Bible Text: Exodus 14:8-18 | Preacher: Pastor Karen Bartkowski | Series: Exodus | A few weeks ago, Pastor Dorry talked about using a felt board to tell the story of Moses’ mother Jacobed putting baby Moses in a basket and placing him in the reeds of the Nile River.  Maybe we didn’t use a felt board to learn about this week’s story in Exodus, but we likely colored a picture, watched a video (or a filmstrip) or even  acted it out with some children being the sea that parts at the raising of Moses’ staff.  We watch the Hollywood movies using special effects to show the water moving aside to create a dry path for the Israelites to walk through- huge walls of water on each side. Even people who don’t know many Bible stories likely know the story of the parting of the Red Sea.

I want to back up a bit in the story however. If we read this story too quickly in an effort to get to the really cool part- the dramatic part, I think we miss a HUGE lesson, I think we miss a HUGE example of how we are to live our entire lives with God.  I think we miss a HUGE understanding of who God is and how God wants to be involved in our lives.

So, let’s hit rewind for a second and unpack this familiar story a bit…

Verse 8 tells us about the attitude of the Isaelites at this time.  They have recently left Egypt, understanding that Pharoah has set them free out of the fear and respect of God after those 10 life changing plagues.  Did you hear it?  Verse 8 says they were marching boldly.  Can you see them?  Heads held high, confident in their journey, happy, celebrating their freedom…But then, verse 9, the Egyptians pursued them and took over.  Their confidence only lasted 1 verse!  Their easy going nature, their presumed safety, was quickly squelched by the pursuit of the chariots and armies of Pharaoh. By verse 10, scripture tells us that the bold marching quickly turned into terrified cries to the Lord.  Their safety was compromised, their confidence eliminated by the threat of those who had held them in slavery for generations.  They looked back and saw their captors, they saw the power that had suppressed them for so long.  They looked back and saw life as it used to be moving toward them.  This gigantic body of water was on one side of them and the armies of Pharaoh on the other.  They were stuck between a rock and a hard place.  There was danger on each side.  The Isrealites likely figured they would be killed by the soldiers or drown in the sea.  There is no way out, no clear solution.  Scared, anxious, freaked out, helpless, desperate.

And what did they do?  They turned to Moses and blamed him- Why did you bring us here to die?  Because there were no graves in Egypt?  They went so far as to say it would have been better to go back to slavery than to be in their current situation.  The known past is preferable to the unknown present.  The known past is preferable to the unknown present.

Moses hears the anxiety of the people. He cares about them, he loves them, he likely feels quite responsible for their current situation.  He desires to comfort, to counsel, to encourage. So he says the words of our key verse today, verse 13 “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance of the Lord will bring you to day. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again.  The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.”  Sounds like good advice right? The Psalmist writes, Be still and know that I am God.”  and  “Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him”.  Moses tells them to stand firm- to stay strong, to hang in there.  He is saying rely on God and God will fight for you, will protect you.  Stand firm and be still.  I hear trust God and wait patiently.

This is excellent advice, I assure you!  When we are faced with challenging times, with scary times, with times of anxiety, we absolutely need to be praying to God, talking to God, trusting God. And how many times do we talk about the difference between our time and God’s time?  How we need to patiently wait for God to act, for God to speak to us, for God to show us the next step, the next path…Perhaps in these times we read our Bibles more fervently, trusting that scripture is a light for our path.  We wait for God to send a better job, a trusted friend, healing for a family member, a solution to our financial struggles, a way out of an abusive relationship.  We wait for God to end racism, discrimination, injustices. We pray for a cure for the coronavirus and cancer.  We wait for God to take away our anxiety, our depression.  We try to be patient as we wait to hear from God.  We try to be faithful to scripture that tells us “Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God”. We try to quiet ourselves so we can hear the still small voice of God. We try to be patient as we wait for our burning bush moment.  We try to be patient and look for God to act on our behalf. I will be honest, I don’t always do “still” well and I am FAR from patient.  When I find myself in a difficult circumstance, my prayers are all over the place, I am easily distracted.  I spend more time wondering when, and maybe even if, God will answer my prayers. I often hear myself asking God to hurry up!

Moses has compassionate, loving and good advice for the people in verse 14.

If we skip over verse 15 in this scripture, we would leave this story with the lesson that when we are in hard times, when we find ourselves in situations where both options seem awful, when we feel out of control, when we find ourselves looking back and wishing for what was, even when what was is no better than what is…When we find ourselves in these situations, and we have, we do and we will, we should just wait patiently for God and God will part the sea.  God will make happen what we can’t imagine.  YES!  YES!  YES!  Certainly God is capable of all of that.  God is capable of doing what we cannot imagine. God can part our Red Seas, God can make a path where we never saw one.

BUT, wait a second.  Verse 15 does exist…let’s read it…The Lord said to Moses, “Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move forward”.  Tell the Israelites to move forward, to move forward.

In the very next verse God tells Moses to raise his staff and the sea will part.  But, let’s go back…God said to move forward.  Moses told the people to stand firm and wait quietly.  God said move forward!  In the NIV translation, God says move on! In the Common English Bible translation God says Tell the Israelites to get moving.  In my own words, God says, get a move on!  Do something! God says  move forward, which to the Israelites meant toward the water.  Toward what they assumed would be a huge risk of death, a huge risk of loss. Stepping into the unknown, moving into uncharted territory.  The water was dangerous, life threatening, scary, to say the least.

God heard the prayers of Moses and of the people of Israel.  He heard the crying and the concern.  He heard the fear and the anxiety.  But, God said, you have prayed and now it is time to move- it is time to take action.  God told the people to move forward, to head toward the unknown and God told Moses to raise his staff.  The people did their part, Moses did his part, and God did God’s part.

Certainly God could have done it all, but God wanted the people’s involvement.  God wanted the obedience of the people to be part of the story of this amazing miracle.

This Moses and the Red Sea story is not isolated to the book of Exodus.  We see this story play over and over in history and even in our own lives.

In the gospels of Matthew and Luke, we read about the woman with a 12 year history of hemorrhage.  She has spent everything she had on physician intervention.  Her Red Sea was a situation where she faced being an outcast, being alone, not having a family.  She could have quietly prayed in her home, where she was told to stay, but she took a step forward,  She worked to get close to Jesus and she touched his robe.  She moved forward and touched the end of the hem of his coat.  She prayed, she took a step toward the unknown and she reached out. She did what she could do and Jesus did what he could do- he healed her!

I love the story of Peter in Acts 2.  On the day of Pentecost, filled with the Holy Spirit, Peter stood up, raised his voice and addressed the crowd.  Peter faced the crowd who thought he and the others with him were drunk from too much wine.  Peter’s Red Sea found him facing a crowd that could have thrown him out of the city or even killed him.  Peter could have asked God to change the hearts of the crowd, he could have remained still and prayed for God to act.  But, he moved forward, he chose to speak and tell his story and what he knew about God and Jesus.  He prayed, he stood up and he spoke.  He did what he could do and God did the rest- God led 3000 people to baptism that day.

Today is Reformation Sunday, a time to recall the action of Martin Luther.  He was frustrated by the actions of the Roman Catholic Church.  He disagreed with many practices within the church, but most notably the church’s practice of  indulgences, “payment” in the form of prayer or service or sometimes money or possessions in order to reduce the effect of personal  sins and to ensure salvation and  entrance to heaven.  Luther believed that only the free gift of God’s grace would bring salvation. Luther was an Augustinian monk, a man of faith. He could have dedicated himself to prayer, to spending time talking to God about his thoughts.  He could have trusted that God, in God’s time, would take care of this injustice.  This would have been an honorable approach, but he not only prayed, he acted.  He nailed his 95 theses to the door of the church- his 95 opinions of places the church was headed in the wrong direction. Luther took action and the early stages of Protestantism were born.  His Red Sea was the Roman Catholic Church- the authority that had the power and was using it to manipulate people’s understanding of salvation.  He moved forward.  He acted.  And God acted.

I will share with you my own personal story. The short version- It was May 2013.  I was at the Annual Conference of the Eastern PA conference of the UMC. Despite my commitment to the local church, I had never attended the business meeting of the church.  The ordination service occurs during this meeting time.  I was moved by the energy, the preaching and the music.  I was unaware that at the end of this service, the presiding Bishop would invite those with a call to pastoral ministry to come forward.  When she finished her invitation, I sat quietly in my chair, recognizing the heat that was building up inside of me.  I prayed, I asked for some quick understanding of what was going on.  And then I stood up.  I walked forward.  My journey toward ordained ministry began at that moment. Had I stayed in my seat, had I only talked to God, had I not walked forward….I often wonder where I would be today.  My Red Sea was this life commitment to pastoral ministry- seminary, the chance of needing to move as I was appointed, the financial change for me and my family.  I prayed, I stood up and walked forward and God has been more than faithful in my journey thus far.

Lima UMC is facing a Red Sea.  Many members found themselves wondering how we could respond to the denomination’s language concerning gay marriage and ordination of gay clergy.  Many would think that an issue that large would be overwhelming and too powerful for a local church to have an impact. The Reconciling Team was formed and prayer began.  Prayer turned to seeking knowledge and drafting a statement of inclusion. It could have ended there.  We could have shared the statement of the team and continued to pray to God about this injustice. But, the reconciling team stood firm in their faith in God, and distributed the statement and sought acceptance by the entire congregation.  We prayed, we learned, we wrote, we took a risk that the church would not agree with the statement.  Today, we count the ballots. We wait in anticipation of how God will bless this move forward!

There are so many Red Seas in our world today.  The coronavirus is a sea of uncertainty, of anxiety, of fear.  Racial injustice is all around us- in our communities, in our schools, and even in our churches.  The Red Sea of racial injustice is full of conflict and division, it is full of violence and risk of loss of relationships and even life. Mental Illness, including depression and anxiety, impacts people in our families and in our friends.  The Red Sea of mental illness involves the unpredictable, the fear of loss, the lack of control. Maybe you are facing a Red Sea of uncertainty about your financial security.  Maybe you are standing on the shore of your Red Sea as you seek a new job or contemplate a move to a new city.  As we look out onto these Red Seas in  our lives, all we can see is a wall of water, a wall of tumoil, a wall of unknown, we may see a wall that will harm us or cause us pain.  We can stand on the edge of our Red Sea hoping for the courage to conquer it and for the strength to endure it.  We can stand on the beach of the Red Sea wishing we could go back- even if what we are going back to is not all that great.  Maybe we have been there for awhile now, wondering how we will ever get through to the other side.  Maybe we are just approaching a new Red Sea experience, a health concern, for example.  Maybe we are being called to the Red Sea of racism, or homelessness, or food scarcity.  Maybe our Red Sea is marriage equality or equitable pay.  Whatever our Red Sea is, whatever we name it in our circumstances, we know there is much foundational commonality.  There is fragility, a feeling of overwhelm, there is power, risk, change. We are facing a place we have never been before, a force that seems bigger and stronger than us, maybe unsurmountable or unchangeable.

But, we know the rest of the story!  Moses raises his staff and the water parts.  The Israelites have safe passage to the other side!  Their journey continues, their past left behind, hope for the Promised Land in front of them.

God offers us that same hope.  God is more than capable of acting in miraculous ways in our lives, creating safe paths for us to travel even when we cannot imagine that path exists.  Sometimes, God does this without our knowledge or asking.  But, sometimes, we need to listen to the lessons of Exodus 14:13 and 15.  Stand firm, trust God, pray to God, be silent in the presence of God and listen for that small voice.  Don’t ever stop going to God with all your joys and challenges, peaceful moments and anxieties.  Don’t stop asking God to intervene in unjust situations.  Just remember, God told the Israelites to step forward, to move on, to dip their toe in the Red Sea.  When we do that, when we combine our prayers from our hearts with our actions from our hands and feet, we may just see the glory and power of God revealed in our very midst.

Jesus’s last days found him on the coast of his own Red Sea.  In the Garden of Gethsemane that night, he prayed to God for his situation to be different.  He told God about his grief and his trouble.  And then he stood up, firm in his relationship with God, and he walked to Calvary to die on the cross.  But then God’s power was revealed when Jesus rose from the dead! Jesus’s resurrection parted a sea and gave us all a safe and protected path to God.  His triumph over death parted the tumultuous waters that contain our sins.  Those sins which hold us back and disrupt our relationship with God.  Jesus faced the sea, moved forward, he moved on, so that we would enjoy life eternal with God.  That is good good news!

 

Amen and amen.