Out of Egypt

Out of Egypt
A short time ago I went to visit family in Massachusetts. I had been talking to a supervisor from Sprint about my trip and he did not even know where Massachusetts was. I responded with if you want to ever visit make sure see Plymouth Rock. People from all over the world come to see that one site. My sister in Plymouth lives real close to the history that we have been indulging in during this Thanksgiving season. The Rock is minutes from where she lives and serves as a symbolic reminder of what it means to arise out of our spiritual Egypt, a place that we feel trapped because we are not good enough. The English church was State run and the Pilgrims decided they did not want anyone to tell them how to believe. Because of this they knew clearly what it meant to hated, excluded, insulted and reflected to the extent they were called evil. They refused to fit in to a form of cookie cutter Christianity. About thirty four “separatists”, as they were called, left Amsterdam with some a sea worthy crew 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.
The message of Thanksgiving is carved out of today’s scriptural context. “Indeed God sees the misery of people in Egypt God hears them crying out because of their slaver drivers. The bottom line is that God understands, is concerned about suffering and knows our sorrows. From the New Testament we read a text that is related. What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, what no mind has conceived. These things God has prepared for those who love him. They are revealed to them by God’s Spirit. The spirit searches all things even the deep things of God. We enter into our thanksgiving journey with these thoughts in mind.
First of all we look back to the time when Joseph’s brothers tire of their dreamer brother. They are not tuned into God message. They are quick tempered, arrogant, and dishonest. They were more prone to arguments, competing for attention and failings. They are tired of listening to him dream about how “they were going to bow down to him”. At first they think to kill him and settle on selling him as a slave hoping that might teach him a lesson. Let Joseph play the fool. There is no way he could be over them when he was a slave somewhere else.
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. His dreaming that got him there provides a way to freedom. Through him potential famine is managed. It is in a spirit of thanksgiving Joseph is met by his brothers, who will bow, at first not knowing who Joseph is. Joseph is more than glad to help 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. Dreaming provides a reason to look beyond oppression to be thankful.

The Egyptians forget about Joseph and are determined to contain the growing population of Israel, enslaved into world of building projects that are unending. When the people grow too numerous the Egyptians fear a revolt and work to kill all the babies. God forever sees the blessing of small children. The kingdom belongs to such as these. Moses whose name means “drawn out” escapes harm and ends up in the Egyptian court living a life of leisure, watching a people outside that palace that are in bondage. Moses sees and hears misery and cries of a people. He does not yet understand.
Moses finds out He is akin of the people who he has watched suffer. He is no longer satisfied with his high standing. We need only to look to Philippians 2:7-8 to see a connection to another time and place. Moses is willing to become as nothing, so that he might help his kin rise up out of oppression. At one point he kills a slave driver who is beating up on a fellow Israelite. In contrast to Moses this Israelite speaks out of a sense of entitlement. If this prince would kill the slave driver would he now kill them? Moses becomes a fugitive from the law escaping from certain death for aligning himself with a person means nothing to a country seems to have everything. Moses 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. The ears of a suffering people are finally opened to hear what God has to say.
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. I imagine that the Israelites are too intent on hanging their fate on promises given long ago to persons like Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They forget that reception to the promise is affected by attitude. In I Samuel 2:30 we read about God’s contingency plan. There is a promise of the ministry of a family forever from God. Because of their disobedience and attitude they miss out. God honors those who honor and disdains them that despise him. God offers a sign that journey is in earnest. 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 to inherit a land God swore to their ancestors to give them. We know of a dream of thanksgiving and redemption from a life of slavery. Yet God would say you have seen nothing yet.

We read in the Gospels about another circumstance from which these Words of our passage ring true. King Herod is fearful of a prophecy about a child who is to become king. He has infants killed. Joseph is instructed to take Jesus to Egypt and stays there until he has another dream that says that Herod die. He knows about being honest, safe and secure. God is protector and defender and shield those who take refuge in them. We are reminded of the place from which Jesus establish God’s rule. Before he was born there we are person known as outcasts, poor, lepers, demon possessed, near death 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 (SAVIOUR). He knows what it is like to see misery of people and let them know that God loves them. Jesus himself suffered and is able to help those who suffer. In I Corinthians 10:12-13 we are reminded that God is faithful to see we are not tempted beyond what we are able to bear. 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. Praise God for the fact we are born into a living hope because of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. 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 their authority. The Pilgrims 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. Maybe the encounter with the savages was further indication they were wrong to leave England 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 because of this there was a meal of a sort that said clearly God did see, hear and understand. There was a time place and occasion for thanksgiving. They respond by knowing what it means to be minister to as the Gentiles that may not have known about God’s love otherwise, that there might be salvation to the end of the earth. The seeing, hearing and understanding of suffering finds embrace in dreaming of something better, redemption and deliverance, salvation and resurrection from the dead. And in a manner of speaking you have not seen anything yet.

We do battle with our own Egypt Much of the time we are faced with circumstances that say we or others are not good enough. This is the dilemma of living in misery. Sometimes we are miserable do not know what to do and other times we are miserable because others suffer. We get to place where we wonder if we are just 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 left behind a brother who had a chronic mental illness to come to Kansas City all the way from Massachusetts to study to be a minister. 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. We are not blessed because we are special people like Joseph, Moses or Jesus. The message is heard when there is awareness God at work through them and with them. Praise God for amazing grace.

2. I am determining to be thankful despite calamity that may come my way. Don’t worry God is there. 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 a place called thanksgiving. How can we go wrong? We have not seen anything yet. I pray I never forget this. In forgetting I can never appreciate the forever sense of forgiving, remembering the blessing that is forever available because of Christ.

3. I get to the latter verses of the passage. 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 determining to be slave to no one. With this in mind I am going to let Jesus be the driver and not 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. ...