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The Fourth Sunday after Pentecost, June 12, 2005
Exodus 19:2-8a, Psalm 100, Romans 5: 6-11, Matthew 9:35 - 10:8
St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, West Valley City, UT
Lyn Zill Briggs
Madeleine L'Engle said, “The great thing about getting older is that you don't lose any ages that you have been.” We of the 21st century have been given the gift of cumulative wisdom from many ages. We carry with us the stories of all the faithful people, not perfect but faithful people who have gone before us. We carry within us the great joy at the deliverance from oppression in Egypt. We carry within us the profound hope of the early Christians, which St. Paul has grounded for us in the fundamental truth that Christ died for us while we were yet sinners. We carry within us Jesus' compassion for all God's people who are hurting, as well as the challenge to make a difference in their lives.
Today's lessons invite us to step back, and from a distance of thousands of years, look at the stories and truths which have shaped us.
We have before us a view of the landscape of the life to which we have been called: of the life of people of God. That landscape includes where we've been, our lives today, and what that might mean for our lives ahead.
We find the children of Israel, having moved in a general direction away from slavery three months earlier, camped at the base of a mountain. On that day, they are simply a bunch of people for whom God has done something good. In much ancient literature, including the Bible, mountains are places where the world connects with the Holy. Profound and mystical things happen on mountains. So they wait anxiously, at the base of the mountain, when Moses heads up the mountain to encounter God, for their lives are about to change on so many levels.
God says to Moses, “Remind the people what I have done for them, they will see how much I loved them.” God tells Moses, “—remind them how they were slaves in Egypt and now they're not—that was me that did that! I saved them from their life of oppression. Remember how the Egyptians were chasing them after you brought them out of slavery? Remember how they got away? Tell them that was me.
“Tell them it is as if I was an eagle and carried them on my wings to a safe place.” From a distance, we can see that tender and powerful image dominates the rest of the historical landscape. This tender and powerful God has transported these people to the wilderness, away from all they have ever known, to ask them this question—will you be my people? God is at his most vulnerable here—he has gone to great lengths to show his love, but still allows the people to choose to participate in this relationship.
For the first time in this great narrative God indicates the desire to interact with a community, not an individual. Moses conveys God's question—will you be my people- and the people, together, say yes. We will do what God wants. They say yes, before they even know what God wants them to do. With their Yes, a covenant has been forged. Their status as a people changed, for now they belong together. Their relationship with their creator changed, for now together, as a community, a priestly kingdom and a holy nation, they belong to God. With that Yes at the base of that mountain, their future and our future changed. They were invited to choose to be chosen. They willingly entered into a committed relationship with God. After they made their choice, they were told what that would mean for them, and what God would expect from a holy people.
They belonged to God. And God belonged to them. They belonged to each other. That's the language of covenant.
Looking through the lens of covenant, we can see that every word and action in the Holy Scripture, is shaped by this “belonging.” In today's Psalm: “Know this,” the psalmist shouts, “Know that the Lord is God and We are his for he made us. We are his people and the sheep of his pasture.”
We are in God's territory now. Because of the covenant made at the mountain in our Old testament lesson, because of the new covenant forged when Jesus died for us while we were still sinners, we are God's treasured possession and that makes us holy people.
Each time we gather for Eucharist this table becomes our mountain in the wilderness. It is here in a few moments that we will again claim the history we share with countless faithful people. It is here where our shared story will become a shared commitment, renewed time after time. This mountain, this place where we meet God in relationship, is a place of holiness which transforms our lives. It is a place where we are challenged to choose to be a distinct presence in the world.
Each occasion of breaking bread we retell and reconnect with this story of belonging and salvation and compassion. We are reminded of what God has done in the past, we claim for our own the great things that God is doing in our lives now, and together we re-commit to continue that sacred story in our own lives of compassion and service. This community of commitment is God's treasured possession. Our commitment insures that the story of belonging will remain alive, in us. Our commitment compels us to lead lives that serve all of God's people.
Each time we gather in worship we remember that God loved us, loves us and will love us and went to incredible efforts to make us God's own. God has demonstrated what it is that God understands love to be—action that makes a difference in the lives of real people. Our challenge is to turn that great love that God has demonstrated for us to make a loving difference in the lives of real people.
Our covenant, the fundamental stories of care and belonging, shape us into a people with a common purpose. St. Paul assures us that we need not spend our time worrying about our salvation—for that, in the life and love and death of Jesus—has been taken care of. We live in a climate of grace and reconciliation, for which all creation yearns.
The time given to us is to be spent as Jesus spent his time—in compassion for the helpless, the hurting, in proclamation of the good news of belonging to God. Jesus commissions his disciples to continue his ministry of compassion. The life of covenant is not easy. And Jesus himself was overwhelmed by all the work there was to do.
Listen to the words of the eucharistic prayer, especially for the language of belonging which echoes through the ages. May we always hear and respond to God's invitation to gather up all that we are and all that we have been, and be agents of belonging and hope and compassion in the world.