Endless Line Of Blunder
Sermon
Sermons On The First Readings
Series II, Cycle A
Object:
Turn the page, and the story is suddenly different.
When we close the book of Genesis, the descendants of Jacob -- that is, the children of Israel -- are comfortably situated as honored guests in the land of Egypt. And the very best part of the land of Egypt, at that. Jacob's son, Joseph, is a local hero, having navigated the nation (and much of the region) through a devastating period of famine. The Egyptians, along with his own kin, mourn his passing.
But turn the page, and the story is suddenly different.
We open the book of Exodus, and in almost no time we see that the Israelites' circumstances have changed dramatically. The Bible reports that "a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph." Joseph was gone; the Pharaoh who knew Joseph's significance was gone. And so, under the rubric of "how soon they forget," the new administration casts a dim eye toward those relatives of Joseph who comprise a significant minority within the land of Egypt.
It seems to come naturally to human beings to be afraid of minorities within our midst. The pages of history books and newspapers reflect our uneasiness with minorities. That is true not just in the United States, but all over the world.
Almost by definition, the minority threatens the status quo. They represent something different, so their growth in number or in influence signals change. What will become of our neighborhood, our community, our country, our way of life if "they" take over?
That is the natural fear of the majority. And that was the fear of Egypt's pharaoh.
He observed (and probably exaggerated, as our fears and prejudices tend to do) the foreign population within his land. "Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we." If that had been factually correct, of course, then the Egyptians could not have so easily conscripted them into forced labor.
Then the pharaoh looked down the road and imagined the danger that those foreigners represented. "They will increase and, in the event of war, join our enemies and fight against us."
The biblical author, who, as a rule, does not airbrush the blemished people of God, gives us no indication that the pharaoh's fears were well founded. Yet, the large minority in one's midst is intimidating. What could conceivably happen morphs in our minds into what will certainly happen, and something has to be done to stop it. And so, in effect, the dog that has never bitten anyone is put down simply because he has the teeth to do it.
Is the threat to our security mere rationale for our racism, or is the racism born out of insecurity? Whatever the chicken and egg, the pharaoh devised a plan -- "Come, let us deal shrewdly with them" -- in order to solve the perceived problem.
Our fears, distilled, are not necessarily hateful or unreasonable. And our desire to maintain the status quo, our way of life, or our sense of security, is not innately sinister. But when our fears carelessly personify the threat that they feel, they turn into sloppy and odious prejudices. Then begins a vicious cycle: Our prejudices expand our fears, and our fears fuel our prejudices.
It serves us right then, I suppose, that our hatreds so often turn around and haunt us. The Egyptians forced their former guests into bondage, but only to find that "the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread." So what began as fear turned to prejudice; and prejudice turned to hate and cruelty; but in spite of their cruelty, the oppressors only experienced more fear: "the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites."
Pharaoh himself showed how easily haunted we are by our hatreds. When the midwives were unwilling to carry out his murderous instructions, they crafted a certain lie about the Hebrew women: namely, that they were "not like the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them." It was not true, but it was plausible, you see, to the prejudiced. For in the fearful component of our hatreds, we are willing to believe extraordinary things about "them," whoever they may be.
We recognize that this is one of the calling cards of racist propaganda. "We" are warned about what "they" are like; what "they" can do; and what "they" could become. Their physical prowess, their financial shrewdness, their conspiratorial connectedness, their duplicitous character; even their quiet, workmanlike ambition: Whatever their broad-brush characteristics may be, we can paint it as a suspicious and treacherous trait.
So it is that this large community of dangerously prolific and mysteriously strong Israelites haunted pharaoh. So he turned to this drastic measure: "Every boy that is born to the Hebrews you shall throw into the Nile."
The scene is almost too gruesome to imagine: the helpless and innocent children, the grieving families, the carnage. We are reminded of the New Testament tyrant who also ordered the murder of baby boys (Matthew 2:16), although he failed to kill the one baby he so feared. And, likewise, this pharaoh's edict did not eliminate the baby who would become the greatest threat to Egypt's security.
Obviously, the pharaoh did not know the God with whom he was dealing. In his typically human calculations, he feared the size and strength of the Hebrew people, and so he sought to reduce their numbers. But ask Goliath how much size matters. Ask Gideon what difference numbers make. Ask the boy with the bread and fish how much the Lord can do with a small amount. The pharaoh sought to thin out the Israelite community, but one baby got through, and that one baby was enough for God to free the entire nation.
In the short-term plot of Exodus' story, this hideous decree from the throne serves as the backdrop for God's providence. The baby Moses is miraculously spared the death sentence. The very water that was death to his generation becomes his transit to the providential setting God had for him: namely, that he was discovered and adopted by the pharaoh's own daughter.
In the long-term plot of human history, however, the pharaoh's decree to kill the baby Hebrew boys plays a different role, for there is a larger pattern here. This anonymous king of Egypt is the first in a very long line of antagonists who have endeavored to snuff out God's chosen people. In every epoch, it seems, some tyrant has made this his mission. And every one of them has failed.
From Haman to Hitler, the Jews have been targeted by those who wanted to eradicate them. As with Israel, the church has always had enemies seeking its extinction.
In the Old and New Testaments alike, there is something marvelously improbable about the people of God.
In the Old Testament, God begins with an old man, who has no children and owns no land. How many millions of anonymous men have lived and died like that, and their footprints have been completely erased by the passage of time. But God chose this particular wandering Aramaen, and 4,000 years later whole nations trace their lineage back to him.
Likewise, in the New Testament, the Lord began with a handful of Galilean nobodies. By human standards, they had no power, no importance, and no influence. In short, they were, by any ordinary standard, insignificant. And yet, taken as a group, Jesus' twelve disciples are arguably the most famous group of men in history. They are portrayed in more paintings, windows, and statues than any other collection of human beings. Around the globe, hospitals, churches, cities, and countless people are named after them.
How feeble did Judah look as Assyria was bearing down on it? Jerusalem figured to be just one more notch in Sennacherib's cruel belt. Yet to this day, Jerusalem and her inhabitants still stand. For centuries, most of what we knew about the once mighty (and long gone) Assyrians was the record of them preserved in the books of those seemingly feeble people whom they sought to conquer.
How puny and vulnerable did those early disciples look when the local potentate, Herod, beheaded John the Baptist, killed James, and imprisoned Peter? Yet now, two millennia later, Herod's only real legacy is at the points where he crossed paths with these seeming nobodies within his jurisdiction.
The same leaders who had conspired to have Jesus arrested and crucified endeavored to silence his earliest followers. Then, a few years later, the Roman emperors began to set their aim against the church. Employing the considerable resources, cruelty, and coercion at its disposal, Rome sought to crush the followers of Jesus. Yet the Sanhedrin is gone; the Roman Empire is gone; and the Church of Jesus Christ lives on in every corner of the globe.
Within the relatively narrow confines of the twentieth century, the Soviet Union came and went. The God it sought to outlaw continued to be worshiped. The gospel it sought to silence continued to be shared. And the church that was there for centuries before the Soviet Union existed continues now for decades after its demise.
Turn the page, and the story is always the same. Small-minded and frightened antagonists, who endeavor to snuff out God's word and God's people. Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar, Sennacherib and Haman, Nero and Trajan, Hitler and Stalin, and more today, and more tomorrow -- the tyrants come and go. Their plots prevail for a moment. But God's purpose endures -- and therefore God's people endure. So Samuel Stone sang:
The Church shall never perish! The Church shall never perish!
Her dear Lord to defend,Her dear Lord to defend,
To guide, sustain, and cherish,To guide, sustain, and cherish,
Is with her to the end:Is with her to the end:
Though there be those who hate her,Though there be those who hate her,
And false sons in her pale,And false sons in her pale,
Against both foe or traitor Against both foe or traitor
She ever shall prevail.1She ever shall prevail.1
When the Sanhedrin was weighing their options against the early followers of Christ, old Gamaliel cautioned them: "I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone; because if this plan or this undertaking is of human origin, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them -- in that case you may even be found fighting against God!" (Acts 5:38-39).
The pharaoh did not have Gamaliel's wisdom whispered in his ear. And so, as he tried to crush the people of God who lived in his midst, he became the first in a long line of fools: tyrants in every age who have endeavored to fight against God. An endless line of blunder. Amen.
____________
1. Samuel J. Stone, "The Church's One Foundation," 1866.
When we close the book of Genesis, the descendants of Jacob -- that is, the children of Israel -- are comfortably situated as honored guests in the land of Egypt. And the very best part of the land of Egypt, at that. Jacob's son, Joseph, is a local hero, having navigated the nation (and much of the region) through a devastating period of famine. The Egyptians, along with his own kin, mourn his passing.
But turn the page, and the story is suddenly different.
We open the book of Exodus, and in almost no time we see that the Israelites' circumstances have changed dramatically. The Bible reports that "a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph." Joseph was gone; the Pharaoh who knew Joseph's significance was gone. And so, under the rubric of "how soon they forget," the new administration casts a dim eye toward those relatives of Joseph who comprise a significant minority within the land of Egypt.
It seems to come naturally to human beings to be afraid of minorities within our midst. The pages of history books and newspapers reflect our uneasiness with minorities. That is true not just in the United States, but all over the world.
Almost by definition, the minority threatens the status quo. They represent something different, so their growth in number or in influence signals change. What will become of our neighborhood, our community, our country, our way of life if "they" take over?
That is the natural fear of the majority. And that was the fear of Egypt's pharaoh.
He observed (and probably exaggerated, as our fears and prejudices tend to do) the foreign population within his land. "Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we." If that had been factually correct, of course, then the Egyptians could not have so easily conscripted them into forced labor.
Then the pharaoh looked down the road and imagined the danger that those foreigners represented. "They will increase and, in the event of war, join our enemies and fight against us."
The biblical author, who, as a rule, does not airbrush the blemished people of God, gives us no indication that the pharaoh's fears were well founded. Yet, the large minority in one's midst is intimidating. What could conceivably happen morphs in our minds into what will certainly happen, and something has to be done to stop it. And so, in effect, the dog that has never bitten anyone is put down simply because he has the teeth to do it.
Is the threat to our security mere rationale for our racism, or is the racism born out of insecurity? Whatever the chicken and egg, the pharaoh devised a plan -- "Come, let us deal shrewdly with them" -- in order to solve the perceived problem.
Our fears, distilled, are not necessarily hateful or unreasonable. And our desire to maintain the status quo, our way of life, or our sense of security, is not innately sinister. But when our fears carelessly personify the threat that they feel, they turn into sloppy and odious prejudices. Then begins a vicious cycle: Our prejudices expand our fears, and our fears fuel our prejudices.
It serves us right then, I suppose, that our hatreds so often turn around and haunt us. The Egyptians forced their former guests into bondage, but only to find that "the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread." So what began as fear turned to prejudice; and prejudice turned to hate and cruelty; but in spite of their cruelty, the oppressors only experienced more fear: "the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites."
Pharaoh himself showed how easily haunted we are by our hatreds. When the midwives were unwilling to carry out his murderous instructions, they crafted a certain lie about the Hebrew women: namely, that they were "not like the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them." It was not true, but it was plausible, you see, to the prejudiced. For in the fearful component of our hatreds, we are willing to believe extraordinary things about "them," whoever they may be.
We recognize that this is one of the calling cards of racist propaganda. "We" are warned about what "they" are like; what "they" can do; and what "they" could become. Their physical prowess, their financial shrewdness, their conspiratorial connectedness, their duplicitous character; even their quiet, workmanlike ambition: Whatever their broad-brush characteristics may be, we can paint it as a suspicious and treacherous trait.
So it is that this large community of dangerously prolific and mysteriously strong Israelites haunted pharaoh. So he turned to this drastic measure: "Every boy that is born to the Hebrews you shall throw into the Nile."
The scene is almost too gruesome to imagine: the helpless and innocent children, the grieving families, the carnage. We are reminded of the New Testament tyrant who also ordered the murder of baby boys (Matthew 2:16), although he failed to kill the one baby he so feared. And, likewise, this pharaoh's edict did not eliminate the baby who would become the greatest threat to Egypt's security.
Obviously, the pharaoh did not know the God with whom he was dealing. In his typically human calculations, he feared the size and strength of the Hebrew people, and so he sought to reduce their numbers. But ask Goliath how much size matters. Ask Gideon what difference numbers make. Ask the boy with the bread and fish how much the Lord can do with a small amount. The pharaoh sought to thin out the Israelite community, but one baby got through, and that one baby was enough for God to free the entire nation.
In the short-term plot of Exodus' story, this hideous decree from the throne serves as the backdrop for God's providence. The baby Moses is miraculously spared the death sentence. The very water that was death to his generation becomes his transit to the providential setting God had for him: namely, that he was discovered and adopted by the pharaoh's own daughter.
In the long-term plot of human history, however, the pharaoh's decree to kill the baby Hebrew boys plays a different role, for there is a larger pattern here. This anonymous king of Egypt is the first in a very long line of antagonists who have endeavored to snuff out God's chosen people. In every epoch, it seems, some tyrant has made this his mission. And every one of them has failed.
From Haman to Hitler, the Jews have been targeted by those who wanted to eradicate them. As with Israel, the church has always had enemies seeking its extinction.
In the Old and New Testaments alike, there is something marvelously improbable about the people of God.
In the Old Testament, God begins with an old man, who has no children and owns no land. How many millions of anonymous men have lived and died like that, and their footprints have been completely erased by the passage of time. But God chose this particular wandering Aramaen, and 4,000 years later whole nations trace their lineage back to him.
Likewise, in the New Testament, the Lord began with a handful of Galilean nobodies. By human standards, they had no power, no importance, and no influence. In short, they were, by any ordinary standard, insignificant. And yet, taken as a group, Jesus' twelve disciples are arguably the most famous group of men in history. They are portrayed in more paintings, windows, and statues than any other collection of human beings. Around the globe, hospitals, churches, cities, and countless people are named after them.
How feeble did Judah look as Assyria was bearing down on it? Jerusalem figured to be just one more notch in Sennacherib's cruel belt. Yet to this day, Jerusalem and her inhabitants still stand. For centuries, most of what we knew about the once mighty (and long gone) Assyrians was the record of them preserved in the books of those seemingly feeble people whom they sought to conquer.
How puny and vulnerable did those early disciples look when the local potentate, Herod, beheaded John the Baptist, killed James, and imprisoned Peter? Yet now, two millennia later, Herod's only real legacy is at the points where he crossed paths with these seeming nobodies within his jurisdiction.
The same leaders who had conspired to have Jesus arrested and crucified endeavored to silence his earliest followers. Then, a few years later, the Roman emperors began to set their aim against the church. Employing the considerable resources, cruelty, and coercion at its disposal, Rome sought to crush the followers of Jesus. Yet the Sanhedrin is gone; the Roman Empire is gone; and the Church of Jesus Christ lives on in every corner of the globe.
Within the relatively narrow confines of the twentieth century, the Soviet Union came and went. The God it sought to outlaw continued to be worshiped. The gospel it sought to silence continued to be shared. And the church that was there for centuries before the Soviet Union existed continues now for decades after its demise.
Turn the page, and the story is always the same. Small-minded and frightened antagonists, who endeavor to snuff out God's word and God's people. Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar, Sennacherib and Haman, Nero and Trajan, Hitler and Stalin, and more today, and more tomorrow -- the tyrants come and go. Their plots prevail for a moment. But God's purpose endures -- and therefore God's people endure. So Samuel Stone sang:
The Church shall never perish! The Church shall never perish!
Her dear Lord to defend,Her dear Lord to defend,
To guide, sustain, and cherish,To guide, sustain, and cherish,
Is with her to the end:Is with her to the end:
Though there be those who hate her,Though there be those who hate her,
And false sons in her pale,And false sons in her pale,
Against both foe or traitor Against both foe or traitor
She ever shall prevail.1She ever shall prevail.1
When the Sanhedrin was weighing their options against the early followers of Christ, old Gamaliel cautioned them: "I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone; because if this plan or this undertaking is of human origin, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them -- in that case you may even be found fighting against God!" (Acts 5:38-39).
The pharaoh did not have Gamaliel's wisdom whispered in his ear. And so, as he tried to crush the people of God who lived in his midst, he became the first in a long line of fools: tyrants in every age who have endeavored to fight against God. An endless line of blunder. Amen.
____________
1. Samuel J. Stone, "The Church's One Foundation," 1866.
