French writer, historian, and philosopher Voltaire once said, “Life is a shipwreck, but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats.” As we struggle into the start of our seventh month of enduring the pandemic that has gripped our lives, we probably would concur with Voltaire . . . “Life is a shipwreck.” It certainty feels like it especially in the last couple of weeks as we deal with the unexpected that always seems to make an appearance in times of struggle. We have witnessed the steady rise of the virus throughout the world and within our own state. People are dying. Political unrest is rearing its divisive head as we enter the thick of an election year. Protests seem to be abundant as our nation and the world confronts equal and civil rights for minorities. Schools are back in session with the anxiety and fear of waiting to see what happens next as children step into the fray of the pandemic. And, we have been dealing with the accident that has taken one of our own from our midst.
I certainly think that we can say that “life is a shipwreck.” Life is a shipwreck, yet we continue to go on. Going on is not easy considering the impact that all this craziness places upon our lives. We are feeling separated . . . alone. We are feeling anxious . . . anxious because we do know when all of this is going to end. We are feeling frustrated and helpless as we seem to be in a holding pattern going around and around in circles. We feel angry because we feel powerless in the struggles we see around us as we try to live within the boundaries that have been set to curb the potency of the pandemic. Powerless as we witness the divisiveness spread within our nation that is only being fanned by the politicking taking place between political and ideological groups fighting for control of our nation and culture. Through it all we wonder whether we will survive intact with any semblance of who we once were.
Yep, life is a shipwreck.
This morning we hear a story from the Book of Exodus. The Book of Exodus is the second book of the Old Testament with Genesis being the first. Genesis is the origin stories of the Israelites . . . it tells how the people came to be God’s people. Genesis concludes with the death of Joseph while the people are in Egypt where they came as guests and eventually ended up a captive people. Exodus begins with the narrator telling us that the relationship between the Egyptians and Israelites changes for the worse. The Israelites are treated cruelly . . . how they become enslaved. The people are in a shipwreck.
The book also starts with the story of Moses during these terrible times . . . his miraculous rescue from death as an infant and rearing within the family of Pharaoh . . . and, his escape to Midian after standing up for his people and killing another. His promising life as one of Pharaoh’s family takes a turn for the worse . . . his life is wreck. Running for his life he hides in Midian, separated from his people, he finds a job, gets married, and tries to make a go of it as a shepherd . . . tries to make the best of his wrecked life.
That is where we pick up the story this morning. Moses is out with the flock . . . taking care of business out in the wilderness by Mount Horeb. As the sheep are feeding, Moses is . . . well, bored. Watching sheep eat is not too exciting. As he is sitting there, he suddenly sees a bush burst into flames. It certainly got his attention . . . but he also noticed that as the flames dance through the bush nothing was burning up. Being curious he got up and went over to look at this phenomenon.
Then a voice spoke to him from the bush . . . called out his name, “Moses! Moses!” In a knee-jerk reaction he responded, “Here I am.” God is speaking to Moses . . . speaking to Moses out in the middle of nowhere . . . speaking to Moses in the mundaneness of his life . . . speaking to Moses on an ordinary day. Moses has stumbled upon the sacred . . . stumbled upon the holy. Moses is encountering God.
Of course, from here on out in the story we know that Moses is called to clean up the shipwreck . . . to right the ship . . . and get the people of Israel back on track. God calls Moses to go back to Egypt and lead the people out of captivity and to take them to the Promised Land.
And, he will. This calling of Moses and the entailing adventure that unfolds afterwards is a great story, but that is not the part of the story I want to focus on this morning. Instead of Moses’ call, I want to focus on the fact that out of his ordinary life and existence, Moses stumbles upon the sacred. That encounter changes everything . . . changes everything for Moses and for his people. Remember, this all takes place out in the middle of a pretty drab wilderness as Moses is tending a flock of sheep . . . this is mundane and boring stuff that we are talking about. Despite it all, Moses comes upon the sacred . . . the holy . . . in the most ordinary and unexpected place in his life. From there on out nothing is the same for Moses.
It is this discovery . . . this stumbling upon the sacred in the ordinary that carries him through . . . and will carry us too.
As much as Dana and I would have loved to have spent our time in Kentucky relaxing, enjoying family and friends, and actually do anything that resembled a vacation . . . we did not. Our trip was strictly business . . . the business of disassembling a household of nearly a quarter of a century . . . of going through every inch of an apartment that represented a fourth of Dana’s mother life . . . of going through all the possessions, furniture, documents, and photographs of a lifetime . . . closing accounts, establishing power of attorney, making funeral arrangements . . . and disposing of so many things. It was hard work for nearly twelve hours a day the five days we were in Kentucky.
It was frustrating and sad work, too. Frustrating because it was difficult to go through another person’s possessions and life . . . a person dearly loved . . . without them there. Frustrating because what is a treasure to one person is garbage to another. Frustrating to be getting rid of the treasures and memories embedded in all that stuff. Sad to think that it all signaled an end to what once was and what was now the new reality.
On that first morning as Dana and I stepped into her mother’s apartment, we felt shipwrecked . . . felt as if we were floundering in the depths of an endless ocean. It was pretty heart-wrenching and depressing. In the end, though, we felt good about what we had done. Dana’s mother’s life was made simpler. She was in a safe place. She is being taken care of with excellent care. And, she can relax and enjoy the rest of her days without the worries she had before. Not perfect, but acceptable.
Also, what made it bearable . . . what brought us hope . . . and, what in the end, made us feel good about it was the fact that throughout the week we stumbled upon the sacred over and over again in the most unexpected places. There were the other residents of the housing development where Dana’s mother lived who shared stories of their relationship with Dana’s mother . . . who offered to help . . . to received things and saw them as treasured gifts from a friend they had lost. In this we encountered the sacred. In spending some late nighttime with a seminary classmate who has served Dana’s home church for over 20 years . . . sharing stories . . . comparing ministries . . . and, catching up on each other’s lives. It practically felt like we were back in seminary sitting around the table and having a good time. The sacred was encountered there.
The sacred was encountered when we stumbled upon Dana’s father’s medals from World War II . . . when we saw her parent’s wedding pictures . . . old report cards . . . old photographs. Each sparked the presence of the holy . . . of the sacred.
These moments of sacredness carried us through the difficult task we had been on.
Also, during that time, as we learned news of Bridget’s accident, we stumbled upon the sacred once again. As we received news of the accident . . . sending out the prayer request from nearly 1600 miles away . . . and seeing how the congregation, community, and beyond jumped into action. A simple four sentence request for prayers on our church’s Facebook page garnered nearly 6,000 responses! Six-thousand responses! There are only a little over 600 people in all of Joliet . . . that is nearly 60 percent of Carbon County’s population! In this we all stumbled into the sacred. And, since then, we have all continued to move on with hope.
These are only a few examples of stumbling into the sacred in everyday, ordinary life. I am certain all of you could add to these examples . . . that you can add your stories. Voltaire would say that we remembered to “sing in the lifeboats.” That we remembered to acknowledge the sacred when we stumbled upon it . . . to recognize it as a great and sustaining gift of God’s grace and love. To allow it to carry us through the difficulty of these times and our lives. We need these moments if we are going to make it. God knows. Amen.
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