Taking One Step Backward

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
The First Presbyterian Church
Washingtonville, New York
September 18, 2005

Taking One Step Backward
Exodus 16:2-15
Matthew 20:1-16

We are sixteen chapters into the book of Exodus,
about half-way through the book.
In the chapters we have covered to date,
we’ve heard the epic Moses story:
the story we know so well, the story that Cecille B. Demille
made so famous in that great movie, “The Ten Commandments”.

In the first two chapters we heard the story of Moses’ birth;
how his mother Jochebed, was forced to give up her infant son
because of Pharaoh’s order that all male babies
of the Hebrew slaves were to be put to death.
We heard the story of how Pharaoh’s daughter found the baby
in a basket hidden among the rushes and reeds
along the bank of the Nile.
She took the boy for her own and raised him in Pharaoh’s house.
We heard how Moses was forced to flee from Egypt for killing a man,
how he traveled to Midian and there married Zipporah,
and settled into a quiet life as a shepherd.

All that happened in just the first two chapters.
Is it any wonder that Hollywood found in this book
the perfect material for a movie: We’ve got drama, suspense, action.
And it only gets better, when in chapter 3 God calls Moses,
calls him to lead, calls him to serve,
calls him from his life as a shepherd for goats and sheep,
to a life as a shepherd for God’s children.

Moses balked at the call, argued with God,
tried to convince God that he was the wrong man for the job.
But God has a way of always winning those arguments.
And so Moses returned to Egypt
and with his brother Aaron
called on Pharaoh, the king of Egypt,
the most powerful man in the known world.
The two called on him with a simple request:
free the Hebrew people from slavery,
release from bondage the people whose sweat and blood
had built the greatest civilization in the world.
Pharaoh did not know whether to laugh at such an absurd request,
or have Moses and Aaron flogged for their impudence.

Four hundred years had passed: too much time for anyone to remember
how the Hebrew Joseph kept the Egyptians from starving
during a famine that lasted for seven years.
Too much time for anyone to remember
how Joseph had been second in power only to Pharaoh himself.

The next few chapters are marvelous in their color and drama,
as God visits plagues upon the Egyptians.
First the river Nile is turned to blood,
then frogs invade Egypt by the millions,
frogs everywhere: in houses and courtyards,
on roadways and in gardens,
in beds and mixing bowls.
The third plague was swarms of gnats,
tiny irritating gnats, clouds of gnats everywhere,
like thick dry dust blown by a relentless wind.

It was this third plague that got Pharaoh’s attention.
His court magicians had been able to duplicate the blood-red river,
and the frogs, but they were not been able to conjure up gnats.
“This is the finger of God!” they cried to Pharaoh (8.19)
But Pharaoh scoffed.
And then came flies,
followed by disease that killed their livestock,
and then the people were afflicted with boils,
painful, oozing boils that covered their bodies.

By this time the magicians were worried,
but Pharaoh paid no attention to them.
So God sent a seventh plague: thunder, lightning and hail –
hail so big it not only ruined the crops in the fields,
it killed every living thing that was caught outside in the storm.
And still Pharaoh refused to let the Hebrews go,
so God sent plagues eight and nine:
Locusts, followed by darkness, complete and total darkness,
pitch black, a darkness so complete that it could be felt. (10.21)
For three days people could see nothing, do nothing.
For three days the world stopped.

And still Pharaoh would not relent.
So God sent the final plague,
the one that we remember:
the night when the angel of death came over the land of Egypt
and killed the firstborn in every house,
even the firstborn of every animal.
We can only imagine the sound of the crying, the sobbing
the wailing that must have filled the countryside
as mothers held their lifeless children.
But the Hebrews were safe behind doors painted with lamb’s blood.
The angel of death passed over their households.

And with that Pharaoh finally told Moses,
“Take your people and go: all your people and all your livestock.
Be gone”
And the children of Israel marched into the desert,
with Moses at the head of the great sea of people.
But leading them was God:
God in a cloud by day,
and a pillar of fire by night.
And we read, “Neither the pillar of cloud by day,
nor the pillar of fire by night left its place
in front of the people.” (13.22)

But of course, the most dramatic story was still awaiting them:
when Pharaoh changed his mind and took his army to chase
after the Hebrews to hunt them down in the desert,
to bring them back, back to their lives as slaves.
And then came that moment, that moment we can all envision:
When Moses held his staff before the waters of the Sea of Reeds,
and the waters parted.
The children of Israel went through the waters,
safely across the dry land to the other side.
But no sooner had the last Hebrew reached the other side,
when Pharaoh’s army appeared, hot on their trail,
the ground rumbling under the wheels of the chariots
and the furious galloping of the horses.
And then Moses raised his staff again
as Pharaoh’s army raced across the dry sea bed,
closer and closer the shore, closer and closer to the Israelites.
With that staff held high in faith
the waters closed on Pharaoh and his army,
all of them, every one of them.
swallowed by the sea.
With that, the Hebrews were finally safe, finally free of Pharaoh,
finally free to live for themselves, free to live as themselves.
Their prayers, the prayers of their fathers, their mothers,
their grandparents, their great grandparents,
were finally answered.
They had seen God’s power and faithfulness
time and time again in Moses and Aaron
in the plagues,
in the parting of the sea,
in the pillar of cloud by day,
and the pillar of fire by night.
They had witnessed God’s power,
God’s glory,
and God’s love for the them.
They had witnessed God’s promise to them of his saving grace.
All that in the first 15 chapters of Exodus.

And now in chapter 16, with all that drama,
all that power fresh in their minds, so visible, so palpable,
what did they do as they journeyed in freedom,
journeyed to the land promised them by God,
the land flowing with milk and honey?
They began to grumble.
They began to complain.

Just three days’ journey from the Sea of Reeds,
when they reached the land of Marah,
they found the water there bitter,
so bitter they couldn’t drink it.
And so they did what comes all too easily to us:
they complained.
And they did not just complain to Moses;
no the Hebrew is more specific: they complained against Moses
against Moses, as though the bitter water was his fault.
Not long after that, as we heard in our lesson,
when they reached the land called Sin,
they complained again, this time that there was no food.
The Hebrew tells us again that the people complained against Moses

Now both times, Moses did the same thing:
he turned to God for help and guidance.
And God in his faithfulness and love for his children responded.
The first time he showed Moses a piece of wood
to throw in the water that made it sweet and drinkable.
And the second time, he told Moses about
the quail and the manna.

But did you notice that no one, not one person offered to help,
not one person stepped forward and said,
“what can I do……….what can we do to solve this problem?”
Not one person recognized the fact that Moses and Aaron were
thirsty and hungry too, that they too worried about water and food.
God’s faithfulness to his people had been visible, palpable
day after day, month after month.
But the people grumbled, grumbled against Moses.
“If only we had died n the land of Egypt…
you have brought us into this wilderness
to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”
And they left a trail of grumbling, and a trail of complaints
throughout the wilderness as they journeyed.
That may be one reason why we turn from the Exodus story
after Pharaoh’s army is swallowed by the sea:
It makes us uncomfortable; it is too much of mirror.
Because we grumble and complain.
Grumbling and complaining is so much easier than stepping forward
to help, to lead, to work with those who are leading.
We prefer to take one step backward to complain,
rather than taking one step forward to lead.

But even if we skip over the rest of Exodus,
Jesus won’t let us off the hook:
his parable of the vineyard makes the point.
The workers who were paid a day’s wage
for less than a day’s work were well rewarded.
The workers who were paid a day’s wage for a day’s work
were paid what they expected to be paid: a fair wage.
No one had anything to complain about.
But what did they do? They complained.

There was a saying that was popularized back in the 1960s,
“If you are not part of the solution
you are part of the problem.”
I have always liked that quote.
It is a reminder, not to complain,
but instead to get involved, participate, help, and serve.
That is what we are called to do as children of God
and disciples of Christ.
Those who wanted water could have said to Moses,
let us dig some wells and see if we can find other water.
Those who were hungry could have searched the area,
and learned what tribesmen before and after have known:
that the manna they ate was there all along,
and still is there to this day,
and the place was and still is a part of
the migratory route of quail.
It seems that the most common miracle that God performs
is simply opening our eyes to see.

We are all familiar with the story of the feeding of the five thousand.
The disciples came to Jesus as day turned to evening.
They said, “This is a deserted place and the hour is late;
send the crowds away that they may go into the villages
and buy food for themselves.”
And Jesus’ response was simple,
“you give them something to eat.”
(Matthew 14:15ff/Mark 6:37/Luke 9:13)
Jesus says to them in effect:
“Why are you looking to me to solve the problem?
Why don’t you do something about it?
Why are you taking one step backward?
Why don’t you take one step forward?”

We are called to step forward,
step forward to serve God and one another
in the name of Jesus Christ.
We are called by God through the Holy Spirit,
and given courage, strength, and energy by the Spirit.
When we step backward, we close our eyes, ears, and minds to God.
God is calling us even now to new ways to serve,
to serve in this church, to serve in the world all around us.
Will you be in the group that steps backward?
Or will you be in that group that steps forward,
that group that says, as Isaiah said,
“Here I am. Send me”?
AMEN