Waters of Life

Sermon Exodus 2: 1-10 June 7, 2015 Ordinary time-communion/baptism

Waters of Life

 Last Sunday during the church picnic we had a trivia game and one of the categories was Bible and there was an option of Old Testament or New Testament, well the groups always chose New Testament-so dear friends you might note that today’s lesson and for  the next three Sundays comes from the Old Testament. Coincidence perhaps-and then again perhaps not. J

Our story begins today in Exodus. You may all well know that the previous book Genesis ended with Joseph, the son of Jacob, being the hero and the rescuer as he delivered the people of Israel, the sons of Jacob, from famine by bringing them down to Egypt. Joseph welcomed his family and so did all the people of Egypt welcome these immigrants to a foreign land. They were well received and were given a new home. And we enter into the book of Exodus, 400 years later, 400 years from the welcome of immigrants and opening up their society to those in need, to turn and to close themselves to these Israelites-these Hebrews. The welcomed people are now the oppressed and living in slavery.

Now most of you are going to tell me this morning that you know all about the story of Moses. And most of you know the story well because we have all watched Charlton Heston in the Ten Commandments. And this is good news if we remember the story.

The people of Israel were a people familiar with chaotic times. They had threats surround them and times of helplessness and serious conditions befell them. Their history speaks of the need for God to intervene in the most chaotic and horrendous times. This story of Moses and his leading of the people out of Egypt is the core of the faith of the Jewish people. God the great God is the one who rescues his people.

Every story has its beginning and the beginning of the Moses story is essential to the Jewish faith and its spirituality. There is much here about the sovereignty (the BIGness) of God about how God intervenes through the lives of people who do not even know God or acknowledge God’s existence.

There is much here about how a life of purpose comes unwittingly through the hands of others and how they mold and shape and prepare those in their care for the greater things of life.

Imagine if we were aware of the impact we had on the lives of people with whom we work or care for or encounter on a daily basis?

Think perhaps even how we might have been the instrument of being the ‘angel unaware’ as we assisted someone by the roadside or took in an animal needing shelter or simply smiled at a person in line at the grocery store.

There were so many players to make this event come to pass; the midwives, the mother, the sister, the Egyptian princess, all who acted from the heart, their hearts which were filled with love and concern for life. This princess who rescues the Hebrew baby ends up being the giver of life to the one who ultimately rescues all of God’s people from oppression, from slavery. Moses is known as the redeemer of the Jewish people.

The story works through many facets of planned and unexpected turns for the sake of the life of Moses.

His mother makes a basket for him and places it in the reeds near where she is aware the princess comes on a daily basis to wash. The reeds I assume are much like the shallows we have around here, where one can walk through them waist high. The princess has much autonomy in the Egyptian culture as well as authority to execute contracts and secure personnel.

She does so with the mother of Moses who then becomes the caretaker of her own son in the palace of the pharaoh. We can be sure that she nurtured his mind and character and instilled in him the values and traditions cherished by his people.

The salvation of Moses from certain death through the acts of others on his behalf points again to the power of God at work to bring about the salvation of all of God’s people. The very act of placing Moses in the waters is to put him in a vulnerable spot.

How could a mother do that?

How could mother put her child vulnerable to the elements of the water?

We who are the people who live between the waters know very well what it is like to be vulnerable on the water.

 We know about storms and seas and wind.

We know about going under and coming up again.

We know about how we are at the mercy of the elements when we place ourselves on the water.

Yet, this mother knew that to be vulnerable enough to place her child in the water was to place him in the hands of God, the Creator and giver of life.

We do the same through the act of baptism.

We place our children in the waters of baptism

placing them in the hands of God

and offering them up to new life in Christ.

In this story God is not mentioned on purpose. Because the writers of this story knew that the people hearing it and reading it would have also known all those other regional stories about babies in the water and how the gods intervened. God’s name is withheld to remind the people of the power of God fully present in the most vulnerable times. Again, pointing out the BIG God, the sovereign God we have who provides for us and uses the least likely to fulfill God’s will.

There are people who God has put in place to be vulnerable and take risks.

It happened in my life.

People came alongside and took the risk to invite.

A young girl who had no use for God,

who had no faith in God,

who had little faith experience

and people chose to invite,

despite the negative response.

And so after a yes to the invitation

and several weeks that followed

and continued yesses to invitations,

I too became vulnerable

to the place God had brought me

opening up to a new way of life with Christ.

And the most powerful sealing moment

was when the priest

shed his ecclesiastical robes

and became Christ for me.

He knew I was not baptized

nor would I have the opportunity

to be confirmed

or to join the church

or to be in full communion

and he became vulnerable to the moment

and he offered the bread and the cup to me

and my life was forever changed.

To be vulnerable is to take the risk that God will not only carry us on the water but will take us through the waters into new life.

To be vulnerable is to trust ourselves in the hand of God!

Offering ourselves to God,

to allow God to breathe the breath of life in us,

to allow the waters to flow freely,

is to say, “Take my Life and let it be all for Thee…”

Take my life, Lord.

Amen.