Promises, Promises

Exodus 6:8; Matthew 11:28-30

Robert M Watkins

July 15, 2007

 

I followed a car the other day all the way from my house as I made my way to the office. I became transfixed by a bumper sticker pasted to the rear window. It was disarmingly simple and succinct. It read: Exodus 6:8. There are probably several folks among us this morning who could have recited the verse right as they saw it. I confess that I am not one of them. I know the stories, but not the exact numbered lines. I tried to place the verse in the context of Exodus. Being Chapter 6, I knew it was early in the story of Moses, somewhere near the place where God sends him to Egypt to free the Israelites. It might also have been one of the places where God speaks to Pharaoh through Moses, demanding release of God’s people. I wondered why someone would place such a verse on the back of their car. Were they affirming having been sent by God on some task? Were they remembering God releasing the people? I got to my office and I looked it up, and, as we all know now, having read the text for ourselves, it is the promise of God to give the people land, a place of their own, a place that could become the kingdom of God on earth, a holy place, a place of freedom.

 

Well, there is certainly reason enough to recall this great promise of God to the Hebrews. It affirms what we hope and believe about God. God will provide for us. God will dwell with us. God is for us.

 

But then I began to wonder again. There are many places in the scriptures where God makes similar promises and in words and language that are much more direct—like our text from Matthew, one of the most famous instances where Jesus intones a powerful promise of rest and release for all who come to him. So why did this person decide to recall specifically the Promised Land? What did that imply?

 

Here things get muddled. Land was a specific promise to a specific people. The Hebrews had ceased to be a people when they became slaves in Egypt. They had nothing that was their own. As the people fled from Egypt, they took not only their own scant belongings, but they raided the closets of the Egyptians as well—God seemed to know that the provisions that actually belonged to the Hebrews would never suffice for the time spent in the wilderness. The Land would be the ultimate provision. So why would someone in 21^st Century America remember this promise? Why would they need to? We live in a culture blessed with more than enough of everything.

 

Perhaps, though, not everyone feels so blessed. Poverty exists. Jesus never uttered a truer statement when he said, “The poor you will always have with you.” Drive across either Richmond or Columbia County and poverty will become apparent. The Soup Kitchen does not seem to be losing clients. The Salvation Army and GAP have not gone out of business. Exodus 6:8 serves as a reminder—God knows need, God hears the hungry, and God will provide. “Blessed are the hungry,” Jesus said, according to Luke.

 

Perhaps even those blessed with more than enough still find themselves empty. The Washington Post recently ran an article that reported a survey designed to measure the Happiness Index within American society. The results were somewhat surprising. No surprise at all was the result that modern Americans have more than any other previous generation. The surprise came in that more Americans reported that they struggled to find happiness. In comparing similar surveys from thirty, forty, and fifty years ago, it seems that slightly more people were happier then than they are now. Happiness has grown static in our communities. Exodus 6:8 serves as a reminder—God knows need, God hears those who feel empty, and God will provide what all the stuff in the world can never seem to offer—lasting serenity. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,” Jesus said, according to Matthew.

 

All right, those are two possibilities. Are there others?

 

If we look at the verse, something besides the promise of land leaps out. For instance, God declares that the promise of land is the same promise offered to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. If one makes a quick cross reference, one finds that God is fudging slightly. What God promised was that the descendants of Abraham would be a great nation. Land is important to that end, but God actually promised a whole lot more than simply a place to be. God promised an identity.

 

That may seem an odd sort of promise to make. Most of us assume we know who we are. We have a sense of self in the midst of the world. We know what we like and what we don’t like. We know what bothers us and what makes us feel good. We have our interests and hobbies. We fill roles like spouse, parent, child, doctor, engineer, cook, teacher, dishwasher, student, and so on. We come from families where we are brothers and sisters, first born or last born, and we know who our families want us to be. All of those things add up to give us an identity.

 

But do they?

 

Human beings are odd creatures. All the other animals, at least as far as we can determine, live as they are. Our dogs are dogs. What you see is what they are. Human beings can tweak that circumstance. One might encounter a physician, but at the same time have no idea that one is also meeting an opera singer. One can eat lunch with a Latin professor and have no idea that one is also eating with a philatelist. One can go for a morning walk with a homemaker and not realize that one is also walking with a closet hip-hop fan. There is a lot going on within a human being. Some of us are filling jobs and roles, but how we actually see ourselves is far removed from what the world perceives and the role we fill. We harbor dreams and hopes for who we might become. Those hopes and dreams can actually be a truer glimpse of our identity than what we actually do and present.

 

Exodus 6:8 serves as a reminder. God sees inside and out. God sees potential. God watches dreams and listens to prayers. “Anyone who is in Christ is a new creation,” wrote Paul. God knows who we want to be and who we can be, no matter who we are now.

 

All right, so here is yet another way to see what the bumper sticker means. Is there anything else?

 

Well, yes, actually. Sticking with the phrase about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, there is one more thing to consider. The promise made to the Hebrews in Egypt was nothing new.

 

In some way, as God spoke to Moses, God was telling Moses not to think he was part of some new thing, nor should he think that God had finally awakened and recognized that at last a person had come along who was special enough for God to be with. Instead, God said, more or less, “I am who I was and who I will be.” God is steadfast and God is constantly working on the resolution of God’s promises.

 

We live in an impatient age. We do not like to wait, be it for a latte at our favorite coffee shop or our tax refund in April or for test results from the doctor. We want things instantly. Have you ever stopped to wonder at how many advances in technology are the direct result of impatience? This carries over into the practice of faith—we want to know what God is doing right now!

 

Exodus 6:8 serves as a reminder. Neither Abraham nor Isaac nor Jacob ever saw the full realization of any of the promises God made to them. But now generations removed from them, the promise begins to take tangible form. But remember, the generation to leave Egypt will not be the generation to cross the River Jordan! God acts, but in God’s own time. Redemption comes, but the form in which it comes often is as a process. We will be redeemed from whatever ails us, but we have to be patient. We have to wait and see. We have to remember the words of the Psalmist, “Be still and know that I am God.” Only in that way do we come to fully understand what it means when we also join the Psalmist in singing, “God is our refuge and our strength, a very present help in trouble.” Sometimes it simply is a matter of time, God’s time.

 

There certainly was a lot to consider on the back of that car, wasn’t there?

 

Amen.