The
angel of God who was going before the Israelite army moved and went behind
them; and the pillar of cloud moved from in front of them and took its place
behind them. It came between the army of Egypt
and the army of Israel.
And so the cloud was there with the darkness, and it lit up the night; one did
not come near the other all night.
Then
Moses stretched out his hand over the sea. The Lord drove the sea back by a
strong east wind all night, and turned the sea into dry land; and the waters
were divided. The Israelites went into the sea on dry ground, the waters
forming a wall for them on their right and on their left. The Egyptians
pursued, and went into the sea after them, all of Pharaoh’s horses, chariots,
and chariot drivers.
At
the morning watch the Lord in the pillar of fire and cloud looked down upon the
Egyptian army, and threw the Egyptian army into panic. God clogged their
chariot wheels so that they turned with difficulty.
The
Egyptians said,
“Let
us flee from the Israelites, for the Lord is fighting for them against Egypt.”
Then
the Lord said to Moses,
“Stretch
out your hand over the sea, so that the water may come back upon the Egyptians,
upon their chariots and chariot drivers.”
So
Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at dawn the sea returned to its
normal depth.
As
the Egyptians fled before it, the Lord tossed the Egyptians into the sea. The
waters returned and covered the chariots and the chariot drivers, the entire
army of Pharaoh that had followed them into the sea; not one of them remained.
But the Israelites walked on dry ground through the sea, the waters forming a
wall for them on their right and on their left.
Thus
the Lord saved Israel that
day from the Egyptians; and Israel
saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore. Israel saw the great work that the
Lord did against the Egyptians. So the people feared the Lord and believed in
the Lord and in his servant Moses.
***
I
asked a group of friends if there was one thing they could memorize, what would
it be? One said Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, another some obscure
poem of which I’d never heard, another Les Miserables. I think my father might pick
the Gettysburg Address, but I pick Genesis 1. It is the scripture, of
all scriptures, that I can settle into like a warm blanket, and wrap myself
with the cadence of its images and words,
“In
the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a
formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God
swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and
there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the
light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness God called
Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.”
These
are things I can imagine, and a God I can believe in, a God of mornings and
light, of darkness and night, a God of the first day whose Spirit hovered over
the waters. I settle into Genesis 1, not because I think existence actually
began that way, or because I think people are actually created exactly male and
female, nor because I agree that humans should have dominion over all of
creation, but because there is something in the poetry, the repetition, and
the naming of time, time as simple as the parts of day, that speaks to my core.
So,
during the Lectionary Bible Study, I could hear the echoes of Genesis 1, its
parting waters, dry land, and light and darkness and that same cadence that I
know and love.
“The
angel of God who was going before the Israelite army moved and went behind
them; and the pillar of cloud moved from in front of them and took its place
behind them. It came between the army of Egypt
and the army of Israel.
And so the cloud was there with the darkness, and it lit up the night; one did
not come near the other all night. Then Moses stretched out his hand over the
sea. The Lord drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night, and turned
the sea into dry land; and the waters were divided. The Israelites went into
the sea on dry ground, the waters forming a wall for them on their right and on
their left.”
I
could hear in this Moses text, the echoes of my favorite piece of writing, my
favorite scripture, but I don’t like this Moses text. I don’t like the army of Egypt and the army of Israel, or that, “At the morning
watch,” that time which I found hallowed, “the Lord in the pillar of fire and
cloud looked down upon the Egyptian army, and threw the Egyptian army into
panic.” I don’t like that after “The Egyptians said, “Let us flee from the
Israelites, for the Lord is fighting for them against Egypt.”” That
“Then the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the sea, so that the
water may come back upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots and chariot
drivers.” So Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at dawn the sea
returned to its normal depth. The waters returned and covered the chariots and
the chariot drivers, the entire army of Pharaoh that had followed them into the
sea; not one of them remained.” I don’t want my beloved Genesis dawn, and
pristine windblown waters, to be tarnished and clogged with Egyptians dead on
the seashore. I believe in a creator God, not a destroyer God. I believe in the
Golden Rule, to love God with all my heart and my soul and my strength and my
neighbor as myself, and I think if Jesus were to look at this text he would
tell both the Egyptians and the Israelites that they are one another’s
neighbors. This image of God, this Israelite recreation story is not
a testament to my faith, in looking further both the Moses story, and Genesis 1
harken back to the creations stories of other tribes, where with one sword God
separates not only the waters, the light from dark, but also
a leviathan a sea-monster a snake and all become two
separate pieces, like the day, and the night, like evening and morning, like
dry land and the deeps, like all those images I have so loved and I felt
likewise split in two, trying to reconcile a scripture which seemed dead on the
seashore.
I
tried to piece the poetry back together. I understood that God became the hero
of this Moses text after it was written. I understood, in a time when survival
was based on floods and droughts that if God could not control the storms, then
God seemed powerless and pointless. I know, likewise for us today, that if God
cannot subdue chaos and death, we wonder about the power and point of God. But
I know like storms, death happens, a painful chaos, but not a chaos sent by
God, just as God did not send the waters to drown the Egyptians into the sea.
Yet, somehow, I thought that morning and evening were ordered by God, even
though I know there is science behind the sunrise. I thought like Genesis 1, I
could have faith as sure as the sunrise. But God did not write Genesis 1, or
Moses parting the Red Sea,
or Yahweh slaying the leviathan. No text
is infallible, not Romeo and Juliet, not the Gettysburg Address,
not even Genesis 1. This I have known all along, but had never experienced so
personally until Lectionary Bible Study.
To
have the scripture that is at the core of your being torn in two is earth
shaking, but thankfully, even the loss of those words has not been faith
shaking, because I know something greater. Something which our congregants on
their Hike to Heaven are probably experiencing, something which even
those at Moses’ time also knew, that God is beyond our words, beyond our
understanding, but that God is, and that God creates good. They knew that God
is, and that God creates good and so they rewrote the creation story, that God
made a great light and a deep dark that separated the two armies all night,
that instead parting the deep into the dry land and waters, that their God made
a wall of waters that they might walk through on dry land. The Israelites had
seen the wonder of creation, and the goodness of the Lord in their freedom
from oppression so they explain, “Thus the Lord saved Israel
that day.” This is their creation story, and I think the ways that Romeo and
Juliet, or Les Miserables or the I Have a Dream Speech, or
the Gettysburg Address are also creation stories of our time. Stories
that point to God who is present and working for the good of a new reality, a
new freedom, a new way of being neighbors and loving the Lord. In my own life, there
have been so many creation stories, or my adoption, of seeing a butterfly on a
run and believe in God, of becoming a pastor. Life is about retelling the
creation story, about naming God’s presence and goodness in our midst. We can
never tell it perfectly, it will never be completely accurate, but we called to
tell it none the less, just as Israelites told it long ago, just as
the writer of Genesis described it, just as I am trying to tell you now. This
is the morning, this is the first day of the week, there is light that
separated the darkness, and God is present creating goodness over and over
again, like freedom for the Egyptians, like the a cloud of light, and I cannot
wait to see it again, to write down that place where we find in our midst, and
share it generation after generation, until the cadence of this old story gives
us the comfort of knowing that which is beyond our telling. Knowing there is
present and a good God because we have seen the creation.
