given us the same instructions that he gave those two disciples he encountered on the road to Emmaus. Will we be so faithful in living out the teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ?

In a few minutes, we will gather at Christ's table to celebrate the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, to receive God's hospitality and be nourished in body and spirit. How then will we respond to such gracious hospitality? How will we, today and in the days to come, open our homes, our tables, our arms, and our hearts, to the strangers in our midst?

And when we extend our hands to one another and to the strangers around us, will we have the faith to recognize the presence of our Risen Lord? For he will be there, whether we recognize him or not.