Pastor Darren: Well, hopefully you've gotten caught up on the story so far between uh uh um Carissa and what John's reading, and uh we're trying to give us a full experience of Exodus and the whole story.
Pastor Darren: You know, if we're gonna dive in, we might as well really dive in there.
Pastor Darren: So you're getting a uh the the whole story, as it were, and I hope you've been enjoying it.
Pastor Darren: Uh we from last week uh we talked a bit about how they prepared to escape, these Israelites, uh, and then we ended kind of right as the Red Sea was parting, which thank you to Candy and Vinia, who found our little Red Sea thing here, kind of a cool uh backdrop for the altar.
Pastor Darren: Uh so after they do escape, then there's some songs of celebration and Exodus, and we finally landed our passage today.
Pastor Darren: Many people call it bread from heaven.
Pastor Darren: So these Israelites they have been wandering, I think it's about 45 days now, having escaped, and now they're complaining about things, right?
Pastor Darren: And God responds to their complaining by making sure that they have enough food for each day, and they are to take and to eat only that which they need for that day.
Pastor Darren: And then God promises, or God promises, and then God delivers.
Pastor Darren: It's kind of the story of Exodus, right?
Pastor Darren: So if I I take us back to our theme that we're working through Exodus with, this theme of the journey to faith, you'll remember we talked about sometimes life will feel a bit like you're you're in a basket and you're floating down a river, and there's different influences and different pressures that are happening, and you're you're navigating that, and then amidst that journey, God comes to us with this invitation of some something better, a new way.
Pastor Darren: Then we make a commitment to that new way.
Pastor Darren: Remember the blood on the door last week, and then finally we um get to this passage where we are in that new life.
Pastor Darren: And you would think there would be great happiness.
Pastor Darren: Instead, the Israelites are not happy, they're wandering through the desert, through the wilderness.
Pastor Darren: They're trying to figure it out.
Pastor Darren: Food and drink are scarce.
Pastor Darren: I'll remind you of verse 3.
Pastor Darren: The Israelites said to them, If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pots and ate our fill of bread, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.
Pastor Darren: Do you feel their anxiety?
Pastor Darren: Do you feel they are upset?
Pastor Darren: They're talking about how enslavement has its advantages.
Pastor Darren: Right?
Pastor Darren: At least we had food and water and shelter.
Pastor Darren: Can you imagine being in a situation in which you would choose enslavement?
Pastor Darren: This is where the Israelites are.
Pastor Darren: I'll remind you, we've talked about these other influences that exist in the world around us, the gods, lowercase gods that grab our focus and they grab our attention, they grab our allegiance.
Pastor Darren: When I talk about this, usually from in a place like this, most of us, we kind of dream up something really spiritually sinister, right?
Pastor Darren: Something, some dark character in some movie.
Pastor Darren: We don't immediately think of the everyday lowercase gods that will claim our attention, that will claim our focus, like coffee, he said with a mirror in front of him.
Pastor Darren: Last year I tried to point out about this sinfulness with cookies.
Pastor Darren: I got some threatening emails.
Pastor Darren: I suspect the Girl Scout cartel.
Pastor Darren: So this year we're going with coffee.
Pastor Darren: It's been safe so far.
Pastor Darren: But it helps us, doesn't it, to recognize the hold that sometimes these things have over us.
Pastor Darren: Have you ever tried to quit coffee?
Pastor Darren: Or to quit sweets, or just to just to lose weight, he said with a mirror in front of him.
Pastor Darren: Right?
Pastor Darren: It's it's not uh easy.
Pastor Darren: I mean, with weight, now we're even getting shots that help us out with the darn thing.
Pastor Darren: We're so beaten up over that.
Pastor Darren: From there, that understanding of sin, that thing that gets a hold of us, it's a little easier to go to that extreme and talk about the things like drugs and alcohol that really can take over your life, in fact, lead to destroying your life.
Pastor Darren: And if we have some courage, we might even take a look at some of the personal personality challenges that many of us have, really that all of us have, working on our patience, working on our anger, working on our procrastination.
Pastor Darren: You know, just like the Israelites, we build the strength to leave that false, false God only to find that it's tough without that thing.
Pastor Darren: Am I right?
Pastor Darren: Like, holy smokes, that little sweet, it brings me happiness.
Pastor Darren: My coffee gets me going in the morning, right?
Pastor Darren: I can solve problems with my anger.
Pastor Darren: Sometimes I make more problems with my anger, but still, this is what I know.
Pastor Darren: This is what I know and how I know how to work.
Pastor Darren: Have you been there?
Pastor Darren: Because that's our Israelites.
Pastor Darren: That's where that not only that, but the benefits that were supposed to come from this escape don't come very fast.
Pastor Darren: Right?
Pastor Darren: Because the invitation from God comes with this promise of something better.
Pastor Darren: We think the something better is gonna come right away.
Pastor Darren: Oh, great, I've made my commitment to you, God.
Pastor Darren: Now you may bless me.
Pastor Darren: By the way, you're welcome.
Pastor Darren: Right?
Pastor Darren: We get into that space where we think it's gonna change, right?
Pastor Darren: And when it doesn't happen, we start looking back at that old habit.
Pastor Darren: We start thinking about it differently in our minds.
Pastor Darren: You know, the doctors say a little coffee is good for you.
Pastor Darren: Hmm?
Pastor Darren: Right?
Pastor Darren: Anger's not always a bad emotion.
Pastor Darren: How are we supposed to deal with social injustice in this world?
Pastor Darren: Maybe I'm addicted, but at least it was something I liked.
Pastor Darren: It gave me joy.
Pastor Darren: It's here, right here, that we ought to recognize the real challenge of enslavement.
Pastor Darren: Because yes, there is this power and it is physical, but it's also psychological, isn't it?
Pastor Darren: It's also in our minds when we are enslaved, there's a certain uh comfort that comes from that predictability, and when we switch to faith, which can feel uncertain, especially at the beginning of that journey, it's tough.
Pastor Darren: Trusting that there really is a better way, plus having faith that God feels we are worthy of it, sometimes that is the most challenging part of this new journey to faith.
Pastor Darren: Getting back to the passage a bit, you probably noticed, but in a lot of the uh preparation for leaving and in the leaving itself, God is giving a lot of instruction that includes like behaviors and habits.
Pastor Darren: I don't know if all of you were able to read, uh, but you probably noticed it.
Pastor Darren: And you know, those of you who read, and you probably noticed it, and and you started picking it up pretty quickly, and you're like, oh, and it was one of those Bible passages where you're like, yada, yada, yada, okay, I get the picture.
Pastor Darren: And we move forward to something that uh grabs our eye.
Pastor Darren: But maybe we should be taking note of some of this behavior.
Pastor Darren: Why is God doing this?
Pastor Darren: Right?
Pastor Darren: You'll see all the specificity of the instruction, all of it done with particular purpose, all of it done with particular remembrances of things that have happened.
Pastor Darren: If we look again at what we see in our passage today, the Israelites are concerned, as they should be.
Pastor Darren: Right, resources are light, but God responds, but God responds with caveats.
Pastor Darren: You'll be given what you need for today, so only eat what you need for today.
Pastor Darren: It sounds a little controlling, but at the same time, do you notice how a pattern can begin to develop?
Pastor Darren: By taking only for today, we're trusting that there's a tomorrow.
Pastor Darren: We're trusting that God is going to provide.
Pastor Darren: We're building a faith.
Pastor Darren: Personally, I hear some of that twelve-step language here, right?
Pastor Darren: Uh the focus on now, focus on today.
Pastor Darren: Have the trust and faith that you'll have what you need for today, today, and we'll worry about tomorrow, tomorrow.
Pastor Darren: God is trying to help these Israelites develop the healthy life patterns, but also patterns that lead to faith, to trust, not only in God, my friends, but in ourselves.
Pastor Darren: Finally, I wanted to point out that uh, and maybe this is something you're seeing too, the importance of this happening in the desert.
Pastor Darren: Right?
Pastor Darren: I have disappointing news for everyone.
Pastor Darren: This kind of personal work, this shaping of ourselves, of our souls, of what we believe, this learning how to rely on God's presence, God's love, God's justice, this is the kind of work that you really can't do in a holiday spa.
Pastor Darren: I'm sorry to have to bring you this news.
Pastor Darren: We can't do this work, this work of shaping ourselves, while we're sipping complimentary orange juice over a mani petty.
Pastor Darren: It just doesn't work.
Pastor Darren: This is really stripped down work that we're doing as we're trying to shape ourselves and shape our faith.
Pastor Darren: We have to go where we are vulnerable.
Pastor Darren: We have to go where there are personal stakes.
Pastor Darren: This is where we're going to develop some trust.
Pastor Darren: When Jesus was ready to begin his ministry, he went and he got baptized, and then he went to the desert to get tempted by Satan.
Pastor Darren: This is how he started his faith journey.
Pastor Darren: This is how he prepared.
Pastor Darren: He didn't go to the four seasons because that's not the place.
Pastor Darren: We have to go where we are vulnerable.
Pastor Darren: We have to go and learn to trust and learn to have faith.
Pastor Darren: There's some good words to this that Walter Bruggerman has, and those of you who are working through that book uh uh would probably enjoy it.
Pastor Darren: Uh, but he starts off by saying, but of course, the narrative is exactly to the point that the glory of God carried by Jesus is found precisely in the wilderness places of society.
Pastor Darren: Thus, glory and slash wilderness, this is our Exodus understanding.
Pastor Darren: The glory of God comes to us in the wilderness, in our articulation, comes to us as glory crucifixion.
Pastor Darren: Meaning that glory, the understanding of God has to go through this darkness, this tough time.
Pastor Darren: We need to understand how we are connected through our own imperfections, our own actions that that uh diminish Christ, even kill Christ.
Pastor Darren: We need to find our way through our inadequacies, our vulnerabilities, our sinfulness, to be able to understand who we are being asked to be.
Pastor Darren: Give me one more slide there.
Pastor Darren: In that regard, the Christian confession is completely congruent with the Exodus narrative, the peculiar God evidences glory, meaning the legitimacy of governance, the legitimacy of God's presence to guide our lives because of the way God responds to us.
Pastor Darren: That is learned in places of jeopardy.
Pastor Darren: Finally, this last bit.
Pastor Darren: The takeaway from this sequence of witnesses is that we should not be impressed by or enthralled to the prominent modes of glory expressed as wealth, power, knowledge, or control that seduce.
Pastor Darren: The authentic, trustworthy aura of legitimacy is found precisely in arenas of vulnerability, among the blind, the deaf, the lepers, lepers, the lame, the dead, and the poor.
Pastor Darren: Friends, the difficult news, but also the blessed news is the pathway to this faith is through our own wildernesses, our own deserts, because it's in that place that we are able to open ourselves and develop faith.
Pastor Darren: The tendency at this point would be to begin to set some high bar of faith.
Pastor Darren: Right?
Pastor Darren: You see how it works now, okay?
Pastor Darren: Give it all to God now.
Pastor Darren: It's it's that easy.
Pastor Darren: My hope is that the truth is the feeling is the opposite.
Pastor Darren: To me, the hope that's revealed here is that our challenge as human beings, people looking to find God's abundance, looking to live amongst God's love and peace and justice, is not unique.
Pastor Darren: We share that not only with each other, but with our brothers and sisters from 3,000 years ago.
Pastor Darren: This is in many ways just a snapshot of what it means to be a human, and hopefully there's comfort in that to know that that is the journey.
Pastor Darren: We have uh a journey that we take where we're navigating between spiritually healthy things and not so healthy things.
Pastor Darren: We have tendencies and inclinations to both, depending on the circumstances.
Pastor Darren: Our invitation is to strive to maximize the healthy.
Pastor Darren: That might mean having to realign yourself from time to time.
Pastor Darren: From this part of the Exodus story, we can learn that this can be difficult, but we also learn that there is a pathway.
Pastor Darren: It's a pathway built around realigning our faith with trust for God's presence in the world and in yourself.
Pastor Darren: It's a presence characterized by peace and justice and love, and it's that presence we are seeking.
Pastor Darren: May God bless us on this quest to know and to live that presence.
Pastor Darren: Amen.