Wandering the Wilderness - 7PM
Sermon series: Richly Woven
Dear sisters and brothers in Christ, grace and peace to you from Jesus Christ who loves us and frees us from our sin. Amen.
In cities across the world people are gathering in protest of an ever increasing gap in wealth. The first protests began in New York’s financial district about a month ago, as thousands gathered to “Occupy Wall Street.” The occupy movement has now spread to Madrid, London, Rome, Hong Kong, Tel Aviv, Chicago, even here in Minneapolis. The Occupy Wall Street website describes what’s unfolding as a,
“leaderless resistance movement with people of many colors, genders and political persuasions. The one thing we all have in common is that we are the 99 percent that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1 percent.”
Former Vice President Al Gore has called these protests the “primal scream of democracy.” Still others see the protestors as anti-American, anti-capitalists.
The occupy movement has claimed to be the voices of the 99%, the voices of those without. And yet people in the 1% have spoken out too. Some in bold and dramatic ways.
In mid-August, Warren Buffet, one of this country’s wealthiest citizens, wrote an op-ed piece in the NY Times entitled “Stop Coddling the Super Rich.” In the article he detailed how he pays a smaller percentage of income tax than many people in his office who make less money than he does. He said it needs to end.
In this morning’s paper there was an article about Mr. Buffet’s good friend and fellow billionaire, Jon Huntsman Sr. who sees increased generosity among the super-rich, rather than increased taxes, as the answer to many of the country’s and world’s issues.
Either way you slice it, many in this world, at the top and the bottom of the economic ladder see that something in our system is broken and needs fixing. And the way into a different future, well that’s far from clear.
In many ways our contemporary world setting is not all that different from that of the ancient Israelites.
Consider this
It’s not a big stretch to say that we find ourselves wandering in a political and economic wilderness of biblical proportions these days. It’s no big leap to say we yearn for the fleshpots of the 1980’s and late 1990‘s.
It’s no big leap to say we wish for the days when pensions were guaranteed, social security was secure, and the market was always bullish.
Together we stand on this side of the sea of recession, but after spending a brief oasis in the realm of economic stability we stand poised to plummet once again into the wilderness of financial collapse.
And we, like the Israelites, look to our leaders and say. Look at what you did! Did you bring us here to die? Things were so much better before. Fix it. Make it like it was. Now!
But that’s not what God is offering. God’s not into restoring the past, God’s about creating a future.
God is about recreating God’s people.
See way back in the beginning of the story, back before God brought the people through the red sea, before the plagues, before the calling of Moses, before Moses was born, these people were hard at work, as slaves, building storehouses in Egypt.
These people were building supply houses, storehouses, they were forced into building structures of hoarding so that the King would always have enough. Never mind how anyone else lived. And you can’t help but be shaped by that kind of thinking.
God had delivered his people from their Egyptian taskmasters but the economy of scarcity in which God’s people had lived managed to escape the waters of the Red Sea and live on in the hearts of the people.
And isn’t it the same for us. For though we’ve been washed in the waters of baptism, though we’ve been claimed by God for a new life in Christ, we still cling tightly to the old ways of Egypt.
We too build storehouses in hopes that we too might be kings and queens of our own castle.
But that’s not what God is offering. God’s not into restoring the past, God’s about creating a future.
God is about recreating God’s people.
As so God rains down bread for heaven.
Now, this might seem like a curious way to create a people, a new nation. But by the daily practice of gathering the food that God has provided, the Israelites grow to trust God, to see that the one who delivered them from slavery, who led them through the seas will continue to be the source of their life and salvation.
Amy Erickson who teaches out in Denver said it this way.
In the ritual practice of daily gathering of food that falls from the sky, they will learn, with their very bodies, to come to trust their god; [God’s people] will learn to share their basic human resources equitably.
[God’s people] will come to know a food distribution practice antithetical to the one designed by Pharaoh. And the keeping of the Sabbath will remind them that they are more than technologies of empire; they are human beings who, like their god, require rest and rejuvenation. Even in crisis, with chaos all around, Sabbath practice is essential to their lives and their emerging identities.
In the midst of the chaos, the wilderness of this life, God offers a different way, a new life rooted in the promise that God provides all we need, not just as individuals, but as communities, countries and this world.
Put it another way, God offers you an invitation to occupy, not wall street, but this life. You are called to occupy this life fully. You are called to look for the miraculous providence of God in the ordinary of daily life and then to bear witness to what God has done and continues to do.
We are not a leaderless movement. We’ve been molded in the image of God who daily shows to us his glory and love, so that we might be bread and love for this world that journeys with us in the wilderness.
This is hard work being God’s people. But it is in and through us that God works to bring about the world God intends.
It’s a world where the hungry are fed, where all have meaningful work, and where we need no longer divide ourselves into the have and have-nots, the 99% and the 1%.
It’s a world where all can taste and see the goodness of God.
