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Proper 19

Exodus 14
21 Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the Lord drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land. The waters were divided, 22 and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left.
23 The Egyptians pursued them, and all Pharaoh’s horses and chariots and horsemen followed them into the sea. 24 During the last watch of the night the Lord looked down from the pillar of fire and cloud at the Egyptian army and threw it into confusion. 25 He jammed[b] the wheels of their chariots so that they had difficulty driving. And the Egyptians said, “Let’s get away from the Israelites! The Lord is fighting for them against Egypt.”
26 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the sea so that the waters may flow back over the Egyptians and their chariots and horsemen.” 27 Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at daybreak the sea went back to its place. The Egyptians were fleeing toward[c] it, and the Lord swept them into the sea. 28 The water flowed back and covered the chariots and horsemen—the entire army of Pharaoh that had followed the Israelites into the sea. Not one of them survived.


As the film festival finally goes away for another year, we hear one of the most cinematic passages in the Bible.

By cinematic, I mean frequently appearing on film and narrated with all the action and adventure that quickens the heart of screenwriters everywhere. So, we’ll step into the Red Sea in a moment, but first we should do a bit of a survey of Egypt in film.

It all begins with The Mummy (1932) with Boris Karloff as the mummy, inadvertently brought back to life and determined to find his lost love. Building on the fame of Howard Carter’s discovery of King Tut, the story takes the myth of the Pharaoh’s curse, adds a dash of Frankenstein and drop of Dracula (pun intended) and creates the perfect vehicle for Karloff, who seems to have invented creepy.

By the 1950’s, popular interest in Egypt remains strong, but must compete with a renewed interest ancient Israel, sparked in part by the founding of the State of Israel in 1948. Enter Cecil B. DeMille, whose Ten Commandments (1956) combines the spectacle of Pharaoh and his court with the pious story of Moses’ journey from Hebrew baby to Prince of Egypt to God’s liberating prophet. And all shot in VistaVision and Technicolor.

By the late 70’s, when people thought the epic filmmaking was finally over, George Lucas and Stephen Spielberg took a vacation together. According to cinematic legend, the two where building a sand castle together when Spielberg mentioned he might direct a James Bond film. Lucas scoffed at the idea, and said if you want to do an action film you should take up my idea for an adventurer named Indiana Smith. “Smith? I don’t like Smith,” Spielberg says. “Okay,” Lucas says, “how about Jones?”

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1982) truly has everything. Evil Nazi archeologists, the Ark of the Covenant used to hold the Ted Commandments, a secret chamber in the Egyptian desert, and snakes, lots of snakes.

This collision between ancient Egypt and ancient Israel remains as fascinating as ever. In part, it’s the compelling nature of the story, freed slaves and a demonstration of the power of God. It’s also our fascination with objects from the past, with some of the most famous discoveries of the 20th century being Tut’s tomb, the head of Nefertiti and the Dead Sea Scrolls.

And, it’s the cinematic character of the story, Moses’ God-given ability to stretch out his arms to part the sea—the wall of water to the right and to the left as the Israelites pass through. And the Egyptians—formerly resigned to losing these slaves—decide to pursue them instead, only to have the wheels of their chariots jammed by the God of the Israelites. And then a moment of insight comes, as an Egyptian marks the climax of the story:

“Let’s get away from the Israelites!” the Egyptian says, “The Lord is fighting for them against us.”

This is one of those something-is-not-quite-right moments in scripture that causes us to pause. The Egyptian says “The Lord is fighting for them against us.” Well, what Lord? The Lord of Israel? It’s seems very unlikely that this horseman or chariot driver would worship or even acknowledge the God of the slaves that were busy making their escape. Egyptians were notorious polytheists, with various gods with various roles and interconnections much like the Greek gods.

One suggestion is that there was brief period of Egyptian monotheism, about a few years before the time we associate with Moses—so maybe this insightful Egyptian soldier was a follower of that former tradition. Some scholars have suggested that the whole idea of “one God” may have begun in the Egyptian court, with vestiges of that old tradition influencing the young Moses.

Whatever the source, there is clearly a moment in time when God takes sides. “Let’s get away from the Israelites!” the Egyptian says, “The Lord is fighting for them against us.” Why this wasn’t obvious earlier—say during the river of blood, frogs, locusts, lice, boils, hail, and the rest—is another mystery. Nonetheless, there is a moment in the story when it is clear to everyone involved that the God we call the God of Israel has chosen a side.

What this does—beyond move the story of the Israelites forward—is give birth to a theological problem. We want God to be the God of all. And we want God to be love. This God, whose “got the whole world, in his hands,” is the God we want, not the warrior God sticking sticks in chariot wheels and drowning horse and rider with such aplomb. And it’s even worse that that:

Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at daybreak the sea went back to its place. The Egyptians were fleeing toward[c] it, and the Lord swept them into the sea. 28 The water flowed back and covered the chariots and horsemen—the entire army of Pharaoh that had followed the Israelites into the sea. Not one of them survived.

It has a matter-of-factness, a cold recounting, that I would suggests says more about the emotional state of the author than the nature of God. Part of this passage is catharsis, a writer who needs to give his people both triumph and vindication, needs to see Egyptians suffer in the way his people suffered under Egypt.

So there is that. But there is no denying that our very modern wish for fairness and neutrality, the well-being of all, and a happy-ending will not be met by the God of Israel. Even Jesus, when he speaks both for and as God, turns away from our wish:

"It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."

'My house will be called a house of prayer,' but you are making it 'a den of robbers.'"

If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet. 15 Truly I tell you, it will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.

Jesus takes sides against the overly-righteous, the sacrilegious, the inhospitable, those who follow the letter of the law and those that separate him or the little ones who adores. He takes the side of the oppressed: by disease or addiction, or situation, or station in life. He is defined by the company he keeps: tax collectors and sinners, and everyone that ‘the best people’ think are abandoned by God.

And notice the built in safety valve and reality check for those who follow God, and particularly God-in-Jesus. As soon as you become too proud, too self-assured that you are one of the ‘best people’ that God will adore, you run the risk of joining the overly-righteous, the inhospitable, and those that would separate God from the vulnerable ones that God adores.

Those who separate themselves from the God of Israel will suffer the fate of being separated from the God of Israel. Forgiveness is possible, and available for everyone—when the desire to no longer be separated from God has ended. Through God all things are possible, yet freewill says some will ultimately choose another path. Perhaps those who reject God are the ultimate vulnerable group—and paradoxically God’s most treasured.

May we strive to imagine the God we struggle to comprehend, and may God find us, vulnerable in our understanding, now and always, Amen.

posted by michael jacob kooiman @ 9:41 AM