First Reading:
16Thus says the Lord, who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters, 17who brings out chariot and horse, army and warrior; they lie down, they cannot rise, they are extinguished, quenched like a wick: 18Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. 19I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. 20The wild animals will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches; for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people, 21the people whom I formed for myself so that they might declare my praise.
Second Reading:
If anyone else has reason to be
confident in the flesh, I have more: 5circumcised on the
eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of
Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a
Pharisee; 6as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to
righteousness under the law, blameless. 7Yet whatever gains
I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of
Christ. 8More than that, I regard everything as loss
because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For
his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as
rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ
9and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own
that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ,
the righteousness from God based on faith. 10I want to know
Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his
sufferings by becoming like him in his death, 11if somehow
I may attain the resurrection from the dead. 12Not that I
have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I
press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his
own. 13Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my
own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and
straining forward to what lies ahead, 14I press on toward
the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.
Here we are on the fifth Sunday of Lent. Two weeks from Easter and this week's scripture passages are dramatically reminding us that it's time to get ready… The stores have been saying it's Easter time since the day after Valentine's Day, but throughout the time of Lent, our scripture passages have had a nearly constant message of repentance. Over and over again they've told us to turn toward God from wherever we are in our own journey and It makes sense because Lent is the time of year that's specifically set aside to focus on preparing ourselves for the mystery of the resurrection and repentance, turning away from sin and turning toward God is one of the primary ways that we do that. But today's scripture passages take a different spin on getting ready. Both of them point to the idea that God is going to do a new thing that will be unlike anything you've ever known or experienced before, and we need to be ready for it.
All of us are shaped by our experiences. There are things that happen to us or things that happen in the world in our life-time that shape our identity… For instance, my grandparents generation lived through the great depression… and I've noticed that people who lived then, and even their children have a very different relationship with money and material things than those of us who are a few generations removed. And I imagine people who have served on the front lines in a war zone have a completely different understanding of violence than people who have only read books or seen movies. Whenever we go through something that affects us deeply, whether it's on a national scale or on a personal scale, it changes our worldview… Our experiences lead us to think the way we do and act the way we do and relate to other people the way we do. And anyone who's ever tried to change something significant in their own life knows that change is hard… and that's at least in part because experience is a great teacher… nearly all of our behaviors and patterns exist for a reason and the vast majority of those reasons are based on experience.
And of course there's incredible variation in our stories. No two of us have identical histories, no two of us have identical experiences and no two of us have identical worldviews… but there are some experiences that we do share… every group of people, whether it's a nation or a congregation has some sort of narrative that's woven together to hold people together… it's why movies like Forrest Gump did so well, it was a little snapshot of Americana. It took all sorts of music and cultural phenomena that people remembered from a couple of decades ago and built a story around it. The story was presumably one person's story but it was generic enough that we could all relate… it showed snapshots of our country's history that spanned three and a half decades… ranging from Elvis to JFK's assassination, The Vietnam War, Watergate, the civil rights movement and integration of schools in the south, Hurricane Carmen, the rise of Apple Computers and a whole bunch of other stuff that I'm forgetting… and these are just a few of the stories that give us as a nation some sort of common thread, they hold us together as people and contribute to our national identity. If you want to understand the culture and the worldview of a particular group of people, one of the best ways is to understand the story that's the foundation of their identity.
And that's where our first scripture reading today starts… it
addresses two of the national stories of the people of Israel. The
more obvious of the two is the Exodus. It was the defining moment of
the nation… before that, there was no sense of communal
identity. The people were slaves, forced into labor by Pharaoh.
Their daily lives were in a situation that seemed hopeless. They made
bricks for Pharaoh's construction projects… They had no power
of self determination and no possibility that things were going to get
better; until God heard their cries and sent a prophet. Through Moses,
God organized the people and gave plenty of opportunities for the
Pharaoh to let the people of God go free, but ultimately it took
direct action by God to save the people of Israel. And that saving
action is what's spoken about in the beginning of our
passage… the Lord made a way in the sea, a path in the
mighty waters, when chariot and horse and army and warrior came out,
they were extinguished like a wick.
It's one of the best known
stories of the Old Testament and also one of the most celebrated. The
people followed God's lead out of Egypt and because they did, they
became a nation dedicated to the Lord.
The second national story that's addressed by the passage is a little
bit harder to see because it's actually the context into which the
passage was proclaimed: the Babylonian exile. What we now know as
Palestine and Israel was in the middle of all sorts of trade routes
and in the ancient world, it was nearly always being subjected to the
will of whatever country was the dominant superpower at the
time… First there was Egypt and the Philistines, then Assyria,
but when Babylon came into the picture, they brought a new and
different style of taking over when they won a conflict. They would
crush the army but they didn't stop there… they would also
exile the leadership of the defeated people. They weren't exiled into
slavery… There weren't any whips in Babylon like there were in
Egypt… but they took the people who had some sort of a talent
for art or leadership and they did it in part because those were the
people who had the potential to maintain a national identity that was
separate from that of the conquerors. The exiles were taken to a
different part of the empire and they were treated relatively well.
As the leading Old Testament scholar Walter
Brueggemann describes it, The exiled Jews were not oppressed,
abused, or imprisoned. But they were displaced, they were alienated
from the place that gave identity and security…[and they were
taken from the customs that gave power to faith and life. For Israel,
exile was being lost, homesick, divided, rootless except for
memory. It must have been hard not to get comfortable with the
Babylonian ways, Babylonian beliefs, and Babylonian values. It must
have been hard to resist the temptation to settle down, to fit in, to
sell out, and to forget the story that had ever held them together in
the first place.
Some 2600 years later, as Christians who live in a dominant culture that has a thin Christian veneer, don't we also know how hard it is to resist the temptation to settle down, fit in, sell out and to forget the story that gives us our identity and holds us together…
But in our passage there is a single voice reminding them of what God had done in the past and reassuring them that God was still active. And it is interesting that right after Isaiah reminds his hearers of their greatest national story he tells them to forget about the former things… This is what the God who brought us out of Egypt says, don't remember the things of old. Some scholars say that he means don't worry about the fact that we're in exile right now because God's going to get us out. Others say he reminds them of their greatest national story as if to say the exodus is nothing compared to the new thing God's going to do. But it seems to me that whichever view is right, or even if neither one is right, the point he's making is that God is still at work and the people can't be so caught up in the past that they miss what God is doing in the present or that they quit hoping and working for what God might do in the future.
It's as if he's telling them, know who you are; remember what God has
done in your life, but don't stop there because the best is yet to
come… look for what God is doing. And, again to quote Walter
Brueggemann, biblical faith is always geared to the future. It moves
toward God's coming miracle, it pushes past the old treasured miracles
and beyond the old ways of judgment.
Faith changes what's
important to us and a part of our story as Christians is that we are
always looking forward expectantly.
Our second reading happened nearly seven centuries later but Paul picks up the same theme. When he lists off all of the things that make him the perfect first century Jew He's highlighting the old way of determining status… I was born of the right nation, into a recognized tribe, I was circumcised according to the law… I don't only follow the law but I teach it too. There's no way to criticize my actions he says… And just as he finished saying how good and how righteous he was by the old way of thinking, he capped it off by saying that none of that stuff matters because he had a new story and a new sense of purpose that were both given to him by Jesus Christ. His worldview had changed because the story and the experience that defined his new identity was one based on the resurrection of Christ
I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection,
Paul
said, … and I press on to make that goal my own because
Christ Jesus has made me his own.
The story that shapes our
identity as Christians is characterized by unending hope…
newness of life… the impossible being made possible because of
what God has already done. We can look at the calendar and know that
Easter is coming. But for the rest of this Lenten season as we
venture into holy week, as we face the terror of the cross and
celebrate the power of the resurrection, I want to invite you to know
Easter by more than just the calendar…
Remember what God has already done in your life and in the history of the world. Look forward with hopeful expectation for the new thing God is going to bring about. And strive toward that new vision by paying attention to what God is doing in you, your family, your community, your life… right now…
As Christians we are resurrection people and what holds us together is the God who is alive and active in the world. So expect the unexpected because we can barely imagine the new thing God's about to do.
Thanks Be to God. Amen.
The foregoing sermon was given by Rev. Dan Holland at the United Parish of Bowie on the Fifth Sunday in Lent, March 21, 2010.
© 2010 Daniel Holland
