Freed to Follow - an exodus Journey Week 2

Sermon

Exodus Series

Pentecost 11A, Sunday August 28th, 2011.

Ocean Forest

Freed to Follow

Exodus 3: 1-15

There is a lot in a name. Once a person knows your name they know a lot about you. Maybe this is why we are reluctant to give our name to another person sometimes, especially in this world of special media and the like. You never know how your name is going to be used or abused. That’s the thing about our names, they are personal and our name is our reputation.

Our name is precious. It is important for our name to be thought of well by most people at least. It is a painful thing to have your name dragged through the mud, whether you deserve it or not.

Well, God is going to take a big risk in this very big moment in all of the Old Testament. This moment on the mountain with Moses is right up there with the creation of human beings in Genesis 1 and 2, and the giving of the promise to Abraham in Genesis 12.

God is going to act on his great compassion and concern for his people by giving them the greatest gift he could ever give to his fledgling chosen people – he is going to give his personal name, and thereby really give himself to his people in the most intimate of terms.


Things don’t go so well for our young leader Moses in his early 20’s. This man who was “drawn from the water” of the Nile, raised by his own mother, and yet raised undercover in the royal palace of the Pharaoh, somehow learns over time that he is not Egyptian, but one of the slave caste – a Hebrew.

He obviously identifies with these people of his and dives in at two levels. First he takes the life of an Egyptian to protect a fellow Hebrew who is being beaten to death probably. Then, when he sees two of his own Hebrew kin fighting, he tries to be their judge in the dispute. On both counts, Moses fails. The murder causes the Pharaoh to come after him and his people to disrespect him. The fighting fellow Hebrews dismiss his claim to be judge and arbiter over them. Moses, the chosen man has no authority to either judge his people of kill Egyptians.

The chosen one becomes the hunted one and has to head east across the vast deserts. In 11 words he shifts destiny, locality and status, and finally ends up sitting by a well way over on the Sinai Peninsular in Midian. Still acting without authority, he clears off some no-good shepherds trying to steal water from a Bedouin family of seven daughters at this well.

The father of the family takes in this “Egyptian” stranger and as payment, gives him one of his daughters in marriage, Zipporah – one who “tweets”. Maybe she had a twitter account!

The stranger in a strange land settled down to a life of shepherding, marriage and fatherhood of his son, Gershom, who, by his chosen name, “alien there”, is a constant reminder that his days as an Egyptian are over. He was always an alien in that place.

And now we get to that famous day when Moses the shepherd of sheep will receive the great gift of God and have his life radically altered as he “turns aside to see” this strange flaming bush that does not burn up, way up high on Mt Horeb.

God knows Moses and addresses him by name. “Moses, Moses”, God calls. It is all set up. God has got Moses where God wants Moses to be.

“Take those sandals off, Moses” says the Lord. This is a holy, special place. “Don’t come any closer either”. Surely an unholy person can not “see” God and live. Moses hides his face. God protects Moses. God’s intentions are good, not evil.

God identifies himself to Moses in the way that Moses would understand. “I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob – the God of your ancestors and your people in Egypt”.

This is the familiar way of knowing God, for a Hebrew man like Moses. From here on in the rest is unfamiliar and world changing….

Pharaoh’s daughter’s words come back at us from when she saw, heard and felt sorry for Moses in the ark in the Nile all those years before. God now sees and hears and feels the same for his people locked into slavery and forced service to Pharaoh and the gods of Egypt.


“I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering….”, and,

“Now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them”.

Well, that’s nice, I guess. It is nice that God cares about our suffering and bondage to various gods, but so what? What will he do about it? What can he do about our suffering, sin and slavery to idols?

Moses is the first to hear that God has a will to rescue and a plan to back it up.


8 So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites….. 10 So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”

Were you ever asked by your Mum or Dad or some other person to do a completely impossible task…like, travel back across hundred of kilometres of desert to the most powerful country in the world at this time; a country in which you are a known criminal, personally pursued by the top level people there and not respected by the people you do know….

….to simply tell the President of the country, who has absolute power and lives in a tradition of using that power for evil – like murdering thousands and thousands of babies by direct command, and relies on a huge ethnic minority to uphold his power and the nation’s prosperity, “Hey, Chief, let my people go”!?

• Like asking a man to talk about “feelings” for a whole hour!

• Like asking you or me to get on a plane tomorrow to Tibet to join a climbing team up Mt Everest

• Like asking a small group of Christians to evangelise a whole population of people among whom they live

• Like asking a parent to raise a perfect child who will never make mistakes or get things wrong.


This Call to Moses is completely impossible for Moses. He knows it and he responds with four reasons why God is asking way too much of him.

1. Who am I? asks Moses of God. Moses is saying he is nobody and incapable of such an impossible task. So really he says, “I am nobody”. “I can’t do this”. This is not surprising, given that he has already tried to help his people and he did not succeed in protecting one of them or bringing peace to two of them, before he was ejected from the country all those years ago.


2. The he asks the other obvious question of this crazy God: “Well, who are you? In other words, “How do I know you can do this impossible thing, anyway?”, or “What have you got that would show me that you have any authority and power to do this silly thing you’re asking of me?”


3. And for all of us who don’t like fighting with others or being made to look silly, Moses voices this question, What if I believe you but they don’t? To this objection God gives Moses a sign of his authority that will be at work through his words and deeds. Moses doesn’t need his own authority and power; he has God’s authority and power to get the job done.


4. Later on Moses also acknowledges his own shortcomings and uses that as a reason why he cannot do this. “I lack word skills”, he says. Maybe he stutters or just does not know the words he reckons he needs to know to match an Egyptian royal court.


5. Moses also does the old “transference of the problem onto someone else” trick by just saying, “Send someone else!”

We have to pause here. Can you hear your own voice saying these things to God?

“I am a nobody”

I can’t do it”

I can’t trust you, God.

I don’t know if you can do this

I know my weaknesses and they are too many and great to do this

Please send someone else to do this

For anyone who is now or ever has had these kind of conversations with God, hear him speak into our doubt and lack of faith as he did for Moses….

“Who am I?” “I am nobody” “I have no authority”

God says “I will be with you”

“Well, who are you?”

I just AM

What if they don’t believe me?

Not your concern, Moses. You don’t have to convince them, I will by my own ways – my authority and power.

“I lack skills and understanding”


I speak. I will give you the words and understanding you need on a daily basis as you go – not in advance.


I will also help you with those – I will give you colleagues and friends (Aaron, your brother, for instance……)

“Send someone else”


No, you are my person for this calling. I will get you the help you need in the community and I will give you my power and ability to fulfil this calling. You’re my chosen one for this.

You have to feel for Moses. God has him all set up. The burning bush; all the reasons why not covered. All his doubts taken care of. Moses really can only go one way – God’s way. He has been “shoulder tapped” by God and given quite amazing promises by God.

God is giving Moses his own authority and power to fulfil his humanly impossible task of setting people free from hard labour to idolatry and slavery. God is assuring Moses that his own intentions are very good – to rescue people from the fear of the world and the fear of “the gods” in which they now live.

But the greatest gift that Moses is receiving is not just for him. It is for all who follow in the faith of Moses.

14 God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites:

‘I AM has sent me to you.’”


15 God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers— the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.’

“This is my name forever,

the name you shall call me

from generation to generation.

Yes, there is a lot in a name and a whole new world in this name!

“I AM”, or “I WILL BE WHO I WILL BE”.

This is the holy name of God to be remembered for all time – and used by all who live by faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob – the God of the Bible.

This is God’s personal name, never uttered before this day on the mountain to a shoeless shepherd of sheep who will become the great shepherd of Israel – all by God’s authority and power, not his.

This name would become a name treated with the utmost respect and only used by certain people in certain ways on certain occasions under strict conditions in the worship of God’s people.

It is the name that reveals God’s character but also veils him too. God is. God is willing to be known and can be known, and yet God is God – God just is – beyond, and yet up close and personal.

This is name by which God’s people will have personal access to him in Moses day and beyond. They can pray to the God whom they know and are known by – personally. When they gather in worship, God promises to be personally present by his name. He will bless them with what would become the blessing he gives to Aaron (which we still use today) and he will hear their cries, their prayers, the requests and act – all by this name.

So, you think you can’t do what you know God is asking you to do?

So, you think you don’t have enough understanding of the bible or the church or spirituality or the words people use or the skills set to live in your vocation or do the ministry God is calling you to do?

Listen to “I AM”

I AM the Good Shepherd.


I AM the gate for the sheep to come in to God’s presence


I AM the bread of life – I will sustain you with my own body – the bread of life


I AM the way of life, the truth of life and the life within you.

I AM the resurrection and the life.

Friends, we don’t need what we think we need to be his people and fulfil our mission. Our only authority and power for living out our calling as God’s holy people in an unholy world is his name.

We are baptised into his name – which is revealed to us through Jesus as “Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

We are sealed with his name and powered by his name – the name of Jesus, “I AM”.

We are promised by his name – “I will be with you”. “I am with you”

You think your nobody – I am with you

You think your useless – I am with you

You getting a bit slack – I am with you

You trying to palm of your calling on to others – I am with you

You think you don’t know enough – I am with you

You think you can’t do what I want – I am with you.

Freed to Follow - an exodus Journey Week 2

BETWEEN THE TEXTS

• Remember, Exodus is all about two things - knowing God and vocation. Exodus is an account of knowing God through personal experience and how it is that God would call a nation to their vocation of being a blessing to the whole world.


• As we go through Exodus, we are following the Common Lectionary (or selection of Bible readings) that most mainline Christian denominations also follow. Hearing the Word as set down in the three year lectionary used globally, is one of the way we express Oneness (or the “catholic” – “universal” nature of God’s church. Our schedule of bible passages in Exodus has lots of bible texts in between each one! So it is an important to get what happens prior to our text each week.


• A very important thing happens before our text for this week begins. Read Ch 2:11-25.


• verse 11: Moses obviously grows up to be a young man. He grows up in the royal palace with all its privilege, and yet it seems that he has learnt or sensed that he is actually one of the ethnic minority population called “the Hebrews”. He is not an Egyptian.


• He does two things that show a certain passion and concern for the plight of his people. He first “watches” their “hard labour”. Moses is seeing what Pharaoh’s daughter saw and heard when she saw Moses in the ark and heard his crying and “was moved”.


• Both things Moses does are done in secret – at least he thinks they are. “He looks this way and that” checking to see if anyone is seeing him.


• The issue is really about authority. It is clear that when he kills the Egyptian slave master who is beating a Hebrew and then when he tries to settle a dispute between two of his countrymen, he has no authority. One of the two Hebrews who are beating each other up pop that authority question (verse “Who made you ruler and judge over us?” asks the Hebrew slave. And then in direct challenge to his actions, “Are you thinking of killing me like you did that Egyptian the other day?” Moses is found out and very scared.


• Pharaoh quickly turns on this adopted son of his daughter. But, as will become more and more apparent, Pharaoh’s attempts to deal with these Hebrews and their God will become less and less effective!


• Everything speeds up and is compressed together. Moses flees across the huge desert, somehow survived on the land way over in Midian and sits down by a well” (verse 15).


• Verse 19: This “one who was drawn from the water” now “draws water for some women at the well.


• He helps some women at the well (wells are always places of meeting in the desert communities). he meets a man who seems to have two names. here he is called “Reuel” and in other places he is called Jethro. He agrees to arranged marriage with one of Jethro’s seven daughters, Zipporah.


• “Zipporah” in Hebrew means “one who tweets”. Maybe she was a frequent Tweeter user!


• They have a son, Gershom, which means “alien there”. Maybe Moses is no getting as far away as he can from his Egyptian upbringing. After all, the king did try to kill him!


• Verse: 23-25: Again we hear of this crying out and now God seeing and hearing and “being concerned” about them. he is about to show his concern and do something about it…….

WEEK 2 Exodus 3:1-15 (TNIV)

The Calling of Moses (1 numbers relate to THOUGHTS - the bullet points below)

1 Now Moses was tending the flock 1of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness 2and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2 There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire3 from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. 3 So Moses thought, “I will go over and see 4this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.”

4 When the LORD saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!”


And Moses said, “Here I am.”

5 5 “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” 6 Then he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.

7 The LORD said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt 6. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. 8 So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. 9 And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. 10 So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”

11 But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” 7

12 And God said, “I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship8 God on this mountain.”

13 Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ 9Then what shall I tell them?”

14 God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. 10 This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”

15 God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.’

“This is my name forever,

the name you shall call me

from generation to generation. 11

THOUGHTS

1. It is important to note that Moses is a shepherd. This is his vocation at the time of his calling. He will continue to be a shepherd – not of sheep, but of God’s people. The word “Pastor” come from the Latin word meaning “shepherd. Pastors are essentially shepherds of congregations.

2. The location of this burning bush (Mount Horeb or Sinai) moment is not known for sure, but is seems that it might have been on the western side of the Sinai Peninsular.


3. Flames: This is a very common way that the biblical writers try and give a visual picture of God’s presence. It happens again in Exod 19:18 when the glory/presence of God descends upon the same mountain and gives the 10 commandments. Later on in the desert journey, a pillar of fire will guide the community at night time. We New Testament people make a link with Pentecost Sunday and the “tongues of fire”.


4. Moses has “seen” God’s people in pain and now he wants to “see” this great sight. He will see the fire and see some other things as well! Note that God then “sees” Moses coming up the mountain. Interesting that the man who wants to discover something has now become the discovered one by God! This self-appointed shepherd who lacked authority to fulfil his calling will now receive God’s authority and power for the humanly impossible calling he will no be given!


5. Now we have the famous moment of God’s call and giving of the most precious gift he ever gave his people. Moses is given his commission to shepherd Israel in three ways;


o God is present: Moses is made aware of this (take off the sandals on holy ground)


o He is informed that God is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob – God is a known God with a history of promises to and blessing of and saving people.


o God announced his intentions. Moses hears what God is wanting to do through him – save his people.


6. Again we hear for the third time since Exodus began that God has seen and understands the plight of his suffering people (they are “crying out” – like Moses in the ark). He is now going to “come down” with one intention – RESCUE. Pharaoh’s daughter was indeed a sign of God’s rescue when she found Moses.


7. Moses does not receive his calling well. He objects – three times in all. He knows he needs God’s authority and power to do this humanly impossible thing called shepherding God’s people! First he asks “Who am I” for this task. Answer: A nobody! God responds with a promise of assurance. “I will be with you”.


8. This calling and this giving of God’s name is all about Worship. Who will God’s people serve/worship? They are doing “hard service/labour” to pharaoh and the gods of Egypt and it is killing them. God is going to act to gather them into his presence in a new way so that they can serve/worship him. The service of God will be rest, not slavery. God does the giving and the blessing and the healing in worship p- not the people. They attend to worship not to appease the Lord, but to receive from him the good things he promises. in this way they “rest in his presence” as he rested from his labour on the seventh day.


9. Moses does not seem convinced! He asks the obvious question of God. Moses has asked, “Who am I”. Now he asks, “Who are you”!


10. Now comes the giving of the greatest gift that God ever gave to human beings besides their very existence. “I AM WHO I AM”, or “I AM WHO I WILL BE” is God’s personal name (YHWH: in English)


o It has never been uttered before and by giving Moses his personal name, God ushers in a whole new era of relationship intimacy with humanity.


o God has many names in Old Testament: El Elyon – God Most High, El Roi – God who sees me, El Shaddai – God Almighty, El Olam – God Everlasting,


o By this personal name (YHWH - Yahweh), Moses and human being will have unprecedented access to his presence and being.


o This name is really as mystery. It reveals God in a new personal way, but it also conceals God. God is still God but closer. It is untranslatable and in Hebrew it is unpronounceable. It has four letters and has been called the “Tetragrammaton” (four letters). It would become the holiest and most guarded name and the name to only be used under very strict ritual/worship conditions for Jewish people.


o This is a huge risk for God. Once his gives his personal name he is open to more personal abuse. It is like us giving our name to a stranger. Once it is done, we are more known – and open to our name being abused. Same with God.


o By this name Moses will have authority to save and shepherd God’s chosen and blessed people.


o In most English translation bible, this name, in English “Yahweh”, is usually printed “LORD”.


o Moses still objects a little after our text. Moses says he cannot speak well enough. God fixes this my telling him have his brother, Aaron, as a spokesman for him in his calling (Exod 4:1ff). God also gives him the first part of the program of “sign and wonders” that Gods will employ to begin the battle Pharaoh and the gods of Egypt.


11. God will never withdraw this special name, no matter how much it is abused. he will never deny personal access to his presence for his faithful people. In New Testament terms, the name YHWH is translated “Kyrios” (my Lord). This is name by which people address Jesus. “Lord, have mercy on me”, (“Kyrie, eleison”). In John’s gospel, jesus says the seven great “IAM” statements – I AM the God Shepherd, I AM the gate for the sheep, I AM the Brad of Life, I AM the way the truth and the life…..

REFLECTIONS

• We are drawn out of the water in baptism. Baptism is our commissioning as God’s shepherds for others – all with different vocations, families and communities in which to be God’s name bearers for others.

• We are all priests in the sense that we have access to God’s very presence by his grace and mercy. We pray for people to God on their behalf. This is why on Sunday we pray ”The Prayer of the Church”. Here we actually perform a public service in praying for the world in God’s gracious presence.


• Worship of any god other than YHWH – or Jesus Christ the LORD, kills people, enslaves people and destroys relationship with God and each other.


• Worship is primarily an act of the Lord to which we respond in prayer, thanks and praise – not the other way around. “Liturgy” is a word the New Testament writers chose from their culture to express what they believed was going on when we gathered in God’s presence around the Word and the Holy Meal. “Liturgy” means “public work”, or “work of the people”. We respond to God’s good gifts of forgiveness, life, teaching, guidance, and healing by doing our public work – never only for ourselves but for the whole world and for others present.


• With this biblical view of worship, worship can then become what it was established to be by God – REST!


• It is no merely human thing to be called and commissioned by the Lord for service in his church or his world. Moses objects three times. Jeremiah, Isaiah, Jonah, and Jesus himself asked for their calling to be taken from them. Someone once said that anyone who willingly wants to lead God’s people is either full of themselves or just plain unaware of what God is asking them to do!


• But God promises to be with the ones he calls. He gives them his own personal name, which means access to his blessing, power, wisdom and hope to fulfil their calling.


Are you resisting God’s call to serve at the moment? What are your fears? What are your excuses?


Are you resting in God’s personal presence in worship or are you labouring in some kind of slavery in worship? Why?

When you come to worship, is it more about how well you do stuff for God, or more about letting God give you what he wants to give you?

How are you representing the needs of your family and friends before the Lord and seeking his blessing and healing for them in prayer – in worship and through the day? You are a priest like Moses by faith in Jesus and by virtue of your baptism – your commissioning day. What might it mean to be a member of the “priesthood of all believers - practically?

The Way Through

We have been through a lot as a school community these last few years and we wonder what God has to do with all of this.

The people in our community who gather on campus every Sunday to hear God’s Word and receive his gifts of grace in worship have begun a spiritual journey together centred on the second book of the bible – the book of Exodus.

The name of the book, “Exodus”, means “way out” or “way through”. It is the account of all that God did through his reluctant leader, Moses, to lead his people out of the forced labour and oppression they were living under in the country of Egypt under the Pharaoh (either Pharaoh Rameses II or Seti I).

It is a book of the bible that contains THE great accounts of faith for the Jewish people, and now because of that Jesus of Nazareth said and did, for Christians. It tells the story of Moses, that unique, but reluctant and flawed leader of God’s people. It tells of the constant lack of faith, wrong behaviour and whinging of God’s people! It tells of the giving of those precious and unique guidelines for living with God and each other in harmony (the 10 Commandments), upon which our moral law and personal ethics are based.

Really the whole journey of Exodus, from hard labour and oppression to freedom to live with God and each other in community is all about knowing God – both personally, as Moses was enabled to do and then as a community, as the people of Israel learned to do.

For us now, it is still a story of a “way through” whatever we are facing. it tells of normal human beings being led by, taught by, loved by God, through thick and thin, in times of ease with lots of water and food about, and times of hardship, when they are on the edge of being annihilated by an enemy or dying of thirst and hunger out in the desert. Wherever we are at, God shows himself to be a God who hears us, sees us, and is very concerned about us (Exodus 2:24).

You can join the conversation if you like.


1. You can turn up to church at 9.30am on Sunday mornings in the Middle School building.

2. You can go to this blog (http://adriankitson.blogspot.com) and follow the sermons and comments of others as we go. You can leave your comments too!

3. You can rock up at Wednesday Night Word, on Wednesday nights at 7.30pm in the Chat Room, and be a part of other people talking about their journey and how that relates to the Exodus journey.

He is the way through all things.

Peace.

Pr Adrian

Freed to Follow - an exodus Journey Week 1

Sermon, Pentecost 10A

Sunday August 21st, 2011.

Ocean Forest

the exodus journey week 1

So, we begin this exodus journey and yet this journey comes from what has happened before. We know from the account of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph that God’s presence and promise has been under huge threat because of human weakness, idolatry and sin, and yet, by God’s determination and grace, has prevailed – at least for now.

We hear in the opening verses of this Exodus…..

1 These are the names of the sons of Israel who went to Egypt with Jacob, each with his family: 2 Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah; 3 Issachar, Zebulun and Benjamin; 4 Dan and Naphtali; Gad and Asher. 5 The descendants of Jacob numbered seventy[a] in all; Joseph was already in Egypt.

6 Now Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation died, 7 but the Israelites were exceedingly fruitful; they multiplied greatly, increased in numbers and became so numerous that the land was filled with them.

God’s blessing of his people; his promise to Abraham of a great nation of descendants, a great name among the nations and a land of blessing in which to live is happening despite generations living and dying in between the life of Jacob and Joseph and this new beginning about to happen.

The Israelites are a minority group within Egypt. They have bred like rabbits! Verse 8, “Now there arose a new king in Egypt….” may jump as much four centuries. It seems the blessed nation have been fruitful and multiplied as God had originally commanded the first human beings to do (Genesis 1 and 2). This new King see a threat in this now huge ethnic minority group. They look like they might soon take over the country!

This is a fear-filled thing. I hear people saying things about what is happening in Australia that betray this kind of fear of foreigners. “The Chinese will take us over. The Indonesians will take over one day. The boat people will flood us and use up our valuable resources……”. Was it Pauline Hansen who gave voice to that fear a decade ago when she said “the Asians are taking us over….Asians out….”? A quick look at history will tell you that these kinds of fears have always been around. They have often led to great evil. Fear does that.

In this scene, the Israelites are almost like a plague! “They became exceedingly numerous so that the land was filled with them”, we hear. They are like mosquitoes at a BBQ, flies at a picnic, Fremantle Dockers supporters at the footy!

The Egyptian monarchy is worried for another reason besides being taken over from within. What if one of their competing neighbours like the Babylonians, Syrians, Assyrians etc… decide to take us on and enlist the support of this huge group of people who may or may not have any loyalty to us when push comes to shove? Egypt would be serious peril.

So, the king decides to deal “shrewdly” with this problem people. The plan is to oppress a whole people – to force them into slavery and use them as objects for the building of a kingdom. People become objects to be bought, sold, used, abused and treated much lower than the pinnacle of all creation – human beings.

Of course, those us who live in the top 10% of the wealthiest people in the world have little idea about what this really is. However, for anyone who has come close to poverty and/or any oppressive regime, the full force of this oppression will make more sense. The rest of us can only imagine…… no status, no job, no goals, no control over my day, no point thinking beyond today because it may be your last. Seeing your family brutalised on a daily basis. Seeing the places that you used to enjoy now out of reach and watching all the people you used to know carry on as if you were not even there. This is a complete removal of privilege and plunge into abuse, hatred, racial vilification, death and fear.

It is interesting though. Egypt is also full of fear (1:10). As the oppressors dehumanise others and violate their family and communal life, they themselves become sub human. Once this pattern of fear and oppression has been established, it brings in an entire way of life and behaviour for those caught up in it. Both become lost.

That terrible human descent into death now shows itself again. Just as it was for Joseph and his brothers, fear, then jealousy, then hatred and then physical and communal violence takes shape in this now fearful country. The Egyptians fear the Israelite’s capacity to threaten their way of life. They are very jealous of the apparent unstoppable blessing they seem to have as they “fill the land”. This “shrewd” plan to stop their increase and snuff out their blessed life does not work. Even though the Israelites were mistreated, their families grew larger, and they took over more land. “Because of this, the Egyptians hated them worse than before…”(Exod 1:12). Jealousy has given way to hatred – not just in theory but now actually done on a daily basis across the country – wherever Egyptians and Israelites live in the same place.

We can tell what is next; violence and death. “Kill all the baby boys” commands the fearful and inhumane Pharaoh. This has been a final step in the snuffing out a minority group for many a regime. It is a final desperate measure to kill off a threat. We have a very well known account of such a measure in the New Testament, as the paranoid King Herod the Great command the same when he suspects the promised Jewish Messiah has been born. We hear that every Christmas.

We then hear this account of very crafty mid-wives who commit an act of civil disobedience by directly disobeying the law of the land (1:15-21). The reason given for their act of rebellion in an oppressive regime is faithfulness to God (v17). They took their life in their own hands as they delivered new life everyday for the sake of obeying the God of life who gives life. He is also the God who alone has the authority as creator and giver of life to take life away.

This gets me thinking about Christian civil disobedience. When is it faithful to the Lord to directly disobey civil law? In the 70’s in Latin America a whole movement and theology came into being called “Liberation theology” where many Christians even went to the extent of taking up arms against brutal military regimes with leaders like Pinochet.

Here in comfortable and peaceful Western democracy, we hope it never comes to this. All we can do is thank God for his gift of justice and legal system and a shared will to keep it that way; even to actively support and work for justice and “pray for kings and others in power, so that we may live quiet and peaceful lives as we worship and honour God as St Paul urges us” (1Timothy 2:2).

All through this descent into human hatred, oppression and murder, all driven by fear, God is at work. It is so ironic that Pharaoh is actually being an instrument of God’s creative work. The blessing, multiplying and fruitfulness does not stop. Now God’s saving work is taking shape. We come to this most famous and wonderful little account of God’s man for the moment – Moses.

Again the Israelite midwives, who are actually experts in handling God’s fruitful blessing when you think about it, outdo the murderous Pharaoh by keeping another one of their precious baby boys and ensuring that he lives through this horrible time.

How poignant it is to read that this desperate woman who somehow managed to have her son and then hide him for a few months as soldiers come house to house on a daily basis and take boys from their mothers arms and murder them, now places her precious boy in an ark. This word is so seldom used in the entire Old Testament. Here we are meant to remember that other “ark” of Noah and God’s saving work in those days. Humanity was so lost. We had descended even further into sin and chaos that God acts to bring order and life back to his creation. he does this my placing Noah and the remnant of his creation in that ark.

Later on in Exodus, we will hear that those foundational directives on how to faithfully live with the Lord and his community – the 10 Commandments – will also be placed in an “ark” – the Ark of the Covenant. Precious things go inside arks. Saving things go inside arks. Moses is now inside an ark. The hope of God’s saving love is in that ark.

And then we really come to the crescendo of this whole beginning account. It is amazing that of all people to give a sign of what God is going to do it should be an Egyptian – and Pharaoh’s own daughter at that! What does she do?

“…….she saw the baby and felt sorry for him because he was crying…”(2:6). Pharaoh’s daughter does three things in response to one thing. The one thing is crying. The three things are “seeing” and hearing (implied) and “feeling sorry” for this one crying.

“Feeling sorry” for him? In English that seems a bit week. The word for a woman’s womb in Hebrew is the root of this verb. This woman who has a womb experiences a womb wrenching compassion for this child who has just come from another woman’s womb. The compassion is of the deepest kind – from the womb. it is that compassion that comes from the human spirit – that women experience in pregnancy, childbirth and when new life is in infancy.

This “gutted” woman is a precursor to more words from God that will come next week. Here, Pharaoh’s daughter “sees” and hears and has deep compassion because the boy is crying.

 

“Crying”: This is the situation of God’s people, according to God. They are “crying”. They are weeping in this terror in which they live. Labour, hard labour, misery, cruelty, mistreated – this is what is creating this weeping and crying out for salvation, for hope, for and end to it all.

Friends, as we leave it there, we can journey on knowing that we travel with a God who sees, hears and has compassion on our crying – whatever it is.

We can also trust that our God creates good out of evil and frustrated the working of fear, oppression and hatred.

We can also trust that our God is very happy to work with little things and little people – people like midwives, daughters, grieving mothers, crying babies and little “arks”. God works through these things to deal with the fear and trouble we as his people and we as part of his troubled world face.

In this little ark is the hope of God’s people and his promises acting in the world. His fellow Hebrew babies were thrown into the water of the Nile. But God ensured that this child of promise was “drawn out of the water” of the Nile. God undoes this horrible command of a king who thinks he is bigger than God.

His people will soon be “drawn out of the water” as they pass through that Sea of Reeds on dry ground and be born again as God’s people of blessing.

We have been drawn out of the water at baptism. Baptism was our Red Sea. It was us being drawn out of certain death to new life and blessing in Christ.

We walk this journey as God’s water people – people of hope. people in the ark or the boat of the church. We sit in the Nave of the church – we travel in God’s presence into the desert way of Jesus – the way of his cross, the way of God’s power revealed in the ordinary and seemingly weak things of the world.

God is on the move. He see, he hears, he is compassion and he is drawing us out into new hope and life in these weeks ahead. See him. Hear him. Cry out to him. Amen



Week 1 Exodus 1:8-2:10

WEEK 1 Exodus 1:8-2:10 (TNIV)

8 Then a new king, to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power in Egypt. 9 “Look,” he said to his people, “the Israelites have become far too numerous for us. 10 Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country.”

11 So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labour, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh. 12 But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites 13 and worked them ruthlessly. 14 They made their lives bitter with harsh labour in brick and mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields; in all their harsh labour the Egyptians used them ruthlessly.

15 The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah, 16 “When you help the Hebrew women in childbirth and observe them on the delivery stool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live.” 17 The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live. 18 Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, “Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?”

19 The midwives answered Pharaoh, “Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive.”

20 So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous. 21 And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own.

22 Then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people: “Every Hebrew boy that is born you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live.”

THOUGHTS

1. God’s blessing of the Israelites is uncontrollable. Pharaoh cannot control it and is threatened by their obvious blessed status. They are breeding like rabbits! This for ancient people is the sign of blessing – children, population growth, and fertility.

 

2. Fertility is the goal of worshipping the gods of Egypt. Pharaoh carries out his rituals and exercises his divine reign to secure the blessing of fertility for the people. But here, the God of the Hebrews is already outdoing the gods of Egypt. They are more blessed than the local Egyptians. This is a major threat – economic, security and religious.

 

3. There is a double meaning of all this talk of “labour” or work” In Hebrew, this word can also be used for the “work” or worshipping God (liturgy). Israel’s labour here is hard, destructive and unjust because it is done for a foreign god. God will turn their hard labour into rest, joy and blessing when they “work” for him and with him in their worship (working) life.

 

4. Interesting that the Hebrew midwives enact civil disobedience. They deliberately defy the law of the land. When is it OK to do this Christians?

 

5. Pharaoh has to act in every increasing violence – killing baby boys – halting this divine power the Hebrews seem to posses – but God is on to it. A war is brewing of cosmic proportions.

 

The Birth of Moses (Ch 2)

1 Now a man of the house of Levi married a Levite woman, 2 and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months. 3 But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. 4 His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him.

5 Then Pharaoh’s daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the riverbank. She saw the basket (“ark”) among the reeds and sent her female slave to get it. 6 She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him. “This is one of the Hebrew babies,” she said.

7 Then his sister asked Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?”

8 “Yes, go,” she answered. And the girl went and got the baby’s mother. 9 Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you.” So the woman took the baby and nursed him. 10 When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh’s daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses, saying, “I drew him out of the water.”

 

THOUGHTS

1. God is doing something new. A new hope rises in the carnage of dead baby boys. A baby boy escapes the evil of Pharaoh. This boy will the first of a new age. He is from the tribe of Levi - the priestly tribe. He will be the priest of Israel who will have direct access to God on the people's behalf and vice-versa.

2. The baby is placed in an ark. Genesis 6:14 and Noah’s ark comes to mind. Just as God saved a remnant of humanity and living things in an ark, now he is doing the same with his promise to Abraham. Later the guidelines for knowing God as a community (10 Commandments) will also be places in the ark of the covenant. Through his Word he will continually save people so they can know him and live with him.

3. Pharaoh’s daughter is a pre-cursor to God himself here. She hears the cry of this baby. She is moved with pity and shows mercy and compassion in saving the baby from annihilation. God will also see and feel the pain of his people an act (next week).

 

4. Moses is a forward sign of this new nation of God who will also be drawn from the water and even a sign of the promised Messiah who will be baptised by John and command his church to baptise the world in his name (Matthew 28)

REFLECTIONS

• We are drawn out of the water in baptism.
• We have been snatched from the hand of the evil one and our own sinfulness and places in the ark – the place of God’s presence and protection and life.
• Christians have often used this boat kind of imagery to name places of worship. Where the people gather is the nave – the body of the ship. Often church architecture has included vaulted ceiling of stone or timber – depicting an upside down boat or ark. What does all that mean for you?
• Pharaoh kills the sons of the Israelite, thereby picking a fight with the God of the Israelites. The final “plague” or sign will be the undoing of Pharaoh. God the Warrior will fight for his covenant with Abraham – blessing of a nation, a name and a land of blessing.
• Interesting that God uses another Egyptian to rescue his chosen special leader, Moses. Is this a show of God’s craftiness and intelligence and power?
• This new nation will not be founded with a land, known leader, political system. It will be founded by the direct action of a holy and all-powerful God and so, be a unique, specially chosen and formed community of God in the world with a special task – to be the means through which God deals with the sin of human beings and gives his blessing of life to all nations.

How have you been snatched from hard labour to idols and entered the rest and blessing of living in God’s blessing?

 

Would there ever be a reason why you would practice civil disobedience?

Has God heard your cries and acted to save you in a situation?

What is your life founded on: a world view, a family, a teaching, ……?

 

Exodus Beginnings...

BEGINNINGS....

Exodus is all about two things - knowing God and vocation. Exodus is an account of knowing God through personal experience and how it is that God would call a nation to their vocation of being a blessing to the whole world.

The plot centres around the relationship between God and the Israelites, from the dramatic meeting of God with Moses on My Sinai with the burning bush (3:1-4:17) to the glory (presence) of the Lord filling the newly constructed tabernacle or "tent of meeting" (40:34-38).

In Exodus, Gos always is the one to take the initiative in this relationship, whether it as warrior for his people, teacher of his people, judge of his people or promise giver and comforter of his people. God does all these things through both his words and his mighty miraculous acts.

Exodus can be put into two main parts, even though it is a continuous, chronological account. The first part is dominated by the theme of coming to know God personally. About chapter 1 to 15.

The second part of Exodus is about knowing God communally, focusing on God making a legal, binding contract or agreement with his people that establishes a special relationship between the Lord and the nation of Israel. About chapters 15-40.

The book of Exodus has two main locations or journey parts. One is the journey from slavery in Egypt, through the Sea of Reeds, the desert wilderness to the bottom of the Sinai Peninsular on Mt Sinai (ch's 1-19). The other is all that happens at Mt Sinai especially including the giving of the 10 Commandments as the people are worshipping a golden calf (ch's 20-32).

Overall, there's no doubt the overall theme of Exodus is KNOWING GOD. When we know God we are called and shaped into a community that is God's blessing for the world.

The links to the New Testament and the ministry of Jesus are huge! In fact, without what God did in Exodus, Jesus of Nazareth would make little sense. How could you believe in Jesus as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world without the Tabernacle and its worship set out in Exodus? How could you know Jesus as the "passover Lamb" without the Passover!? How could you know Jesus as the new Moses who is the great rabbi, priest and prophet of God without knowing Moses as the first prophet, priest and king of God's people - all in one?

The links go on. The transfiguration with Moses, Elijah and Jesus in the Glory cloud on the mountain; The seven "I AM" words of Jesus (I AM the good shepherd, I AM the door, I AM the bread of life........), Jesus, the Bread of Life (aka manna in the desert for Israel in Exodus....).

To top it all off, read Hebrews 12:18-24.......

We begin this Sunday.....

My spirit revived!

Sermon

Pentecost 9A, Sunday August 14, 2011.

Ocean Forest

My spirit revived!

Genesis 45:1-28

WHAT I NOTICED IN THE TEXT

This is the final scene in a long story of pain for a family and a father. The author takes heaps of time to tell the story and builds to this final scene of reconciliation and summary of all that has happened to this family and this fledgling nation, Israel.

There is huge emotion on display in this text – long held hopes for true reconciliation with those who have hurt you bring that out.

Hindsight – being able to survey the past and what has happened and see how God has shaped your life and actually used the troubling and testing events and even the great wrongs that have been done to you. Joseph says that it was God that actually sent him to Egypt to save a nation, not a band of jealous, angry brothers bent on destruction. God triumphs over destruction of life and turns it around for the preservation of life.

Walking backwards into the future. That is the way the Hebrew mind evident in the Old testament works, as we see it here very clearly. The only indication of the future is the less than clear world of dreams. Joseph had dreams, the prison mates had dreams and Pharaoh had dreams – even when interpreted by Joseph, they are vague at best. But there is absolute clarity about God’s promise to Abraham, what has happened to Isaac and Jacob, and now Joseph. “Gods meant it for good” concludes Joseph. He always does it seems.

Reconciliation: Reconciliation is an opportunity to bring glory to God ad here Joseph gives God all the glory. Reconciliation demands that we get the log out of our own eye. The brothers seemed to have done this as they lived with the guilt of what they done and were now ready to enter reconciliation because they had admitted their wrong. The two waring parties were now ready to be gently (or not so gently!) restored and to then go and live in this newly restored relationship.

WORD

What a scene this bible text reveals! It is the scene of a family restored, a father revived and a hope rising up again. It is a scene of forgiveness triumphing over all of that harmful stuff we have mentioned in these weeks as we have followed the story of Jacob – the “winning struggler” and God’s promise of blessing through him.

This emotional reconciliation account is the crescendo to a beautifully told story which explains how it is that the promise to Abraham to be the head of a large nation of descendants blessed by God came to be. Joseph’s story is the last of four great stories of four great people in the book of Genesis – Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and now within Jacob’s story – Joseph, his favoured son.


Prayer: O Jesus, every moment in my heart and my ear, speak to us in this word that we hear.


So much has happened to get to this great scene of brothers reconciling after years of hatred, jealousy, lies and guilt. Let’s do a quick catch up….

Jacob favoured this young son, Joseph and that brought into being it inevitable result – jealousy, hatred and physical and emotional harm to the favourite among his 11 brothers. Last week we heard how they took their opportunity to get rid of the young “dreamer” who had these dreams about being the dominant and blessed one among all his brothers. They throw him into a dark pit, but eventually then sell him as a slave to travelling traders who head to Egypt.

Jacob, now called “Israel” by God, the “struggling winner”, is inconsolable with grief and loss. Joseph, the blessed one of God, ends up in Egypt, and is bought from the spice traders who bought him from the 11 brothers by a man named Potiphar. This man is a royal official of some type. So, Joseph land on his feet, really. This is God’s doing it says. “The Lord was with Joseph….” we hear at various intervals in this wonderfully told story of God’s blessing.

Potiphar could see that Joseph was a blessed and gifted man of some divine god, so he hands over the running of his own substantial household to Joseph. Potiphar’s wife notices Joseph is a good catch and makes a pass at him! Joseph has some character and some integrity about him. He rejects the offer and keeps on doing so for some time. Eventually the jilted woman sets Joseph up. Potiphar gets Joseph thrown in prison.

It must have been a tricky thing to serve Pharaoh wine and bake his bread because for some minor mistake, the cupbearer and the baker to the King end up in prison with Joseph! This puts a new spin on Masterchef!!

In time Joseph also proves himself to be an excellent prison administrator! He ends up being given that role. He is a blessed and talented man of faith.

Joseph, the dreamer, actually is a dream interpreter. He can see things others can’t. Not only does he impress his inmates with his special sight into dreams, but also then by twist of fate, Pharaoh himself. By seeing that Pharaoh’s dreams are a warning about a devastating 7 year drought and famine coming, Joseph is again restored to the palace.

Just as Jacob favoured him right from the beginning, and as Potiphar and also his in-mates in prison favoured him, now even Pharaoh himself makes Joseph “the man in charge of all Egypt” – in other words, Prime Minister under the King himself. 23 years after he was thrown into the pit by the brothers that hated him and his dreaming of favoured status, at the age of 30, he is Prime Minister in the super-power nation of the day.

He sets about drought and famine-proofing Egypt. Of course, people from surrounding tribes and groups would also benefit from Egypt’s food supply in severe famine. Some of those non-Egyptian surrounding people are his own family – his brothers who after some years of drought and extreme hardship come down to Egypt to buy grain and goods to survive.

From here Joseph is the architect of this great scene we have heard. By careful manipulation of events and direct conversation with these brothers who left him for dead out of jealousy and hatred, he manoeuvres them around to find out a few things.

Is Dad still alive? Yes. Are these brothers of mine still full of hatred for me? Not so much hate now, but guilt and fear. “God is punishing us what we did to our brother” they admit to the PM of Egypt. (Gen 42:12).

All the while, Joseph hides his identity from his brothers. He has to be sure they have changed. He is after reconciliation and must know that it has a fair chance of winning over what used to be hatred. If it doesn’t he will have no choice but further pain and sorrow. He obviously hoped for reconciliation intently because several times in the various encounters over a couple of years he gets very emotional about it all and has to duck out of the room to keep his identity from them!

Eventually we get to this scene where the 11 brothers and the dreamer they hated are in one room and Joseph knows that they are ready to lose their hatred and guilt and receive his olive branch of reconciliation.

This is the last time he will hide his identity. “Every one get out!” he commands as the emotion wells up inside him. He finally tells them who he is. He does this by loud wailing and weeping in a forceful show of raw emotion – so much so that all the people out of the room hear the weeping and Pharaoh hears it too!

His brothers are speechless – dumbfounded! They can’t get a word out. They are so shocked and full of fear. Surely the day of judgement on their terrible sin is here. Pay day is here. We are going to cop it. We deserve it. We did it. He is alive and has all the cards in his favour.

The blessed man of God who knows what it is to be hated and abandoned and mistreated, as well as what it is to be loved and blessed by the Lord and to serve the Lord for the good of a whole nation in pain, pours out God’s mercy and blessing on these men. There is such an emotional scene of reconciliation – genuine reconciliation – not just conflict resolution or agreeing to disagree, but gut wrenching repentance, owning up, pouring out of guilt and fear and the undeserved gift of mercy – grace really.

It’s a scene for any of us who are guilty or wrong and fearful of punishment – from others and especially from God.

It’s a scene for any of us who have been hated and abandoned by a brother, sister parent or friend.


It is a scene for anyone who has been the one who has done the hurting the hating and the abandoning.

It’s a scene for any Christian who has forgotten what our overall task is with others – we have this ministry of reconciliation (1 Cor 5:16-20)


16 So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20

With God’s promise of future, blessing, hope and life, and only with his promise, this kind of reconciliation is possible and given freely to any sinner, anytime, anywhere.

How do we receive this kind of healing? How do we give this kind of olive branch to enemies? How do we find the peace and the purpose that this kind of complete forgiveness brings – forgiveness with each other and with God?

We have to be weak and let God be strong. There is no beginning of this reconciliation without weakness and vulnerability and great risk – before our enemy and before the Lord. There is no other way to a scene like this.

We either trust the Lord and rest in his promises and blessing and presence in us and take the risk and be weak in the struggle or we keep up the charade that we are always right, justified in our rights and in charge of forgiveness. We are not. This Joseph account shows that it is only the God Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who has the grace, the mercy and the power to create this kind of healing and new hope.

We are about to embark on a great journey of how this God of hope, who “hears the cries of his people and their struggle in slavery” will make the first move in making sure his promise of community, name and land to Abraham will come to be.

We will see how he creates a nation of blessing – how he will take this undefined community and baptise them and free them in his promise and power and shape them by hard struggle and mistakes, but then constant leading and restoration to be the nation through which the whole world would be blessed.


I reckon that in this great account of the beginning of a nation’s place and role in the world, called Exodus”, the ‘way out’ we will find God with us in our faith journey here.

We are a community created by God in a wider human community, just as the descendants of Jacob and his 12 sons were a community within a wider community. We need God to show us our particular place and role – our vocation, as his community in the human community, as the Hebrews would discover as they became the nation of Israel.

We will see that our meaning and purpose as defined and given by the Lord happens on the move, in the desert places, when we are tired, hungry and thirsty and longing for the good old days when things were easier.

We will also find that our purpose and hope for now and the future as God’s people takes shape when we are on the mountain in the glory cloud of God’s presence, eating and drinking together with the Lord in all his glory and grace.

So, we pray that the Spirit of Jesus will revive us and restore us as we begin this little journey of “the way out” with the Lord – our exodus with the Lord from whatever is enslaving us.

We pray to or heavenly Father – the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, now revealed in Jesus of Nazareth as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, that we will get something out of this together for our lives now – for our jobs, our families, our church, our school, our mission.

We seek with confidence because this is no mere children’s story or even just a story – it is the witness of Jesus to us in the power of his Holy Spirit and will divide us, cut us, call us, heal us and be good for us.

Our end of the deal is to seek with the heart. He will show us and shape us in his way.

Prayer:

Jesus, you are the great teacher and revealer of God to us and we need your revelation now. In these days ahead and this account of the mighty works of the Lord and the very human responses of Israel, speak to us and shape us your community in this wonder human community. Amen.

THINGS TO REFLECT ON

Who do I need to be reconciled with and am I and that person ready. Can I see my wrong and admit it and go from there?

What does hindsight of your experiences tell you about God? Did he really mean it all for good and has he been at work all along? Pick a good and a bad experience and ponder them from Joseph’s point of view…..

What can you see of the future? Is it true that like the Hebrews, we can only really walk backwards into our future – keeping our eyes on Jesus and what has already done in our lives so that we stay with him and his Word and let him take care of what behind (or actually in front of us) in our future?