What Have You Done for Me Lately?

It is tempting to complain when our lives don't go well. In particular, it is tempting to blame God for our troubles. When we do that, we seem to be asking God, "What have you done for me lately?" although we may not say it in so many words. The Israelites did the very same thing when their lives were difficult during their desert wanderings. I started thinking about that during the past week, and I wrote this sermon. What HAS God done for us lately?

It’s just 5 weeks until the next November election. That means we’ll soon be flooded with political ads on the television, on the radio, and in our mailboxes. And every one of those ads will tell us how wonderful a particular political candidate is! That candidate will remind us not only of his or her long record of public service; we will hear in great detail what that candidate has done for us lately. Politicians assume that voters don’t care what they did 5 years ago. No, voters want to know what those candidates have done for us lately. Have they brought new jobs to the area? Have they strengthened our local economy? Do we have more money in our wallets this year than we had last year because of their actions? Before an election, politicians tend to emphasize what they have done over the past several months. That’s why nothing much gets done in Washington – or in Columbus – in the months leading up to an election. No candidate wants to participate in anything controversial right before an election!

I suppose that those politicians are right. People tend to have very short memories. An insult, even an unintentional one, has been known to ruin a friendship that has lasted for twenty years! “What have you done for me lately?” I guess that question is just human nature. The Israelites certainly asked it. Well… they didn’t ask it in so many words. But their actions certainly asked it! They complained constantly that Moses and Aaron had led them out into the desert to die. This morning’s story is only the first of many times that the Israelites complained about their circumstances. They didn’t have enough food… they didn’t have enough water… they didn’t know where they were headed… they didn’t trust the God who was leading them. Whine, whine, whine! And just in case you’ve forgotten, let me remind you what God had already done for them. God sent Moses to confront Pharaoh and demand that he let the Israelites go free. God sent a whole slew of plagues against Egypt; and not one affected the Israelites. God protected the Israelites against the final, terrible plague: the death of all the firstborn children of the Egyptians. And when the Egyptian army threatened to destroy the Israelites, God parted the Red Sea and led them through it to safely.

“What have you done for me lately?” Why, just look at all that God had already done for them! Why were they even asking that question? But we ask it ourselves all the time, don’t we? We ask God “What have you done for me lately?” as though God hasn’t done a darned thing for us before today. We forget all the times that God has given us blessings, because we usually take them for granted. Maybe it isn’t a bad idea for us to remind ourselves of what God has done for us all through our lives. Those reminders can bring us back to reality when we are tempted to ask God, “What have you done for me lately?”

To start with, we’re alive! We might not be, you know. There is no compelling reason why we were born in the first place. But for the grace of God, we might well have never been! But we are here on this earth, all of us unique individuals who never existed before our lives began, and who will never again be duplicated. And not only are we on this earth, God has given us the means to enjoy the world around us! How many of us give thanks for our five senses? How many of us even stop to think about our five senses? Our senses are the way that we interact with the world in which we live; and the way that we enjoy it.

·         We can see the beauty of a sunrise, the changing colors in a fall forest, and the delicate structure of a butterfly’s wing.

·         We can hear the hum of cicadas in the late summer, the majestic chords of Beethoven’s ninth symphony, and the purr of a kitten.

·         We can smell the perfume of tea roses, the smoke of a campfire in the fall, and the aroma of bacon frying in a skillet.

·         We can taste the sweetness of a spoonful of honey, the tang of a home-grown tomato, and the salt of our own tears.

·         We can feel the smoothness of a baby’s cheek, the embrace of a dear friend, and the comforting warmth of a kitchen after returning from a twilight walk through the snow.

Just as much as the witness of our senses are the feelings that they evoke in us. How can we gaze on the Grand Canyon without feeling a sense of awe at its grandeur? How can we look at pictures from the Hubble Telescope without a sense of wonder at the mysteries of spiral galaxies and exploding stars and black holes? How can we look at our loved ones without feeling grateful that their lives are entwined with ours? And we can’t forget the gift of laughter and all the things that bring it into our lives – fat puppies rolling on the floor; frisky colts hopping around their mamas, all long legs and short, swishing tails; and toddling babies coming just that close to a giggle-filled wipeout on the carpet.

But perhaps the most precious thing that God has given to us is the gift of relationships: human love and friendship, and God’s own unfailing love for us, made visible in Jesus Christ. We might not see that love, or hear it – but we know that it works its way into every aspect of our lives! The old Irish poem St. Patrick’s Breastplate expresses that mystery beautifully:

“Christ is with me, Christ within me,

Christ behind me, Christ before me,

Christ beside me, Christ to win me,

Christ to comfort and restore me.

Christ beneath me, Christ above me,

Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,

Christ in hearts of all who love me,

Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.”

What has God done for us lately? Why, God has given us this world and enabled us to enjoy it. God has given us each other in loving relationships. God has given us himself, in the man Jesus Christ and through the eternal presence of the Holy Spirit. And in the end, God has promised to lead us home to that place where we won’t need our physical senses to feel his presence, as well as the presence of our loved ones who have gone on before us and who will welcome us home into glory.

I know that it’s tempting to complain. The Israelites did it. I do it. We all do it, from time to time! This world is a harsh place; and it’s not getting any easier. We may not be on a trek through the desert like the Israelites were, but we’re all on a journey through life; and that journey can be difficult. When we are tempted to complain that life is just too hard, maybe it would be helpful to remember that we are still God’s people, and that God is still guiding us. Even in the wilderness of doubt and fear, God promises his presence in whatever obstacles we might face. As we remember what God has done for us, we can rely on God’s promise of grace, and mercy, and healing, and love. What has God done for us lately? Why, God has given us all the joys of our earthly lives, help in difficulties, and the promise of the fullness of eternal life in the Promised Land! And that, my friends, is not a cause for complaint. It’s a reason for celebration!

Between a Rock and a Hard Place

There are always times in our lives when we feel trapped. We don't want to stay where we are, but we don't know which way to turn. The Israelites experienced that when they stood on the shore of the Red Sea with the Egyptian army on the hills behind them. How in the world could they get out of such a situation? They had no answers -- but God did. This sermon reminds us that God can still get us out of situations like that!

So there were the Israelites, standing on the shore of the Red Sea. They couldn’t go any further; they were blocked by the massive body of water that sat in their way. And there were the Egyptians, positioned on the hills behind them, waiting for the signal to swoop down and massacre the whole bunch of them. Their escape from Egypt that had begun so miraculously and seemed so promising was now threatening to end in disaster. They were, as we might say, caught between a rock and a hard place.

Have you ever been in a situation like that? Sure you have. We all have. I know that I have. You can’t go forward, you can’t go back, and you can’t stay where you are. It’s the kind of situation that puts a “deer in the headlights” look on your face. We want to jump out of the way, but we don’t even know which way to jump. What exactly do we do when we’re caught between a rock and a hard place? Well, there are several answers to that question; and most of them are bad ones. Some people try to go back the way they came. Like a badly beaten army, they sound the call to retreat; and they try to run away to a time that seems to be safer. But we can’t go back, as much as we might want to. The Israelites thought that they wanted to do that – to go back to Egypt – but they didn’t really want to do that. What they wanted to do was to escape Pharaoh’s army, not go back to Egypt as slaves under Pharaoh’s thumb! Other people try to force their way ahead, even if that way has a big “Road Closed” sign hanging over it. That doesn’t work, either. If you try to go through a “Road Closed” sign, you end up running off the road altogether. You might even fall into a big hole where the road has been washed away! No, forcing your way ahead isn’t a good idea, either.  Maybe the worst answer of all is sitting down and giving up. When you’re caught between a rock and a hard place – when you can’t go forward and you can’t go back – sitting down and giving up is a tempting option. If you give up, you get to complain about how unfair life is, and how you aren’t responsible for what happens to you, and how much better other people have it than you do. But in the end, giving up is the one option that is absolutely guaranteed to get you nowhere! You can’t make any progress when you’re sitting on your backside complaining.

So… what are we supposed to do when we’re caught between a rock and a hard place? If we can’t go forward and we can’t go back and we aren’t ready to give up, what option is left to us? Moses had an answer for that, when the Israelites lost all hope and decided that “It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert.” “Don’t be afraid,” Moses told them. “Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Lord will fight for you; and you need only to be still.” And, of course, God did just that. We all know the story of how the Red Sea divided, right down to its sandy bottom. The Israelites walked across that sand to safety, right between two huge walls of water, one on their right and one on their left. But when the Egyptian army tried to follow them, their chariot wheels were clogged with wet sand, so that their progress was slow. Some of their chariot wheels completely fell off so that they couldn’t make any progress at all. They finally realized that the God of the Israelites was working on their behalf; but by the time that the Egyptians turned back, it was too late. The Red Sea water crashed back into its place in a mighty flood, sweeping the Egyptians away by its power. No one Egyptian escaped; but not one Israelite was harmed. Indeed, God did fight for the Israelites when they had given up all hope.

God still fights for us, you know, even when we have given up all hope. When we are caught between a rock and a hard place – when we can’t go forward, and we can’t go back, and we can’t stay where we are – that is the time when we most need to trust God to show us the way. God can always see a way out, when we can’t see anything but our own problems. God knows things that we don’t know; and God has power that we don’t have. Why, God is able to provide options for us that we never even dreamed of. The Israelites certainly never imagined that God could provide a dry road for them right through the middle of the sea! We can’t imagine what God can do on our behalf, either. But we need to trust that God will do something on our behalf. I have a sign titled “Memo from God” that is posted right above my work desk at home. This is what it says: “I am God. Today I will be handling all of your problems. Please remember that I do not need any help. If life happens to deliver a situation to you that you cannot handle, do not attempt to resolve it. Kindly put it in the box labeled ‘Something for God to Do’, and I will resolve the situation in my own way and in my own time.” Is that a reminder that you need to hear? A lot of people do.

Now, that doesn’t mean that we should sit down and do nothing. But it does mean that when we’re caught between a rock and a hard place, we should trust that God will help us to handle the situation. When we can’t go forward, we can’t go backwards, and we can’t stay where we are, God has promised us to show us the way out. My mother used to say that “God never shuts a door without opening a window.” When the door ahead of us is tightly closed, maybe we should pray hard, and then look for a window that’s about to open. We frequently miss that window, because we're so focused on the problems in front of us that we don't see the solution that creeps in behind us and taps us on the shoulder.

That’s what happened to Quentin. Quentin was married to Sharon, who was the love of his life. They had a beautiful family – five wonderful children – and Quentin worked as a high school teacher and coach, a job that he loved. Their lives seemed to be perfect. Then, when their youngest child was only a year old, Sharon was diagnosed with ALS – Lou Gehrig’s Disease. Without any warning, Quentin found himself caught between a rock and a hard place.

For those of you who may not be familiar with it, Lou Gehrig’s Disease is a progressive degeneration of the nerve cells in the body. It begins with muscle weakness and continues, in the end stages, to complete paralysis. Folks who suffer from it eventually need around-the-clock care, and the equipment required to keep them healthy is very costly. Most of its victims are eventually placed in a nursing home, because to care for them at home is physically and emotionally draining. That’s what Quentin was advised. “Put your wife in a nursing home, because you won’t be able to care for her.” But Sharon was the love of Quentin’s life, and he resolved to keep her at home no matter what. He had promised to care for her in sickness and in health, and by golly, that’s exactly what he intended to do! So Quentin’s life between a rock and a hard place began. He got up every morning before the sun rose to get the children up and dressed and out the door by 7:00 a.m. After a full day of teaching and coaching, he returned home to care for Sharon and the children. He got dinner, did the dishes, helped the children with their homework, gave them their baths, did the laundry, and then collapsed into bed. Every night he would cry himself to sleep and pray for help.

Then one day, Leo, a fellow teacher asked him, “How is Sharon doing? Do you need any help?” “Oh, no,” Quentin replied, “we’re fine.” That night, as Quentin began his daily prayer, he heard God speaking loud and clear. God said something like this. “Who do you think you were talking to this morning? Here you are asking me for help again, and I just sent Leo to give you that help!” When Quentin went to school the next day, he found Leo and told him the truth. He was exhausted and overwhelmed; and things weren’t getting any better. So Leo and his wife gathered a group of volunteers. They cleaned the house, cooked dinner, did laundry, bathed children, and helped with homework. The sicker Sharon got, the more tasks they took over. When Sharon’s condition became so bad that she required specialized medical equipment to keep her alive, they even raised the funds to buy that equipment after the government denied their requests for help. Every year since, they have raised the money to pay for her care, which eventually was more than $70,000 a year.

Sharon survived to see all five children graduate from high school, two graduate from college, and one get married. For more than 20 years, scores of people contributed time and money to keep Sharon alive and in her home – and to keep her family afloat, together, and healthy. Over the years, people have asked Quentin whether he ever prayed for a miracle. He always says the same thing. “I did pray for a miracle; and God sent one. All the wonderful people who answered my call for help – they are my miracle.”

Are you between a rock and a hard place right now? Remember what Moses said: “Don’t be afraid. The Lord will fight for you.” Keep praying… and keep trusting… and be alert. God’s help may not come in the way that you expect it; but God will help. After all, if God can part a sea, lead an entire people to safety, and eliminate a whole army, God can do the same thing for you!

Making a Statement

The story of the first Passover is one of the most important stories of the Old Testament for our Jewish brothers and sisters. I believe that it is equally important for us. Why? Because of the response that it asks of us as the people of God. Read my sermon and see if you agree with me.

If someone asked you, “What is the foundational story in the Old Testament?” what would you say? In other words, what is the story that is the basis for all the others? Is it Moses meeting God in the burning bush? Is it Jacob wrestling with God and receiving the name “Israel” as he travels to face his brother Esau? Is it Abraham responding to God’s call to leave his home and his family in search of a land that is promised to his descendents? Those are all important stories to our Christian faith tradition, and to our Jewish brothers and sisters, as well. But there is another story that, at least in my opinion, is the foundational story for the people of God. It’s the story that you just heard a few minutes ago – the story of the first Passover.

The whole story is rather long. It takes nearly 2 chapters in the book of Exodus to tell all of it (Exodus 11:1 – 12:42). The part that you just heard (Exodus 12:1-14) is the heart of the story: the instructions that God gave to the Hebrews before he sent one final plague on the Egyptians. God told the Hebrews to slaughter a lamb and to smear its blood on the sides and the tops of the doorposts of their houses. The firstborn sons of all the Egyptian families would be killed; but the children of the Hebrews would be spared. The angel of death would “pass over” their homes because the blood would protect them. That’s exactly what happened; and that very night, Pharaoh let the Hebrew slaves go free. If we read a little farther (Exodus 12:30-32), we learn that “…there was loud wailing in Egypt, for there was not a house without someone dead. During the night Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, ‘Up! Leave my people, you and the Israelites! Take your flocks and herds… and go!’” The Hebrews left so quickly, in fact, that they didn’t even have time for their bread to rise. That’s why Passover is also called the Feast of Unleavened Bread. The flat bread – the matzoh – reminds them of how quickly they left Egypt when Pharaoh finally allowed them to go.

It’s a great story, full of drama. HBO could probably make a miniseries out of it; and if they called it Passover Blood they would probably get lots of viewers. But why do I say that it’s the foundational story of our faith? It’s not the first story of God’s grace towards his people; and it’s certainly not the last. Why am I choosing this one story for special recognition? For the answer, let me remind you what has happened to the Hebrews up to this time. When God called to Moses out of the burning bush, the Hebrews were slaves in Egypt. Moses’ job was to go to Pharaoh and tell him to let those slaves go free. You all know how that turned out. Pharaoh was unimpressed, to say the least. In fact, he made the lives of the Hebrews even harder by taking away the straw that they needed to make bricks. So God sent plagues on Egypt – flies and boils and hail and locusts. Darkness settled over the land for three days; and the Egyptian livestock all died. But none of these things happened to the Hebrews! They sailed through all the plagues without even a hair of their heads getting mussed up. Only the Egyptians suffered from Pharaoh’s arrogance.

Now, think about this for a moment. God protected the Hebrews during the first nine plagues.  Why didn’t God automatically protect them during the tenth? Why did the Hebrews need to smear lambs’ blood on their doorposts in order to escape that last plague? Did God suddenly suffer from amnesia and need to be reminded which families were Egyptian and which ones were Hebrew? Maybe the answer is not in God’s ability to distinguish Egyptian from Hebrew, but in the people’s willingness to claim their identity as God’s people. If we start at the first chapter of the Bible and read all the way through Genesis and Exodus up to this story, we’ll find that this is the very first time that God has asked something of an entire people. Oh, Genesis is full of people’s responses to God; but they were all individual responses. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were all called by God, but they were called as individuals. Here, in this story of the first Passover, God called a whole group of people. God’s instructions were for the entire Hebrew nation: “If you want to survive the last plague, you have to make a statement. You have to smear lamb’s blood on your doorposts.” That’s a pretty public statement, wouldn’t you say? All the Egyptians who were living on Pyramid Street would see that the house of their Hebrew neighbors had bloody doorposts! You can’t miss something like that. Why, that would be like overlooking a house decorated with Christmas lights that are blinking on and off in time to “The Little Drummer Boy.” When the Hebrews followed God’s orders and smeared that blood all over their doors, it was a public statement for everyone to see that they were claiming their identity as people of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. “If you want to escape that final plague,” said God, “you have to tell people who you are.”

Sometimes we need to make statements like that, too. We assume that everyone knows that we are Christians; but they don’t, not by a long shot. Sometimes we need to remind them of our own identity. We tell them all kinds of other things. We fly American flags to tell them that we’re proud to be citizens of our country. We put decorative wreaths on our front doors and welcome mats on our porches to tell the neighbors that they’re welcome to come and visit us. We turn on our porch lights on Trick or Treat night to tell the costumed children that we have Halloween treats for them. But what do we do to tell our neighbors that we’re Christians? Our houses usually look the same as all the others in the neighborhood. Now, I’m not saying that we should put a twenty-foot cross in the front yard and put a spotlight on it at night. But would it hurt to set out a manger scene at Christmas time so that Santa Claus and the eight plastic reindeer that dance all the way across the front yard have some company?

I suspect that part of our discomfort at making public statements about our faith is that many of us see our faith as a private affair. We aren’t interested in having other people force their faith on us; and in return, we don’t want to force our faith on them. Going public with our Christianity conjures up images of people who appear at the front door and want to give us Bibles and pamphlets and draw us into all kinds of discussions that, quite frankly, we’d rather not have. Is there a way to make a statement about our faith without being obnoxious about it? Can we claim our identity as God’s people without being Bible thumpers? Sure, we can! It’s as easy as just slipping a few extra comments into our everyday conversations. Imagine that it’s mid-December, and you’re in line at WalMart with several toys that you’ve bought for a family from the angel tree at our church. The clerk who checks you out comments, “It looks like someone is going to have a very Merry Christmas!” You could just smile and say, “Gee, I hope so!” But what might happen if you replied, “Yes, these are for a family that our church is sponsoring. We want to share our joy with them and make sure that their children have gifts under the tree on Christmas morning.” That kind of response isn’t offensive, and it leaves no doubt as to where your faith lies.

Are we ready to claim our identity as Christians? We don’t need to smear lamb’s blood on our doorposts; but God still calls us to make a public statement that we are a part of the people of God. I challenge each one of you to do just that during the coming week! Throw in an extra comment here and there. Explain why you’re doing what you’re doing. Claim your identity as one of God’s people! Who knows; it may turn out to be the most important thing that you say all week.