Exodus 17; Ezekiel 18; Matthew 21
Rev. Ann (Pittman) Zarate
September 27, 2020
Ooh, we are in it. The wilderness. Am I right?
I mean, minus Egypt.
Most of us were not enslaved: captive in a country that’s not our home, working 18 hours a day building pyramids or I-don’t-know-what for a foreign power, without rights or autonomy, full on slaves.
Most of us were doing okay, at least those of us at First Austin. Generally, we had jobs, money, houses, children, lovers, food, wine, tickets to our favorite theatre or sports team, and general happiness. Yes, traffic in Austin sucked. And yeah, some of us had health issues. And a few of us were struggling with affordable housing or childcare, but generally, we were good.
Then March hit.
And then... not just as a church or a city or a state or a nation, but as a world, as a species... we entered the wilderness.
It’s like those educational kids' movies where they show the frightened animals running frantically through falling, burning branches and trees to escape the forrest fire or the bulldozers plowing down the rain forrest.
The Israelites, however, had the opposite experience getting into their wilderness.
They’d been enslaved in a super crappy setup when God wrangled in Moses to set the people free, and, lo and behold, after watching their neighbors experience plagues, infestations, loss of livestock, blood in their drinking water, and even death of their children, the Israelites got to leave. Freedom, freedom!
But that wasn’t the end of their trauma. The Pharaoh changed his mind about letting them go and then they were really stuck between a rock and a hard place, or rather, a river and an army. You’ve seen the movies, it’s a real Hollywood moment.1 But instead of being slaughtered or drowned, God gave them a third, miraculous option, and parted the waters so they could safely cross and escape the Egyptian army.2
But then they had to walk. Wander, rather, to find their new home. Their promised land. “But, Moses, how much further? This desert is the pits.” When they finally reached the city they were to conquer and live in, they sent some spies inside to check it out. And indeed, it looked nice -- good fruit, lots of honey, but the Israelites freaked out. They’d never been anywhere but Egypt. They weren’t warriors. How were they supposed to overtake a city full of gigantic people? “We look like grasshoppers compared to those people,”3 they whined. (I hear ya, Israelites, I know the feeling).
However, God was not empathetic to their fears and was furious. So they were forced to wander for forty years... That’s a whole lifespan at that time. Until God would let them take over the city.
And the wilderness is, well, it’s not fun. My husband’s become obsessed with the TV show Naked and Afraid during this pandemic. So I’ve seen the African wilderness from the comfort of my couch. It does not look easy. But surely it was better than slavery, right?
“And the bread in Egypt was so delicious. Remember that?”
“At least in slavery we had clean water to drink.”
“God, I’m thirsty Moses.”
Was it when you had to stay at home cooped up with your family in a 2,000 square foot house for six weeks?
Was it when you had to wear a mask to grocery shop and no one could see you smile compassionately at them (or see your awesome new lipstick color) and the mask kept fogging up your glasses?
Was it when George Floyd was choked to death by a police officer in broad daylight and one traumatized teenage girl videotaped it and suddenly people of color had their own Moses moment and decided they weren’t going to be treated like second class citizens and demanded that you read some books, examine your privilege, begin to speak out on their behalf and dismantle the racist system that bought you that 2,000 square foot house and secured you that 6 figure job and ensured your three kids went to schools that were clean and safe with an ideal environment for learning?
When did your murmuring begin?
Please note. Murmuring is not lamentation. This is critical to the story and integral to your faith. Murmuring may come from within the wilderness, but it also comes from a place of privilege: from a people freed, from people shown the miracles of God, from a people on the cusp of having it all, but who still want more.
Lamentation on the other hand is “biblically sanctioned complaint,” writes Rev. Doyle Sager. “Verbalized and ritualized grief.” Lamentation is Jacob and Hannah and the Prophets and Christ in the Garden.
Lamentation is what you hear from the border of Georgia when women in detention centers wake up to discover they no longer have a fallopian tube or uterus after undergoing a routine procedure for a different issue.
Lamentation is what you hear from mothers cradling the broken bodies of their black sons denied all the judicial rights this great country promises while white people share the video of those deaths on Facebook re-traumatizing people of color but never calling a senator or writing a letter to a congressman or voting for levies funding underprivileged schools and neighborhoods.
Lamentation is what you hear from people all along North America’s western coast as it literally burns before our eyes. It is thousand year old forests destroyed, crops incinerated, businesses ruined, entire towns gone, and evacuated people with no home to return to.
Lamentation is the man with cancer my sister was supposed to operate on last month who tested positive for COVID right before his surgery. Because they had to wait two weeks for him to recover, his cancer spread across his tongue. “That man will never speak or eat again because of COVID,” my sister told me.
Lamentation is doctors making the most ethical decisions between two horrible choices because we’re so far down the Pandemic rabbit hole that our image-obsessed, racist, lying government leaders knowingly put us in.
Lamentation is the death of my husband’s aunt to COVID, and the death of Brian Jordan’s father to COVID and the death of Daniel Morris’ mother to COVID.
Lamentation is pulling out our hair and picking up our hearts because our family members are dying and people are gaslighting us. People are manipulating our experiences and calling into question our own sanity when they say COVID isn’t a big deal or it’s not real.
We’ve reached a new level of wickedness when we’re gaslighting one another in a pandemic. Leave it to a group of Americans to try and tell the whole world that what they’re experiencing isn’t real.
Talk about ego.
Talk about privilege.
And listen to the murmuring.
At least the religious leaders in the Gospel text for today had the gall to approach Jesus in person. Granted their motivation was still super shady as their intentions were to arrest him, but still. At least their murmur was loud enough to be articulate.
And in classic Jesus form, he responds with some stories, parables.
Truth be told, I don’t think either son in the story Jesus tells is super stellar. I mean, the first son ends up being “in the right” in the story’s moral, but his attitude is comparable to that of my toddler.
“No, Dad, I’m not going to work in your fields today,” he tells his father. Similarly, my own son pushes his plate away knocking over his milk glass. “No, Mommy, I will not eat dinner,” but in typical two-year-old-fashion, two minutes later, he’s shoveling green beans into his mouth. And the son in the parable has a change of heart and heads out to the vineyard.
Whereas the second son is one of those swindlers. Picture a sweet little daddy’s girl or a used car salesman. “Of course I’ll go work in the fields. Nothing but the best for my favorite dad!” says the second, right before he settles in front of the television for 8 hours of video games.
It makes sense to me that the first testament prophetic text today is Ezekiel. In that story, Ezekiel laments the Israelites preoccupation with punishment. If a dad is good and his son is bad, who is at fault? If a dad is bad and the son is good, who’s at fault? I mean, these Israelites are so steeped in the law that they call God unfair for not punishing the son if the dad was wicked. Again, my toddler is audacious, but towards God? Hmm, maybe it’s not just Americans who are ego driven. Maybe we’ve got a humanity problem.
“Yet the house of Israel says, ‘The way of the Lord is unfair.’”
And God responds, “Get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! I have no pleasure in the death of anyone... Turn, then, and live.”5
Turn, then, and live.
And Jesus finishes out his round of parables with “‘Love God... and love your neighbor.”6
Both of these texts seem to be admonishing a change of heart and a change of action.
No big deal. Just dismantling an entire body’s protective defenses. My biases and judgements and anxiety and sore shoulders and headaches are all protective mechanisms to preserve and elongate my life!
But at what cost?
So that the prophets around me can name the land White Lady Thinks She’s Woke But Was Really Just a Whiner?
Because that’s what happens to the Israelites. Moses names that place Massah and Meribah which means testing and quarreling.
OMG, that’s so embarrassing.
What would God have to name your neighborhood to get you to see that you are loved by the creator of the universe who really just wants you to turn and live?
"Gaslight Avenue," because it was too inconvenient for you to put a piece of fabric on your face but way easier to say science isn’t real?
"White Male Fragility Frontage Road," because your right to own semi-automatic weapons is more important than the 417 mass shootings in 2019 alone?
"Liberal Lunatic Lane," because in theory you believe all are equal and diversity is good and you loved Obama, but you aren’t actually doing to do the hard work of stepping down, shutting up, and changing the system? (And if you see a black man birdwatching in the park, you’re definitely calling the police).
"Toxic Masculinity Terrace," because your right to talk and be in charge trumps the opinions and dignity of the women and people of color around you?
Are you murmuring or lamenting in this wilderness we’re in? Are you murmuring or turning?
“Get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit!” God pleads. And you can almost hear God weeping incredulously at being so misunderstood by creation. “I have no pleasure in the death of anyone.”
Turn, then, and live. Amen and Amen.
2 Exodus 3-14
3 Numbers 13
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