Pentecost 16A
September 28, 2014
Exodus 17:1-7
On Wednesday I came across an article in which the author delved
into Stephen Hawking’s atheistic belief system.
I found out that Hawking became, with the advent of the Big Bang Theory,
science had provided a more convincing explanation of the origin of the
universe than religion can provide. He
explained that because science had provided a better understanding of the
universe and its origins than theology, or the ways in which think and speak
about God, God is no longer necessary.
Now, I respect Professor Hawking and his scientific work greatly…but I
would submit that I believe that his atheism is based upon a minimalistic
experience of the divine. For Hawking
bases his theology on one moment. The
moment of creation. And for most
theologians, this is quite problematic, but it isn’t a new form of theology…nor
is it unique to one of the greatest scientific minds of this era.
Last week we witnessed the congregation of the Israelites in the
midst of a bit of a faith crisis. They
were hungry, and their food crisis caused them to question the motives and the
means of the one who had supposedly rescued the Israelites from the hand of
their oppressors and made them a free people.
We learned that God heard their cries and provided for what they
needed.
This week, however, the crisis has gotten worse. Now they are back to a situation in which
water is low, thirst is high, and frustrations are higher. And so, we have
moved from the Israelites grumbling against Moses to actually accusing him of
having plotted against them so he could kill every last one of them. But, more significantly than that, we have
moved from the Israelites wondering, who was this God that didn’t think to pack
water and sandwiches for a road trip into the desert? To the Israelites now wondering
if God is even there at all.
It seems as if our friends, the Israelites, have found themselves
as a part of a similar theology to that of Professor Stephen Hawking. It is not the same because the Israelites
actually believe in God. At the same time,
however, it seems that the basis of the Israelites belief in God is in the
moments in which God provides for them by means of unexplainable acts.
The Israelites grumbled under the oppressive hand of the Egyptians
so God set them free by means of 10 unexplainable acts – water turning into
blood, invasions of frogs, gnats, and flies, followed by diseased livestock,
boils, and storms of fire, then locusts, darkness, and, finally, the death of
the first born. After the plagues, the
Israelites believed in God and followed Moses out to the Red Sea…where they
grumbled again because there was water in their way. But God performed an unexplainable act in the
parting of the sea. Then they
believed. Then they got thirsty.
God heard them and, by another miracle, turned the bitter water at
Marah sweet. And the Israelites
believed. Then they got hungry, and God
provided the manna and the quail. And
the Israelites believed. And now they
are thirsty again.
Have the Israelites placed their faith in the God of Abraham and
Isaac and Jacob, the God who rescued them from Egypt and provided for their
needs in the middle of the desert? Or have they placed their faith in the acts
themselves?
Have you ever noticed that it is much easier to say, “Thank you,
God!” on a day in which things have gone you way than on a, in the language of
a children’s book “terrible, horrible, no good, very bad, day?” What about on those “terrible, horrible, no
good, very bad days?” isn’t it easier to wonder why in the world God isn’t
listening to you or even, where in the world God is? To get so mad that we just
cast God aside altogether because we don’t want anything to do with a deity who
would either do this or allow that to happen?
Do we believe in God because of God’s promises or because of the
moments that God’s presence is so palpable there is no other logical
explanation? In other words, is our
faith like the faith of the Israelites?
As I’ve been to visit many, I don’t want to say older, more
experienced residents of this planet, throughout my life, and particularly in
my ministry, I have noticed that a common complaint is that short term memory
is becoming shorter. And as the granddaughter
of a woman suffering from severe dementia, I know the stress that this can
cause in day to day life. To some
extent, though, I think we all have a memory problem. I can tell you what Chris was wearing and
what we both had for lunch on our first date at Leona’s restaurant in the Hyde
Park neighborhood of Chicago in 2007 but the only reason I can tell you what I
had for dinner on Friday night is because I recorded it into the myfitnesspal
app on my phone. I can tell you about
the day that I decided that God and I need a break when I was 19 and had been
told one too many platitudes about the sudden death of one of my dearest
childhood friends, I can tell you about being scolded by Roman Catholic friends
for having taken communion at Sunday Mass at Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, but
I don’t remember what it was like to take communion for the first time other
than the wafer stuck to the roof of my mouth.
And I have a feeling that I’m not alone.
My friends, we have an amnesia problem. It is so easy to forget the ways in which God
has provided for us when we stand in the midst of things that we cannot
understand, things which are out of our control. The Israelites were still living the reality
of God providing them manna in the morning and quail in the evening and they
STILL forgot that God was there with them, leading them to the land promised to
their ancestors.
But God is faithful, and even in the midst of the testing of the
Israelites, God was faithful and God provided for the needs of the Israelites. Because, unlike what one of greatest
scientific minds believes about God, or the need for God because of one moment
in the history of the universe, the God we worship this morning and serve every
day of our lives is a God isn’t just about scattered moments here and there,
but a who God is about every moment. Our
God is a God of relationships, who journeys with us on the hills and in the
valleys, who laughs with us when we laugh and cries with us when we cry, who is
there with us when we need when and even when we think we don’t, who walks with
us every moment from our birth until our death…and then some.
Our God is a God who invites us into the process of remembering,
which in the world of graduate schools of theology and seminaries is called
anamnesis. Anamnesis is the opposite of
amnesia, the opposite of forgetting.
Within the Christian community, this invitation happens whenever we come
to the communion table and we hear the words “take and eat” “take and drink”
“do this in remembrance of me.” Remember
what I have done for you. That I saved
you from the flood, that I rescued you from Egypt, that I sent you prophets to
help you get back on the right path, that I died and conquered sin and death
for you so that you could be with me for eternity. And I require nothing in return because love
cannot force anyone to do anything. But
there can be expectations…and I think that my seminary professor put it best
when he wrote “While there is no
sin so large that God cannot forgive it, God always loves us with the
condition, or at least expectation, that God's grace and kindness will lead to
transformation in our lives.”
May our lives be so transformed by
remembering all that God has done for us that we may see God in every moment of
our lives, in the good moments, and in the midst of the not so good ones.
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