Sunday, March 14, 2004

Pastor Elizabeth Macaulay

“What Does it Mean?”

Isaiah 55: 1-9

Exodus

One of my dearest friends in Duluth is the Rabbi at Temple Israel.

There is a folk teaching that says that in the beginnings of time, there were tribes who knew rhythms of living in healthy and grace filled ways. Harmony in community was lived and celebrated for generations.

Through some sort of tragedy, the tribes were splintered and people were dispersed throughout the world to find their way. The loneliness of living without the surrounding comfort of tribe became so great. Life since that time, the story teaches, has been a seeking of tribe members.

It is said that, untold generations later, when meeting a member of your long ago tribe, the sense of recognition is instantaneous.

Amy is a member of my tribe. We recognized each other instantly. She has blessed me greatly.

I went to worship at the synagogue one Friday night deep into fear and pain. The journey I was on felt so very frightening, and my sense of being too small, a so very inept God instrument, was so very large in my soul.

The text Amy spoke from on the night I was present in worship with her in the midst of her community was the story of freedom our youth told just now. As she told it, and as she preached, I felt the hand of the holy opening my heart to understand the account of the Exodus - the terrors and the promises of the road to freedom - in ways I had never understood in the deep places of my soul.

This story teaches me well my kinship with the Hebrew People. They too are my tribe. We share the same stories, all of us.

We are Moses, intent on dodging the power that is ours. We are so convinced of our own ineptitudes that when God breaks into our lives and calls us to be instruments of grace, we argue. Six days Moses argued with God about the fitness of his call. His excuse, among others, was this: he was not good at speaking. He was a stammerer.

Well, God wasn't interested in how it was Moses felt inadequate. I don't know that God is all that interested in how it was that we feel inadequate.

What we learn through this freedom story is that God teaches us yet that, in the words of Martin Buber, "It is laid upon the stammerers to bring the voice of Heaven to Earth".

The line from Lucy's play says it so very powerfully: if God really thinks we can do something, who are we to say that we can't?

The road to freedom is ours to travel. But we have to be willing to step out onto it.

One of the things that keep us from stepping out is our own sense of inadequacy.

Another is the fear of the unknown. We find ourselves in untenable situations. We know they are soul warping. We know that there is a better way. But because we resist change, even when we know it brings the promise of freedom, we stay stuck in Egypt.

We remain in slavery. To addictions, to abusive relationships, to our fear of the unknown.

We remain in slavery because we believe the voice of Pharaoh more than we believe the voice of God. Calling to us, we who thirst, to drink fully the life giving waters of God's vision for us.

I left temple that night feeling grateful that a foundational story of my faith acknowledged the power of fear. Fear of our own power. Fear of change. Fear of the unknown.

And, I left temple that night feeling grateful that a foundational story of my faith is that God enters into lives frozen by fear and oppression and injustice. God hears the cries of those enslaved; the Hebrew people, those bound by slavery of all sorts, and God acts

through stammerers and through inept feeling pastors and through carpenters from Nazareth and through each one of us.

God calls us. God remains with us and sustains us as we summon the courage to step out onto the road to freedom.

Amen