Lake Edge United Church of Christ

The time had come. It was time to go. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had been at work for a while now, first hearing the cries of the oppressed slaves, and being moved to compassion. Then God had arranged to have Moses the liberator be raised in the very courts of Pharaoh, freedom’s potential growing secretly like a seed in the very heart of darkness. Next God had spoken to Moses from out of the burning bush, informing him of the plan, and calling him to go to Pharaoh and insist that he let the people go. Finally, as a part of the persuasive campaign of freedom God had sent a series of plagues upon Pharaoh and his country, revealing that if he were to keep his slaves, the price for doing so would be high indeed. And now, at last, the decisive moment has come.
To Moses and Aaron comes the great and terrible news of the final plague: the death of the first born of the Egyptians, a sign that even Pharaoh with his heart made of steel could not live with. You’ll be free tonight, God as much as said, and this night will be remembered among you forever. You’ll measure time from this moment forward. There was the past and now there will be everything else. Now is the moment of your freedom.
In the moment, God offers specific instructions to Moses and Aaron to give to the people. Each household selects a lamb to be offered as a sacrifice to the God of their freedom. They are to put blood from the sacrifice on the doorways of their houses to protect their own first born from the plague that will descend. And then they will eat the lamb, with unleavened bread and bitter herbs, and nourish themselves for the journey. And this is how they are to eat: standing up, their belts tightened, their sandals on their feet, their necessities packed, ready to go. For, as they are about to discover, when this God is ready to move, you must move. When God stirs, God’s people must respond. Those who dawdle, who sit around and grouse or complain, those who argue that patience is a virtue, those who worry that too much change is happening too fast, those who would wait will be left behind. When God is ready, God’s people will move, or they will be left wondering where everyone else has gone. “You got to move,” the old blues shouter Rev. Gary Davis used to sing, “you got to move. Brother when God gets ready, you got to move.”
Well, in some ways our circumstances are some different than those of our ancestors. They were slaves, we’re not. They were staring at the possibility of flight into a very real wilderness, and we’re not. They were putting their very lives on the line, and we probably aren’t risking physical survival. But on this first Sunday of the fall, this Sunday when we are gathered again from our summer scattering, this Sunday when the new church year is unfolding in a heady mix of carefully laid plans and almost certain chaos, I’m here to tell you that I am persuaded that our God is ready to move. That now is the time when some wonderful new work is about to emerge among us.
We have done some planning, we are bold enough to think, to hope, that perhaps we have some sense for the direction that God might be calling us to move. Our Adult Education planning is done for the fall, and a wide variety of events are planned. The Sunday School is ready for our children, our youth programs staffed with vibrant new leaders, and as important, with lively new vision. The Board of Christian Outreach plans to offer us dozens of ways to be helpful, to reach out to the poor and the powerless. Our website tells the amazing story of our congregation in remarkably clear and diverse ways. Our choir is back, ready for you to join in. Our band is sharp, ready to play and carry us into praise of God.
But more important even than our planning and our programming is the unmistakable sense, the awareness of the presence among us of the Spirit of God, who is prompting me to tell you that we’ve not yet scratched the surface for the sort of community of love and fellowship and worship and service that Lake Edge United Church of Christ is called to be. I feel the Spirit moving. I believe that God is letting us know that it’s time to move. It’s time to be on our feet, belts tightened, shoes tied, ready to move. Brothers and sisters, God is ready. We’ve got to move.
But first, we’ve got to prepare, got to be nourished for the journey. And just as our ancestors ate the meal that sent them off into the wilderness now we gather at the table to share a meal to nourish and sustain us. This meal is bread and cup, of course, and it’s some small measure of physical sustenance. But it’s a meal of incredible spiritual sustenance. It’s a meal of forgiveness for our sins, including our temptation to cling, to hold on to old ways. It’s a meal of reconciliation, in which all church members and friends, regardless of age or tenure of belonging, regardless of economic status or sexual orientation, regardless of whether our faith is strong our just getting going, this is a meal that brings us all together, and makes us one body. And it’s a meal of hope, one that pushes us out of our rich and varied and remarkable past and calls us to risk a few anxieties and changes in order to be ever more faithful disciples of Jesus. As I say, this is a meal of incredible spiritual sustenance.
We eat of this bread and drink of this cup because we suspect that we shall need all of this spiritual care. Our God is ready to move, and we are called to step out in courage, and we shall need to be fed, sustained, and cared for. And so we eat. As sisters and brothers we gather at this table, as different in some ways as can be and as similar as can be in some others, but one in Christ, and therefore ready for anything that tomorrow brings.
Sisters and brothers! God is ready! We got to move! Amen.