Food for the Journey

Scripture Lessons: Ephesians 4: 1-16 and Exodus 16: 2-4 and 9-15 Sermon Title: Food for the Journey Preached on August 5, 2018 Sara and I have been watching a TV show called Suits. It’s sort of like a PG version of Mad Men if you saw that one, except Suits is set in contemporary New York and the main characters all work at a law firm instead of an advertising agency. The male main characters wear these really sharp tailored suits – which is why the show is called Suits I guess – and it’s really fast paced and exciting. The whole show is these two guys, Harvey Specter and Mike Ross – they storm into meetings and courtrooms, corner bad guys through verbal acrobatics, then take beautiful women out to dinner. It’s exactly like being an attorney in real life. Maybe some attorneys in the room can correct this misconception. I’ve heard that the real life of an attorney goes at a slower pace, and we all know that Hollywood tends to skip the boring parts. Which is probably why I decided in 3rd grade, that when I grew up I’d be an archeologist, right after seeing Indiana Jones. So, my Mom signed me up for an archelogy camp, but all we did was sift through dirt and brush off rocks with a paint brush – it wasn’t anything like the movie. It's a hard reality to accept that most of the time real life moves more slowly than it does on TV or in movies – especially when it comes to people accepting change. They say that in every good story, something has to change – a person, an institution, a change of heart – and in the entertainment industries, that change happens in the course of a few hundred pages of a book, in the 30 minutes of a TV show, or in the 2 hours of a movie, while real-life change often takes much longer. I remember wondering why the Israelites wandered through the desert for 40 years. It doesn’t seem like it should take that long to go from slavery in Egypt to freedom in the promised land, and scholars have even said that it should have only taken 11 days to walk from Egypt to Israel. But that’s the thing about real change. Real change often doesn’t happen that fast. Around this church, just as it is in the human heart, change can take a while. Like how we have two buses here at the church. We refer to them as the old bus and the new bus, only the new bus is now more than 20 years old. I guess we’re still getting used to it. You see, change doesn’t always happen quickly. You can’t always make it from Egypt to Israel in 11 days, because if we’re still referring to it as the New Bus 20 years later, then making a big change, like going from slavery to freedom, well, if you can do that in 40 years you’re making pretty good time. Change is often slow. Probably because a lot of people don’t like it. You heard them: “The Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. [They] said to them, “If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread.” Now imagine being one of those Israelites and complaining to Moses asking: “Why did you save us from slavery. It wasn’t that bad.” This is the craziest thing to say, but it’s exactly how people are. This is exactly how it really happens. Probably the scariest moment of my life was in labor and delivery. All at once my pregnant wife was pulled out by a crowd of worried faces and taken to the operating room. I was left standing there wondering if I was about to lose Sara and our new baby. I remember having no idea where to go or what to do – just being more scared than I’d ever been before or since. Thanks be to God, everything turned out fine. Sara had an emergency C-section that resulted in a healthy baby and a healthy mother, and while I was so thankful, about a year later, while I’m still recovering from the trauma, Sara wants to talk about having another baby. “Why, Sara, would you even think of returning to the flesh pots of Egypt? Don’t you remember what it was really like?” Of course not, because if mothers remembered the trauma of childbirth no one here would have any siblings. And if human beings remembered accurately the traumatic circumstances they’d been delivered from they’d never return – but according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 5 out of 6 state prisoners were arrested within 9 years of their release. 5 out of 6! It’s hard to imagine anyone saying: “It wasn’t so bad in prison. Three meals a day. A nice jump suit.” No one really says that. But can they imagine a better future – is anyone leading them to it? Or do they get halfway and decide to turn back around to what they know? Don’t be fooled - the journey to freedom is a long one, and part of the reason it gets longer is because of the way our memory works. While on the other hand, the movies go from the Emancipation Proclamation straight to total and complete equality. In real life it’s taking so much longer, and one reason it’s taking so long is because so many are trying to go back to where they were before. Just look at the world today with all its racial problems and listen to what some people are calling for – listen to how they remember where we’ve been. We’re just like the Israelites, because we get halfway there, and we want to turn around, then we look for someone to blame. You heard it: “The Israelites said to [Moses and Aaron], “If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.” That’s normal enough too. You know what churches do when they hit hard times – get a new pastor. What parents do when concerned over their children’s education – blame the teachers. And what do countries do in times of crisis? People chant: drain the swamp. But the most dangerous kind of leader to call on when a church, a school system, or a nation has hit hard times is the kind who says: “I can save you – just leave it to me”. Great leaders don’t fall into this trap. The people blamed Moses, but he didn’t shoulder all the blame, nor did he make promises he couldn’t deliver on. That’s because real leaders in times of crisis call on people to stand up on their own two feet by saying things like: “It’s not what your country can do for you, it’s what you can do for your country.” You remember that? Real leadership on the most challenging journeys of life looks like what we saw in our first Scripture Lesson from the book of Ephesians where Paul begs each Christian to “lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called.” “Each of us” he wrote, “Each of us was given grace,” and the role of the ones who spend all their time talking – the apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors – it’s our job “to equip [you] the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.” So, while I look at the portraits of the great pastors who have served our church with awe and reverence, who is it that teaches our children to sing: “Jesus loves me this I know”? We commissioned those teachers this morning and celebrate their ministry, because they are leading a life worthy of the calling to which they have been called – they are making our church stronger, not waiting for someone else to do it for them. And to broaden it beyond teachers – when it’s gets hot in here, who fixes the air conditioner? Not me. Then this morning when I walked into the church the first person I saw was our Security Associate, Antonio Evans, who was wearing a hairnet. “Antonio – what are you doing wearing a hairnet?” I asked. He said, “I’m making coffee, cooking a quiche – I’m being the church.” Isn’t that the truth? We are on a journey to the Promised Land and we all have a job to do that helps to get us there. And even if along the way from time to time we try to turn around to go back to where we’ve been, even if along the way from time to time we look for someone to blame or for someone to save us, the Lord is all the while providing us food for the journey that we have the strength to press on. Moses said to Aaron, “Say to the whole congregation of the Israelites, “Draw near to the Lord.’” And in the evening quails came up and covered the camp; and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp. When the layer of dew lifted, there on the surface of the wilderness was a fine flaky substance, as fine as frost on the ground. Moses said to them, “It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat.” Life is full of these difficult journeys of change – and some of them drag us onward kicking and screaming. Our only choice is whether or not we’ll resist it, and our only hope is finding a way to see God at work in it. Now look around today. It’s in moments like this one, it’s on days like today when we hear again that great call to keep going, to run our race, and it’s on days like today that we see in this bread and cup prepared for us the reminder that even when we don’t want to go one step further, he is with us still, calling us onward and towards the goal. Amen.