“Questions Required”

Rev. Amanda Hendler-Voss

As a teenager, I always had the feeling that I was born in the wrong generation.  You see, I would have been a perfect child of the 60s—from the music to the clothes to the politics of change and the civil rights movement.  I begrudged my parents who lived through this time in our nation’s history without being involved in it whatsoever.

Life seemed so predictable as I grew up.  Middle class kids were instructed to get good grades so we could go to college to get a degree so we could get a job, while also getting married and having 2.5 kids.  Meanwhile, manufacturing jobs were being shipped overseas in the name of free trade and the gap between the rich and the poor was growing at a clip.  The creeping inequalities of racism and globalization failed to sound an alarm.  More recently, we fought wars we couldn’t afford while cutting taxes for the rich, but most of us didn’t complain.  Life was pretty good.

…That is, until the hammer dropped on Wall Street in 2008, the housing bubble burst, and the middle class took the fall.  As the fallout continues to infect economies around the world, protesters have taken to the streets.  In Greece, they protest austerity measures landing another blow in the gut of the already hurting middle class.  In London, police brutality unleashed riots that spread virally, feeding on the despair of the unemployed.  According to Emily Manuel, “Riots happen…when the facade of power finally cracks and people realize they outnumber the forces of order.  Riots happen when people are given too little, pushed too far, and stop being afraid of their governments.”  The Arab spring grew out of courage wrought by despair—when Tunisians and Egyptians realized they had nothing left to lose, which is Janis Joplin’s definition of freedom, by the way.  And so they gathered in the streets, they dropped everything to lift their voices, they demanded dignity, democracy, and transparency.

In recent weeks, the protests have arrived on the streets of New York City in the form of the Occupy Wall Street movement.  But not just New York—the movement has spread to Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, and Washington, not to mention small town America.  If you’ve been listening to the local news, you know that the occupiers have taken over the streets of Asheville.  As politicians bicker over whether the wealthy should pay their fair share and economists report that the rich have never had it so good while the middle class has never had it so bad, not to mention the chronically poor, people are gathering in the streets to say no to corporate greed.  The occupation is a public lament of economic inequality, a refusal to keep on with business as usual.  Perhaps I was born to just the right generation after all.  Maybe this generation will refuse to go quietly into the night while CEOs rake in more than 400 times as much as the average worker.  Perhaps as people continue to die for lack of health insurance while others lack full employment, we will finally become so fed up with the inequalities of this economic system that we will call for real reform and systemic change.  One thing’s for sure: we’ve crossed the threshold into a new era of volatility—a time when what we once thought was certain could all come crashing down.  The old has gone, the new has come, and many of us are afraid.

In this morning’s text from Exodus, the Hebrew people had reached that point where they too had nothing left to lose.  After a series of miraculous events liberated them from slavery in Egypt by the skin of their teeth, they found themselves in the wilderness without ample provisions.  They were hungry, and they began to grumble.  So God provided them with manna.  They were confused, and they asked questions.  So Moses went up on Mount Sinai to chat with God and get some answers.  But after Moses had been up there for the symbolic 40 days—the people got to wondering, what the heck is he doing up there?  Is he still alive?  Why won’t he come down from the mountain top to tell us what the plan is?  The Israelites went from the daily grind of oppressive slavery to the shifting sands of freedom.  They went from knowing exactly what to expect to having no idea what the next day would bring…except more wandering in the wilderness.  So the people became impatient.  They wanted to see God, to talk with Moses, to have some kind of assurance that this long, circuitous journey would somehow spit them out in the promised land.

And so they called to Aaron, “make some gods who will go before us to keep us safe.”  Aaron, the perpetual people-pleaser, complied.  He took their gold, melted it and cast it into the shape of a bull calf, a symbol also seen on Wall Street.  I imagine that Aaron reveled in the power of producing the holy, the power of shaping a little-g god who could be seen and touched, a god whose presence could calm the fear of the unknown.

Up on the mountain top, God became disgusted.  “You better get down there,” God told Moses, “for those stiff-necked people of yours have created a golden calf to worship.  Go and leave me alone while my anger burns hot enough to consume all of them.”

Now, let’s just admit it.  Through the lens of the theology most of us learned in Sunday school, God comes out looking kind of weak in this scene.  First of all, God gets mad, and anyone who’s ever been through a rough break up knows that it just makes you look weak to get all angry and indignant.  God is supposed to be above all that.  God is supposed to the rock, unmoving and strong, fixed and absolute.  Nothing should get on God’s nerves.  Am I right?  Second of all, God proposes the exact same plan that was already carried out with Noah—the people act badly, God gets mad, wipes them out and starts over.  Not only does the plan sound a little extreme, it didn’t work so well the first time around, so why try it again…unless God doesn’t have any new ideas.  Yes, God comes off as somewhat inadequate in this little conversation with Moses.

But perhaps even more surprising is what Moses said.  Moses questioned God, “Why are you so angry?  It was your bright idea to bring these people out of Egypt, and so here we are, wandering around in the desert.  Do you want the Egyptians to think you brought us here to kill us?”  Then Moses begged, “Turn from your anger and have mercy on your people.  Remember my ancestors—Abraham, Isaac, and Joseph.  Remember what you promised them.  Please, change your mind about this.”

Now, if we are people who take the Bible seriously, I think we should notice a few things about this whole exchange.  First, Moses questions God, challenges God, argues with God, reasons with God.  Moses refused to accept God acting in ways that go against the divine character.  We see this throughout the Bible—in the Psalms, with the prophets, in Jesus.  A robust faith in God requires questions.  An authentic relationship with God necessitates dialogue, a back-and-forth, a give-and-take.  Theologian Ronald Williamson notes, “Radical trust in God evokes an audacious faith: it not only permits, but requires questioning.”

Second, if we are people who take the Bible seriously, I think we should notice that the image of God is not that of the omnipotent, absolute God of the universe.  The God we encounter in this story is volatile and changing.  Divine anger masks a deeper emotion—bitter disappointment that the people of Israel have once again abandoned their promises.  This is a God who feels deeply, a God open to change, a God who risks being hurt, a God willing to be in dialogue with humanity.  And while this image of God might sound scary, because it’s different from what we’ve been taught, it’s impossible to have an authentic relationship with a fixed being.  If nothing we say or do ever breaks God’s heart or changes the unfolding of the divine, then it’s not really a relationship that we are in, but a predestined, life-sized theater in which we are puppets on a string, each playing a given part.

Some of you may know that on Monday, Sara and I received the news that Westminster Presbyterian Church feels called in a new direction, and they do not feel that sharing space with a developing church is their long-term vision.  This is an honest assessment, and both Sara and I understand that their revitalization depends upon honest assessments like this one.  They are offering us some time—we could stay, at a minimum, through May, and possibly longer.

Needless to say, Sara and I emerged from that meeting a bit breathless.  This is the space we’ve called home since the birth of our new church start, and moving won’t be easy.  Where will we go?  Can we afford the sizeable space that our growing community requires?  Suddenly, we are being pushed out of our comfort zone and into the unknown.

Michael, Westminster’s new pastor, said they are giving us time because they don’t want us to have a wilderness experience.  But this week, I got to thinking—there’s a lot to learn in the desert.  Lately, it’s been easy to forget that we are a new church start with all the exciting risks that come with trying to do things differently.  In some ways, nesting here has given us a false sense of certainty about where we will be in the future. A new church start, however, is a holy adventure that requires risk-taking, the flexibility to flow around obstacles, and the full investment of a growing community of faith.  This move offers us an opportunity for growth, recommitment to our vision, and new possibilities.  It’s also scary to continue moving forward into the unknown, and change always brings an element of grief, whether it’s parting with conveniences we might no longer have, leaving behind a beautiful garden, or letting go of relationships we’ve worked so hard to maintain for the past few years.  It’s all part of the journey.

Paul’s letter to the church at Philippi, our other text for this morning, was written while Paul was in prison, as he “faced death for preaching the gospel, for disrupting the empire and its values.”  As theologian Kate Huey points out, Paul wasn’t “writing on an especially good day, when things are going well and he’s surrounded by friends.  No, he was writing from an even deeper joy.”

And so he urges us, “Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.  And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.  Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”

And so I invite you to pray for Land of the Sky United Church of Christ.  Pray for our community, that we might gather around this challenge and give our gifts for the common good.  Pray that this fork in the road would be the catalyst that inspires greater trust in God and generates growth, both spiritually and in terms of our church body.  Pray that as we are nudged out of this nest, we will learn to fly.  Pray that we will remember that God goes with us, before us and behind us.

As Eugene Peterson claims, “Christ is, among much else, the revelation that God cannot be contained or hoarded.  It is this ‘spilling out’ quality of Christ’s life that accounts for the happiness of Christians, for joy is life in excess, the overflow of what cannot be contained.”

Through the uncertainty of this coming season of change, may we live with that overflowing joy.  May we remember to question and challenge God.  May we cast aside our false gods of security and certitude for a radical trust in the God who moves and changes, the One who loves us deeply.  Amen.

1 Comment

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  By SLICK, October 27, 2011 @ 6:27 am

  good job, well done…I like how you make things current. regards to Sir Seth and Myles.

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