Remember the good ol' days?

Scripture: Exodus 14:10-14, 21-29

             I love the Israelites. They invented the “good old days.” Remember how great it was back in Egypt? Didn’t we tell you we wanted to stay in Egypt? We told you this would never work, Moses. We have always stayed in Egypt. We tried to leave Egypt before and it didn’t work; it never works. Please allow us to go back to Egypt… please, pretty please?

            Has anybody ever heard anything like this?

            These were slaves. They were in slavery in Egypt—there’s no way to spin it otherwise. Never minimize our ability to delude ourselves into thinking that the past was better than it was. Remember the good old days? Yeah, sure, we were worried about getting drafted into the war, and the family farm was barely making enough food to feed us (let alone anybody else), but it was a simpler time then—a better time. The church was filled with kids—never mind that they were only there because there was literally nothing else to do and their parents would do things to them if they didn’t go that today would be illegal. People weren’t more faithful back in the day—they were more bored and they were more scared; and maybe not all of that was so bad, but better? Was it really better?

Many of you remember those days because you lived through them. Today we are afraid of terrorism… then we were afraid of communism. Today we are afraid of dwindling numbers of people… then we were afraid that we couldn’t support the people that we had. Today we are afraid that our church no longer matters in our culture… then we were afraid that our church had too much stake in our culture. Every age has its advantages and disadvantages, but certain times—like the Israelites on their way out of Egypt—we delude ourselves into thinking something that clearly isn’t true. Egpyt was never the “good old days.”

            The history of God’s people contains many of these stories. It seems like every new generation of people believes themselves to be better than the last, and each generation—when the time comes to pass off to another generation—refuses to believe that it can be anything but downhill from there. It’s amazing how we celebrate the Civil Rights Movement and the American Revolution and the Voting Rights Act and the Reformation and the Enlightenment and any number of seminal events in our collective history because of the hard work of people bettered the world, and then we honestly believe that what we need is to go back to something that’s worked in the past. Our past needs to remembered and, where appropriate, celebrated, but not re-created.

            Now, don’t get me wrong—there are challenges today. Technology does not solve all our problems; in fact, it creates all sorts of new ones. It’s not that everything gets better over time or that every new generation is better than the last. We are all floating down a river that began before us and will run its course to the sea long after we are gone, and we are all shaped by that river and in turn we influence what that river will look like downstream, but trying to swim upstream will change nothing for where we are today. A river is never the same. The further you get downstream often the bigger and scarier it is, but you can’t go back. There’s no way to bring that smaller stream back; we have to deal with the water we are given.

            Again, like three weeks ago, water is our illustration du juor. Moses, with his people grumbling and ready to throw him into the sea so that they can go groveling back to Pharaoh begging for forgiveness, strikes the ground with his staff and the water parts. In a single act, Moses shows his people that God is directing them forward into the unknown; not backwards into a past that is known but future-less. God wanted more than slavery for his people; even if they didn’t know the difference.

            Then, when the people cross the sea with the Egyptians in their wake, God tells Moses to do something terrible—to strike the ground with his staff once more so that the sea swallows the Egyptian army whole. The parallels with the flood and Noah echo on the winds. The way forward is not only scary—it requires some dying to the past. But so important for all of us is that God goes before us. It is not our plans that matter; it is God’s future we are trying, and sometimes failing, to live into.

            The grumbling of the Israelites doesn’t end after the Red Sea. Many times they remind Moses of how great life was back in Egypt, talking of the good food and the jobs—everyone had a job, Moses! 0% unemployment. That’s the economic boon that is slavery. And each time Moses throws up his hands—he can’t believe anybody would be so naïve, but they are. We are. At least we are when the future is murky and present is kind of scary.

            Next week we will pick up this story with Moses on Mt. Sinai receiving the Ten Commandments. The people need rules, and they prove this point by making a golden calf to worship while Moses is up the mountain. But the reason they need rules is because of this fear that overtakes them time and again. It’s scary being the first—the first to press into the wilderness, to not know for certain where tomorrow will take you; the first to get to determine a future for themselves. It’s much more comfortable to stay where you are. But I’m hard pressed to find any example in scripture or among our cultural heroes who stays where they are. We are a people who go. And that’s what Israel finally had to do. They went. They grumbled and dragged their feet, but they went.

            There’s a model for us. Grumble if you like. Drag your feet all you want. But God is leading us forward, and it’s scary, and things will be different. That’s a promise. We will honor the past but resist the urge to re-create it. We will be God’s people, as best we can. This is our mission. It’s our calling as Christians. We’ve walked through the water and stand on the farthest shore. The question—the question facing all of us—as we stand looking back at the life behind us, is what do we need to drown—what do we need to put to death? And what do we look forward to now?