Worship 10/2/2020
Call to worship:
God, you call us from all places to meet your unending love.
call to us now
speak your love to us through this time
and show us your grace
Amen
Psalm 26
1Vindicate me, O Lord, for I have walked in my integrity, and I have trusted in the Lord without wavering.
2Prove me, O Lord, and try me; test my heart and mind.
3For your steadfast love is before my eyes, and I walk in faithfulness to you.
4I do not sit with the worthless, nor do I consort with hypocrites;
5I hate the company of evildoers, and will not sit with the wicked.
6I wash my hands in innocence, and go around your altar, O Lord,
7singing aloud a song of thanksgiving, and telling all your wondrous deeds.
8O Lord, I love the house in which you dwell, and the place where your glory abides.
9Do not sweep me away with sinners, nor my life with the bloodthirsty,
10those in whose hands are evil devices, and whose right hands are full of bribes.
11But as for me, I walk in my integrity; redeem me, and be gracious to me.
12My foot stands on level ground; in the great congregation I will bless the Lord.
Exodus 12:1-14
12The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt: 2This month shall mark for you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year for you. 3Tell the whole congregation of Israel that on the tenth of this month they are to take a lamb for each family, a lamb for each household. 4If a household is too small for a whole lamb, it shall join its closest neighbor in obtaining one; the lamb shall be divided in proportion to the number of people who eat of it. 5Your lamb shall be without blemish, a year-old male; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats. 6You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month; then the whole assembled congregation of Israel shall slaughter it at twilight. 7They shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. 8They shall eat the lamb that same night; they shall eat it roasted over the fire with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. 9Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted over the fire, with its head, legs, and inner organs. 10You shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. 11This is how you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it hurriedly. It is the passover of the Lord. 12For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, both human beings and animals; on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord. 13The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live: when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. 14This day shall be a day of remembrance for you. You shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord; throughout your generations you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance.
Reflection:
It seems to me there is no better place to start a new ministry than with the story of the Israelite people beginning their new journey into the wilderness. A start of something new, something hard, but something wonderful as well. In this reading, they are about to head out of a land of slavery and head towards the promise land. It is a story of new beginnings, a story of community and the story of God’s people.
I don’t know about you, but over the last several months I have thought of the Israelite people wandering in the dessert for those forty years. In my pampered first world life, the restrictions put on my life by an unseen virus have sent me into a space of unknown, a wilderness of sorts. I know deep down that this wilderness we are walking now does not compare to the challenges the Israelites faced, but it does help me relate to them—a small, and hopefully much shorter, glimpse into their lives. I think one of the hardest things about this time is not knowing when we will return to safety. We have no clue when this part of our journey will end. We don’t know when people will get to stop wearing masks or when we will be able to send our kids back to school without wondering if we are putting them in harms way. This ‘new normal’ could last a few more months or another year. the truth is we do not know.
The Israelites did not know when their journey would end either. I am sure on that night, the night of passover, as they marked their doors with blood, and fanned the flames of the fire for the lamb to cook, as they girded their loins, and grabbed their staffs and swallowed those last bids of food hurriedly, they could never imagine that they were headed on a forty year long road trip through the dessert. When they faced the Red Sea and feared sure death, caught between the waters and Pharaoh’s warriors, I am sure they could not have imagined that the waters would split, and they could walk through. As they wandered, hungry and thirsty through the wilderness, with no drinking water in sight, they could not have imagined that God would provide enough for their journey. Or when they were hungry and feeling as though they were near starvation, little could they have guessed that quail and manna would appear each day from God’s hand to meet their need.
When the people took those first steps out of their homes, they stepped out with faith in a promise that God would not destroy them. Each step they took into the wilderness of the unknown tested them and challenged them, but God stood by the promise. God provided and carried for them on their journey.
There comes a point in all our lives where we will be faced with the opportunity for a new journey. Heading off to college, a new job, marriage, a new baby, the death of someone close to us, the frustrations of worldwide pandemic. But we all at some point face a new journey. Sometimes we see these opportunities coming and sometimes we must grab our staff and just go. Sometimes we know the destination and duration, but sometimes we must wander for longer than expected. Wherever God calls us, we must take that first step and trust that God will lead us and provide for us as we go.
Questions
When is a time when you felt your life was starting to take a new direction or stage?
What was the biggest challenge of making that transition?
Was it harder or easier than you thought at the beginning? Why?
What was the biggest blessing that you received from making the change?
Closing Prayer
O God, of all journeys,
You know our paths before we ever take a step.
You know the journeys that lay before us.
Guide us as we go.
Gives us strength and courage to face each new challenge and each new adventure with joy and expectation,
trusting in you to guide us through even the deepest wilderness or our longest pandemic.
We are yours, now and always.
Amen
Blessing
Now, go out into the world to share God’s grace and to walk the path that God alone has made for you!
Let all God’s people say,
AMEN
