A Gracious Kick in the Pants: Why You Can't Stay Where You Are

Romans 13:8-14

Exodus 12:1-14

The Passover story offers us a picture of the way God’s grace is at work in our lives.  Grace gets us going.  The ritual of painting your doorframe with the blood of a lamb is a way for people to experience God’s grace.  God passes over those homes and protects them from destruction.  This kind of gracious protection is a picture of how God meets us.  But notice that this grace is part of a story of a people preparing to set out for new lands.  It’s a grace that’s preparation for travel.

You don’t get too many chances in life to make decisive, fundamental alterations in your own personal trajectory or in your family’s trajectory.  Opportunities to move in new directions and realign your energies are few and far between.  They are sacred festivals, high holy days.  This is the urgency found in our Romans reading - "The day is at hand . . ."  And you have to be ready to seize them when the opportunity arises.

 

We’re given this story to remind us that we’re not to live as slaves.  We’re to live as free people.  We’re not to settle in and get used to a life that’s unfree.  We’re not to get comfortable with the status quo in a way that steals our hope for a better future for ourselves and others.

For every bit of good news we find in Scripture, there is usually a cost.  When God offers us gifts, we usually have to let go of whatever we’re already holding in our hands.  Today’s good news is that the God is freeing you with others so that you can travel in new directions.  The “cost” of that good news is that you can’t stay where you are.  God has more to give you.  More joy, more opportunities, more growth, deeper relationships.  But you can’t experience all that unless you’re willing to travel forward into new places along with others. 

So what does this Passover story have to teach us about moving forward with God into a life of more freedom?

You’ll need the structure and rhythm of worship.

The story we read is written to promote an ongoing festival of worship called the Passover Celebration.  Notice v. 14, “This is a day you are to commemorate; for the generations to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord – a lasting ordinance.”

This literature was written primarily to organize Israel’s worship celebrations.  It’s NOT primarily an historical account of what happened.  It’s not journalism.  It’s a way of remembering and confessing that God has saved and delivered US and not simply “someone else.” 

Some of us might be tempted to think of weekly worship together as something that we’re “supposed” to do.  It’s an obligation.  We do it because God needs or requires it.  But the truth is that regular worship is God’s gift to you.  God invites us into these regular rhythms because they’re good for us. 

Our worship of God is not merely our recognition that God used to do wonderful things for other people a long time ago.  It’s our own fresh experience of the energizing grace of God at work in our own lives.  We do not gather to confess, “God delivered those other people from Egypt.”  We gather to confess, “God delivered US from Egypt.”

Celebrations that work don’t just recognize something in the past.  They perform something new and fresh.  They animate and sustain us in an ongoing way.  On wedding anniversaries, we don’t simply remember the fact that we got married.  We celebrate by actively giving ourselves to each other gladly again (that’s the difference between a good and bad anniversary!).  Same with birthdays.  We don’t just recall the fact of a date of birth.  We celebrate and give thanks yet again for this special person’s life.  It will be difficult to live fully into the new life of freedom God offers you if you do not value the gift of worship, and the rhythm and structure it provides your life.  Every week we gather to celebrate our experience of God’s grace in a fresh way.

You’ll need to learn to live like a traveler.  You’ll need the flexibility and creativity required by life on the road.

This is a story about a meal eaten in haste.  (It’s the opposite of the way we encourage our kids to slow down during meal time).  You’re not to use yeast in the bread, for there’s no time to let it rise.  You’re to eat fully dressed, your robe tucked in, your sandals tied, ready to go.  This is a wonderful picture of people poised and positioned for freedom.  Yes, God will do it.  But you are to participate in God’s work by organizing your life as a person willing to go on a journey.  You’re to act like someone who is being liberated from threatening powers. This is a picture of people ready to move in new directions: out of ruts of slavery into the wild and unpredictable, but fully alive, life of freedom.

When you prepare to travel, you might make a checklist.  You prepare as best you can.  But you also have to prepare with a sense of lightness and playfulness.  You have to be flexible enough to deal with unforeseen circumstances.

In 1999 Stephanie and I planned a trip to Europe with good friends.  We didn’t have kids yet, and we figured we better fly off and have fun since we may never do anything fun again!  Traveling internationally takes lots of extra thought and preparation.  We packed our bags with skill.  We made sure our passports were in hand.  And when we all arrived at the airport terminal at JFK, our friend Brent turned to us and said, “I just left my wallet in the cab.”  Things like that happen when you travel.  You can’t get everything on your checklist.

When our high school youth group traveled to New York City for mission work this past summer, we had lots of planning to do.  Part of the planning was simply how to fit them and all their luggage into the church van.  So we took out the last seat, and gave the kids strict guidelines about the size of their luggage.  Suffice it to say that a few of our kids did not obey said guidelines – and brought bags twice the size we’d anticipated.  Loading the van was like figuring out a complex jigsaw puzzle, but we got it done.

Our family trip to Yellowstone last summer required lots of planning.  Stephanie and I had the car packed the night before we left.  It was going to be a two-day car trip.  And that requires some food and drink, not to mention making sure all the electronics are fully charged.  (Heaven forbid we have to talk to one another!).  We told the kids that they could stumble to the car with their pillows and go back to sleep.  All their stuff was already packed.  We departed right on time and I was already calculating what good time we’d be making and how early we’d reach our day one destination.  About 20 miles out, Oliver mentioned that he’d forgotten his glasses on his nightstand.  It ruined my calculations, of course.  And we were in Western Kansas before I finally stopped grumbling about our lost “hour”. 

Travel is an adventure that requires agility, resilience, flexibility.   Familiar patterns and comfortable habits may not work on the road.  And yet this ability to go on a journey as people of faith is absolutely central to the way Scripture pictures our life with God. 

Finally, you’ll need the kind of singular commitment to God that rules out rivals.  You’ll need to cut ties to all other paths and possibilities.

Did you notice the wonderful line in verse 12: “I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt.  I am the Lord” (v. 12b).  The God who invites us into freedom is a Holy God who requires the kind of commitment that gladly forfeits all other options.

This project of freeing people isn’t just one decent option among others.  This is a contest of the gods.  The only true God is the God who leads you into freedom and makes you more and more yourself.  All other forms of life that rob us of freedom are rival gods, rival powers, rival visions of the good life.

This story invites us to reflect on our own commitments and values.  Have we offered ourselves completely to the God of Jesus Christ?  Or have we parceled ourselves out, here and there, to a variety of rival and competing gods?

Whenever our allegiance is given to lesser gods, rival gods, we become less ourselves.  That’s the thing about misplaced devotion in life.  It robs you of your energy.  It dulls your senses.  It promises to enrich you even while it robs you blind.  Not so with the living God, the God who leads us out of captivity into the land of freedom.

We’re living in a cultural time when religion and faith is losing its luster.  It’s stock is dropping.  It’s value is being questioned.  Young families are no longer quite so sure as they once were that raising their kids in the life of the congregation will make any real difference. 

Part of what’s behind this is a widely held assumption that religious faith dulls you down.  It rounds off your edges.  It makes you a conformist.  It robs you of your ambition.  It lessens you ability to take risks.  It turns you into a passive person.

That’s why one theme keeps re-emerging in my preaching - the theme of God’s grace as energizing grace.  God’s forgiveness as empowering.  When we meet God, we become more ourselves.  We become more fully alive.  (That’s why I so frequently mention Irenaus, who says, “The glory of God is a human being fully alive.”)  What happens when we meet God in faith is that we’re like a switch that gets flipped to “on.”  Faith in God starts your motor.  None of the rival gods will do that for you.

So you can’t stay where you are.  By encountering this story, by listening to it with others, you have received a gracious kick in the pants.

The best teachers are coaches are the people who know how to help you move forward.  They know how to stretch you, asking for you to find the most you’re capable of.  They inspire you to work at the highest level possible for you.  But they do not stretch you too far or too fast.  They are careful not to overwhelm you in a way that paralyzes you.

Aileen Pollock led part of our retreat last weekend.  And she talked to us about how Yoga invites us to an awareness of our “edges” (get in the pose, first resistance, intensified resistance, and pain).  You need to know what your edges are, and learn to explore them productively.  But I’m afraid in the life of faith we’re not even finding our “edges” very often.  Think of how dramatic, exciting, and rejuvenating your faith journey will become if you decide to intentionally locate some of your edges and determine to explore the possibilities of a life you haven’t yet led!

This experience of God’s grace and freedom shown to us in Jesus Christ opens new doors of growth for all of us personally.  But it also opens new doors for our growth as a congregation.  There are relationships that are deepening and friendships being fostered.  There are new people taking on leadership roles and buying in to the mission of the congregation.  We’re expanding our reach and influence so that more people can begin to experience the freedom-creating love of God that you and I have experienced here.

So tuck in your robe and tie your sandals.  We can’t stay here.  Amen.