Sermon 6/14/2020 “At the foot of a mountain”

Sermon 6/14/2020 “At the foot of a mountain”

Preacher: Jo J. Belser
Location: Church of the Resurrection at VTS in Alexandria, VA
Text: Exodus 19:2-8a
Day: 2Pentecost, Proper 6, Year A, during a pandemic

Our gospel lesson today begins with the former slaves freed from Egypt arriving at the foot of Mount Sinai from Rephidim. So, I wondered right off: what or where was Rephidim, and what had happened there?

At Rephidim, the people had arrived thirsty expecting to find water, but the streams there were dried up. They had gotten angry and had demanded that Moses give them water, threatening to stone him to death if he didn’t conjure something out of thin desert air for them to drink. Moses realized the people were testing God, not him. He rebuked them, then did what Moses always did: He talked to God about the situation. And God did what God always does: He provided a way forward. “All” Moses had to do was to take the staff—the stick—he had miraculously used in the past and take some of the elders appointed to assist him and strike a prominent rock with the stick.

Would you do this, take a big stick and strike a rock, if God told you this would produce water? Moses must have wondered whether this would work, must have wondered what the people would do to him if no water appeared. How often have you struck a rock and gotten water to spew out? Have you even HEARD of such a thing?

This is how God works: He saves us, sometimes in ways we recognize at the time, but often in ways we don’t even perceive. But Moses did as God had commanded.

I wonder if Moses SAW God, who said he would be standing in front of him on the rock as Moses struck it. Or, perhaps this was blind faith. In any case, Moses did as God had commanded, and water gushed out, slaking everyone’s thirt. And then the Amalekites had attacked the Israelites—probably because they, too, were thirsty—but the people “utterly defeated” the Amalekites. The people had prevailed, as the story goes, as long as Moses had held up his arms. When Moses tired, things turned against the people until those around Moses thought to hold up his arms for him.

Then the people had left Rephidim and camped at the foot of Mount Sinai. Rephidim and Mount Sinai are separated by desert wilderness. Why leave the water to go to the foot of a mountain? To the people of that time, God lived on mountains. They would have wanted to thank God for the water, and perhaps to apologize for having tested God and threatened Moses.

Which brings us finally to today’s first lesson. After crossing the desert, the people camped at the foot of the mountain and waited while Moses went up to talk with God. And this is where God formalized his salvation of the former slaves, naming them a beloved people, a holy nation, calling these people into community and into a covenant with him. And the people answered in unison, as one voice, that they would do as God had commanded.

The apostle Paul later said in 1 Corinthians 10 that these people, the ancestors of the Israelites, had been baptized by the water of the sea they had passed through, and had been sustained by drinking from the spiritual rock that he said was and is Christ Jesus, sealed by today’s affirmation of their covenant with God. This is how Paul evoked these wilderness experiences, naming them as the very core of the Israelis’ identity.

In Bible study this week, every person said this lesson “spoke” to them. Perhaps this is because we can see something of our Church of the Resurrection story in this ancient story. Perhaps we people of Resurrection had been slaves to the effort of sustaining a church in our location. As one of my young colleagues expressed so well at a clergy retreat a year or so ago, he said it felt like he was working very hard to build up a church that God seemed to be tearing down. Attempting by our own will to accomplish something is very draining unless that is what God wants of us.

Strike the rock? Is God “crazy?” You’ve got to be kidding. Throughout human existence, who has heard of obtaining water by striking a rock? But this wasn’t any old rock; God was standing in front of it, unseen (except perhaps to Moses), the rock that is Christ.

Tear down our church building to save our church? Who ever heard of such a thing? Until you remember that our name is “Resurrection.” Didn’t someone else give up their life to save their life, and our lives too in the process?

So, here we are, Church of the Resurrection. We have been to Rephidim and have been spiritually replenished there. And perhaps we murmured when we had to move. But isn’t THIS place, the foot of Mount Sinai which God has provided instead, isn’t this much better a place to be than before?

So, here we are, Church of the Resurrection, camped at the foot of Mount Sinai, being formed anew as God’s people in a new age. Who will we send up the mountain to talk to God? I am willing to go, but not alone. I am willing to hold up my arms, but I’m a bit tired. Who will go with me, support our community in this way? I envision all of you, each of you, going up the God mountain, too. Not alone; who will you bring with you?

And, who will see God? Who will recognize what God is telling us? I hear God saying, “I saved you before, Church of the Resurrection; I will save you again. But you have to continue to be my people, have to keep on renewing the covenant we have, you and I: personally and collectively.”

And I, standing at the top of this proverbial Mount Sinai, hear another message, as well. I hear God saving, “I’m showing you the way forward, and the way doesn’t involve a building. Gather up all the people I have given you, the obvious ones and the hidden ones. The near-by ones and the far-flung ones. And together, do the work I have given you to do. The Promised Land awaits you.”