Out of Egypt

Out of Egypt:
A short time ago I went to visit family in Massachusetts. My sister lives real close to a lot of the history that reflects the history that we have been indulging in during this Thanksgiving season. One of the more popular sites near where she lives in Plymouth Massachusetts is the Plymouth Rock. The Rock is a symbolic reminder of what it means to survive a journey out of Egypt. The Pilgrims decided they did not want anyone to tell them how to believe. In this case it was refusing to submit to the state church. Because of this they were persecuted and forced to leave home. About thirty four “separatists”, as they were called, left Amsterdam with some person more sea worthy than them and hit a rock. They went from seeing a vision of hope to hitting a rock and wondering if there would be anything to be thankful for after all.
This is the message that is captured in the verse that is our focus for the day. Indeed God sees the misery of people in Egypt (person I will describe as being in a land of dead end consequence.) God hears them crying out because of their slaver drives. The bottom line is that God understands and that is what brings us to the message God calls us to share with others. I offer some impressions that reflect on the power and scope God’s Word offered to a wounded world.
We might first look back at one of the seminal moments of this journey. Joseph is sold into slavery by his brothers, who tired of listening to him dream about how they were going to bow down to him. They at first thought it might be good to kill him and then thought it to be even better to let him play the fool. After all now that is sold into slavery there is no way that he will ever be a threat to their lesser opinion of themselves.
Joseph makes it to Egypt and is imprisoned for a time. We might wonder if God sees, hears or can even possibly understand the world that Joseph has been forced to enter. He appears to be defeated until God works through him to feed peoples and eventually reconnect with his wayward brothers in a spirit of reconciliation and forgiveness. He finds a place for them in Goshen is ideal for their herding. After all, shepherding practice is odious to Egyptians.

The Egyptians forget about Joseph’s positive influence and they move to contain the growing population of Israel. The Egyptians enslave the Israelites envisioning extensive building projects. When the people grow too numerous the Egyptians work to kill all the babies. Moses whose name means “drawn out” escapes harm and ends up in the Egyptian court living a life of leisure, watching the people that find a way to deliver him from death suffer. Moses sees and hears. He does not yet understand.
Moses finds out he is one of the people who he has watched suffer. He is no longer satisfied with his high standing. At one point he kills a slave driver who is beating up on a slave. Moses becomes a fugitive from the law escaping from certain death. He is tending sheep on a mountain and sees a bush burn and a directive for him to remove his shoes and listen to the message God offers.
God indeed hears the misery of the people in Egypt, Hears them cry out because of the slave drivers. God understands and this fugitive is the means through which Israel will escape. God even says that Moses will worship with the people on the mountain upon which Moses has this glorious vision. God share with the Pharaoh of Egypt Yahweh (I am who I am”) is not to be messed with. God has called his people out of Egypt and out of Egypt they go and we follow and determine what that means for us gathered here today.

We read in the Gospels about another circumstance from which these Words ring true. King Herod is paranoid a fearful of an infant threat to his power and has infants killed. Joseph is instructed to take Jesus to Egypt. We need remember the world that God has sent Jesus to minister to and with. There are person known as outcasts, poor, lepers, demon possessed, near death and faced with never seeing things get better. After all this has become the way for religious leaders to discern who is doing God’s will and who is not.
Out of Egypt Jesus comes when the time is right and he is the healer redeemer. He knows what it is like to see misery of people and let them know that God loves them. There are people akin to the leaders of Moses time who want to make Jesus look like a fool. He is crucified on the cross as an example of what will happen to someone who refuses to bow down to the establishment. Again we affirm the words of the verses shared. God sees the misery of people who are in a different kind of Egypt, with little or no hope, God hears the cries of the people through the agonizing crying out to God’s son and raises this same Jesus Christ from the dead and it is in this Jesus that we have hope. Yes!! God does indeed understand our suffering and want to let us know that we can overcome even death with God’s help.

This brings us back to the Thanksgiving story and our own present struggles of dealing with the oppression of a world that care littler or nothing about how much we suffer. The people in England are of the mind that the Pilgrims will suffer consequences for their unwillingness to submit to authority. I imagine that some of the Pilgrims wondered as their ship hit the artifact known as Plymouth Rock. They made it to shore and were faced with little food and supplies. The only help in the area were Indians that they had read about, supposedly, savages. They could have not been more wrong. One of the Indians spoke English and the Indians without a need for some big reward showed them how to survive and because of this there was a meal of a sort that said clearly God did see, hear and understand. And in a manner of speaking you have not seen anything yet.

We do battle with our own Egypt. We get to place where people tell us that we are hopeless and we might as well give up. Two years before I came to Kansas City I was told that I would never get well. I might as well give up. I came to Kansas City all the way from Massachusetts. I had never been so far away from home. I did not know anyone, had no place to live and no work. It might be said that I was doomed to fail. The understanding God we worship always has another plan.

One of my fondest memories came within the first year that I was in Kansas City. The Royals had won a game against the Yankees and people came out to Crown Center and Westport to celebrate. I was only a few miles away and I decided that for that moment to experience what it meant to know joy. I went on to graduate from seminary, get married and pastor my first Church, but God said you have not seen anything yet.
I went through some trying times when I first pastored. I went to a small church in Moline, Kansas it was during this same transition that I saw the Kansas City Royals with George Brett and company win the World Series. I had my second child and third child, a beautiful daughter, and a wonderful experience at Ruby Avenue Church in the inner city. God said you have not seen anything yet.

I went through a very painful divorce. I thought during the time after that my world was ending. God has a way of saying my life was just beginning. I remarried, experience the joy of having grandkids, and seeing my children succeed life was getting better and still I questioned it meant to be a minister apart from pastoring. I watched joyously just recently as the Royals continually rose up out of the ashes. I recall when people were giving up on them when they lost a hundred games in a row and yet they did not give up on themselves. How can we who follow Christ, the not say “I understand and am participating with you in your suffering”? The Promised Land never be very far away.

I look back over my sermon pilgrimage. God saw my misery in my own personal Egypt, God heard my cries as I watched the slave drivers of my own world constantly tell me that I was not good enough and I came to some conclusions as I reflected on this word from God.

1. I need to decide where to put my attention. It is too easy to be like Moses and say that I am not good enough. Sure none of us is good enough and yet God working in and through us always gets the job done. It is not me; it is Christ living in me.
2. I go into my experience determining to be thankful. After all we can look at what happened to Joseph the dreamer. He saves the world from famine, Moses delivers out of slavery and oppression, Jesus show people the way to eternal life and the Pilgrims show the way to thanksgiving. How can we go wrong? We have not seen anything yet.
3. I get to the latter verses in the scripture. God hears the crying out because of the slave drivers. I am determined to not let anyone or anything get in the way of God’s rule. I am going to let Jesus drive the bus, to slave drivers I pay no mind and celebrate ministry with whomever and wherever I go to God be the glory. What better closing hymn can there be than Amazing grace that has brought us here to join with others to look forward to a celebration a promised land that sees us for all eternity determining to get closer to God and each other. You are invited to come forward. ...
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