Exodus 13:17, 14:4You may have received or at least seen a Christmas Card or social media post similar to this joke:
What would have happened if it had been Three Wise Women instead of three Wise Men?
They would have asked directions, arrived on time, helped deliver the baby, cleaned the stable, made a casserole, and brought practical gifts.
All joking aside there is much to be said about stopping and asking for directions occasionally even in this day of GPS and navigation systems.
However, when I ask for direction and if it is more complex than “go straight to the traffic light and turn left” I become quite confused. In Moscow,
the most frequent problem I find is when someone says to go down to Highway 8 and go toward Troy.”
I went to the Maps application on my computer and I was surprised to see that I could get from the parsonage to Troy but it would take 4 hours and 23 minutes! Something was very wrong with that map or those directions. However, I looked at the picture again and in the corner, I had accidentally checked the mode of transportation “Walking” rather than “Driving.” I had the correct map, the correct directions, but the wrong assumption about the mode of transportation.
If it is possible to make that many wrong choices, or take the wrong route in the year 2021 with all of the technology before us, imagine if you will what it must have been like for the Israelites to embark on the journey out of Egypt with no GPS and with minimal time to prepare.
For years stories have been told about the 40 years of circuitous wandering around the Sinai Peninsula that occurred between the time of the Exodus from Egypt and the entry into the Promised Land of Canaan. There is no logic to taking that long. One note in my study Bible said that if all Egyptian forces marched in a column along the dedicated road they could reach Canaan in 6 days. If you read or listen carefully to the story written in Exodus at the end of chapter 13 and the beginning of chapter 14 there is a clue as to what caused this journey to be so confusing to us in later days and times. Listen to those words now:
“Exodus 13:17 - 14:4 (Common English Bible)
When Pharaoh let the people go, God didn’t lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, even though that was the shorter route. God thought, “If the people have to fight and face war, they will run back to Egypt.” So God led the people by the roundabout way of the Reed (or Red) Sea desert. The Israelites went up out of the land of Egypt ready for battle. Moses took with him Joseph’s bones just as Joseph had made Israel’s sons promise when he said to them, “When God takes care of you, you must carry my bones out of here with you.” They set out from Succoth and camped at Etham on the edge of the desert. The Lord went in front of them during the day in a column of cloud to guide them and at night in a column of lightning (or fire) to give them light. This way they could travel during the day and at night. The column of cloud during the day and the column of lightning at night never left its place in front of the people.
Then the Lord said to Moses: Tell the Israelites to turn back and set up camp in front of Pi-hahiroth, (PI-Ha-HI-roth) between Migdol and the sea in front of Baal-zephon. You should set up camp in front of it by the sea. Pharaoh will think to himself, The Israelites are lost and confused in the land. The desert has trapped them. I’ll make Pharaoh stubborn, and he’ll chase them. I’ll gain honor at the expense of Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord. And they did exactly that.”
“When Pharaoh let the people go, God didn’t lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, even though that was the shorter route.”
Oh! So the Israelites were not lost and wandering on their own. God had other plans for them and took them on the longer route. In fact, God provided God’s own GPS system — a pillar of cloud in the day and lightning or fire at night — surely the Israelites could follow that easily enough.
In the medieval period, in the mid to late twelfth century A.D., the Jewish philosopher Moses Miamonides (my-MON-i-deez) used this story as one of the texts in his book “The Guide for the Perplexed.”
In his writings, he asserts that there is “no such thing as sudden, drastic, revolutionary change in the world we inhabit. Trees take time to grow. The seasons (flow) imperceptibly into one another. Day fades into night. Processes take time, and there are no shortcuts.”1
If it is true in nature it is even more so true in human nature. Could God have chosen to change things? When God changes things in nature, such as drought, those interventions are called miracles. There does not seem to be much proof that God intervenes in human nature. To do so would be to interfere with the free will given to humans in the garden of Eden.
God gives humans the ability to grow, to change, to become better people. But God does not force that change. And change in human nature is one of the slower processes. So to change the parts of the human nature that the Israelites brought with them out of Egypt; to change the hearts of the people who would choose to worship foreign gods along the way rather than to submit full trust to God and God’s law and commandments would take time. Generations in fact. So it would appear that the length of time the Israelites would be led around the Sinai, the forty-year trek through the wilderness was intentional, not accidental. It was a part of God’s plan.
And to start it off, God actually leads Israel off to bury Joseph’s bones and then makes them backtrack to the Reed Sea so that the mighty act of God’s saving intervention, the miracle that God would use by parting the waters would bless Israel and curse Egypt and the Pharaoh.
Even though God saved the Israelites, it was no accident that they would not be the ones to cross into the Promised Land of Canaan, rather it was their children, the next generation who would receive that blessing and privilege.
God had a plan all along for the slow change that would occur in God’s people.
What do we learn from this story in today’s situation?
If God has a plan all along for the change that needs to occur in our lives, and if it is a part of God’s creation of free will and the slowness of change in the nature of humanity what are we expecting to see over the course of a year, or over a year and a half? Or over a half of a generation, the past twenty years or so?
In 2008 theologian and author Phyllis Tickle published her book “The Great Emergence: How Christianity is Changing and Why.” The book discusses Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Covenant, and Conversation, A Weekly Reading of the Jewish Bible, 1 Exodus: The Book of Redemption Koran Publishers, Jerusalem, 2010. P. 98 long view of history that in the Christian Church massive change occurs every 500 years or so and that we were entering that time period when massive change and upheaval was likely to occur. The last such change was 500 or so years ago and was called the Protestant Reformation when Luther nailed his theses in opposition to the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant denominations such as our Methodist heritage formed from that reformation. Many of us in the church have certainly acknowledged that change was due and change was coming. It was one of the most talked-about subjects inside the churches of all denominations.
Until March of 2020. We became so preoccupied trying to find our way into and out of the pandemic that we might have stopped thinking about the massive change coming in the church. Yet I have pondered quite a bit over the past 19 months about whether the change in how we worship, how we meet, and how we fellowship is possibly just another of the many signs that the church is headed down the wilderness journey path while we keep stumbling through the wilderness trying to hang on to what we had or perhaps worse yet encountering the gods of the culture around us as we try to scramble our way out of the pandemic and back into church. That is my reflection based on what we will see regarding the golden calf and the other missteps along the wilderness journey of the Israelites.
IF this pandemic is another pathway through the journey of change, where are we headed? I am sure some of you may hope that I am going to provide my thoughts or even propose an educated guess. Would that I could.
I stand in this virtual church world before you and find myself somewhat mystified trying to figure out what the future might be, what “church” might be or look like in the future. I can only say a few things for certain.
It won’t be the same, ever again. Because we will not be the same. And if you are hoping when we worship again the world will become right again, I can promise you that the world is not waiting for us to resume worship. That is our heart’s desire. With some of you, I feel that desire as well.
At the same time, I am more often than not convinced that perhaps, just perhaps this period that has us on pause, is God’s way of telling us to slow down and let God lead us.
We can plan all we want. I can move the sticky note back and forth on my calendar forever. That’s the easy part. The hard part is considering that there needs to come out of all of this some change of heart, some change in our human nature. And the change needs to be for the better not the worse.
I wonder if you are willing, if we are willing to stop for just a bit and really pray and ask if this is a part of a bigger plan God has for us as a church, not just the little “c” church but the big “C” Church . . . the body of Christ redeemed for service to the world.
I feel myself grasping to hold on to what is familiar to me about the local church. I am so tempted to want to bring the past into the future. I feel it in our church meetings as well, both in this congregation and in the regional area. We want change, we know change is coming. But we are clutching the past and hanging on for all we’re worth.
We are hanging on to our days in Egypt, forgetting that it wasn’t working for us very well while all along we are pushing straight ahead because it feels more familiar than trusting God on this unknown path. As your leader, I am somewhat more afraid of the journey 3 years down the road than I am 3 weeks down the road. I can envision the near future because I have a plan. I bet some of you do as well. But what if God is leading me and you and us in that pillar of cloud and fire to some way of being faithful and we haven’t yet changed enough to follow in trust and faith. What if we are more desirous of going back to Egypt rather than the Promised Land?
We will sing the hymn in a moment, but are we really sure we are ready to follow where God leads? Oh, I hope so and I pray so.
Pray with me.
God of fire and cloud, of the ancient days and the future,
Thank you for your faithfulness to your people through all of these thousands of years. You have loved us from the moment of creation when you took the dirt from a riverbed and formed human beings and then stooped over us to breathe into us the very breath of life.
You faithfully watched over Abraham, Haggar, and Sarah and their descendants Isaac and Rebekkah and Jacob and Joseph and his brothers. You led them into Egypt when there was no other place where food was available. You met their needs by your plan and by your hand.
As Moses led the people forward and they were irritable and grumbly and frightened you never gave up on them.
So now watch us. Don’t give up on us. And keep reminding us how important it is to follow you and you alone. There is none other we could follow who loves us and leads us and guides us.
Thank you God, and lead us today and always in faith and hope and love for you and one another.
Amen.