October 10, 2005 — 4:59 PM
Get that to stick!
Exodus 32:1-14
Philippians 4:1-9
When you want to remember something important, what do you do?
Many people, like me, write it down. This will allow us to look back at the written note whenever we want to recall this information. But this isn't always practical - it requires that we always have a piece of paper and a pen handy. And then, we have to be sure to keep the piece of paper with us at all times so that we can draw upon it when the right situation arises.
So the real difficulty for us is how to remember something without relying on the written word. How do we get that name, phone number, address or maybe even a joke to stick with us until is it done being useful (sometimes this means we need to remember it for a very long time).
If you're like me, you have a large number of tricks you draw upon.
For instance, if I find myself in a crowded place, and I see a phone number I want to remember, I will probably say it to myself quietly. Maybe I'll repeat it a couple of times just to make sure it really got in my brain. If I am alone when I come across this number, I might say it to myself out loud, repeating it a few times for good measure. The action of saying it as well as hearing my own voice often does the trick and I am able to remember it later when I want to use it.
But many times the simple act of saying the number will not be enough to keep it in my memory. Other things will come up that distract me and make me forget exactly what the number was. Because I know this is likely to happen, especially with numbers, I like to put the number to a rhythm so that it will be easier to recall in the future. This small act helps distinguish that bit of information from all the others bombarding me so that it can stand out in the future when I need it.
And the chances for remembering information are even greater when I put it into a song. The creative act of coming up with a tune and making a little song really makes that information unique and makes it that much easier to recall in the future.
How many of us used this last technique to help us remember when we were children? I'm sure most of us here could join together in singing our ABCs or about our heads, shoulders, knees and toes. I was a Spanish teacher for elementary and middle school students for many years - every program aimed at this level of instruction uses songs as a key tool for teaching children vocabulary.
Singing to remember works because it involves the whole body in the act. It uses the mind, the primary focus of our memory work, but it also uses our body as an instrument drawing largely on the lungs and the voice to convey the message of what needs to be remembered.
For children, saying things in rhythm and singing come easily. But as we age, we become more inhibited - often becoming embarrassed to engage in these activities. The church remains one of the few places in our society (along with the baseball park) where people of all ages join together in singing.
Songs or hymns have been used throughout the ages to teach people religious beliefs and to remind the faithful of what they know and believe about God. Christians are not alone in using hymns and songs to worship God and to help them remember their faith. But hymnody has been an important teaching tool for Christians since the time of Christ. We join in this long tradition today as we gather together in worship and sing. Let us affirm together who we believe God to be by singing the first verse of the hymn "Our God, Our Help in Ages Past."
v. 1: Our God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Our shelter from the stormy blast,
And our eternal home:
God is our help, hope, shelter, and home. What wonderful affirmations of who God is and what God has promised us. Each time we sing this hymn, we are reminded of God's promise to be with and to provide for God's people. Promises we sometimes forget.
We are not alone in our propensity for forgetting God's promises to us. Our Old Testament lesson for this morning shows that even the Hebrew people, so recently saved by God from slavery in Egypt, were capable of feeling God's absence more than God's presence and forgetting God's promises to them.
It may be easy for us to read this passage and say, "Tsk, tsk! How could these people turn away from God when God had just done such miraculous works for them?" But I would venture to say that the situation hardly seemed miraculous to the Hebrew people at the time.
Sure, the people were no longer slaves to the Egyptians, but they no longer had homes; they no longer had steady food and water; they didn't have a land to call their own. Rather, they were traveling for an unspecified length of time to a place that was yet to be revealed. Can we really blame them for feeling more scared than happy and thankful?
On top of all that, now the man who had convinced them that this was God's will for them had disappeared. Moses had gone up Mount Sinai over 40 days ago and there had been no word from him. As the days dragged on the people began to wonder if Moses was gone for good along with God who had promised to be with them, guide them, and provide for them. They were definitely feeling that God was absent from them. They wanted a physical representation of God so that they could feel closer to the divine.
Their newly reaffirmed faith was shaking. It was nearing on collapse and so they asked Aaron to help by making them gods that they could see. Then they would always know that the gods were with them as Moses had helped them know in the past.
Maybe you have had times when you felt that God was absent; times when you wished that you could have some physical representation or sign to reassure you that God really was with you. Maybe this feeling came to you at a time when you were facing financial difficulty. Maybe it came when you or a member of your family was facing serious health problems; or troubles with a job; or problems with a relationship. Or maybe it came over you when everything seemed to be going fine, but you just weren't sure that God was really there with you as you faced a new day.
At times like this, we are like the Hebrew people who were having a hard time affirming their faith in the God of their ancestors. At times like this, it is important to be reminded of the constancy of God. At times like this, words like those in our hymn could be very helpful in shoring up our faith and helping us to remember God's promise to be with us. Let us sing verse 2 together:
v. 2: Before the hills in order stood,
Or earth received its frame,
From everlasting Thou art God,
To endless years the same.
The God we worship is the God who was, is, and always will be. This God who created our world and all that is in it is the same God who cared for the Hebrew people as they made their way to the promised land and who continues to care for us today. Reminding ourselves of God's steadfast love is vital for feeling God's presence with us when we face both good times and bad.
Passages from the Old and New Testaments as well as many of our favorite hymns and songs are good sources to remind us of God's love for us and God's promise to be with us no matter what comes our way. Today's lesson doesn't initially seem to be one of these passages. What went through your mind when you heard the conversation between Moses and God up on the mountain? I'm betting it wasn't "Wow! What a steadfast love God has for God's people!"
When God sees the unfaithfulness of the Hebrew people, God wants to cut all losses and run. God doesn't even claim these people as God's own any more. Listen again to words from Exodus 32:
"The Lord said to Moses, "Go down at once! Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely; they have been quick to turn aside from the way that I commanded them... I have seen this people, how stiff-necked they are. Now let me alone, so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them; and of you I will make a great nation."
These words don't exactly lead us to rest assured in God's unwavering love and graciousness.
But Moses will not have it. He knows that God is justified in that anger. But he also knows that this is not true to who God is - the god of steadfast love. Because he knows this, he feels confident to remind God of the promises God made to Abraham, Isaac, and Israel - promises to give them descendants as numerous as the stars and a land which these descendants could call their own.
God, hearing Moses' argument based on God's own promises, has a change of heart. In Moses' words is the reminder that God's plan is much larger than this single generation of Hebrew people who had wavered in their faithfulness. God's plan to establish a people and to bring about God's kingdom would take many, many generations. An idea expressed by the 3rd verse of our hymn this morning. Let us sing it together:
v. 3: A thousand ages in Thy sight
Are like an evening gone;
Short as the watch that ends the night
Before the rising sun.
God's time is different than our time. That's what Isaac Watts, the author of this hymn, wanted to convey with this verse. It's a sentiment that I have heard and used many times myself. This is an idea that helps many to be patient while they wait for God's will and way to be revealed. The human race, as demonstrated by the Hebrew people in Exodus, want to see results quickly; patience does not come easily for most of us.
Have you ever prayed over and over to God for a certain situation to be resolved and it never seemed to happen? It's times like these when people often remind themselves, or those they want to help, that God's time is different than our time. Remembering God's eternal promises of steadfast love and presence with us can help us to face a difficult situation that doesn't seem to have an end in sight.
The Apostle Paul in the New Testament was very familiar with this. His whole ministry was plagued by strife and difficulties. He and the Jewish authorities were in a constant struggle over what was really the good news (or gospel) of Jesus Christ. Paul believed it was news of freedom in Christ - freedom from the Jewish law so that all could be welcomed. Everywhere Paul went to share the gospel, the Jewish authorities were soon to follow. Every church that Paul helped to establish found itself attacked by these authorities who thought Paul's understanding of the gospel was not God's true word to humankind.
The letter Paul wrote to the Philippians was a defense of the teachings they had received from him. It is also a letter of encouragement to remain true to this understanding of God even in the face of tremendous pressure from other religious authorities. Paul draws on his own ministry as well as the example of Jesus' ministry, which faced much opposition from the religious authorities of his time. Paul's advice to the Christians in Philippi? "Stand firm in the Lord." He wants them to remain steadfast in their love of God as God has remained steadfast in love for them.
Feeling confident that he has made his point clear to the people, Paul feels free to address a few more concerns, those found in our passage for today, before wrapping up his letter. His major concern is over the rift that has occurred between two of the important women in the community. He asks the women to be of the same mind in the Lord and for other leaders in the community to help them to do so. With so much pressure coming from outside sources, it is of utmost importance for the Christian community to pull together and to remain unified.
Paul offers advice on how to do this: rejoice in the Lord; be known by your gentleness; don't worry, rather, turn everything over to God in prayer. When they do this, God's peace will be able to guard their hearts and minds in Christ. What better way to face the difficulties of daily living than to face them with God's peace in their hearts and minds? God will be real to them and the pressures from without and within will not weaken their faith.
We often get bogged down in the details of daily living, forgetting God's love and promises to us. We feel overwhelmed by all that is asked of us and dismayed at how fleeting our time on this earth is. When this happens we can easily identify with the sentiments voiced in verse 4 of our hymn. Let us sing it together:
v. 4: Time, like an ever rolling stream,
Soon bears us all away;
We fly forgotten as a dream
Dies at the opening day.
Paul offers the Philippians, and us, two suggestions for how to not get weighed down by life but rather uplifted by God to meet each new day. He says, first we have to think. And he's very specific here about what to think about. Whatever is honorable, just, pure, pleasing, commendable, anything of excellence or worthy of praise, these are the things to think about. It's hard to imagine staying downcast or overwhelmed while thinking about these kinds of things.
This isn't a call to ignore the problems that come. Rather, it is a call to reframe the problems. Put them into the context of the larger ideals - that of honorable, just, pure, and pleasing things. When problems are viewed in this light they might not look so bad. We might even be able to see a way out.
But we are not just to sit around thinking. After we think on these things, Paul tells us to "keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me." We are to follow Paul's example in living a Christian life. We are to get out there and share the good news of God's radical love that reaches out to all and makes all one in Christ. As Paul explained it Galatians 3:27-28: "As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus."
So think on these things. Keep following the examples of Paul and Christ and other pillars of the faith both from the Bible witness as well as from personal experience. And then, rest assured that God's peace will be with us to remind us that God claimed us in the waters of our baptism, loves us, and desires to be present with us no matter what may come - be it wandering in the desert like the Hebrew people or facing the very real struggles of living today. When we know this peace in our hearts, we gladly join in singing praise to God affirming God's steadfast love.
Amen.
Let us join in singing the final verse of our hymn this morning:
v. 5: Our God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Be Thou our guard while life shall last,
And our eternal home.
