Reading: Psalm 78, 1-4,12-16,, Philippians 2:1-13, Matthew 21:23-32, Exodus 17:1-7
Preached at First Presbyterian Church, Baldwin, NY, on September 25th 2011
A printable PDF file can be found here
The Israelites are complaining. Here we go again. Déjà vu. Last time it was a lack of meat and bread and God provided them with quails and manna. This time it’s about water. “Give us something to drink, Moses... or else”.
Now Moses hasn’t got as much patience as he had the last time they started to complain. Everybody is getting a little on edge. Moses is afraid the people will stone him if water doesn’t turn up. He doesn’t calm things down any by reprimanding the people, for criticizing him, and in the process testing God.
So when Moses goes to ask God for help, there is a very personal element involved. He doesn’t ask God for water. He asks Him for protection. He’s afraid the people will attack him. “What shall I do with this people?” he asks God “They’re threatening to throw rocks at me!”
God, being God, has everything under control. What appeared to be a major crisis was about to be turned into a blessing. The Israelites were about to be given yet another sign that the Lord their God was with them, and a reminder that they didn’t need to moan and groan and quarrel, but rather trust in God.
As with the Quails that came and the manna that fell from heaven, it’s an unusual sign that they are offered. At first glance it seems to involve the sort of ‘trickery’ that would make Harry Potter proud. Moses is to take his staff, strike a rock that was at a place called Horeb, and ‘Hey Presto’ water would come flowing out from it. Lest there be any doubt that this was a genuine miracle, Moses is to take the elders along with him, so they get to examine the rock, observe the events and testify to the people. Picture the scene…
“I’d like to invite one of the audience here tonight to come and examine this rock. As you can see, ladies and gentleman, this is just a normal rock, solid granite through and through. You can check around the edges, on the top, underneath, there are no secret catches, latches or hatches, this rock is just rock. And now, prepared to be in awe. I take this staff and I smash it on the rock, and “Voila” water from the Rock!”
In one of those beautiful turn around moments that appear quite frequently in the Hebrew narratives, the people are turned from seeing rock as something they could use to hurt with Moses with, to the rock as a sign of God’s presence in a thirsty land.
The bringing forth of water in such a way answered for the people a question that had been troubling them for some time. “Was God still with them?” Yes, God had been there in Egypt getting them ready for deliverance. Yes, God had led them through the waters to freedom. Yes, God had fed them upon meat and bread from heaven. But was that it? Were they now on their own? Had Moses led them all this way, only to abandon them?
It turns out that Moses had very little to do with it. After all, he had gone to God to save his own skin, not to intercede for the people. The people weren’t the only ones who needed a sign that God was still with them!
In this account there are two wonderful pictures of the faithfulness of God.
Firstly… God is a God who is always ahead of us.
Secondly… God is a God of transformation
God is always ahead of us.
The words of Exodus17:6 are important in understanding this event. The Lord says to Moses, “I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb”. You may remember that at the burning bush God had revealed himself to Moses, as “I am who I am”, as a God who could not be contained by words or formulas.
This was not a case of Moses manipulating God into performing a miracle so the people would give up on the idea of stoning him. On the contrary the whole event, was an action of God, to remind the people that as they journeyed through the wilderness, He was their God and they were God’s people. Even though they complained and quarreled and fretted and worried God wasn’t about to give up on them!
We are not that different to those wanderers in the wilderness. When trouble comes our way, people start asking, “Where’s God?” and look for somebody in leadership to blame. As though tragedy and need, thirst and hunger were somehow a result of God leaving the building or a failure on the part of the administration. We trust God for the good times, but in the hard times are tempted to assume that any lack of blessing is due to either a failure in leadership or a lack of God’s Presence.
“I will” declares God, “Be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb”. God is here described as not being alongside you, or above you, or behind you, but “in front of you”. The God who goes ahead and prepares the way. The God who knows what is around the next corner and is in the business of preparing us. The God who is always ahead of us.
It is hard to look forward when the troubles of the day cause our heads to hang low. It is hard to think of future blessings when present troubles fill our agenda. When the sky turns black, and the thunder rolls and the rain starts to fall, we are not thinking about the sunny days that may be in the future, we’re just trying to stay dry and stay safe in the storm. Scripture tells us that God was not in the rock, but on the rock. God was going ahead of them. They hadn’t been abandoned. They could move on in faith.
So for ourselves, when we face the many trying circumstances that come our way, here is a reminder that the way forward is not to look for somebody to blame, nor is it to assume that the presence of problems equates to an absence of God’s activity. Rather here is a call to trust that God’s love is there for us, leading us and guiding us… always way ahead of us!
A second thing we see in this story is that…
God is a God of transformation.
The most powerful imagery in this chapter is the contrast between the rock of the desert and the water that flows to bring life. Under the touch of God stone is transformed into refreshment. It speaks of how the hard and bitter and dry places of our lives can become places where we experience God’s life and love.
In John 4:14 Jesus meets a women by a well in Samaria. The woman is between a rock and a hard place. She needs a transformation. Jesus tells her; “Those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life." Through her encounter with Jesus Christ she truly is changed and her life would never be the same again.
Time and time again the experience of faithful people has been that when they thought there was no way forward, the love of God came through for them. God takes situations that outwardly seemed hopeless and somehow everything was turned around as they put their faith in God’s ability to transform situations of desperation into opportunities for new life.
For was there ever a harder place than the cross? The cross of Calvary, upon which Jesus was crucified, has become for the church a symbol of faith. God took the hard place and used it as a means of blessing. God took that dreadful hour (that was the result of us having hearts of stone that could not recognize the Presence of God even as He walked before us) and transformed it through resurrection. God took that bitter hour, and bathed it in glorious light as the stone rolled away from the tomb and the church ever since has declared Jesus Christ as the ‘Rock of Ages’ from whom love and grace now flow freely.
Now notice, that Moses had to strike the rock before any water came out. I don’t intend suggesting that we go around hitting each other with sticks in order to release the blessings of God. That we become some weird cult. “So what church do you belong to?” “Oh, First Presbyterian of ‘Hit ‘em with a stick’ Baldwin.”
But, is it not true, that the hard knocks that life throws at us, refine our faith in ways the good times fail to do? It is the storms that we travel through that make us appreciate the daily blessings that surround our lives.
For sure wilderness times will come our way. In the wilderness the Israelites wanted to know, “Moses, Is God still with us? Or are we going to die of thirst out here?” Moses himself was fearful that God had only bought them so far and now had left them to work it all out for themselves.
Through this strange miracle of bringing water from the rock, the people received the assurance that God was still on their case. Through this account we are offered two wonderful pictures of the faithfulness of God.
Firstly… God is always ahead of us. Whatever our present circumstances we are called trust that God is the One who knows exactly where we are and has a way forward that Jesus calls us to follow.
Secondly… God is a God of transformation. Wherever we are right now, is not where God would have us stay. It is the work of the Holy Spirit to transform and renew, to bring blessings to the hard places and extract from the stony places the living water of life.
Just as the Hebrews were turned from seeing rocks as something they could use to hurt Moses with, to the rock as a sign of God’s presence in a thirsty land, may our hard places be turned to opportunities, and our hearts of stone be transformed to thanksgiving and generosity.
And all this to the glory of God. AMEN.
Rev Adrian Pratt
Monday, September 26, 2011
WATER FROM ROCK
Reading: Psalm 78, 1-4,12-16,, Philippians 2:1-13, Matthew 21:23-32, Exodus 17:1-7
Preached at First Presbyterian Church, Baldwin, NY, on September 25th 2011
The Israelites are complaining. Here we go again. Déjà vu. Last time it was a lack of meat and bread and God provided them with quails and manna. This time it’s about water. “Give us something to drink, Moses... or else”.
Now Moses hasn’t got as much patience as he had the last time they started to complain. Everybody is getting a little on edge. Moses is afraid the people will stone him if water doesn’t turn up. He doesn’t calm things down any by reprimanding the people, for criticizing him, and in the process testing God.
So when Moses goes to ask God for help, there is a very personal element involved. He doesn’t ask God for water. He asks Him for protection. He’s afraid the people will attack him. “What shall I do with this people?” he asks God “They’re threatening to throw rocks at me!”
God, being God, has everything under control. What appeared to be a major crisis was about to be turned into a blessing. The Israelites were about to be given yet another sign that the Lord their God was with them, and a reminder that they didn’t need to moan and groan and quarrel, but rather trust in God.
As with the Quails that came and the manna that fell from heaven, it’s an unusual sign that they are offered. At first glance it seems to involve the sort of ‘trickery’ that would make Harry Potter proud. Moses is to take his staff, strike a rock that was at a place called Horeb, and ‘Hey Presto’ water would come flowing out from it. Lest there be any doubt that this was a genuine miracle, Moses is to take the elders along with him, so they get to examine the rock, observe the events and testify to the people. Picture the scene…
“I’d like to invite one of the audience here tonight to come and examine this rock. As you can see, ladies and gentleman, this is just a normal rock, solid granite through and through. You can check around the edges, on the top, underneath, there are no secret catches, latches or hatches, this rock is just rock. And now, prepared to be in awe. I take this staff and I smash it on the rock, and “Voila” water from the Rock!”
In one of those beautiful turn around moments that appear quite frequently in the Hebrew narratives, the people are turned from seeing rock as something they could use to hurt with Moses with, to the rock as a sign of God’s presence in a thirsty land.
The bringing forth of water in such a way answered for the people a question that had been troubling them for some time. “Was God still with them?” Yes, God had been there in Egypt getting them ready for deliverance. Yes, God had led them through the waters to freedom. Yes, God had fed them upon meat and bread from heaven. But was that it? Were they now on their own? Had Moses led them all this way, only to abandon them?
It turns out that Moses had very little to do with it. After all, he had gone to God to save his own skin, not to intercede for the people. The people weren’t the only ones who needed a sign that God was still with them!
In this account there are two wonderful pictures of the faithfulness of God.
Firstly… God is a God who is always ahead of us.
Secondly… God is a God of transformation
God is always ahead of us.
The words of Exodus17:6 are important in understanding this event. The Lord says to Moses, “I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb”. You may remember that at the burning bush God had revealed himself to Moses, as “I am who I am”, as a God who could not be contained by words or formulas.
This was not a case of Moses manipulating God into performing a miracle so the people would give up on the idea of stoning him. On the contrary the whole event, was an action of God, to remind the people that as they journeyed through the wilderness, He was their God and they were God’s people. Even though they complained and quarreled and fretted and worried God wasn’t about to give up on them!
We are not that different to those wanderers in the wilderness. When trouble comes our way, people start asking, “Where’s God?” and look for somebody in leadership to blame. As though tragedy and need, thirst and hunger were somehow a result of God leaving the building or a failure on the part of the administration. We trust God for the good times, but in the hard times are tempted to assume that any lack of blessing is due to either a failure in leadership or a lack of God’s Presence.
“I will” declares God, “Be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb”. God is here described as not being alongside you, or above you, or behind you, but “in front of you”. The God who goes ahead and prepares the way. The God who knows what is around the next corner and is in the business of preparing us. The God who is always ahead of us.
It is hard to look forward when the troubles of the day cause our heads to hang low. It is hard to think of future blessings when present troubles fill our agenda. When the sky turns black, and the thunder rolls and the rain starts to fall, we are not thinking about the sunny days that may be in the future, we’re just trying to stay dry and stay safe in the storm. Scripture tells us that God was not in the rock, but on the rock. God was going ahead of them. They hadn’t been abandoned. They could move on in faith.
So for ourselves, when we face the many trying circumstances that come our way, here is a reminder that the way forward is not to look for somebody to blame, nor is it to assume that the presence of problems equates to an absence of God’s activity. Rather here is a call to trust that God’s love is there for us, leading us and guiding us… always way ahead of us!
A second thing we see in this story is that…
God is a God of transformation.
The most powerful imagery in this chapter is the contrast between the rock of the desert and the water that flows to bring life. Under the touch of God stone is transformed into refreshment. It speaks of how the hard and bitter and dry places of our lives can become places where we experience God’s life and love.
In John 4:14 Jesus meets a women by a well in Samaria. The woman is between a rock and a hard place. She needs a transformation. Jesus tells her; “Those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life." Through her encounter with Jesus Christ she truly is changed and her life would never be the same again.
Time and time again the experience of faithful people has been that when they thought there was no way forward, the love of God came through for them. God takes situations that outwardly seemed hopeless and somehow everything was turned around as they put their faith in God’s ability to transform situations of desperation into opportunities for new life.
For was there ever a harder place than the cross? The cross of Calvary, upon which Jesus was crucified, has become for the church a symbol of faith. God took the hard place and used it as a means of blessing. God took that dreadful hour (that was the result of us having hearts of stone that could not recognize the Presence of God even as He walked before us) and transformed it through resurrection. God took that bitter hour, and bathed it in glorious light as the stone rolled away from the tomb and the church ever since has declared Jesus Christ as the ‘Rock of Ages’ from whom love and grace now flow freely.
Now notice, that Moses had to strike the rock before any water came out. I don’t intend suggesting that we go around hitting each other with sticks in order to release the blessings of God. That we become some weird cult. “So what church do you belong to?” “Oh, First Presbyterian of ‘Hit ‘em with a stick’ Baldwin.”
But, is it not true, that the hard knocks that life throws at us, refine our faith in ways the good times fail to do? It is the storms that we travel through that make us appreciate the daily blessings that surround our lives.
For sure wilderness times will come our way. In the wilderness the Israelites wanted to know, “Moses, Is God still with us? Or are we going to die of thirst out here?” Moses himself was fearful that God had only bought them so far and now had left them to work it all out for themselves.
Through this strange miracle of bringing water from the rock, the people received the assurance that God was still on their case. Through this account we are offered two wonderful pictures of the faithfulness of God.
Firstly… God is always ahead of us. Whatever our present circumstances we are called trust that God is the One who knows exactly where we are and has a way forward that Jesus calls us to follow.
Secondly… God is a God of transformation. Wherever we are right now, is not where God would have us stay. It is the work of the Holy Spirit to transform and renew, to bring blessings to the hard places and extract from the stony places the living water of life.
Just as the Hebrews were turned from seeing rocks as something they could use to hurt Moses with, to the rock as a sign of God’s presence in a thirsty land, may our hard places be turned to opportunities, and our hearts of stone be transformed to thanksgiving and generosity.
And all this to the glory of God. AMEN.
Rev Adrian Pratt
Preached at First Presbyterian Church, Baldwin, NY, on September 25th 2011
The Israelites are complaining. Here we go again. Déjà vu. Last time it was a lack of meat and bread and God provided them with quails and manna. This time it’s about water. “Give us something to drink, Moses... or else”.
Now Moses hasn’t got as much patience as he had the last time they started to complain. Everybody is getting a little on edge. Moses is afraid the people will stone him if water doesn’t turn up. He doesn’t calm things down any by reprimanding the people, for criticizing him, and in the process testing God.
So when Moses goes to ask God for help, there is a very personal element involved. He doesn’t ask God for water. He asks Him for protection. He’s afraid the people will attack him. “What shall I do with this people?” he asks God “They’re threatening to throw rocks at me!”
God, being God, has everything under control. What appeared to be a major crisis was about to be turned into a blessing. The Israelites were about to be given yet another sign that the Lord their God was with them, and a reminder that they didn’t need to moan and groan and quarrel, but rather trust in God.
As with the Quails that came and the manna that fell from heaven, it’s an unusual sign that they are offered. At first glance it seems to involve the sort of ‘trickery’ that would make Harry Potter proud. Moses is to take his staff, strike a rock that was at a place called Horeb, and ‘Hey Presto’ water would come flowing out from it. Lest there be any doubt that this was a genuine miracle, Moses is to take the elders along with him, so they get to examine the rock, observe the events and testify to the people. Picture the scene…
“I’d like to invite one of the audience here tonight to come and examine this rock. As you can see, ladies and gentleman, this is just a normal rock, solid granite through and through. You can check around the edges, on the top, underneath, there are no secret catches, latches or hatches, this rock is just rock. And now, prepared to be in awe. I take this staff and I smash it on the rock, and “Voila” water from the Rock!”
In one of those beautiful turn around moments that appear quite frequently in the Hebrew narratives, the people are turned from seeing rock as something they could use to hurt with Moses with, to the rock as a sign of God’s presence in a thirsty land.
The bringing forth of water in such a way answered for the people a question that had been troubling them for some time. “Was God still with them?” Yes, God had been there in Egypt getting them ready for deliverance. Yes, God had led them through the waters to freedom. Yes, God had fed them upon meat and bread from heaven. But was that it? Were they now on their own? Had Moses led them all this way, only to abandon them?
It turns out that Moses had very little to do with it. After all, he had gone to God to save his own skin, not to intercede for the people. The people weren’t the only ones who needed a sign that God was still with them!
In this account there are two wonderful pictures of the faithfulness of God.
Firstly… God is a God who is always ahead of us.
Secondly… God is a God of transformation
God is always ahead of us.
The words of Exodus17:6 are important in understanding this event. The Lord says to Moses, “I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb”. You may remember that at the burning bush God had revealed himself to Moses, as “I am who I am”, as a God who could not be contained by words or formulas.
This was not a case of Moses manipulating God into performing a miracle so the people would give up on the idea of stoning him. On the contrary the whole event, was an action of God, to remind the people that as they journeyed through the wilderness, He was their God and they were God’s people. Even though they complained and quarreled and fretted and worried God wasn’t about to give up on them!
We are not that different to those wanderers in the wilderness. When trouble comes our way, people start asking, “Where’s God?” and look for somebody in leadership to blame. As though tragedy and need, thirst and hunger were somehow a result of God leaving the building or a failure on the part of the administration. We trust God for the good times, but in the hard times are tempted to assume that any lack of blessing is due to either a failure in leadership or a lack of God’s Presence.
“I will” declares God, “Be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb”. God is here described as not being alongside you, or above you, or behind you, but “in front of you”. The God who goes ahead and prepares the way. The God who knows what is around the next corner and is in the business of preparing us. The God who is always ahead of us.
It is hard to look forward when the troubles of the day cause our heads to hang low. It is hard to think of future blessings when present troubles fill our agenda. When the sky turns black, and the thunder rolls and the rain starts to fall, we are not thinking about the sunny days that may be in the future, we’re just trying to stay dry and stay safe in the storm. Scripture tells us that God was not in the rock, but on the rock. God was going ahead of them. They hadn’t been abandoned. They could move on in faith.
So for ourselves, when we face the many trying circumstances that come our way, here is a reminder that the way forward is not to look for somebody to blame, nor is it to assume that the presence of problems equates to an absence of God’s activity. Rather here is a call to trust that God’s love is there for us, leading us and guiding us… always way ahead of us!
A second thing we see in this story is that…
God is a God of transformation.
The most powerful imagery in this chapter is the contrast between the rock of the desert and the water that flows to bring life. Under the touch of God stone is transformed into refreshment. It speaks of how the hard and bitter and dry places of our lives can become places where we experience God’s life and love.
In John 4:14 Jesus meets a women by a well in Samaria. The woman is between a rock and a hard place. She needs a transformation. Jesus tells her; “Those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life." Through her encounter with Jesus Christ she truly is changed and her life would never be the same again.
Time and time again the experience of faithful people has been that when they thought there was no way forward, the love of God came through for them. God takes situations that outwardly seemed hopeless and somehow everything was turned around as they put their faith in God’s ability to transform situations of desperation into opportunities for new life.
For was there ever a harder place than the cross? The cross of Calvary, upon which Jesus was crucified, has become for the church a symbol of faith. God took the hard place and used it as a means of blessing. God took that dreadful hour (that was the result of us having hearts of stone that could not recognize the Presence of God even as He walked before us) and transformed it through resurrection. God took that bitter hour, and bathed it in glorious light as the stone rolled away from the tomb and the church ever since has declared Jesus Christ as the ‘Rock of Ages’ from whom love and grace now flow freely.
Now notice, that Moses had to strike the rock before any water came out. I don’t intend suggesting that we go around hitting each other with sticks in order to release the blessings of God. That we become some weird cult. “So what church do you belong to?” “Oh, First Presbyterian of ‘Hit ‘em with a stick’ Baldwin.”
But, is it not true, that the hard knocks that life throws at us, refine our faith in ways the good times fail to do? It is the storms that we travel through that make us appreciate the daily blessings that surround our lives.
For sure wilderness times will come our way. In the wilderness the Israelites wanted to know, “Moses, Is God still with us? Or are we going to die of thirst out here?” Moses himself was fearful that God had only bought them so far and now had left them to work it all out for themselves.
Through this strange miracle of bringing water from the rock, the people received the assurance that God was still on their case. Through this account we are offered two wonderful pictures of the faithfulness of God.
Firstly… God is always ahead of us. Whatever our present circumstances we are called trust that God is the One who knows exactly where we are and has a way forward that Jesus calls us to follow.
Secondly… God is a God of transformation. Wherever we are right now, is not where God would have us stay. It is the work of the Holy Spirit to transform and renew, to bring blessings to the hard places and extract from the stony places the living water of life.
Just as the Hebrews were turned from seeing rocks as something they could use to hurt Moses with, to the rock as a sign of God’s presence in a thirsty land, may our hard places be turned to opportunities, and our hearts of stone be transformed to thanksgiving and generosity.
And all this to the glory of God. AMEN.
Rev Adrian Pratt
Monday, September 19, 2011
BREAD OF HEAVEN
Reading: Psalm 105: 1-6,37-45, Matthew 20:1-16, Philippians 1:21-30, Exodus 16:2-15
Preached at First Presbyterian Church, Baldwin, NY, on September 18th 2011
A printable PDF file can be found here
I admit it. When I am hungry, I’m a grouch. Blame it on the blood sugar, blame it on the stomach sending negative messages to the brain, blame it on my “I eat, therefore I am” nature, but (and my wife Yvonne will agree with me on this one, and that’s not something a husband can always say about a wife), when I’m not a regular eater I become a complainer. A Big-Time Grouch.
Exodus16:2 tells us that ‘The whole congregation of the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness.’ I read that and I’m thinking, “I don’t blame them. They were hungry! I can “High Five” and say “AMEN” to folks with that kind of temperament. I suspect that if I’d been there I’d have been in the line to put my complaint to Moses and Aaron.
In a lot of ways they have a very legitimate complaint. Being slaves under the Pharaoh’s repressive regime, was no picnic, yet it was preferable to starving to death in the desert. Some commentators suggest that the people had forgotten how bad it was in Egypt and point to how nostalgia has a habit of glossing over the bad and making too much of the benefits, but, from this stomach’s perspective, I beg to disagree.
There are times when it’s O.K. to complain. You meet somebody and you ask them, “How’s things?”. They sigh and say, “Oh.. well.. I can’t complain .. and even if I did nobody wants to listen”. When people say “Can’t complain” sometimes what they really mean is, “You wouldn’t believe how cruddy life is right now, and I’m at my wits end and I really don’t know how I’m getting through.”
British people have often got this off to a fine art! The Australians call the British “Wingin’ Poms”, because some of my fellow countryfolk have such a reputation for constant moaning and groaning, under the guise of saying “Hey everything’s O.K, really, don’t worry”.
I think it’s in the movie about the Griswald’s European Vacation, that there’s a scene where one of the ex-Monty Python actors, Eric Idle gets knocked off his bicycle, then he falls over, then something else bad happens and all the time he just keeps saying, “Oh no. No problem. Quite all-right.” Or I think of that scene in Monty Python’s “Holy Grail” movie where the two knights are in combat and after one of them is almost totally dismembered, he says, “Oh no, just a flesh wound, I’ve had worse”.
Nobody likes a complainer. People of all nationalities try and avoid making it look like they are complaining even when they are. Yet, in spite of all that, I maintain that there are times when complaining is legitimate. I think that if I were out in the desert, with a whole host of people facing starvation, without even catching a glimpse of the Promised Land I would feel I had grounds for filing a grievance.
From a human perspective it seems that getting mad at Moses and antagonizing Aaron would be justifiable. But, and I hate to say this, from a Divine perspective, their complaining was entirely the result of a lack of faith. Their problem isn’t that they had forgotten how bad it was in Egypt, but rather that they had forgotten how good God was in bringing them out from Egypt.
They failed to remember that this God who had led them into the wilderness, had, when they were in Egypt, heard their cries, seen their tears and acted on their behalf. They had lost sight of the fact that God still heard their fears, still saw their plight and was still acting on their behalf.
Being a disciple of Jesus Christ opens up to us options that are not available to people who don’t have faith. Become a disciple of Jesus Christ and you will unlock your life to a whole spectrum of possibilities. A disciple can, in any given situation, make a choice as to how they will view their circumstances. We can look at life from the human side, and find a whole lot to complain about, or we can look at things from a Divine perspective and discover whole areas of life in which we are called to exercise trust in God.
The community calls Moses and Aaron to account for themselves. “What are you doing, bringing us out here to starve?” Did you pick up on the answer that they give the people? Moses firstly assures them that by the time evening came around they would know that the Lord God had led them out of Egypt. Then, Exodus 16:8 ‘Moses said, "When the LORD gives you meat to eat in the evening and your fill of bread in the morning, because the LORD has heard the complaining that you utter against him - what are we? Your complaining is not against us but against the LORD."’
To complain about hunger and express legitimate fears was one thing. God had heard that complaint and was doing something about it. To suggest that the whole Exodus from Egypt had somehow been the work, not of any divine agent, but attributed to Moses and Aaron’s hands, that was the mistake.
It may be flattering that the people considered Moses and Aaron capable of coming up with such a cunning plan, but the dark side of the picture is that it revealed the people had shifted their focus from trusting God, to trusting in each other. One thing is for sure. We can’t always be sure about each other.
Fact is we make compromises, we forget promises, we lose sight of what God calls us to be, and we need each others prayers and encouragement, because at times our service of God feels like a wilderness and we get hungry for something better and the temptation is always for us to look to each other rather than to God to meet our needs.
When we hear of pastors who fall by the wayside or Christian leaders found guilty of some misdemeanor we think, “How can people called by God turn out to be such rotten apples?”
Reformed theology suggests the reason is simply that we are all rotten apples, that aside from the love of God we are all hopeless cases, that for all of us, be we pastors, elders, deacons, youngsters, oldsters, rich or poor, male or female, black or white, whether we put our milk in the coffee before we put the coffee in the cup or whether we prefer to put the coffee in the cup before we put the milk in it, for all of us the natural inclination of our lives is to do anything but serve God and do God’s will.
Presbyterian doctrine takes Grace seriously because it takes sin seriously. Somebody was once alleged to have said, “I didn’t know what sin was until I met a Presbyterian”. In our bulletin we put our “Confession of Sin and Assurance of Pardon” way to the start of our service because we know that it doesn’t take us long in the presence of God to realize that we’ve messed up and need God’s renewing and forgiving, before we can get on with anything else in our lives.
Our final hymn this morning, “Guide me Oh thy great Jehovah, pilgrim through this barren land” contains that wonderful stanza, “Bread of Heaven, Bread of Heaven, Feed me till I want no more, Feed me till I want no more”. Over here in America I’m afraid you don’t sing this hymn with the same passion as some of your brothers and sisters over in Wales.
See, when the Welsh sing that hymn, it builds to a roof-raising climax. The first “Feed me till I want no more” is echoed by the tenors and basses, “Want no more”.. that phrase is often held as long as whoever may be leading the singing can stand it, before it crashes back down to earth with a resounding and resolute “Feed me till I want no more”.
Quite what the significance is in that the Welsh seem to sing it as much at Rugby games as they do in chapel, I’ve never really analyzed, but I’m of the opinion that it’s got something to do with passion and feeling and the desire to be a winner – be it on a field of play or in the much less glamorous game of life.
The quails came. The Manna came. And the people turned to God in worship and in praise. They stopped complaining and they started rejoicing. And, (wow!), what a change it can make in a persons life if they can move from being a complainer to being a proclaimer of the Good News that Jesus Christ died for our sins, was raised that we might have abundant life and that the Holy Spirit of God can nurture our lives as though we were feeding on “Bread from Heaven”. So what’s it going to be? Complainer or Proclaimer?
As a church what a difference it makes when we can shift our focus from what we can do to what God can do. As a body of God’s people in this place, what a difference it can make when we face our challenges not as ‘cause for complaints’ but as “Opportunities to experience the Grace of God”. So what’s it going to be? Complainer or Proclaimer?
Of course we have bills to pay. Of course we have physical needs. But where are we finding the resources to meet that challenge? Are we making the same mistakes the Israelites did in the Wilderness? Trying to find somebody to blame when actually the problem is we’ve lost sight of trusting in God?
It is much easier to ‘murmur and complain’ than take up the challenge of carrying a Cross in Jesus name. There is nothing radical in pretending that everything’s all right when there are some things that are wrong and need putting right. I’m not suggesting to anybody that we should put a brave face on things and carry with us some vague hope that we’ll get by in the end.
What I am suggesting is that we put our focus where it ought to be as Christians, that we look to our savior Jesus Christ. So again I say; What’s it going to be? Complainer or Proclaimer?
In conclusion I’d remind you of some words that are recorded for us in John’s Gospel.
John 6:35, “Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”
Hear the Word of God.
Hear that invitation afresh today,
“Come to me and find satisfaction for your hunger”
Hear God’s call for us to exercise faith
“Believe in me and I will satisfy your thirst”
Rev Adrian Pratt
Preached at First Presbyterian Church, Baldwin, NY, on September 18th 2011
A printable PDF file can be found here
I admit it. When I am hungry, I’m a grouch. Blame it on the blood sugar, blame it on the stomach sending negative messages to the brain, blame it on my “I eat, therefore I am” nature, but (and my wife Yvonne will agree with me on this one, and that’s not something a husband can always say about a wife), when I’m not a regular eater I become a complainer. A Big-Time Grouch.
Exodus16:2 tells us that ‘The whole congregation of the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness.’ I read that and I’m thinking, “I don’t blame them. They were hungry! I can “High Five” and say “AMEN” to folks with that kind of temperament. I suspect that if I’d been there I’d have been in the line to put my complaint to Moses and Aaron.
In a lot of ways they have a very legitimate complaint. Being slaves under the Pharaoh’s repressive regime, was no picnic, yet it was preferable to starving to death in the desert. Some commentators suggest that the people had forgotten how bad it was in Egypt and point to how nostalgia has a habit of glossing over the bad and making too much of the benefits, but, from this stomach’s perspective, I beg to disagree.
There are times when it’s O.K. to complain. You meet somebody and you ask them, “How’s things?”. They sigh and say, “Oh.. well.. I can’t complain .. and even if I did nobody wants to listen”. When people say “Can’t complain” sometimes what they really mean is, “You wouldn’t believe how cruddy life is right now, and I’m at my wits end and I really don’t know how I’m getting through.”
British people have often got this off to a fine art! The Australians call the British “Wingin’ Poms”, because some of my fellow countryfolk have such a reputation for constant moaning and groaning, under the guise of saying “Hey everything’s O.K, really, don’t worry”.
I think it’s in the movie about the Griswald’s European Vacation, that there’s a scene where one of the ex-Monty Python actors, Eric Idle gets knocked off his bicycle, then he falls over, then something else bad happens and all the time he just keeps saying, “Oh no. No problem. Quite all-right.” Or I think of that scene in Monty Python’s “Holy Grail” movie where the two knights are in combat and after one of them is almost totally dismembered, he says, “Oh no, just a flesh wound, I’ve had worse”.
Nobody likes a complainer. People of all nationalities try and avoid making it look like they are complaining even when they are. Yet, in spite of all that, I maintain that there are times when complaining is legitimate. I think that if I were out in the desert, with a whole host of people facing starvation, without even catching a glimpse of the Promised Land I would feel I had grounds for filing a grievance.
From a human perspective it seems that getting mad at Moses and antagonizing Aaron would be justifiable. But, and I hate to say this, from a Divine perspective, their complaining was entirely the result of a lack of faith. Their problem isn’t that they had forgotten how bad it was in Egypt, but rather that they had forgotten how good God was in bringing them out from Egypt.
“God is Good.. all the Time
All the Time.. God is Good”
All the Time.. God is Good”
They failed to remember that this God who had led them into the wilderness, had, when they were in Egypt, heard their cries, seen their tears and acted on their behalf. They had lost sight of the fact that God still heard their fears, still saw their plight and was still acting on their behalf.
Being a disciple of Jesus Christ opens up to us options that are not available to people who don’t have faith. Become a disciple of Jesus Christ and you will unlock your life to a whole spectrum of possibilities. A disciple can, in any given situation, make a choice as to how they will view their circumstances. We can look at life from the human side, and find a whole lot to complain about, or we can look at things from a Divine perspective and discover whole areas of life in which we are called to exercise trust in God.
The community calls Moses and Aaron to account for themselves. “What are you doing, bringing us out here to starve?” Did you pick up on the answer that they give the people? Moses firstly assures them that by the time evening came around they would know that the Lord God had led them out of Egypt. Then, Exodus 16:8 ‘Moses said, "When the LORD gives you meat to eat in the evening and your fill of bread in the morning, because the LORD has heard the complaining that you utter against him - what are we? Your complaining is not against us but against the LORD."’
To complain about hunger and express legitimate fears was one thing. God had heard that complaint and was doing something about it. To suggest that the whole Exodus from Egypt had somehow been the work, not of any divine agent, but attributed to Moses and Aaron’s hands, that was the mistake.
It may be flattering that the people considered Moses and Aaron capable of coming up with such a cunning plan, but the dark side of the picture is that it revealed the people had shifted their focus from trusting God, to trusting in each other. One thing is for sure. We can’t always be sure about each other.
Fact is we make compromises, we forget promises, we lose sight of what God calls us to be, and we need each others prayers and encouragement, because at times our service of God feels like a wilderness and we get hungry for something better and the temptation is always for us to look to each other rather than to God to meet our needs.
When we hear of pastors who fall by the wayside or Christian leaders found guilty of some misdemeanor we think, “How can people called by God turn out to be such rotten apples?”
Reformed theology suggests the reason is simply that we are all rotten apples, that aside from the love of God we are all hopeless cases, that for all of us, be we pastors, elders, deacons, youngsters, oldsters, rich or poor, male or female, black or white, whether we put our milk in the coffee before we put the coffee in the cup or whether we prefer to put the coffee in the cup before we put the milk in it, for all of us the natural inclination of our lives is to do anything but serve God and do God’s will.
Presbyterian doctrine takes Grace seriously because it takes sin seriously. Somebody was once alleged to have said, “I didn’t know what sin was until I met a Presbyterian”. In our bulletin we put our “Confession of Sin and Assurance of Pardon” way to the start of our service because we know that it doesn’t take us long in the presence of God to realize that we’ve messed up and need God’s renewing and forgiving, before we can get on with anything else in our lives.
Our final hymn this morning, “Guide me Oh thy great Jehovah, pilgrim through this barren land” contains that wonderful stanza, “Bread of Heaven, Bread of Heaven, Feed me till I want no more, Feed me till I want no more”. Over here in America I’m afraid you don’t sing this hymn with the same passion as some of your brothers and sisters over in Wales.
See, when the Welsh sing that hymn, it builds to a roof-raising climax. The first “Feed me till I want no more” is echoed by the tenors and basses, “Want no more”.. that phrase is often held as long as whoever may be leading the singing can stand it, before it crashes back down to earth with a resounding and resolute “Feed me till I want no more”.
Quite what the significance is in that the Welsh seem to sing it as much at Rugby games as they do in chapel, I’ve never really analyzed, but I’m of the opinion that it’s got something to do with passion and feeling and the desire to be a winner – be it on a field of play or in the much less glamorous game of life.
The quails came. The Manna came. And the people turned to God in worship and in praise. They stopped complaining and they started rejoicing. And, (wow!), what a change it can make in a persons life if they can move from being a complainer to being a proclaimer of the Good News that Jesus Christ died for our sins, was raised that we might have abundant life and that the Holy Spirit of God can nurture our lives as though we were feeding on “Bread from Heaven”. So what’s it going to be? Complainer or Proclaimer?
As a church what a difference it makes when we can shift our focus from what we can do to what God can do. As a body of God’s people in this place, what a difference it can make when we face our challenges not as ‘cause for complaints’ but as “Opportunities to experience the Grace of God”. So what’s it going to be? Complainer or Proclaimer?
Of course we have bills to pay. Of course we have physical needs. But where are we finding the resources to meet that challenge? Are we making the same mistakes the Israelites did in the Wilderness? Trying to find somebody to blame when actually the problem is we’ve lost sight of trusting in God?
It is much easier to ‘murmur and complain’ than take up the challenge of carrying a Cross in Jesus name. There is nothing radical in pretending that everything’s all right when there are some things that are wrong and need putting right. I’m not suggesting to anybody that we should put a brave face on things and carry with us some vague hope that we’ll get by in the end.
What I am suggesting is that we put our focus where it ought to be as Christians, that we look to our savior Jesus Christ. So again I say; What’s it going to be? Complainer or Proclaimer?
In conclusion I’d remind you of some words that are recorded for us in John’s Gospel.
John 6:35, “Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”
Hear the Word of God.
Hear that invitation afresh today,
“Come to me and find satisfaction for your hunger”
Hear God’s call for us to exercise faith
“Believe in me and I will satisfy your thirst”
“God is Good.. all the Time
All the Time.. God is Good”
AMEN.
All the Time.. God is Good”
AMEN.
Rev Adrian Pratt
Monday, September 12, 2011
TURN OF THE TIDE
Reading: Psalm 114, Romans 14:1-12, Matthew 18:12-35, Exodus 14:19-31
Preached at First Presbyterian Church, Baldwin, NY on September 11th, 2011
A printable PDF file can be found here
Geographically speaking, the area where I was born and raised was known as the Wirral peninsular. On one side of the peninsular lay the River Mersey, where you could, as Gerry and the Pacemakers once sang, catch a ‘Ferry across the Mersey’ to Liverpool. On the other side of the peninsular lay the River Dee, and over the other side of that river, the nation of Wales.
The River Dee side of the peninsular held the best beaches. One of the fun things to do there was walk across the sands, at low tide, to visit a bird sanctuary called Hilbre Island, where you could watch seals playing out in the estuary.
In fact when the tide went out it looked as though you could walk across the sands all the way to Wales. You couldn’t because there was a deep fierce channel of water that separated the English from Wales (something historically the Welsh were rather glad about) but when you were walking out on the sand, it looked as though there were just miles of sand stretching in every direction. A beautiful place.
Beautiful, but dangerous. Almost every year people lost their lives through not paying attention to the tide. If you did not know at what hour the tide turned, then it was not safe being out on the sands. Whereas when the tide was out the sands stretched for miles, when the tide turned the whole area became sea.
The frightening thing was how quickly the change from sand to sea took place. Little streams in the sand would become rivers. The rivers overflowed. You could be walking on sandbanks, unable to reach the coast, unaware that the waters were closing in. If you were out on the sand when the tide turned, you were lost.
One can only imagine the dread that the Hebrew people felt as they fled from Pharaohs’ chariots. There lay before them a seemingly impassable body of water. Their only hope was that God would intervene on their behalf. That somehow the tide would turn.
It is 10 years to the day since the terrorist attacks of September 11. The events of that day saw a turn in the tide of our consciousness. Our safety can no longer be taken for granted. Our security remains in question. We are no longer invulnerable. We are no longer isolated from the rest of the world.
On that occasion it wasn’t pursuing enemy chariots and threatening soldiers that were swept away but the lives of ordinary people going about their daily tasks and the many heroic souls who attempted to rescue them. When the tide turns, the waves do not care if their victims are aggressors or innocents.
The reasons behind the growth of terrorism are incredibly complex. Political, economic, geographical, religious, educational, historical. Issues of poverty and injustice and imbalance and empire and greed. Trying to isolate any particular aspect and suggesting that ‘this’ alone is to blame is as futile as investigating a single channel flowing through the sand and claiming that it alone caused the tide to turn.
In the story of the Hebrews escaping from the Egyptians are many different layers. Religion obviously plays a huge role (it is after all a bible story). But then so also do injustice and slavery and economics and politics and the search for national identity.
You will notice that the turn of the tide does not lead the Hebrews to the Promised Land but into the wilderness. The destruction of their enemies in the crushing waters leads them not into a place of peace, but one of fear, regret and dependence. The closing verse of the passage we read this morning; verse 31 ‘And when the Israelites saw the mighty hand of the LORD displayed against the Egyptians, the people feared the LORD and put their trust in Him and in Moses His servant’.
Since the events of ten years ago, surely we can identify with that picture. We are not out of the wilderness. There is a desire for strong leadership. There is mistrust. There is fear. The old certainties have been swept away and exactly where our anchor should be placed remains a topic for debate. The tide has turned. Many remain unsure which direction to go to find anything like a Promised Land.
The past month saw an earthquake and a visit from Hurricane Irene. Every passing year brings unpredictable turns of events. Not only can we not predict the actions of our fellow human beings, nature herself seems happy to remind us of our own frailty and insignificance in the larger scheme of things.
Against this backdrop it is important to remind ourselves that we still have choices. The Hebrew people had a choice. They could stay in Egypt in slavery. Or they could, as a community, follow Moses.
They may well have wondered at the wisdom of their choice when they were faced with the prospect of being destroyed at the water edge by the advancing Egyptian army. Even after their miraculous deliverance, though they saw their enemies’ dead and defeated, they knew their journey was far from over. They still faced an uncertain and unpredictable future.
On this our Rally Day we too have a choice. We can rally together and seek to be a community of God’s people. We can put our trust in God to lead us towards better days. We can choose to build our lives upon faith in Jesus Christ, over and above trust in any other institution.
We can choose, as did the Hebrews, to invest in nurturing the spiritual lives of both our selves and our children in the ways of God’s Kingdom. We choose our priorities. We can say ‘no’ to unreasonable demands on our time that take away our energy to invest in the things of God.
Events such as those we are recalling ten years ago, and events like the recent hurricane in which some lost so much, should indeed cause us to question ‘What is really important?” For a moment we are taken out of the normality of the hectic everyday race we are pursuing. For a moment the power goes away, the trains don’t run, the TV has no programs, the phone stops ringing because the connection has no connection. For a moment we realize our dependency. Do we treat it as a wake up call? Or do we just hop back onto the train and in six months time wonder why nothing has changed?
The Christian gospel, the Good News of Jesus Christ, is that there is another way to live, a better way, and a higher way! But the rub is, in order to discover it, we have too choose to change. We have to let go of some of the things we are so reliant on. We cannot allow our I-pods and I-phones and I-pads to become our I-dols. We cannot pursue both God and wealth. We cannot keep seeking happiness and joy and fulfillment through every avenue but the love God and expect that somehow God will bless us anyway!
Scary, horrific events force us, just for a moment, to examine our choices. As the Hebrews gazed across the Sea at the bodies of their enemies, there was little rejoicing. I remind you again of verse 31 ‘And when the Israelites saw the mighty hand of the LORD displayed against the Egyptians, the people feared the LORD and put their trust in him.’ In moments of crisis you have to choose in whom you place your trust.
Because of the tidal estuary that lay on the sands between England and Wales, I learned at an early age that you had to be aware of the changing tides. A best selling book in my home area was the ‘Tide-Tables’ that catalogued the times when the tides would turn. The tables told you how high the tides were likely to be, and all the vital information that would let you know when it was safe to walk out to Hilbre Island and when you needed to stay away from the sands.
God has not left us in the dark. We have God’s Word in Scripture. But we have to read it. We have the living presence of Jesus Christ to lead and guide us. But we have to discover the guidance of His Holy Spirit, which only comes through prayer and commitment. We have a community of faith to which we can belong. But we have to make life choices that enable us to be active participants.
On this day of remembrance we have an opportunity to rally together and consider in what we choose to invest our lives. The Hebrew people chose to trust God, to deliver them and lead them through the wilderness days that lay ahead. Seems to me, that’s the kind of choice open to us all.
Amen.
Rev Adrian Pratt
Preached at First Presbyterian Church, Baldwin, NY on September 11th, 2011
A printable PDF file can be found here
Geographically speaking, the area where I was born and raised was known as the Wirral peninsular. On one side of the peninsular lay the River Mersey, where you could, as Gerry and the Pacemakers once sang, catch a ‘Ferry across the Mersey’ to Liverpool. On the other side of the peninsular lay the River Dee, and over the other side of that river, the nation of Wales.
The River Dee side of the peninsular held the best beaches. One of the fun things to do there was walk across the sands, at low tide, to visit a bird sanctuary called Hilbre Island, where you could watch seals playing out in the estuary.
In fact when the tide went out it looked as though you could walk across the sands all the way to Wales. You couldn’t because there was a deep fierce channel of water that separated the English from Wales (something historically the Welsh were rather glad about) but when you were walking out on the sand, it looked as though there were just miles of sand stretching in every direction. A beautiful place.
Beautiful, but dangerous. Almost every year people lost their lives through not paying attention to the tide. If you did not know at what hour the tide turned, then it was not safe being out on the sands. Whereas when the tide was out the sands stretched for miles, when the tide turned the whole area became sea.
The frightening thing was how quickly the change from sand to sea took place. Little streams in the sand would become rivers. The rivers overflowed. You could be walking on sandbanks, unable to reach the coast, unaware that the waters were closing in. If you were out on the sand when the tide turned, you were lost.
One can only imagine the dread that the Hebrew people felt as they fled from Pharaohs’ chariots. There lay before them a seemingly impassable body of water. Their only hope was that God would intervene on their behalf. That somehow the tide would turn.
It is 10 years to the day since the terrorist attacks of September 11. The events of that day saw a turn in the tide of our consciousness. Our safety can no longer be taken for granted. Our security remains in question. We are no longer invulnerable. We are no longer isolated from the rest of the world.
On that occasion it wasn’t pursuing enemy chariots and threatening soldiers that were swept away but the lives of ordinary people going about their daily tasks and the many heroic souls who attempted to rescue them. When the tide turns, the waves do not care if their victims are aggressors or innocents.
The reasons behind the growth of terrorism are incredibly complex. Political, economic, geographical, religious, educational, historical. Issues of poverty and injustice and imbalance and empire and greed. Trying to isolate any particular aspect and suggesting that ‘this’ alone is to blame is as futile as investigating a single channel flowing through the sand and claiming that it alone caused the tide to turn.
In the story of the Hebrews escaping from the Egyptians are many different layers. Religion obviously plays a huge role (it is after all a bible story). But then so also do injustice and slavery and economics and politics and the search for national identity.
You will notice that the turn of the tide does not lead the Hebrews to the Promised Land but into the wilderness. The destruction of their enemies in the crushing waters leads them not into a place of peace, but one of fear, regret and dependence. The closing verse of the passage we read this morning; verse 31 ‘And when the Israelites saw the mighty hand of the LORD displayed against the Egyptians, the people feared the LORD and put their trust in Him and in Moses His servant’.
Since the events of ten years ago, surely we can identify with that picture. We are not out of the wilderness. There is a desire for strong leadership. There is mistrust. There is fear. The old certainties have been swept away and exactly where our anchor should be placed remains a topic for debate. The tide has turned. Many remain unsure which direction to go to find anything like a Promised Land.
The past month saw an earthquake and a visit from Hurricane Irene. Every passing year brings unpredictable turns of events. Not only can we not predict the actions of our fellow human beings, nature herself seems happy to remind us of our own frailty and insignificance in the larger scheme of things.
Against this backdrop it is important to remind ourselves that we still have choices. The Hebrew people had a choice. They could stay in Egypt in slavery. Or they could, as a community, follow Moses.
They may well have wondered at the wisdom of their choice when they were faced with the prospect of being destroyed at the water edge by the advancing Egyptian army. Even after their miraculous deliverance, though they saw their enemies’ dead and defeated, they knew their journey was far from over. They still faced an uncertain and unpredictable future.
On this our Rally Day we too have a choice. We can rally together and seek to be a community of God’s people. We can put our trust in God to lead us towards better days. We can choose to build our lives upon faith in Jesus Christ, over and above trust in any other institution.
We can choose, as did the Hebrews, to invest in nurturing the spiritual lives of both our selves and our children in the ways of God’s Kingdom. We choose our priorities. We can say ‘no’ to unreasonable demands on our time that take away our energy to invest in the things of God.
Events such as those we are recalling ten years ago, and events like the recent hurricane in which some lost so much, should indeed cause us to question ‘What is really important?” For a moment we are taken out of the normality of the hectic everyday race we are pursuing. For a moment the power goes away, the trains don’t run, the TV has no programs, the phone stops ringing because the connection has no connection. For a moment we realize our dependency. Do we treat it as a wake up call? Or do we just hop back onto the train and in six months time wonder why nothing has changed?
The Christian gospel, the Good News of Jesus Christ, is that there is another way to live, a better way, and a higher way! But the rub is, in order to discover it, we have too choose to change. We have to let go of some of the things we are so reliant on. We cannot allow our I-pods and I-phones and I-pads to become our I-dols. We cannot pursue both God and wealth. We cannot keep seeking happiness and joy and fulfillment through every avenue but the love God and expect that somehow God will bless us anyway!
Scary, horrific events force us, just for a moment, to examine our choices. As the Hebrews gazed across the Sea at the bodies of their enemies, there was little rejoicing. I remind you again of verse 31 ‘And when the Israelites saw the mighty hand of the LORD displayed against the Egyptians, the people feared the LORD and put their trust in him.’ In moments of crisis you have to choose in whom you place your trust.
Because of the tidal estuary that lay on the sands between England and Wales, I learned at an early age that you had to be aware of the changing tides. A best selling book in my home area was the ‘Tide-Tables’ that catalogued the times when the tides would turn. The tables told you how high the tides were likely to be, and all the vital information that would let you know when it was safe to walk out to Hilbre Island and when you needed to stay away from the sands.
God has not left us in the dark. We have God’s Word in Scripture. But we have to read it. We have the living presence of Jesus Christ to lead and guide us. But we have to discover the guidance of His Holy Spirit, which only comes through prayer and commitment. We have a community of faith to which we can belong. But we have to make life choices that enable us to be active participants.
On this day of remembrance we have an opportunity to rally together and consider in what we choose to invest our lives. The Hebrew people chose to trust God, to deliver them and lead them through the wilderness days that lay ahead. Seems to me, that’s the kind of choice open to us all.
Amen.
Rev Adrian Pratt
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
FAST FOOD - To Go!
"FAST FOOD - To Go”
Reading: Psalm 149, Matthew 18:15-20, Romans 13:8-14, Exodus 12:1-14
Preached at First Presbyterian Church, Baldwin, NY, on September 4th 2011
A printable PDF file can be found here
“Is that for here, or is it to go?” asked the girl at McWendyKing (or some such fast food place). “To Go!” I replied, because I was on the go. A hundred things to do and a lot of folk to see. Got to keep moving. I would have gone around to the drive-thru but some days I just can’t stand talking into that little loudspeaker. I can never understand what the assistants saying on the other end.
And I don’t understand why you need to do that anyway. Couldn’t you just drive up to the window where you pay and give your order to the human being there instead of to the little box? Does it really save time? Usually there’s only about two or three cars distance to the window anyway! Seems less than efficient, particularly when, on some occasions I come away with exactly what I hadn’t asked for.
But, why worry? It’s not as if the food you are about to throw down yourself has any gastronomic integrity. It’s made as cheaply as possible, put together as quickly as do-able, and often consumed at a speed that deserves a mention in the Guinness Book of Records. FAST FOOD. – LET’S GO!
Meanwhile, back in Egypt, Moses has been having a hard time convincing Pharaoh to “Let my people go”. Although the land has been hit by a series of plagues, Pharaoh keeps changing his mind. First they can go, then they have to stay, then they can go, then they can stay. It’s becoming kind of repetitive.
But not for much longer. The Israelites days in Egypt are numbered. The numbers have nearly run out. There is to be one, final, decisive action on the part of God, that will finally convince the Pharaoh that it would be a deadly thing to keep the Israelites there any longer.
The final affliction is a plague of death. At the time Moses was born, the Pharaoh was murdering every first-born Hebrew Child, ordering them to be killed at birth or thrown into the river to drown. It was a miracle that Moses had escaped with his life, let alone grown up to be an ex-prince of Egypt who now led Israel.
They do say that what goes around, comes around. That certainly seemed to be the case in Egypt. The nature of the final plague is that the angel of death will take down every firstborn in the land, both humans and animals.
The only exception is to be those households whose doorposts are covered by the blood of a sacrificial lamb, a lamb that has to be prepared and consumed in exactly the way Moses tells them. This would be a sign for all the faithful that God had set them free. It would mark the beginning of a new era in the nations life and a new stage in Israel’s history. For them history would begin again. The month that they left Egypt would be considered forever more as the first month of a New Year.
Knowing that the angel of death was approaching, I’m sure that, if they were able back then, there would have been those amongst the Hebrews who would have ordered their sacrificial lamb from the Egyptian equivalent of McWendyKings.
“I’ll’ have seven lambs, (make that 8, better get one for the dog in case he turns out to have been the first born).. and oh.. an extra order of blood on the side, please”. “Is that for here or to go?” To Go! Fast food to go!” (Of course being in Egypt maybe they could also have said, “I’ll have a crocodile sandwich.. oh.. and make it snappy”: ) Hmm.
Like my jokes it really was no laughing matter, in any way. The events that were about to take place were horrific. There really hadn’t been anything to rejoice about for a long, long time in Egypt for the Hebrews. Were they really, after all this time, after all that had been taking place, were they really free to go?
The answer, right at that moment, was an extremely hesitant and cautious “yes”. They wouldn’t actually be free from Pharaoh until after they had passed through the Red Sea. They had hard times in front of them and most, including Moses, would not live to enter the Promised Land.
What they are about to do is something that would be, for all time, a symbol of faith. Something that turned that hesitant “yes” into a declaration of faith. They are given the Passover Meal. Exodus 12:14 “This day shall be a day of remembrance for you. You shall celebrate it as a festival to the LORD; throughout your generations you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance”.
Passover was a meal to go. Remember Moses instructions? Exodus12:11 “This is how you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it hurriedly. It is the Passover of the LORD.”
Passover was something to prepare them for the journey. Something that would etch into their minds God’s saving power. A celebration that would always remind them of their deliverance from slavery and misery.
Deliverance came at a price. They would eat, amongst other things, bitter herbs and unleavened bread. There would be great mourning all around them, on the part of those who chose not to heed Moses instructions. The deep irony of the situation was that their deliverance to life would only come through death, the death of unblemished lambs and innocent firstborns.
There are startling parallels between the celebration of Passover and our own Christian celebration of Holy Communion, a fact that both the Gospel authors and the writers of the N/T letters are keen to point out.
The first time as a boy that Jesus goes to Jerusalem it is for the family to celebrate Passover (Luke 2:41). It is at the Passover meal Jesus takes the bread and cup (which represent the broken body and shed blood of God’s only begotten Son) and shares them with His disciples. To a Corinthian Church beset with division and troubles Paul writes “Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be …new …… For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. (1 Corinthians 5:7).
Communion is a time we draw together to recall the covenant promises God makes to us in Christ. A time to strengthen ourselves for our spiritual journey. A faith-meal that looks to a deliverance yet to come. A time to rejoice that the blood of Jesus, Lamb of God, forgives us, redeems us and sets us free from the fear of death
Passover was a meal that was eaten – ready to go. However Passover was not fast food. Passover was not something prepared hastily or carelessly or least expensively put together. It took time. It required understanding. It was costly.
Preparation for the meal began four days prior to cooking, when a lamb (from either a sheep or a goat) was chosen. The lamb was to be shared with those who were not able to afford a lamb of their own. Neighbors were to come together. Nobody was to be excluded.
The lamb had to be a yearling without blemish. In other words it was prime stock. Not the left over or the weakling. In economic terms it was the costliest. It had to be kept until at twilight there was a community act of slaughter. It was then that the blood had to be smeared on the doors of the houses where the lamb was to be eaten.
That same night it was to be eaten in equal portions by all those who came to supper. It was to be slow cooked over the fire.. not boiled or eaten raw. The whole lamb was involved… the inward parts, the head, the legs.. all had to be roasted. Anything that became left over had to be burnt up. Only then… after all of that… were they ready to go.
We live in a fast food world. People want answers, even to their religious questions, in quick, digestible bytes. Instant Spirituality. Sign up here today and tomorrow it will be yours! The problem is that ‘Fast-Food’ is sometimes called ‘Junk Food’. In other words it doesn’t sustain, it doesn’t really nourish, it doesn’t meet the dietary needs, it just makes the hunger go away for a while.
I can offer you no Fast Food this morning. But I can invite you to come to a table laid with bread and wine, and prayerfully and whole-heartedly seek for God’s presence to be Your inspiration and guide in the coming days. I can direct you to Jesus, our Passover Lamb, to feed your deepest needs.
Paul, when speaking of communion, talks of preparing yourself to receive the bread and wine. Now is the time to do that. To reflect on where our lives are and what these elements represent. A God who wants to travel with us, but in order to do so requires that we commit our lives into His care. A Savior who died that no barrier may prevent us from living in God’s Presence. A Holy Spirit that seeks to inspire us every step of the journey.
Rev Adrian Pratt
Reading: Psalm 149, Matthew 18:15-20, Romans 13:8-14, Exodus 12:1-14
Preached at First Presbyterian Church, Baldwin, NY, on September 4th 2011
A printable PDF file can be found here
“Is that for here, or is it to go?” asked the girl at McWendyKing (or some such fast food place). “To Go!” I replied, because I was on the go. A hundred things to do and a lot of folk to see. Got to keep moving. I would have gone around to the drive-thru but some days I just can’t stand talking into that little loudspeaker. I can never understand what the assistants saying on the other end.
And I don’t understand why you need to do that anyway. Couldn’t you just drive up to the window where you pay and give your order to the human being there instead of to the little box? Does it really save time? Usually there’s only about two or three cars distance to the window anyway! Seems less than efficient, particularly when, on some occasions I come away with exactly what I hadn’t asked for.
But, why worry? It’s not as if the food you are about to throw down yourself has any gastronomic integrity. It’s made as cheaply as possible, put together as quickly as do-able, and often consumed at a speed that deserves a mention in the Guinness Book of Records. FAST FOOD. – LET’S GO!
Meanwhile, back in Egypt, Moses has been having a hard time convincing Pharaoh to “Let my people go”. Although the land has been hit by a series of plagues, Pharaoh keeps changing his mind. First they can go, then they have to stay, then they can go, then they can stay. It’s becoming kind of repetitive.
But not for much longer. The Israelites days in Egypt are numbered. The numbers have nearly run out. There is to be one, final, decisive action on the part of God, that will finally convince the Pharaoh that it would be a deadly thing to keep the Israelites there any longer.
The final affliction is a plague of death. At the time Moses was born, the Pharaoh was murdering every first-born Hebrew Child, ordering them to be killed at birth or thrown into the river to drown. It was a miracle that Moses had escaped with his life, let alone grown up to be an ex-prince of Egypt who now led Israel.
They do say that what goes around, comes around. That certainly seemed to be the case in Egypt. The nature of the final plague is that the angel of death will take down every firstborn in the land, both humans and animals.
The only exception is to be those households whose doorposts are covered by the blood of a sacrificial lamb, a lamb that has to be prepared and consumed in exactly the way Moses tells them. This would be a sign for all the faithful that God had set them free. It would mark the beginning of a new era in the nations life and a new stage in Israel’s history. For them history would begin again. The month that they left Egypt would be considered forever more as the first month of a New Year.
Knowing that the angel of death was approaching, I’m sure that, if they were able back then, there would have been those amongst the Hebrews who would have ordered their sacrificial lamb from the Egyptian equivalent of McWendyKings.
“I’ll’ have seven lambs, (make that 8, better get one for the dog in case he turns out to have been the first born).. and oh.. an extra order of blood on the side, please”. “Is that for here or to go?” To Go! Fast food to go!” (Of course being in Egypt maybe they could also have said, “I’ll have a crocodile sandwich.. oh.. and make it snappy”: ) Hmm.
Like my jokes it really was no laughing matter, in any way. The events that were about to take place were horrific. There really hadn’t been anything to rejoice about for a long, long time in Egypt for the Hebrews. Were they really, after all this time, after all that had been taking place, were they really free to go?
The answer, right at that moment, was an extremely hesitant and cautious “yes”. They wouldn’t actually be free from Pharaoh until after they had passed through the Red Sea. They had hard times in front of them and most, including Moses, would not live to enter the Promised Land.
What they are about to do is something that would be, for all time, a symbol of faith. Something that turned that hesitant “yes” into a declaration of faith. They are given the Passover Meal. Exodus 12:14 “This day shall be a day of remembrance for you. You shall celebrate it as a festival to the LORD; throughout your generations you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance”.
Passover was a meal to go. Remember Moses instructions? Exodus12:11 “This is how you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it hurriedly. It is the Passover of the LORD.”
Passover was something to prepare them for the journey. Something that would etch into their minds God’s saving power. A celebration that would always remind them of their deliverance from slavery and misery.
Deliverance came at a price. They would eat, amongst other things, bitter herbs and unleavened bread. There would be great mourning all around them, on the part of those who chose not to heed Moses instructions. The deep irony of the situation was that their deliverance to life would only come through death, the death of unblemished lambs and innocent firstborns.
There are startling parallels between the celebration of Passover and our own Christian celebration of Holy Communion, a fact that both the Gospel authors and the writers of the N/T letters are keen to point out.
The first time as a boy that Jesus goes to Jerusalem it is for the family to celebrate Passover (Luke 2:41). It is at the Passover meal Jesus takes the bread and cup (which represent the broken body and shed blood of God’s only begotten Son) and shares them with His disciples. To a Corinthian Church beset with division and troubles Paul writes “Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be …new …… For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. (1 Corinthians 5:7).
Communion is a time we draw together to recall the covenant promises God makes to us in Christ. A time to strengthen ourselves for our spiritual journey. A faith-meal that looks to a deliverance yet to come. A time to rejoice that the blood of Jesus, Lamb of God, forgives us, redeems us and sets us free from the fear of death
Passover was a meal that was eaten – ready to go. However Passover was not fast food. Passover was not something prepared hastily or carelessly or least expensively put together. It took time. It required understanding. It was costly.
Preparation for the meal began four days prior to cooking, when a lamb (from either a sheep or a goat) was chosen. The lamb was to be shared with those who were not able to afford a lamb of their own. Neighbors were to come together. Nobody was to be excluded.
The lamb had to be a yearling without blemish. In other words it was prime stock. Not the left over or the weakling. In economic terms it was the costliest. It had to be kept until at twilight there was a community act of slaughter. It was then that the blood had to be smeared on the doors of the houses where the lamb was to be eaten.
That same night it was to be eaten in equal portions by all those who came to supper. It was to be slow cooked over the fire.. not boiled or eaten raw. The whole lamb was involved… the inward parts, the head, the legs.. all had to be roasted. Anything that became left over had to be burnt up. Only then… after all of that… were they ready to go.
We live in a fast food world. People want answers, even to their religious questions, in quick, digestible bytes. Instant Spirituality. Sign up here today and tomorrow it will be yours! The problem is that ‘Fast-Food’ is sometimes called ‘Junk Food’. In other words it doesn’t sustain, it doesn’t really nourish, it doesn’t meet the dietary needs, it just makes the hunger go away for a while.
I can offer you no Fast Food this morning. But I can invite you to come to a table laid with bread and wine, and prayerfully and whole-heartedly seek for God’s presence to be Your inspiration and guide in the coming days. I can direct you to Jesus, our Passover Lamb, to feed your deepest needs.
Paul, when speaking of communion, talks of preparing yourself to receive the bread and wine. Now is the time to do that. To reflect on where our lives are and what these elements represent. A God who wants to travel with us, but in order to do so requires that we commit our lives into His care. A Savior who died that no barrier may prevent us from living in God’s Presence. A Holy Spirit that seeks to inspire us every step of the journey.
Rev Adrian Pratt
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