August 21, 2011 "Biblical Juxtaposition"

Exodus 1:1 -2:10
Matthew 16:13-20

Part of our desire for control, the means by which we make the world our own is through knowledge and understanding, to be able to plan with confidence, to make happen what we desire. But as much as we plan out for our children where they will live, where they will go to school, what they will study, there are circumstances of this life that surprise. What we do with those circumstances, how we choose to respond, these are acts of faith!

For the last hundred years and more, a controversy has swept Western Culture...whether we choose to believe Genesis' account of Creation, or whether we choose to believe in Evolution from a Big Bang. The Bible makes emphasis through juxtaposition, through Irony. The ultimate irony being that from a people who have biologically and culturally evolved, we have faith in God. There is irony that the more technologically advanced we have become, the more predisposed, absolutist and intractable.You have to be Democrat or Republican, you have to be rich or poor, for or against. The great joke of Western Society is that The Bible is Counter-Cultural! This sacred manuscript beginning in Ancient Mesopotamia long before the Caesars, before Alexander the Great, this foundation of morals, law, human culture, faith and ethics, emphasized MULTI-TASKING before we learned to use our opposable thumbs for typing on a Smith-Carona let alone an iPod or iPad. The Scriptures routinely explain one idea in tension with another; we only understand freedom when set against the backdrop of slavery, we only understand defiance when set against an absolute degree of control; we understand grace over against Law; we understand hope in the midst of loss and despair.

Our ancestors had two stories of where they came from. The first is that our ancestors were Nomads, wandering Arameans, descended from a childless couple. We possess these many ancient stories of Adam, of the Tower of Babel, of Noah, of Abram who while free, a nomad traveling the earth like the wind, he possessed no Land, no Name, and no Child. There was also the reality that our parents and grand-parents for generations had been slaves in Egypt. The Bible is not concerned with trying to determine which is right, which will win, the Bible draws the threads of all the parts of reality together.

The Book of Exodus begins with a series of Names taken from the conclusion of Genesis. Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, Jacob was the father of 12 sons and several daughters who along with their families settled in Egypt during the great drought and famine. At that time, Jacob's family numbered 70 persons, and Jacob's favorite son: Joseph, whom he thought he had lost was the most powerful person in all Egypt. In the midst of this drought and famine in a foreign land, the descendants of Abraham, our ancestors multiplied just as commanded in the book of Genesis. Eventually Joseph and all of their generation died off. There came to power a new Pharaoh who no longer honored what had been established in the past.

There are many forms of exterminating a culture. We have heard story after story of Genocide, from Esther to the Holocaust, from Rwanda to the Middle east and Africa, where one race attempts to eliminate another. To control the economy, to control the means of production, to deny education are also means of eliminating others. To consciously make another people slaves, is an attempt at control, at domination, at denial of their humanity, the reality is that both the slave and the master lose their humanity. According to Anti-Slavery International, the oldest organization tracking this, there are currently 20 million people who are slaves, sold for as little as $15 a head.

Ten years ago, we began relationship with refugees from South Sudan. How wonderful that we have come to know these persons and Jacob and Santino, John and Martha, Andrew and Mary Ninkir. We have often referred to the story of their village being burned and the children walking across the country. The fact of the matter is that throughout Africa, India, China, South America, Europe and America today, there are still slaves. 20 million people.
The Book of Exodus is wonderful in its subtle portrayal. This new Pharaoh, the leader of the nation who is responsible for the welfare of their people creates an economic recovery plan of building Storehouse Cities. Pyramids filled with food for future generations, but built by human slaves. The first means of CONTROL, the first means of extermination of this people that have grown numerous, is slavery. But it seems the more harsh the slavery, the more humanity is denied, the more they reproduce. The second means of CONTROL is to kill all the male babies at birth. The foolishness of Pharaoh is not thought through because by killing off the male babies, he is killing off the future workforce, future slaves to build his pyramids. But Powerful and Mighty Pharaoh, ruler of the Ancient World gives orders to the Midwives to kill the baby boys. What is the role of a Midwife? To do whatever is necessary to preserve the life of those being born, and Pharaoh commands them to do the opposite. Now names are important to us. One of the most loving acts parents provide are to give their child their name. And in the wedding celebration, the couple choose their identity and name. In this story from Exodus we have very few and important names. What is the name of the Pharaoh who built great food storehouses? What is the Pharaoh's name who ordered murder? What is Pharaoh's daughter's name? We do not know. What are the names of the Baby's mother and father, we do not know. But the names of the MIDWIVES, those who trust God and defy the Pharaoh are named Shiphrah and Puah, “Life” and “Fulfillment”.

SO in an act of CONTROL, of increasing desperation, Pharaoh bypasses the Midwives and goes directly to the parents, telling them when you give birth to kill their children. To demonstrate what lunacy this is, Pharaoh has a specific means of murder, they are to throw them into the River. But the name of the River in Egypt is The Nile, meaning SOURCE OF LIFE. So the people are to follow the laws of Pharaoh by killing their children in the Source of Life. We do not know the name of this couple, the Bible tells only two things, they are of the House LEVI, meaning the holy order of the Priesthood and they love their baby.

This un-named woman acts in faith. She does what the Pharaoh commands placing her child in the Nile but she does so recalling the story of Noah, fashioning an ARK of gopher reeds and bitumin and pitch to make it waterproof. AND she appoints the child's sister to act as witness. A witness is not an innocent bystander caught unaware who reports what they think they saw. A witness is intentionally appointed to observe and to bear testimony, if possible to intercede to act in faith. The baby who is brought up out of the Moss and Water, is given an Egyptian Name: MOSES and a nurse who is his own mother.

As much as we try to control, try to know and understand, there are conclusions which surprise us. There are times in which juxtaposition is not one idea against another, so much so as one idea informed by another. According to Matthew, Jesus and the Disciples were talking as they walked together, and Jesus asked Who do people believe is The Messiah, the Savior, the Son of Man? And they gave all the traditional answers. Then Jesus asked “Who do you think I am?” Putting A and B together Simon responded “You are the Son of God!” Now up until that moment, no one in all history had put together that the Representative of Humanity, the Son of Man, would also be the Son of God. That these two were united in one life was a new thought a new reality, that God had become human. In response Jesus gives Simon a Nick-name, a name meaning two different things. Up until then there was no name Peter this has become adopted by our culture, the name Cephas has the same root origin as “Petrified” like in Petrified wood that becomes like stone. However, “petrified” can also refer to being immobilized by fear. Cephas can mean the Moveable Stone, this brick that will be used, as well as this immense immovable rock. The problem for the Church is that at times we have been elements, bricks used to build society, at times we have been an immovable wall, at times we have acted in fear, and at times, we have been able to be transformed from being one thing like a tree into something different and permanent like stone.

The question for us as a People of Faith is not which are we, Rich or Poor, Right or Wrong, Republican or Democrat, but whether we can serve as Witnesses for what is going on in the world. Whether we will make connections, between which companies own which subsidiaries, which movies and television shows are paid for by which advertisers, what are the connections between governmental policies and human lives, and are we willing in our places of comfort and security to recognize that slavery and inhumanity still exist.