Scripture: Exodus 14:5–7; 10–14; 21–29
“Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness?”
This question that the Israelites ask Moses as they flee together from Egypt is where the power of this scripture lives.
In the story, the descendants of Joseph and his brothers and sisters begin to see that the odds of their escape from their enslavement in Egypt are increasingly small. They don’t know God, and their safe departure from Egypt seems impossible.
Always and forever — it’s hard to extricate yourself from a bad situation by throwing yourself into an even worse situation, with the hope that something better is waiting for you on the other side. It’s true no matter what the situation — but we know in our heart of hearts that arc of the moral universe which God has created is long, but it bends toward justice.
Let us pray.
God of grace, and God of glory — we come to your holy ground together this morning to seek you up above and running below these sacred and eternal stories of our getting lost and being found; of giving up our hope, and then finding it in the most unexpected places; of hitting a dead end, and then finding God beside us with God’s back against the wall right beside us. Oh Lord, may the words of my mouth…
“Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness?”
Theres a famous story that my cousins and I tell when we need an example of someone going all in one of their passions, or when we need a good laugh.
My uncle Rich had a long career working at high school boarding schools. In that world, he was what people call a triple threat — because he could teach, he was a dorm parent, and he was a great sports coach. In his house there was a copy of the book Art of War by Sun Tzu. The Art of War is an ancient book of Chinese military tactics and philosophy that teaches the reader how to outsmart opponents and defeat larger armies on the battlefield.
Sun Tzu offers wisdom like: “appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak,” and “To know your enemy, you must become your enemy,” and “When you surround an enemy, leave an outlet free. Do not press a desperate foe too hard.”
Well, during girls’ lacrosse season, my uncle read the Art of War and made margins notes all throughout it with the purpose of developing tactics for coaching his high school team. His notes were like “We need to dominate the first five minutes of the game — the one who occupies the field of battle first and awaits his enemy is at ease…” and “stop attacking their best player, Sun Tzu says avoid what is strong and attack what is weak. Find the places we can overpower them…”
If you know my uncle, you know this is who he is, and it is awesome . . . and for most people this coaching technique of applying ancient military techniques to today’s high school lacrosse fields is so far over the top that you have to just laugh! Maybe some of the Frackelton family who are excellent lacrosse players would find inspiration from my uncle and his funny techniques.
There’s a point in this Exodus reading where God waits to return the parted waters of the seas back to normal until all the Egyptian warriors have come into the sea, so that all the Egyptians will be drowned by the waters . . . that’s a moment when a reader could be forgiven for feeling that . . . wow . . . maybe God has gone too far here and overthought this tactic of the Israelite’s escape. Did all of these Egyptian soldiers need to drown so that the Israelites can gain their freedom? Could God have not worked a more peaceful miracle?
The Israelites have made it to the sea, and beyond — and a new story of finding a Promised Land now begins.
As an American, it’s impossible to read the Exodus story and not hear echoes of the hundreds of years of enslaved people in North America running away from the sites of enslavement in search of freedom.
And we are lucky to have just hosted a powerful event here at Newman two weeks ago in which authors and historians taught us about the lives of enslaved Black and Indigenous people who fought for Rhode Island’s First Revolutionary War regiment.
During the Question and Answer part of the event, someone asked a question of Rhode Island’s historian laureate, Keith Stokes, who was a panelist at the event — they asked him about the Underground Railroad, the clandestine network of people and safehouses that worked to move enslaved men, women, and children, usually from places in the south to points further north, into safety and freedom.
Stokes was brilliant in his response, saying that primary documents about the Underground Railroad show that directing people to safety was not about moving people through hiding places and tunnels but rather directing people into free black communities where “they were housed, and fed, and where they could hide in plain sight.” Skipping the sea and seeking right away a promised land of safety — many people found freedom from slavery by making it into Canada, but others settled along the way and assimilated into existing communities as free people.
But Stokes also said something about the earliest Underground Railroads that connect us back to Exodus. He said that the earliest enslaved Black and Indigenous people in colonial American sought freedom not by heading north, by heading to a port . . . heading to the sea, and signing on to a maritime vessel which offered protective isolation, anonymity, food, and shelter. In 1800, the crew of every Rhode Island ship and trading vessel was twenty percent Indigenous and African heritage men — the life expectancy of everyone at sea was about six months and so ship owners were not picky about who they hired on their crews.
In Exodus, God also leads the Israelites to freedom via the sea. As the fleeing masses approach the water, they look back and see the Egyptians riding after them in chariots war — they see the slivers of hope disappearing, until God creates a path forward by doing the impossible for them, through the water. The people’s desire to be free is made possible, and in the tumult, they truly become God’s people, and God becomes their God. As it says in The Art of War, “In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity.”
At the end of his response about the Underground Railroad, Keith Stokes finished by saying, “Read Moby Dick again. And read very carefully the characters in Moby Dick. It’s a very accurate from Herman Melville.” He meant look at all the Black and Indigenous men who make their home and hone their skills on the sea.
Well, I assume that many other people in the room that night had the same reaction as I did at this statement, thinking to myself that it’s going to be hard for me to re-read Moby Dick because I’ve certainly never read it even once.
But his words about the Underground Railroad leading to the sea stuck with me, because I want to know the answer to this question of where God’s people should go and what God’s people should do when our hope is low and our backs are against the wall. And I’ve been reading Moby Dick pretty religiously for the past two weeks and I’m pretty far along.
I’ll close with this last story: I had the book Moby Dick with me this week when I made a visit to our friend Pat Trodson who we hold in prayer and love today. After chatting with Pat about the book for a little bit, she turned serious and asked me, do you think the great white whale attacked whaling boats out of a sense of revenge?
I thought about it and said, I like to think that the whale Moby Dick is just being a whale, and doing what is natural to whales who feel threatened.
She said, that’s what I thought the first time I read it too. But the second time I read it I thought that maybe Moby Dick was full of anger, and he was seeking revenge against those who had hurt him. I had to laugh — I had found someone who had read Moby Dick twice and who, like Keith Stokes said, believed that reading it twice had made all the difference.
It can be read both ways, just like the Exodus story: I think we need to let the God of this story be both vengeful against the Egyptians, and let God be a God who does what God does and whose ways are beyond our understanding. In this complexity lives the truth of the matter and a tension that will drive this story forward and the people of Israel forward in their search for a new home . . . just as in the midst of our own complex lives . . . the truth of our faith is being made, as we look to be at home in God together.
Thanks be to our messy God who is bringing us home.
Amen.
