Pastor Darren: Well, very good.
Pastor Darren: Good to be with you this morning.
Pastor Darren: We uh start a uh a new season.
Pastor Darren: Some of us were able to join us at uh join together on Ash Wednesday and start on the official beginning of Lent.
Pastor Darren: Others are maybe starting just today, uh, but it is a season that uh I appreciate a season uh of self-denial with the hopes of getting closer to God.
Pastor Darren: So uh maybe potentially you've let something go and uh uh you're looking to uh uh readdress where your focus is, where your priorities are, and uh the hope would be that you might even find something to add to your life to help you uh uh be more spiritually focused and uh again a little closer to God.
Pastor Darren: For me, I really appreciate the intentionality of it.
Pastor Darren: I really appreciate the idea of taking 40 days, and we're gonna try and get good at this.
Pastor Darren: We'll do that with other things in our lives, but how often do we do it with our spirituality?
Pastor Darren: Well, maybe it should be once a year, right about now.
Pastor Darren: So the Exodus story.
Pastor Darren: Uh, it is um uh the beginning in many ways of of the Exodus story, our passage for today.
Pastor Darren: Some of you might remember from the ending of Genesis.
Pastor Darren: We ended with Joseph and his fancy coat, right?
Pastor Darren: The technicolor dream coat, uh, and they ended up in G in Egypt.
Pastor Darren: The whole family ended up there.
Pastor Darren: Well, over time they become eventually uh economically oppressed and then even enslaved.
Pastor Darren: So, Exodus, it starts with Moses, this baby, getting put in a basket and sent down the river.
Pastor Darren: The idea was Pharaoh was nervous about all these enslaved people, these folks who would work for a living, getting stronger and stronger, getting more vital, more vibrant.
Pastor Darren: And so he started wanting to tamp them down by killing all of the males.
Pastor Darren: Another one of the great children's stories in our scriptures.
Pastor Darren: So the positive thing is as the baby starts floating down the river, he gets found by of all people Pharaoh's daughter, who takes kindly on this child, even though she's pretty sure it's an Israelite child, a Hebrew child.
Pastor Darren: Um, his sister, Moses' sister, has followed.
Pastor Darren: And so she is able to say, Oh shoot, you're gonna need somebody to take care of that baby.
Pastor Darren: I know somebody, and then brings the mother over.
Pastor Darren: So the mother gets to at least nurse this child up to an appropriate age.
Pastor Darren: Uh and what it leaves us with this this person, Moses, in a really unique position.
Pastor Darren: He is a Hebrew child, but he's gonna grow up in the Egyptian uh, well, under the umbrella of the Egyptian rule, there, being the baby that Pharaoh's daughter has claimed.
Pastor Darren: And so we'll see some of that uh in his life get play out between those two things.
Pastor Darren: Um it's also not just the beginning of Exodus, but it's also the beginning of our series theme, which is talking about the journey to faith.
Pastor Darren: This, in many ways, as it's the beginning of the Exodus tale, it's also the beginning of a faith journey, right?
Pastor Darren: Or at least it's a metaphorical one.
Pastor Darren: We start from this place of being influenced, right?
Pastor Darren: In many ways, especially as we're young, life can be seen kind of like we're floating in this basket down a river, and there's these influences around us that kind of move us this way, push us that way.
Pastor Darren: We're being pushed, we're being tempted, different pressures, different influences.
Pastor Darren: The thing is, we as human beings, and I've preached this before, we we really kind of desire context and meaning for our lives.
Pastor Darren: We want to know that our life matters in some way.
Pastor Darren: That is an inner feeling that we have.
Pastor Darren: The Apostle Paul talked about it in Scripture.
Pastor Darren: Uh, one of our early theologians, St.
Pastor Darren: Augustine, also talks something about something similar.
Pastor Darren: Uh, but I'm learning Blaise Pascal often gets credit for the phrase that I like the most about it.
Pastor Darren: He called it the God-shaped hole.
Pastor Darren: Again, I think I've preached on that before.
Pastor Darren: Uh, in other words, we have a spiritual hole inside of us that wants to be filled, that we want filled.
Pastor Darren: Meaning we we want to have some idea of why we're doing something.
Pastor Darren: We want to have some idea of why it matters.
Pastor Darren: So we will move toward things we find kind of meaningful, something important.
Pastor Darren: The thing is, not everything we fill that hole with is holy.
Pastor Darren: Nobody?
Pastor Darren: No, not everything we fill that hole with is holy.
Pastor Darren: Okay, I got you think this job's easy.
Pastor Darren: I crafted that, I had it going.
Pastor Darren: You know, I take credit for groans as much as I do laughs, by the way, just so you know, as we go further in this relationship.
Pastor Darren: No, not everything meaningful to us is a good thing.
Pastor Darren: Yeah, we'll we'll we'll fill it by maintaining good vibes, good behaviors, we'll do the right thing, we'll be fair, we'll be just, but we'll also look to other things to find meaning.
Pastor Darren: There's some obvious ones that we've seen in life, maybe in our own lives or around our lives, like alcohol, like drugs.
Pastor Darren: Life is about enjoying myself.
Pastor Darren: So uh yeah, let's do this.
Pastor Darren: And we know that it often becomes a bit of an escape from life instead of this enrichment.
Pastor Darren: Many of us have seen what this allegiance will do to a life.
Pastor Darren: Other common temptations in our society, money, power, right?
Pastor Darren: If I have money, I'll have comfort and security for me and for mine.
Pastor Darren: Right?
Pastor Darren: Or power.
Pastor Darren: If I have power, I will have influence in my life.
Pastor Darren: I will be able to make sure my life has meaning.
Pastor Darren: Sometimes sometimes those uh other gods can be more personal, like a hatred for someone else or for another people.
Pastor Darren: We can let hate run our life as well.
Pastor Darren: In any case, the thinking is, the metaphor is, the image is that we float down this river of life looking for this larger purpose or meaning, but there are a lot of less meaningful things we'll be drawn to or that will push us by or push us as we move down this river.
Pastor Darren: I think that's why Lent can be such a meaningful season for us.
Pastor Darren: It gives us a chance to think about the river that we're floating down.
Pastor Darren: We can think more intentionally about the influences that are around us.
Pastor Darren: Maybe more specifically, we can look with a more discerning eye on the journey that we are taking.
Pastor Darren: I mention some bigger temptations that are available to us.
Pastor Darren: We should mention that there's smaller temptations too.
Pastor Darren: Sometimes it's food.
Pastor Darren: Sweets.
Pastor Darren: Now, a problematic commitment here maybe isn't as bad as other things, and yet we probably ought to admit to ourselves we have an overeating, unhealthy problem in our society.
Pastor Darren: I should mention in this season that Girl Scout cookies fall outside of this purview.
Pastor Darren: I did put in a special prayer with the big guy.
Pastor Darren: I asked for release of this confidential info.
Pastor Darren: I was informed that Girl Scout cookies are delightfully healthy.
Pastor Darren: And then God told me that we're to keep our thin mints in the freezer.
Pastor Darren: They are better in the freezer.
Pastor Darren: Hey, from on high.
Pastor Darren: Anyone want coffee coffee?
Pastor Darren: Mmm, coffee.
Pastor Darren: I didn't drink coffee till I was in my 40s.
Pastor Darren: Can you imagine?
Pastor Darren: It's like I got I I was free of it, right?
Pastor Darren: I got past the difficult, you know, got through college, all the tough, and then 40, right?
Pastor Darren: And then I got tempted.
Pastor Darren: I was at a uh conference, and uh, you know, conferences, and uh somebody showed up and said, I got one extra caramel macchiato.
Pastor Darren: And I'm like, Well, that's that's barely coffee, that's like suck it down dessert right there.
Pastor Darren: And then I drank this caramel macchiato, and I took the best notes I've ever taken in my life, and I said, This coffee, there's something good about this, and ever since then I'm kind of a regular, right?
Pastor Darren: A little bit.
Pastor Darren: Coffee people?
Pastor Darren: Okay, okay, all right, all right.
Pastor Darren: You ever get disappointed you've already had your cup?
Pastor Darren: Hey, you oh well, maybe some of you are all like just one.
Pastor Darren: Maybe you're disappointed you already had your fifth, right?
Pastor Darren: And nobody can do six.
Pastor Darren: I don't know.
Pastor Darren: Maybe it's something like that.
Pastor Darren: You ever get disappointed you find yourself looking forward to that first cup of coffee the night before, before you've even gone to bed?
Pastor Darren: All right.
Pastor Darren: I have to admit, I've been there.
Pastor Darren: You ever get that little headache when you haven't had the coffee?
Pastor Darren: You know, your your body gets acclimated to coffee, right?
Pastor Darren: This is why you get your body gets physically dependent on coffee to the point where it's calling for it.
Pastor Darren: Maybe you don't need it, but you're uncomfortable without it.
Pastor Darren: I wonder if this is a little bit of what we're talking about with these other gods that we're supposed to be careful about, these other gods we're supposed to move away from during Lent.
Pastor Darren: But it's a tough one this time, right?
Pastor Darren: When you talk about Lent, oh, I'm gonna give up murder.
Pastor Darren: I will not murder anybody this whole season, right?
Pastor Darren: Yeah.
Pastor Darren: Okay.
Pastor Darren: Low bar.
Pastor Darren: And then we say coffee, and you're like, oh shoot.
Pastor Darren: And yet here is something that has influence on your life, so much so your body is calling for it.
Pastor Darren: I I think that's potentially uh why this Lent season can be intimidating, right?
Pastor Darren: Even a little bit, uh a little bit scary.
Pastor Darren: So I've got some encouraging words from Exodus, right?
Pastor Darren: Uh Exodus passage, it gets kind of interesting here.
Pastor Darren: We hear the story and we envision a basket, right?
Pastor Darren: It's a basket that Moses is put in as he's floating down the river.
Pastor Darren: Interesting point, and Stephen would make it if I didn't make it.
Pastor Darren: The word that is actually used is the same word that's used for the ark that Noah built and then they hid in for the 40 days and nights of rain.
Pastor Darren: Let's think about that for a minute, right?
Pastor Darren: Here's the ark designed to preserve not just Noah's family, but the family of faith that will follow along, the body of believers that come behind him.
Pastor Darren: The precious, precious cargo.
Pastor Darren: That's what went inside the ark.
Pastor Darren: Then they use the same word when they talk about the basket that Moses is in.
Pastor Darren: Moses is critical to the faith.
Pastor Darren: Just like Noah's family is critical, Moses becomes the leader that brings the Israelites to fruition, right?
Pastor Darren: He's the one that gets them out of enslavement and into the land that God wants them.
Pastor Darren: He is in that basket precious cargo.
Pastor Darren: Yet again.
Pastor Darren: So if we extend the image, right, if we extend the metaphor, and I believe we're supposed to extend this metaphor, which we're supposed to understand it this way, we've got precious cargo ourselves.
Pastor Darren: We are precious cargo.
Pastor Darren: At least that's what God would say.
Pastor Darren: We are precious cargo and we should treat ourselves as such.
Pastor Darren: The hope is that we might find inspiration from this Exodus tale that teaches us that God has these feelings for us.
Pastor Darren: God understands us as precious cargo, understands us as holding precious cargo.
Pastor Darren: I'm going to point out one more exegetical Bible-y thing.
Pastor Darren: The theme that we are going to be talking about as we walk through Exodus here in the Lenten season, or one of these themes is a theme that's actually some would argue present all the way through Scripture.
Pastor Darren: With the whole book, the whole Bible.
Pastor Darren: He said, Well, I'm going to try this with Adam and Eve.
Pastor Darren: Right?
Pastor Darren: And then that didn't work out as good as he had hoped.
Pastor Darren: So he said, We'll start working with Noah, and we'll try it this way with this family, and that didn't work out as he had hoped.
Pastor Darren: Then he starts working with Abraham and this story of patriarchs of people and carrying out the faith.
Pastor Darren: If we go further into scripture, he starts working with prophets, he starts working with kings, judges, even before that.
Pastor Darren: Finally, he ends up sending Jesus different ways of trying to help us understand how we might get ourselves back to Eden.
Pastor Darren: God even tries working with Jesus in allowing Jesus to be killed, resurrection.
Pastor Darren: All of these ways that God has worked with us through Scripture to try to get us back to that place of Eden, of right relationship with God.
Pastor Darren: That's a cycle that'll play out through Exodus, and it's a cycle that plays out through Scripture.
Pastor Darren: But here is my confession.
Pastor Darren: Are you ready?
Pastor Darren: Full confession.
Pastor Darren: I've never been too keen on getting back to Eden.
Pastor Darren: Have you read that story?
Pastor Darren: Oh, running around naked?
Pastor Darren: No problems, no cares.
Pastor Darren: I mean, sure, maybe some of you want to run around naked, but I don't know.
Pastor Darren: I'm not really into it at this point, as he makes this joke.
Pastor Darren: I'm just not a hundred percent sure this is God's ultimate vision for our lives here in this world.
Pastor Darren: I'm not sure that's what God intended.
Pastor Darren: I wonder if some of the work we want to be doing is in how we understand Eden, this place of right relationship, this place that we are seeking.
Pastor Darren: I wonder if that should be our special focus on Lent.
Pastor Darren: Richard Rohr, who is uh the driver of the devotion that I've invited you all to join me on for this year, and I get invitations in the Sunday emails.
Pastor Darren: Richard Rohr, he doesn't see Eden as another place.
Pastor Darren: He sees it as a mental space, a spiritual space.
Pastor Darren: Right?
Pastor Darren: And he writes this first quote.
Pastor Darren: I think we have it up here.
Pastor Darren: Eden is a symbol of unitive consciousness.
Pastor Darren: All right, big words.
Pastor Darren: Some of us are reeling it in, some of us are all come on, Pastor.
Pastor Darren: Eden is a symbol of, it's a mindset, it's a spiritual mindset.
Pastor Darren: We cannot objectively be separate from God.
Pastor Darren: We all walk in the garden, whether we know it or not.
Pastor Darren: We come from God and we will return to God.
Pastor Darren: Everything in between is a school of conscious loving.
Pastor Darren: He's trying to tell us Eden isn't this place we're trying to get to either here or beyond here.
Pastor Darren: He's trying to tell us it is a mindset, a spiritual mindset of being in right relationship with God.
Pastor Darren: And we have that capacity to do that, to move towards the spiritual center, that place of right relationship with God.
Pastor Darren: We have that capacity, but so many of our life journeys lead away from that center, that Eden, that right place.
Pastor Darren: So many of our stories in Scripture mark that temptation away from the center.
Pastor Darren: How many times have we read stories about a fall and recovery, hiddenness and discovery, loss, and then renewal, failure, and then forgiveness, exile, and then return.
Pastor Darren: It's because that is the state, that is the cycle of our life journey of faith with God.
Pastor Darren: It's moving as much as we can towards that middle, but then having the influences around us pull us off of that center.
Pastor Darren: But Richard Rohr, he's got some words of encouragement for that journey as well.
Pastor Darren: He writes, I think that's up there too.
Pastor Darren: Fortunately, we are always being led back to the real center to find who we really are, to find ourselves in God.
Pastor Darren: God seems both very patient and very productive with the journeys back and forth.
Pastor Darren: Such is the pattern of the soul, of history, and of the Bible, the progress of sorts, two steps backward and three forward.
Pastor Darren: God comes to us with grace and with patience, with all the grace and patience we need to walk this journey, this journey of seeking that centeredness, but then being pulled out of it.
Pastor Darren: And that's why, to me, this work that we are committing to or you're invited to here at Lent is so important.
Pastor Darren: It's important for us to start working through some of these big questions about how we understand Eden.
Pastor Darren: What are we striving for?
Pastor Darren: What is that center for us?
Pastor Darren: Maybe it's a where question, where is it spiritually, but certainly it's a what question.
Pastor Darren: What is it that we, what is it that you are seeking?
Pastor Darren: You seek God in God's presence.
Pastor Darren: Is it some kind of meaning?
Pastor Darren: Is it some kind of purpose?
Pastor Darren: Is it some sort of calling?
Pastor Darren: What's the part of this Eden that you can find?
Pastor Darren: To me, this is a much more focused way of looking at our job over land.
Pastor Darren: We need to reflect on these important questions.
Pastor Darren: And I'll give you one pro tip.
Pastor Darren: Are you ready for the pro tip for today?
Pastor Darren: It's probably not something you have no control over.
Pastor Darren: Not something you have no control over.
Pastor Darren: Lent is about us.
Pastor Darren: It's about our capacity to live the life that's in front of us with love for God, for others, and for ourselves.
Pastor Darren: It's not going to be about controlling what we can't control.
Pastor Darren: It's about being committed to justice and fairness, respect for all God's children.
Pastor Darren: It's about being able to find that peace for ourselves and with ourselves to be in right relationship with God.
Pastor Darren: For many of us, that journey of Lent will start today.
Pastor Darren: I pray that it is a space with God.
Pastor Darren: So in that mindset, in this spiritual place, I want to take you back to the story.
Pastor Darren: The story of Moses being sent down this river.
Pastor Darren: And I'm going to take you back to the feelings of that mom in particular, of acknowledging that she's sending her son off to.
Pastor Darren: Blessed beyond ways that we can understand.