Exodus 7:8-13
It is my understanding that in the days of Jesus there were wonder-workers who did many of the same sorts of things he did. I hasten to add, however, that the things Jesus did were of an entirely different order (e.g. observation in John 9:30-33). Moreover, I believe that Jesus was recognized as one with authority and from God in a unique way because of the way his words and actions, each remarkable in themselves, worked together. John’s Gospel refers to Jesus' miracles as ‘signs’; They indicate the character of the kingdom of God for those with eyes to see. That’s part of the interplay of meaning between the response of the man given sight in John 9 and the religious leaders, who, though highly learned, saw nothing.
Rewind the Bible story to Exodus 7, and we find Pharaoh’s magicians performing the same wonder as Aaron. The one-step-better move of Aaron’s staff swallowing the magicians’ staffs should not lead us to overlook the disconcerting fact that the ‘pagan’ magicians were able to do equally well what the Lord instructed Aaron to do. This wasn’t just a trick of Aaron that the Egyptian dudes figured out how to replicate. This was a miracle given from the LORD, the father Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who would be the I AM with them and who would overpower these same Egyptians. Maybe the answer is that this just makes the fact that Aaron’s staff swallowed their staff all the more significant. It points in a broader sense to our assurance that although there are powerful forces as work in the world that would seem to equal or overwhelm divine purposes, the promise of deliverance is to be trusted.
Ultimately, as will be seen in the ministry of Jesus in such a way that people recognized his authority, God’s word and action are one. That character of the Lord will be prescribed for translation into the life and character of his people in 1 Corinthians 13:1-3, where it is made clear that no matter what impressive kind of stuff we do, stuff that others may be able to do just as well, what makes it different and worthy is the Christ love in it.
Prayer:
Examine my heart, O Lord, to see that what I do is truly for you and others. That will be miracle enough. Through Christ. Amen.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Inexhaustible
Exodus 7:1-7
In 6:6 there was the pronouncement of the name of God that embodies character and purpose. That was to be a matter of assurance to Moses, Aaron and their people. The Egyptians will now experience the flip side of the same thing. It is a reminder that the power of the name as it applies to this situation (Israel in Egypt) hardly encompasses the power available. The impending deliverance fully expresses God’s power without fully expending it. It is my understanding, further, that in Christ we experience the fullness of God; but of course that doesn’t mean he fully expends himself on us. God is neither an introvert nor extrovert. Being an introvert, I need time to recharge after being with people. My wife Melissa is an extrovert and gets charged being with people. We both love people; they just have different effects on us. God is neither. He doesn’t need charging because he has all power and is power. But neither do we drain him of power no matter how much he gives us. We can ask him whatever we want without fear of burning him out, even though he did seem to get exasperated with Moses, as I’m sure he does from time to time with me and with you. And how did I get to this observation from reading about impending plagues?
Prayer:
El Shaddai, God Almighty, and also Yahweh, with us in your power and purpose: help us to see and know your power and purpose as you are revealed in your working through our lives, like etchings on discoloured stone. Through Christ. Amen.
In 6:6 there was the pronouncement of the name of God that embodies character and purpose. That was to be a matter of assurance to Moses, Aaron and their people. The Egyptians will now experience the flip side of the same thing. It is a reminder that the power of the name as it applies to this situation (Israel in Egypt) hardly encompasses the power available. The impending deliverance fully expresses God’s power without fully expending it. It is my understanding, further, that in Christ we experience the fullness of God; but of course that doesn’t mean he fully expends himself on us. God is neither an introvert nor extrovert. Being an introvert, I need time to recharge after being with people. My wife Melissa is an extrovert and gets charged being with people. We both love people; they just have different effects on us. God is neither. He doesn’t need charging because he has all power and is power. But neither do we drain him of power no matter how much he gives us. We can ask him whatever we want without fear of burning him out, even though he did seem to get exasperated with Moses, as I’m sure he does from time to time with me and with you. And how did I get to this observation from reading about impending plagues?
Prayer:
El Shaddai, God Almighty, and also Yahweh, with us in your power and purpose: help us to see and know your power and purpose as you are revealed in your working through our lives, like etchings on discoloured stone. Through Christ. Amen.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
The Name in Action
Exodus: 6:14-30
I find the genealogy here a bit disruptive, like getting a commercial at a critical point in a TV movie. But this is not a movie, and the genealogy is not a commercial. Its significance is suggested by what comes on the heels of it. We are led right back into the action with Moses and Aaron. We are reminded that they are part of a larger time frame, and that they have a very specific role in the larger narrative that is set in motion and carried along by God’s initiative.
The re-stating of God’s name (6:6) prior to the genealogy has the effect of showing that God’s character, expressed in the name, is translated into down-to-earth human history, honouring his creatures by making them, warts and all (verse 30), instrumental in the fulfilling of that story. Moses’ weakness here is not most significantly his speech impediment, but that he is forgetting that the Lord has already given him assurance and help in this regard, by making Aaron and him a team.
Prayer:
I look up at your macro-skies, dark and enormous,
your handmade sky-jewelry,
Moon and stars mounted in their settings.
Then I look at my micro-self and wonder,
Why do you bother with us?
Why take a second look our way?
Yet we've so narrowly missed being gods,
bright with Eden's dawn light.
You put us in charge of your handcrafted world,
repeated to us your Genesis-charge.
- Psalm 8:3-6 The Message (c) Eugene Peterson
I find the genealogy here a bit disruptive, like getting a commercial at a critical point in a TV movie. But this is not a movie, and the genealogy is not a commercial. Its significance is suggested by what comes on the heels of it. We are led right back into the action with Moses and Aaron. We are reminded that they are part of a larger time frame, and that they have a very specific role in the larger narrative that is set in motion and carried along by God’s initiative.
The re-stating of God’s name (6:6) prior to the genealogy has the effect of showing that God’s character, expressed in the name, is translated into down-to-earth human history, honouring his creatures by making them, warts and all (verse 30), instrumental in the fulfilling of that story. Moses’ weakness here is not most significantly his speech impediment, but that he is forgetting that the Lord has already given him assurance and help in this regard, by making Aaron and him a team.
Prayer:
I look up at your macro-skies, dark and enormous,
your handmade sky-jewelry,
Moon and stars mounted in their settings.
Then I look at my micro-self and wonder,
Why do you bother with us?
Why take a second look our way?
Yet we've so narrowly missed being gods,
bright with Eden's dawn light.
You put us in charge of your handcrafted world,
repeated to us your Genesis-charge.
- Psalm 8:3-6 The Message (c) Eugene Peterson
Monday, March 26, 2007
As If
Exodus 6:1-13
We have just witnessed complete hostility from Pharaoh. It seems to the Israelites that God has abandoned them and the fine plans they were to follow. God speaks to Moses again. He identifies himself as the God who had appeared to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as God Almighty (El Shaddai). Now he appears by the new name we have seen the LORD (Yahweh). So God identifies himself as the one who had begun his promise with the forefathers. They had not experienced the fulfillment of that promise – of a land and progeny. Now he appears with a new name that itself renews the promise and indicates the power of its fulfillment: “I Am Who I Am” or “I Will Be Who I Will Be”, or perhaps an expanded form would be, ‘I am the one you will know as you experience my saving presence.’
At present, however, the people are experiencing a huge discrepancy between what the name indicates and their present circumstances (verse 9). Nevertheless, the Lord says to Moses to go tell the Pharaoh to let the people go, and repeats the command after Moses’ now familiar objection concerning his speech.
We get this kind of experience in personal trials. Then faith may mean, as Philip Yancey says, going on as if we have that faith.
Prayer:
When you seem distant, Lord, let us experience one another in such a way that we are led back to your presence that has never left. In Christ. Amen.
We have just witnessed complete hostility from Pharaoh. It seems to the Israelites that God has abandoned them and the fine plans they were to follow. God speaks to Moses again. He identifies himself as the God who had appeared to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as God Almighty (El Shaddai). Now he appears by the new name we have seen the LORD (Yahweh). So God identifies himself as the one who had begun his promise with the forefathers. They had not experienced the fulfillment of that promise – of a land and progeny. Now he appears with a new name that itself renews the promise and indicates the power of its fulfillment: “I Am Who I Am” or “I Will Be Who I Will Be”, or perhaps an expanded form would be, ‘I am the one you will know as you experience my saving presence.’
At present, however, the people are experiencing a huge discrepancy between what the name indicates and their present circumstances (verse 9). Nevertheless, the Lord says to Moses to go tell the Pharaoh to let the people go, and repeats the command after Moses’ now familiar objection concerning his speech.
We get this kind of experience in personal trials. Then faith may mean, as Philip Yancey says, going on as if we have that faith.
Prayer:
When you seem distant, Lord, let us experience one another in such a way that we are led back to your presence that has never left. In Christ. Amen.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Little Christs
Exodus 5
Years ago I trained under a chaplain in a large hospital. The main process was to see some patients and then sit and write “verbatims” of the visits that the chaplain would then review, rigorously, with me. I remember one man who, without any prompting from me on the subject, kept repeating over and over that he couldn’t find God at all in his misery. And the chaplain/supervisor told me, “You have to be Christ for him.” I was shocked at this. But then, isn’t that what “Christian” means – “little Christs”?
After all the promise and assurances, things just were getting more miserable all the time for the Israelites. They didn’t just not find God; they blamed him. Or actually, they blamed Moses and Aaron, who in turn blamed God. Moses and Aaron were the closest thing to God at hand that they could blame. And sometimes being “little Christs” means we take on ourselves the anger others might have with the God they say they can’t find. Being God’s representative means you allow people to give expression to the God they otherwise just say isn’t there.
Just enlarge that a bit and you have the church as the Body of Christ in a world of people who deny or ignore God in Christ as a personal being for them (most people say there is a God). Stop what you’re doing and pray over the implications of that for church folks.
Meanwhile back in Egypt, the chapter ends bleakly. There is a response from God to begin the next chapter. Some editors make no paragraph break between chapters 5 and 6 to move right on to the Lord’s response. But I think we’ll stop here and wait for the response, just because that so often is our real experience: No answer to our questions or cries for a long time. But we do have one another as “little Christs.”
Prayer:
God, let me be Christ for someone today. In Him. Amen.
Years ago I trained under a chaplain in a large hospital. The main process was to see some patients and then sit and write “verbatims” of the visits that the chaplain would then review, rigorously, with me. I remember one man who, without any prompting from me on the subject, kept repeating over and over that he couldn’t find God at all in his misery. And the chaplain/supervisor told me, “You have to be Christ for him.” I was shocked at this. But then, isn’t that what “Christian” means – “little Christs”?
After all the promise and assurances, things just were getting more miserable all the time for the Israelites. They didn’t just not find God; they blamed him. Or actually, they blamed Moses and Aaron, who in turn blamed God. Moses and Aaron were the closest thing to God at hand that they could blame. And sometimes being “little Christs” means we take on ourselves the anger others might have with the God they say they can’t find. Being God’s representative means you allow people to give expression to the God they otherwise just say isn’t there.
Just enlarge that a bit and you have the church as the Body of Christ in a world of people who deny or ignore God in Christ as a personal being for them (most people say there is a God). Stop what you’re doing and pray over the implications of that for church folks.
Meanwhile back in Egypt, the chapter ends bleakly. There is a response from God to begin the next chapter. Some editors make no paragraph break between chapters 5 and 6 to move right on to the Lord’s response. But I think we’ll stop here and wait for the response, just because that so often is our real experience: No answer to our questions or cries for a long time. But we do have one another as “little Christs.”
Prayer:
God, let me be Christ for someone today. In Him. Amen.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Leadership and Interdependence
Exodus 4:18-31
If you find much of this passage confusing, you have lots of company. Verses 24-26 are especially perplexing. Why would the Lord attack Moses, whom he has just gone to great lengths to commission? The best sense of these verses seems to come in seeing the incident as preserved to underscore the importance of circumcision – probably as a matter of identity and survival amidst other people, a practice apparently already well established in Israel. Moses’ offense was one of omission concerning his son. Zipporah corrected the situation and saved Moses. That’s the best sense that seems to be made of it.
Then Aaron enters the picture. His role has been anticipated in the call to Moses and Moses’ excuses. Once Aaron and Moses meet, the action accelerates. There is a meeting of elders, a giving of signs in the desert – curiously enough, performed by Aaron along with the speaking, going beyond the role we were given to anticipate. The result was that the people believed and worshiped.
Prayer:
God, if one we look to as a a great leader had so many people helping him and with whom he had such interdependence, what does that say about my receptiveness to others in my life and work and those I will meet up with this day? In Christ. Amen.
If you find much of this passage confusing, you have lots of company. Verses 24-26 are especially perplexing. Why would the Lord attack Moses, whom he has just gone to great lengths to commission? The best sense of these verses seems to come in seeing the incident as preserved to underscore the importance of circumcision – probably as a matter of identity and survival amidst other people, a practice apparently already well established in Israel. Moses’ offense was one of omission concerning his son. Zipporah corrected the situation and saved Moses. That’s the best sense that seems to be made of it.
Then Aaron enters the picture. His role has been anticipated in the call to Moses and Moses’ excuses. Once Aaron and Moses meet, the action accelerates. There is a meeting of elders, a giving of signs in the desert – curiously enough, performed by Aaron along with the speaking, going beyond the role we were given to anticipate. The result was that the people believed and worshiped.
Prayer:
God, if one we look to as a a great leader had so many people helping him and with whom he had such interdependence, what does that say about my receptiveness to others in my life and work and those I will meet up with this day? In Christ. Amen.
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Excuse Slayer
Exodus 4:1-17
After all that anticipating of obstacles and how the Lord will overcome them, Moses goes right back to the start and asks, “What if they don’t believe me?” After some demonstration of the power that will be with him (verses 2-9), and even help to speak (verses 11-12), this after God’s demonstration of intervening power in the burning bush and commitment to be with him, Moses asks God to get someone else. The seriousness of this (even though we can relate to it) is that he is not just saying he (Moses) isn’t up to it; he is effectively saying that God isn’t up to it. So the divine exasperation that comes isn’t really all that surprising. And the Lord says, look, you don’t even have to talk. Take Aaron to talk for you.
Moses has run out of excuses. It’s time for action.
Prayer:
God, forgive us for wavering when your will is clear. We worry over what will happen about this and how so-and-so will react to that; when we can’t see the future anyway. But your purpose is clear. Your direction is unavoidable. Your church’s mandate is unequivocal. In following this is real love. Moses’ life was not his, his voice was not his, his power was not his; and none of those things in us are ours either. Let us be directed by your Word and Spirit, let our conversation centre around and be fuelled by them; let us leave all personal and power games behind which impede us; that your power and purpose may flow freely through your willing and humble servants. Through Christ. Amen.
After all that anticipating of obstacles and how the Lord will overcome them, Moses goes right back to the start and asks, “What if they don’t believe me?” After some demonstration of the power that will be with him (verses 2-9), and even help to speak (verses 11-12), this after God’s demonstration of intervening power in the burning bush and commitment to be with him, Moses asks God to get someone else. The seriousness of this (even though we can relate to it) is that he is not just saying he (Moses) isn’t up to it; he is effectively saying that God isn’t up to it. So the divine exasperation that comes isn’t really all that surprising. And the Lord says, look, you don’t even have to talk. Take Aaron to talk for you.
Moses has run out of excuses. It’s time for action.
Prayer:
God, forgive us for wavering when your will is clear. We worry over what will happen about this and how so-and-so will react to that; when we can’t see the future anyway. But your purpose is clear. Your direction is unavoidable. Your church’s mandate is unequivocal. In following this is real love. Moses’ life was not his, his voice was not his, his power was not his; and none of those things in us are ours either. Let us be directed by your Word and Spirit, let our conversation centre around and be fuelled by them; let us leave all personal and power games behind which impede us; that your power and purpose may flow freely through your willing and humble servants. Through Christ. Amen.
Monday, March 19, 2007
What's Ahead
Exodus 3:16-22
The Lord anticipates every problem Moses will face, and provides an answer in advance. He tells Moses what to tell the people, assuring him that the elders of the people will listen to him. They will accompany him to the pharaoh. And although the pharaoh will not let the people go willingly, a mighty hand will force the issue, and people among the Egyptians will actually help them.
God knows for each of us what is ahead, and already has an answer for every problem we will face. And yet our answer to that – if and when we aware of such grace – is more often than not like the answer of Moses that will start tomorrow’s reading.
Prayer:
Lord, help me see every problem and challenge as a means for growth. Remind me of this when I worry about what will become of my kids, or some other loved one. Remind of this when I worry about material provision. Remind of this when I think of possible health issues. Remind us of this when we see a world in turmoil. When will we listen? Through Christ. Amen.
The Lord anticipates every problem Moses will face, and provides an answer in advance. He tells Moses what to tell the people, assuring him that the elders of the people will listen to him. They will accompany him to the pharaoh. And although the pharaoh will not let the people go willingly, a mighty hand will force the issue, and people among the Egyptians will actually help them.
God knows for each of us what is ahead, and already has an answer for every problem we will face. And yet our answer to that – if and when we aware of such grace – is more often than not like the answer of Moses that will start tomorrow’s reading.
Prayer:
Lord, help me see every problem and challenge as a means for growth. Remind me of this when I worry about what will become of my kids, or some other loved one. Remind of this when I worry about material provision. Remind of this when I think of possible health issues. Remind us of this when we see a world in turmoil. When will we listen? Through Christ. Amen.
Friday, March 16, 2007
The God of Real Answers
Exodus 3:13-15
The question in verse 13 is one we might be inclined to see as one Moses grasps at in a series of frantic objections to doing what he is asked to do. Does he really think the people will ask this? God, whatever might be happening in Moses’ mind and heart, takes the question seriously.
God first gives an answer that is directly for Moses, saying, “I will be who I will be” (‘ehyeh-yahweh’). This is God’s way of declining to be pinned down. But it really is an answer. God does not talk in circles. God says he will be known along the way. The answer also indicates that the character to be found in God will be consistent with the present revelation, in the burning bush: He will always be miraculously available; i.e., he will always enable breaking from a restrictive past in order to make possible a redemptive future.
God in his grace then provides, in the second half of verse 14, an answer that really is to be given to the people: tell them “I AM has sent me to you.” This enfolds together the promise of God’s empowering presence together with the agency of Moses. For his part, Moses can only do what he is empowered by God to do, but it is God who empowers him because of God’s purpose worked out through his humanity.
Prayer:
God, the next time someone asks what I think is a stupid question, remind me of your own gracious, creative, people-building way of responding to anything. Through Christ, who was pretty good at that too. Amen.
The question in verse 13 is one we might be inclined to see as one Moses grasps at in a series of frantic objections to doing what he is asked to do. Does he really think the people will ask this? God, whatever might be happening in Moses’ mind and heart, takes the question seriously.
God first gives an answer that is directly for Moses, saying, “I will be who I will be” (‘ehyeh-yahweh’). This is God’s way of declining to be pinned down. But it really is an answer. God does not talk in circles. God says he will be known along the way. The answer also indicates that the character to be found in God will be consistent with the present revelation, in the burning bush: He will always be miraculously available; i.e., he will always enable breaking from a restrictive past in order to make possible a redemptive future.
God in his grace then provides, in the second half of verse 14, an answer that really is to be given to the people: tell them “I AM has sent me to you.” This enfolds together the promise of God’s empowering presence together with the agency of Moses. For his part, Moses can only do what he is empowered by God to do, but it is God who empowers him because of God’s purpose worked out through his humanity.
Prayer:
God, the next time someone asks what I think is a stupid question, remind me of your own gracious, creative, people-building way of responding to anything. Through Christ, who was pretty good at that too. Amen.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
And Yet Not Consumed
Exodus 3:1-12
Moses is shepherding the flock of his father-in-law as usual. What started out as a day doing the same old same old turned out to be something extraordinary.
The experience of the burning bush must not be reduced to psychological phenomenon. God heard and intervened in a decisive way, working through an individual to break a whole people from their past, with a new birth in mind. In keeping with calls to prophets to come, however, Moses is not merely a mouthpiece. God will both use and transform his person and character in the course of working through him. We should note this process for ourselves, since he still works the same way, even if the cause is not so spectacular for each of us.
Note also that God takes each objection Moses makes seriously. Beyond that is a promise and a sign (verse 12). The promise is that God will be with them, and that the people will worship him where the present sign, the burning bush that is not consumed, is given: a great wonder indicating the holiness and enduring presence of God (also providing the logo for the Presbyterian Church in Canada).
Prayer:
The purpose and power are from you, but you honour us by using the way you have made us for your purposes and extending your power. And where individually we are lacking you provide us with others with those gifts so we will work together. Make us watchful for your intervention in our time and place, so that in a personal way we can break from some painful, restrictive way we may have been experiencing, to new freedom and power for living in you. Through Christ. Amen.
Moses is shepherding the flock of his father-in-law as usual. What started out as a day doing the same old same old turned out to be something extraordinary.
The experience of the burning bush must not be reduced to psychological phenomenon. God heard and intervened in a decisive way, working through an individual to break a whole people from their past, with a new birth in mind. In keeping with calls to prophets to come, however, Moses is not merely a mouthpiece. God will both use and transform his person and character in the course of working through him. We should note this process for ourselves, since he still works the same way, even if the cause is not so spectacular for each of us.
Note also that God takes each objection Moses makes seriously. Beyond that is a promise and a sign (verse 12). The promise is that God will be with them, and that the people will worship him where the present sign, the burning bush that is not consumed, is given: a great wonder indicating the holiness and enduring presence of God (also providing the logo for the Presbyterian Church in Canada).
Prayer:
The purpose and power are from you, but you honour us by using the way you have made us for your purposes and extending your power. And where individually we are lacking you provide us with others with those gifts so we will work together. Make us watchful for your intervention in our time and place, so that in a personal way we can break from some painful, restrictive way we may have been experiencing, to new freedom and power for living in you. Through Christ. Amen.
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Justice Training
Exodus 2:11-25
Moses found his effectiveness to do good (stop a fight between two Hebrews) compromised by his own action in murdering – by stealth – an Egyptian. As Moses feared, his offense was known. He fled.
In a new setting Moses once again witnesses an injustice. This time his reaction to correct this does not get out of hand, apparently, although we are not told the details of the event by the well.
In the first setting Moses is acting as a Hebrew against an Egyptian. Then there is the incident with the fellow Hebrews, although they probably don’t see him as fully one of them. Now Moses is perceived as an Egyptian and is involved with people who are neither Egyptian nor Hebrew. What I find especially intriguing in all this is that he has to flee from the setting where, like Joseph before him, he has a kind of dual citizenship. Then that is all flipped: In the region where he has no family or national ties he finds a home. Tying it together is his concern for justice.
Especially with the comments that then come in verses 23-25 about the change in king, God noticing the cries of the people and remembering his promise to the fathers of Israel, you get the sense a stage is being set for something big coming.
Prayer:
God, you work even through our imperfections and outright rebellion. But what is wrong is not made good by your bringing good through it. Conform me more and more to your good in the first place, so you can work all the more through me. Through Christ. Amen.
Moses found his effectiveness to do good (stop a fight between two Hebrews) compromised by his own action in murdering – by stealth – an Egyptian. As Moses feared, his offense was known. He fled.
In a new setting Moses once again witnesses an injustice. This time his reaction to correct this does not get out of hand, apparently, although we are not told the details of the event by the well.
In the first setting Moses is acting as a Hebrew against an Egyptian. Then there is the incident with the fellow Hebrews, although they probably don’t see him as fully one of them. Now Moses is perceived as an Egyptian and is involved with people who are neither Egyptian nor Hebrew. What I find especially intriguing in all this is that he has to flee from the setting where, like Joseph before him, he has a kind of dual citizenship. Then that is all flipped: In the region where he has no family or national ties he finds a home. Tying it together is his concern for justice.
Especially with the comments that then come in verses 23-25 about the change in king, God noticing the cries of the people and remembering his promise to the fathers of Israel, you get the sense a stage is being set for something big coming.
Prayer:
God, you work even through our imperfections and outright rebellion. But what is wrong is not made good by your bringing good through it. Conform me more and more to your good in the first place, so you can work all the more through me. Through Christ. Amen.
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Grass Roots Grace
Exodus 2:1-10
The role of the sister is especially touching. We can’t be certain what the specific hope was in placing the baby in the basket, but the concern for his well-being was certainly expressed in and through his sister. Then she appears at the side of the princess, suggesting for the baby a Hebrew nurse, who just happens to turn out to be the mother. The mother will even get paid to look after her own son! How sweet is that?
The gracious disposition of the Egyptian princess, the love of the family, the actions of the sister; they all add up to grace and love in the midst of official suspicion and oppression.
Prayer:
Lord, may we experience and notice, in this day, something of the grace that is to be found at the bulrushes-roots level, in the midst of a surrounding environment of seemingly overwhelming powers. Through Christ. Amen.
The role of the sister is especially touching. We can’t be certain what the specific hope was in placing the baby in the basket, but the concern for his well-being was certainly expressed in and through his sister. Then she appears at the side of the princess, suggesting for the baby a Hebrew nurse, who just happens to turn out to be the mother. The mother will even get paid to look after her own son! How sweet is that?
The gracious disposition of the Egyptian princess, the love of the family, the actions of the sister; they all add up to grace and love in the midst of official suspicion and oppression.
Prayer:
Lord, may we experience and notice, in this day, something of the grace that is to be found at the bulrushes-roots level, in the midst of a surrounding environment of seemingly overwhelming powers. Through Christ. Amen.
Monday, March 12, 2007
Not So Shrewd
Exodus 1
The opening of Exodus includes very quickly a transition from a shift of focus from the promise of God through a family (Genesis) to the promise of God through a nation (verse 7). That sets the stage for the pitting of a people called by God against the power of empire. That this becomes a matter of conflict stems entirely from the empire side. There is no threat to Egypt from the Hebrews except in the mind of the Pharaoh. All that Pharaoh indicates as danger from the Hebrews is hypothetical: “What if?” When he solicits those around him to join together in dealing “shrewdly” with them, it would seem laughable if the measures then taken did not have such tragic effect. Such is obsession with power, control, and what the mind does when those things are perceived to be threatened. The Pharaoh looks even more foolish when he swallows the story of the midwives as to why the males are surviving birth. But then he just gets bolder and nastier.
A hint that God’s plan for good for and through his people will prevail through all that is to come is given in the real reason why the males survived birth in spite of the Pharaoh’s first plan: “The midwives, however, feared God …” (verse 17).
Prayer:
Lord, we confess that in our lives, work, relationships, organizations: scheming is everywhere. Most of it probably comes from imagined threats to authority that isn’t ours anyway; it’s all yours. Make us secure in you. Your plans will prevail with or without what we arrange. Let us do things your way, and know real hope. Through Christ, the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Amen.
The opening of Exodus includes very quickly a transition from a shift of focus from the promise of God through a family (Genesis) to the promise of God through a nation (verse 7). That sets the stage for the pitting of a people called by God against the power of empire. That this becomes a matter of conflict stems entirely from the empire side. There is no threat to Egypt from the Hebrews except in the mind of the Pharaoh. All that Pharaoh indicates as danger from the Hebrews is hypothetical: “What if?” When he solicits those around him to join together in dealing “shrewdly” with them, it would seem laughable if the measures then taken did not have such tragic effect. Such is obsession with power, control, and what the mind does when those things are perceived to be threatened. The Pharaoh looks even more foolish when he swallows the story of the midwives as to why the males are surviving birth. But then he just gets bolder and nastier.
A hint that God’s plan for good for and through his people will prevail through all that is to come is given in the real reason why the males survived birth in spite of the Pharaoh’s first plan: “The midwives, however, feared God …” (verse 17).
Prayer:
Lord, we confess that in our lives, work, relationships, organizations: scheming is everywhere. Most of it probably comes from imagined threats to authority that isn’t ours anyway; it’s all yours. Make us secure in you. Your plans will prevail with or without what we arrange. Let us do things your way, and know real hope. Through Christ, the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Amen.
Saturday, February 24, 2007
The Visitor
Genesis 50:22-26
We began our journey through Genesis with the privilege of witnessing God making a place for humanity, with direction to fill the earth and exercise stewardship on earth as God’s representatives. Even the ‘punishment’ ensuing from the Babel episode, then, was a fulfilling of what God had in mind for humanity anyway. Eden was lost primarily in the heart, manifesting itself in a restlessness nothing in this world can fully relieve.
God took that restless human and turned the restlessness into a quest for a further place, a promise of land to settle, and descendants who would be as the stars in the sky. But that energy was never entirely focused on God’s direction and manifested itself in struggles fueled by concerns about pecking order.
But God just kept the promise going in ways our human judgement would never predict, or ever approve of, preferring the younger one to bear the promise, and then arranging through strange dreams to send a people-in-the-making off to another land with its own god-king, as a staging ground for its birth.
Genesis gave birth to a world, but so far Scripture has described only a gestation period for a people meant to bear the blessing of creation to the world. Now the book concludes with talk of God coming to visit his people. God’s Spirit visited the watery chaos and brought life. God will bring a new creation out of the womb of Egypt, through the waters of the Nile and the Red Sea.
The books of the Hebrew Bible are filled, as they progress, with talk of one who will yet visit Israel to take the people to a new level of life. God, as usual, did the unusual, and brought not an 'older brother' type of leader, but one despised.
It is my experience (as pastor of three different charges, interim-moderator over extended periods of numerous churches, Presbytery visitor numbers of times, member and convener of various special teams and committees, intern in a large congregation, and growing up in another, all of this over a period of four decades - well ok more counting the growing up) that the community of faith persists in acting and expecting as the people of God always seem to have acted and expected: that our faith-life should follow familiar patterns and worldly paradigms. But we’re in good company. It seems no people of God ever has got it. The disciples spent three years with Jesus and didn’t get it. So I’m not saying this to be ‘negative’ or to get us to beat ourselves up. It just points out all the more that we need to welcome God’s transforming power even as he uses us as instruments of transformation (ever really think about that word: trans-formation?)
Scripture ends as Genesis ends, with an invitation for God to visit. God has shown repeatedly that the one who fulfills his purpose will not be as we expect him/her to be.
My greatest dream for our church is that we would be happy, excited, delirious with joy to welcome in advance that over which we have absolutely no control, no say, no power except to say, raising our hands and eyes and lifting our hearts in utter expectancy, “Come, Lord Jesus.”
Prayer:
Come, Lord Jesus.
The foregoing will be the last Open Journal posting as we have known Open Journal. Open Journal will continue on an occasional basis. For my personal reading I’m going to keep on reading through the whole Bible. I will make occasional posts reflecting on fairly broad swaths of that reading (but be assured I won't copy all that Biblical text into the emailed version!)
Meanwhile, I have in formation a new internet offering that will be intended primarily as a basic online course on the Bible. You may be able to help me decide just what kind of format that will follow: Organized according to topic? Bible book at a time? I don’t know yet. Also my great hope would be to somehow draw totally unchurched people to this. One of the flaws of Open Journal in this regard is it has at times been rather academic, but then I have simply billed it as a sharing of personal study and devotional time and nothing more. I will also need to more disciplined in the timing of offerings of the thing. This new thing I would love to be a beginning of an inquiry that might lead to Alpha, or a temporary small group (on the ‘try before you buy’ principle), or even a sampling of worship. So that means also some strategy is needed for getting it ‘out there’ – to friends or family you may think of, maybe we could even put some enticing little ads in the paper.
Anyway, before ‘launch’ (aiming for Easter), I want to be very clear on the purpose, immediate goals, and ‘how’ of this. So I what I have in mind is to start it on a test-group basis with you, my Open Journal friends, and then reshape it or even rethink it with the help of your feedback, if you are willing.
So I’ll be taking a break from this form of ministry for a little season as I seek to grow this idea, but watch for the occasional posting on Exodus and beyond, with notification of same in your inbox.
Jim
We began our journey through Genesis with the privilege of witnessing God making a place for humanity, with direction to fill the earth and exercise stewardship on earth as God’s representatives. Even the ‘punishment’ ensuing from the Babel episode, then, was a fulfilling of what God had in mind for humanity anyway. Eden was lost primarily in the heart, manifesting itself in a restlessness nothing in this world can fully relieve.
God took that restless human and turned the restlessness into a quest for a further place, a promise of land to settle, and descendants who would be as the stars in the sky. But that energy was never entirely focused on God’s direction and manifested itself in struggles fueled by concerns about pecking order.
But God just kept the promise going in ways our human judgement would never predict, or ever approve of, preferring the younger one to bear the promise, and then arranging through strange dreams to send a people-in-the-making off to another land with its own god-king, as a staging ground for its birth.
Genesis gave birth to a world, but so far Scripture has described only a gestation period for a people meant to bear the blessing of creation to the world. Now the book concludes with talk of God coming to visit his people. God’s Spirit visited the watery chaos and brought life. God will bring a new creation out of the womb of Egypt, through the waters of the Nile and the Red Sea.
The books of the Hebrew Bible are filled, as they progress, with talk of one who will yet visit Israel to take the people to a new level of life. God, as usual, did the unusual, and brought not an 'older brother' type of leader, but one despised.
It is my experience (as pastor of three different charges, interim-moderator over extended periods of numerous churches, Presbytery visitor numbers of times, member and convener of various special teams and committees, intern in a large congregation, and growing up in another, all of this over a period of four decades - well ok more counting the growing up) that the community of faith persists in acting and expecting as the people of God always seem to have acted and expected: that our faith-life should follow familiar patterns and worldly paradigms. But we’re in good company. It seems no people of God ever has got it. The disciples spent three years with Jesus and didn’t get it. So I’m not saying this to be ‘negative’ or to get us to beat ourselves up. It just points out all the more that we need to welcome God’s transforming power even as he uses us as instruments of transformation (ever really think about that word: trans-formation?)
Scripture ends as Genesis ends, with an invitation for God to visit. God has shown repeatedly that the one who fulfills his purpose will not be as we expect him/her to be.
My greatest dream for our church is that we would be happy, excited, delirious with joy to welcome in advance that over which we have absolutely no control, no say, no power except to say, raising our hands and eyes and lifting our hearts in utter expectancy, “Come, Lord Jesus.”
Prayer:
Come, Lord Jesus.
The foregoing will be the last Open Journal posting as we have known Open Journal. Open Journal will continue on an occasional basis. For my personal reading I’m going to keep on reading through the whole Bible. I will make occasional posts reflecting on fairly broad swaths of that reading (but be assured I won't copy all that Biblical text into the emailed version!)
Meanwhile, I have in formation a new internet offering that will be intended primarily as a basic online course on the Bible. You may be able to help me decide just what kind of format that will follow: Organized according to topic? Bible book at a time? I don’t know yet. Also my great hope would be to somehow draw totally unchurched people to this. One of the flaws of Open Journal in this regard is it has at times been rather academic, but then I have simply billed it as a sharing of personal study and devotional time and nothing more. I will also need to more disciplined in the timing of offerings of the thing. This new thing I would love to be a beginning of an inquiry that might lead to Alpha, or a temporary small group (on the ‘try before you buy’ principle), or even a sampling of worship. So that means also some strategy is needed for getting it ‘out there’ – to friends or family you may think of, maybe we could even put some enticing little ads in the paper.
Anyway, before ‘launch’ (aiming for Easter), I want to be very clear on the purpose, immediate goals, and ‘how’ of this. So I what I have in mind is to start it on a test-group basis with you, my Open Journal friends, and then reshape it or even rethink it with the help of your feedback, if you are willing.
So I’ll be taking a break from this form of ministry for a little season as I seek to grow this idea, but watch for the occasional posting on Exodus and beyond, with notification of same in your inbox.
Jim
Thursday, February 22, 2007
It's Still Difficult
Genesis 50:15-21
Joseph has already assured his brothers that they have nothing to fear from him, that God was at work in their plans. With Jacob gone, however, they imagine the worst. Guilt does that kind of thing.
In the course of that little drama being played out before Joseph, the dream that started all this finds the other end of the arc over the whole story. The brothers throw themselves down before Joseph (recall 37:5-11).
The evoking of the dream controlling the narrative also points to the resolution of the guilt question. The one who was wronged has the power to grant the forgiveness, but Joseph isn’t interested in that power; he points to God. Joseph doesn’t want to dwell on the guilt at all, nor to the dream as something to lord over them. They are all part of God’s dream, God’s plan. The question running through the whole saga is whether there will be death or there will be life. God has shown he is for life.
A kind of footnote question: But why is it all so hard? That remains a real question for those who believe in God’s plan in things, and believe they are participating in God’s vision for things, but find the way difficult to the point of utter discouragement. I would not provide an explanation; that is beyond me, and I struggle with this myself. So together we would just keep returning to what we find in God’s story. Within that story, the Joseph story is filled with pain, but there is this over-arching, controlling dream.
I would say it is still the case that without the dream, the pain would indeed be unbearable. But without the pain, the dream would run the risk of being romanticized and we would lose the capacity to connect with the world we are called to reach.
We live a dream, not a fairy tale.
Prayer:
God, let us minister to one another in the reality of this journey, trusting in the dream you share with us, which is bigger than our frustrations, worries, and way bigger than the guilt that debilitates - either ours or what we impute to others. You are able, and you make us able. Through Christ. Amen.
Tomorrow: The conclusion of our walk through Genesis, and some thoughts about what’s next.
Joseph has already assured his brothers that they have nothing to fear from him, that God was at work in their plans. With Jacob gone, however, they imagine the worst. Guilt does that kind of thing.
In the course of that little drama being played out before Joseph, the dream that started all this finds the other end of the arc over the whole story. The brothers throw themselves down before Joseph (recall 37:5-11).
The evoking of the dream controlling the narrative also points to the resolution of the guilt question. The one who was wronged has the power to grant the forgiveness, but Joseph isn’t interested in that power; he points to God. Joseph doesn’t want to dwell on the guilt at all, nor to the dream as something to lord over them. They are all part of God’s dream, God’s plan. The question running through the whole saga is whether there will be death or there will be life. God has shown he is for life.
A kind of footnote question: But why is it all so hard? That remains a real question for those who believe in God’s plan in things, and believe they are participating in God’s vision for things, but find the way difficult to the point of utter discouragement. I would not provide an explanation; that is beyond me, and I struggle with this myself. So together we would just keep returning to what we find in God’s story. Within that story, the Joseph story is filled with pain, but there is this over-arching, controlling dream.
I would say it is still the case that without the dream, the pain would indeed be unbearable. But without the pain, the dream would run the risk of being romanticized and we would lose the capacity to connect with the world we are called to reach.
We live a dream, not a fairy tale.
Prayer:
God, let us minister to one another in the reality of this journey, trusting in the dream you share with us, which is bigger than our frustrations, worries, and way bigger than the guilt that debilitates - either ours or what we impute to others. You are able, and you make us able. Through Christ. Amen.
Tomorrow: The conclusion of our walk through Genesis, and some thoughts about what’s next.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
The Shore
Genesis 50:1-14
There is something about the meeting of elements: wind, sky, land and water is probably the most common combination we are drawn to. I suppose skiiers feel the same thing in a different way. There is no doubt an insane exhilaration in being on a mountaintop.
A human meeting of elements can be just as exciting, moving – and risky. Marriage of opposites is potentially a rocky road but can work well (I like what Rick Warren says: If two people were the same one of them wouldn’t be necessary).
Israel and Egypt: apparent opposites. But consider this: How feasible would the long journey with Jacob’s body have been without the very long and thorough Egyptian embalming process? The Egyptian mourning period afforded Jacob the mourning of a king that his place in history warranted.
Does God not give us a basis for hope when there are apparently opposing elements: Jew and Arab, Christian and Muslim, straight and gay, white, yellow, brown, black – whatever? It could even be dynamic.
Prayer:
Transform our minds and hearts, Lord, to set aside any baggage of assumptions and live truly open to the working of your Holy Spirit, who gives birth to new things, new life, and new relationships. Through Christ. Amen.
There is something about the meeting of elements: wind, sky, land and water is probably the most common combination we are drawn to. I suppose skiiers feel the same thing in a different way. There is no doubt an insane exhilaration in being on a mountaintop.
A human meeting of elements can be just as exciting, moving – and risky. Marriage of opposites is potentially a rocky road but can work well (I like what Rick Warren says: If two people were the same one of them wouldn’t be necessary).
Israel and Egypt: apparent opposites. But consider this: How feasible would the long journey with Jacob’s body have been without the very long and thorough Egyptian embalming process? The Egyptian mourning period afforded Jacob the mourning of a king that his place in history warranted.
Does God not give us a basis for hope when there are apparently opposing elements: Jew and Arab, Christian and Muslim, straight and gay, white, yellow, brown, black – whatever? It could even be dynamic.
Prayer:
Transform our minds and hearts, Lord, to set aside any baggage of assumptions and live truly open to the working of your Holy Spirit, who gives birth to new things, new life, and new relationships. Through Christ. Amen.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
I Gather
Genesis 49:29-33
I love the phrase, “Gathered to his/my people.” But there is something I find very curious here. There is probably some very simple explanation for this that some Bible scholar out there can explain for me, but how is one person “gathered”? If I’m going to my small group I don’t say I am going to be “gathered” to my friends. I would say, maybe, that we are going to be gathered. What does it mean for one person to be gathered to others? Never thought of this before, and like I suggest above maybe I’m making too much of it. Is it somehow an expression of our being made in God’s image as social beings? What do you think?
Prayer:
God, thank you for making us for friendship with you and one another. Thank you for questions you plant in our hearts that give us opportunity to grow in our understanding, and to grow together. Through Christ. Amen.
I love the phrase, “Gathered to his/my people.” But there is something I find very curious here. There is probably some very simple explanation for this that some Bible scholar out there can explain for me, but how is one person “gathered”? If I’m going to my small group I don’t say I am going to be “gathered” to my friends. I would say, maybe, that we are going to be gathered. What does it mean for one person to be gathered to others? Never thought of this before, and like I suggest above maybe I’m making too much of it. Is it somehow an expression of our being made in God’s image as social beings? What do you think?
Prayer:
God, thank you for making us for friendship with you and one another. Thank you for questions you plant in our hearts that give us opportunity to grow in our understanding, and to grow together. Through Christ. Amen.
Thursday, February 15, 2007
History Channel
Genesis 49:1-28
Such a mixture of destines is pronounced here. That is, until we arrive at Joseph. Then the language is reminiscent of the beginning of Genesis, especially verse 25. The power and beauty and purpose of creation (community), is brought to bear in and through God’s chosen bearer of dream and promise.
Can we see in this a form of a later community, called the church? Such a mixture of stories and characters and glorious and inglorious faithful witness and silly turfiism. And yet God chooses and causes his power of creation and recreation to be worked through us.
Prayer:
Refine this vessel, Lord. Amen.
Such a mixture of destines is pronounced here. That is, until we arrive at Joseph. Then the language is reminiscent of the beginning of Genesis, especially verse 25. The power and beauty and purpose of creation (community), is brought to bear in and through God’s chosen bearer of dream and promise.
Can we see in this a form of a later community, called the church? Such a mixture of stories and characters and glorious and inglorious faithful witness and silly turfiism. And yet God chooses and causes his power of creation and recreation to be worked through us.
Prayer:
Refine this vessel, Lord. Amen.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Pattern Breaker
Genesis 48
Like love, trust is a decision, a decision we have to renew regularly under constantly changing circumstances. Each new generation must decide to trust in the promise. In our era, the general promise is that Jesus will be with us as we seek to fulfill the mission he called his own (to seek the lost) and which he passes on to us. One generation’s means of doing that may, or may not, draw on the means that have gone before; it all depends on the time. That’s all that contemporary really means: of the time you’re in. I avoid the word because it has come to have connotations of specific style, especially as it applies to worship.
But anyway, back to trust as a decision. Both the inclusion of Joseph’s sons as sons of Jacob for inclusion in the promise, and the seemingly arbitrary reversal of blessing on them by Jacob are acts of randomly applied grace. The switching of blessing is of course reminiscent of the story in which Jacob is the recipient of the ‘wrong’ choice, but this is more than an echo, in what way we can’t really say. The text itself suggests no reason for the switch and we are probably best to keep our speculative paws off. The fact we don’t know the reason may be part of the meaning. The one thing we might surmise is simply that it is a divinely directed choice.
Just when a new pattern of life would seem to be in formation, God shows that he is ready to shake things up again. Like love, trust is a decision, a decision we have to renew regularly under constantly changing circumstances.
Prayer:
Lord, thank you that you give me the means to understand what I need to understand, and confuse me in the matters that are best left to trust. Thank you for the side of this we might more readily welcome: that you want to break patterns of living that waste and destroy. Through Christ. Amen.
Like love, trust is a decision, a decision we have to renew regularly under constantly changing circumstances. Each new generation must decide to trust in the promise. In our era, the general promise is that Jesus will be with us as we seek to fulfill the mission he called his own (to seek the lost) and which he passes on to us. One generation’s means of doing that may, or may not, draw on the means that have gone before; it all depends on the time. That’s all that contemporary really means: of the time you’re in. I avoid the word because it has come to have connotations of specific style, especially as it applies to worship.
But anyway, back to trust as a decision. Both the inclusion of Joseph’s sons as sons of Jacob for inclusion in the promise, and the seemingly arbitrary reversal of blessing on them by Jacob are acts of randomly applied grace. The switching of blessing is of course reminiscent of the story in which Jacob is the recipient of the ‘wrong’ choice, but this is more than an echo, in what way we can’t really say. The text itself suggests no reason for the switch and we are probably best to keep our speculative paws off. The fact we don’t know the reason may be part of the meaning. The one thing we might surmise is simply that it is a divinely directed choice.
Just when a new pattern of life would seem to be in formation, God shows that he is ready to shake things up again. Like love, trust is a decision, a decision we have to renew regularly under constantly changing circumstances.
Prayer:
Lord, thank you that you give me the means to understand what I need to understand, and confuse me in the matters that are best left to trust. Thank you for the side of this we might more readily welcome: that you want to break patterns of living that waste and destroy. Through Christ. Amen.
Monday, February 12, 2007
Grammies for Pilgrims
Genesis 47:27-31
“Home.” Say it out loud. For most of us it feels good just to say it. You could use it for a meditative chant. It’s the place you go back to. I know that’s not a positive association for many people who have suffered abuse where they should have experienced only love, but for Jacob it is a good word.
It’s worth noting that within these few verses we move from “Jacob” to “Israel.” Israel is the name Jacob was given along with the dream at Bethel. While it might not seem to us to matter what would happen with his body after he died, for him it must have been important to know that the representation of his bodily life would be going back to where heaven and earth connected, and he was given that new name that would also be the name of the people. We are maybe to see that the whole Joseph story – as romanticized as it has been – falls within the Jacob story.
Maybe his burial back home is kind of compass point for the nation in Egypt that is Israel but not yet known as such, even to themselves. Just a point to ponder: Maybe when God gives us a vision to follow he plants (buries) little compass points for us ahead of us that it’s our job to discover. We have no idea what they are no matter how much (as we need to) we plan. But we’ll know them when we find them. Following a vision is like a treasure hunt. No, that doesn’t mean when the people get back to Promised Land they’ll go dig up ol’ Jacob. It does mean his years of pilgrimage are lived by his descendants in their own down to earth, make-a-difference-in-the-world way, and God doesn’t leave us without prizes to excite us and encourage us along the way.
Prayer:
God you give us such an amazing journey. It’s so sad we get caught up in some of things we do. Keep our vision pure, and our journey focused on what you place before us. Through Christ. Amen.
“Home.” Say it out loud. For most of us it feels good just to say it. You could use it for a meditative chant. It’s the place you go back to. I know that’s not a positive association for many people who have suffered abuse where they should have experienced only love, but for Jacob it is a good word.
It’s worth noting that within these few verses we move from “Jacob” to “Israel.” Israel is the name Jacob was given along with the dream at Bethel. While it might not seem to us to matter what would happen with his body after he died, for him it must have been important to know that the representation of his bodily life would be going back to where heaven and earth connected, and he was given that new name that would also be the name of the people. We are maybe to see that the whole Joseph story – as romanticized as it has been – falls within the Jacob story.
Maybe his burial back home is kind of compass point for the nation in Egypt that is Israel but not yet known as such, even to themselves. Just a point to ponder: Maybe when God gives us a vision to follow he plants (buries) little compass points for us ahead of us that it’s our job to discover. We have no idea what they are no matter how much (as we need to) we plan. But we’ll know them when we find them. Following a vision is like a treasure hunt. No, that doesn’t mean when the people get back to Promised Land they’ll go dig up ol’ Jacob. It does mean his years of pilgrimage are lived by his descendants in their own down to earth, make-a-difference-in-the-world way, and God doesn’t leave us without prizes to excite us and encourage us along the way.
Prayer:
God you give us such an amazing journey. It’s so sad we get caught up in some of things we do. Keep our vision pure, and our journey focused on what you place before us. Through Christ. Amen.
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