Strike the Rock

            Two years ago I was in the mountains of Western Maryland for a week of vacation at my family’s stomping grounds just west of Deep Creek, near Oakland. My mom’s family is all from out that way, and we’ve made annual pilgrimages since I was a kid, but it was my first time back in years. A lot was familiar; the eighty-year-old cabins hadn’t changed much. Some things, however, were different. The biggest difference that I remember was stepping out to take in the mountain landscape and seeing, about 10 miles away, gigantic wind mills cluttering the skyline. New construction for cleaner energy. They were huge, and they were ugly.

The Sabbath Economy

            It’s a bit surprising, isn’t it? The people of Israel, God’s chosen people, have been out of Egypt for less than two months. Already they’re complaining. Already they’ve forgotten the agony and hardships of life under Pharaoh. Instead of celebrating God’s deliverance, they’re dreaming of life back in Egypt—as if the supposedly plentiful bread they ate by the fleshpots somehow balanced the back-breaking labor they endured.

Take Me to the Water

            The sea is a dangerous foe in the eyes of Scripture. It is the swirling, chaotic waters of the sea that God brings under control at the beginning of creation in Genesis 1. The sea brings forth life according to God’s command, but that life includes the fearful beast Leviathan in Job and the whale that swallows Jonah and holds him in its belly for three days. To cross the sea is to make an uncertain voyage to a distant land, to be cut off from the good and certain shores of Israel. Yet for whatever reason, the path of the Hebrew people fleeing from Egypt leads them right up to the edge of the sea. It didn’t have to be this way. The exodus takes place three thousand years before the Suez Canal was built. There were land routes that would have completely avoided the sea. Nonetheless, for whatever reason, the Hebrew people find themselves at a dead end: the sea on one side, and the Egyptian army closing in on the other.

Funeral Sermon for Bertha Rohrback

*Note: This sermon was preached on September 8, 2014, at the Service of Death and Resurrection for Bertha (Bert) Rohrback. Bert was a longtime member of Centre UMC, and she left an important legacy of love for her church. The texts for the service were Psalm 139:1-18, Psalm 23, and John 11:17-44.

 

            “I come to the end, I am still with you.” These are the words that conclude this morning’s reading from Psalm 139. “I come to the end, I am still with you,” says the Psalmist, after a beautiful meditation on God’s presence. Where could I go to flee from your presence, O God? No matter where I go nor where I could go, you will always be there, O God.

The Passover Lamb

            As we journey through the Old Testament this summer and fall, we’re really getting the highlights reel version of the story: key moments rather than intense details. A week ago we encountered Moses at the Burning Bush, face to face with the Living God. This week we have skipped all the way to the Passover. A lot has happened in Egypt since last week’s reading from Exodus 3. Moses and his brother Aaron have confronted Pharaoh again and again, pleading and demanding that Pharaoh let the Israelites go. Nine plagues—water turned to blood, frogs, gnats, flies, diseased livestock, sores, thunder and hail, locusts, and darkness—have tormented Egypt, but Pharaoh has not been swayed. He has toyed with Moses and Aaron, pretending sometimes to respond to their complaints and changing his mind just as they thought they had tasted freedom. But Pharaoh’s heart was hard, and he refused to listen to Moses or to the Lord. The Lord’s deliverance will come without the cooperation of Pharaoh.

The LORD

            Moses enters the desert to find food for his father-in-law’s sheep. Instead, he comes face to face with the Living God, the Lord. A flame catches Moses’ eye, a bush on fire but not consumed. Moses alters his path, turns aside to see this bush, this fire. Moses is willing to let God interrupt his plans. And God does not remain silent; he speaks to Moses. God reveals himself to Moses and tells Moses he knows what’s going on in Egypt. “I have observed the misery of my people.” Even more: “I have heard their cry.” More still: “I have come down to deliver them.” And then: “You, Moses, I’m sending you.”