Luke 8:22-25,
Exodus 14:19-31

“The Waters of Deliverance”

September 11, 2005

Chris Tuttle
Pastor, Faith Presbyterian Church
Greensboro, NC

Luke 8:22-25

One day he got into a boat with his disciples, and he said to them,

"Let us go across to the other side of the lake."

So they put out, and while they were sailing he fell asleep. A windstorm swept down on the lake, and the boat was filling with water, and they were in danger. They went to him and woke him up, shouting, "Master, Master, we are perishing! And he woke up and rebuked the wind and the raging waves; they ceased, and there was a calm.

He said to them, "Where is your faith?"
They were afraid and amazed, and said to one another,

"Who then is this, that he commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him?"

Exodus 14:19-31

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.  He 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 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.

From the water comes deliverance.

From the water comes deliverance.

That is what I would have said to you a couple of weeks ago.  That is what I would have said to you….before…

Before the journalists, those nuts who stand outside with wind gauges,
rain pelting their faces, raced to the Gulf Coast to bring us the destruction firsthand;

Before the families who had that luxury piled a few select belongings, some photos, a change of clothes, into their car and moved slowly, so slowly, the other direction towards friends or family or hotels along the interstate;

Before those who were left behind, or had not the vehicle nor the money nor the back-up plan,brought blankets and some food into the attic to ride it out;

Before those who could not (or would not) leave, lined up outside the Louisiana Superdome, where the roar of the crowd during New Orleans Saints games was replaced by groans, sighs, yelling, until the wind came and tore off part of the roof, until the plumbing, and water, and lights went out.

From the water comes deliverance.

That is what I would have said to you a couple of weeks ago, even as Katrina hit and we were being told New Orleans was being spared the worst.

And then the pictures came, and the stories continue to overwhelm us:

Pictures of people sitting on rooftops awaiting rescue; of animals left behind, of desperate people looting, some to gain access to food and water for their families, some simply because they are tired, and angry, and afraid.

Stories of gunfights, and rape, and people who died waiting for helicopters or buses that never arrived.  Stories of the smell, the disease, and the bodies floating through neighborhoods.

On any other week this is a foundational text about God freeing the Israelites, rescuing them from slavery and the Egyptian army coming to bring them back. 

On any other week this is a foundational text about God freeing the Israelites, rescuing them from slavery and the Egyptian army coming to bring them back.  And it still is about that, I think.  This is about a nation of people, after making brinks in the sun - the whips tearing at their backs - being claimed by God again, and sent home.  This is about God empowering Moses, plucking him out of the bulrushes and the fields of Midian, and calling him back to stand before the most powerful man in the world and inform him that God had other plans for those slaves.  This text is about God making a way for the people, God’s own chosen people, away from pain, away from suffering, away from exhausting labor and through the waters to the safety and security of the other side.

This text is still, and always will be, about those things.

But I wonder.  This text is always spoken about in such sharp relief.  The Israelites, God’s chosen people, triumph and are freed, rejoicing on the other side as they witness the Egyptian army, with (as the text is careful to tell us) their horses, and chariots, and chariot drivers caught in the mud, killed by the same waters through which the people walked to freedom.  We, as the Israelites, rejoice at their freedom.  But I also find it hard to believe that some of those Israelite mothers, holding their children on the riverbanks – and New Orleans mothers sitting on roofs - didn’t feel a twinge of sadness, maybe even some guilt, as they saw the bodies floating by…

The Exodus text is clear in claiming that God was actively involved in the deaths of the soldiers so that God’s chosen people could be free.  And not only does God bring the waters back down on the Egyptians, God ‘clogged the chariot wheels’ so none could escape.  The problem that I felt as I struggled with the text is the assumption that God was in the water.

Was God in the water?

Was God in the water?  Did God do that?  Did God do what we have seen all week?

Now some would say, “Yes, God did this, but it was for good reason.  We may not understand this reason, but we are not God.  We must look to our lives for the causes.”  Others still would answer with a resounding ‘NO’ to the question of God’s complicity in this or any tragedy.  These people would claim that God did not DO this, did not cause this, but that God is at work, making new from old, binding up the brokenhearted, caring for people, offering comfort and hope.  Between these two points of view we are caught in theology’s ultimate dilemma – either God was strong enough, but for some reason allowed it to happen, OR God was loving enough, not wanting it to happen, but not, dare we say, not powerful enough to stop it.  I don’t know about you, but I don’t find either option acceptable.

I certainly don’t claim an answer today.  No pastor, preacher, theologian of any type has ever been able to come up with an airtight system.  And those who have probably haven’t experienced much of life.  In some ways, we must get used to the fact that we do not get to know WHY all these things happen.  It just isn’t in the cards.  That is why God is God, and we are not.  We don’t get to know.

But these texts help.

The same God that stirred up the waters in the Red Sea also commanded them to be still so that little boats upon which the disciples were riding would come to rest.

We are told that God is shaping this entire narrative.  I am hesitant to say, ‘God is in control’, but in some ways that is exactly what I mean.  This crossing of the Red Sea out of slavery, just like this one horrific tragedy, is a piece of a larger narrative in which God is intimately involved and through which God will, ultimately weave together a magnificent tapestry of redemption.  From a pastoral perspective that is tough to say to people who have lost homes and neighborhoods and family members, but it is also the deepest ground for our hope.  This life, this world, this city, is not all there is.  Thank God for that.

We are also told that God is the primary actor here.  God freed them from Egypt, rescued them from the attacking army, so that the people would understand that their God, the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, the God who calls himself “I AM”, is stronger that any earthly power.  That is a point upon which we can all agree, even in the midst of Katrina.  God is the God of all creation, who shaped heaven and earth out of the chaos, out of the nothingness of before.  God created nature and her rules, God made the wind and the rain, the cycles of the seasons, and set them in motion as great, raw, untamable leveling forces in a world that is constantly out of balance.  Nature is powerful.  Still more powerful than anything humans can build.  But it is not as powerful as God.

But it gets bigger.  If we believe this is a story about redemption, about God saving the people, then it’s not a story about the water, per se.  I got stuck on the water, initially.  While in popular lore the emancipation from Egypt is dominated by a great ‘wall of water,’ in the narrative itself the water is at best instrumental to the real miracle.1  As the perspective shifts from the water, the means, we see the redemption at the heart of it.  The same God that stirred up the waters in the Red Sea also commanded them to be still so that little boats upon which the disciples were riding would come to rest.  The wind, and the waves, like it all, bows at the command of God.

But then, and only then, after the seas have raged, and the waters calmed, something amazing happens.   Jesus turns to the disciples, cowering inside the boat, clinging onto the sides, undoubtedly asking some of the same questions we ask right now, and says to them, “Where is your faith?”  It is a sincere question, but a rebuke as well.  “Where is your faith?”  “Where is your faith, dear friends, when the seas rage and the winds howl and the foundation crumbles?”  Where is your faith when you see your brothers and sisters suffering?

There are certainly many questions that must be asked, and we need to watch and listen and sort through very carefully the messages we are hearing, regardless of the source.  When awful things happen people will want, and need understanding.  And maybe someone to blame.  But not right now.  Right now they need food and clothing, shelter, a good shower, to locate their loved ones and be put in touch with the organizations that can help them get on their feet again.  They need people to allow them to tell their stories, sharing what they have seen.  They need people to let them know they are not alone, and that brothers and sisters around the country and around the world are praying for them, and getting to work.

Moses raised his hands, and through them God delivered a people.  If we raise ours, God may do the same.  There is a list of things in your bulletin you can do to help.  Take it home with you.  If you don’t think you can do anything, come see me…we’ll find some way you can help, I promise.

We live in the time between the waters, the waters that free and the waters that kill, the waters that rage and the waters that are calmed, the waters that refresh and heal and baptize.  The questions can and must continue.  But in response to those questions comes few answers, but a strong, steady presence, holding us close, making things new, even in the poorest and hardest hit areas of New Orleans.  But with that presence, in those moments, Jesus turns, looks at them, then turns to us:  “I created this world, and through me all things ARE being made new.  But for now, in those in-between times, where is your faith?  What will you do for them?”

Some of you may have seen a story on the news this week about St Mark’s Episcopal Church near Gulfport, Mississippi.2  The camera rolled as parishioners gathered in worship, sitting in folding chairs on the foundation of the old sanctuary.  The entire church was gone.  Gone.  Nothing remained but piles of rubble spread out over acres.  But they gathered for worship.  They sat, slouched, in their folding chairs or camping chairs or beach chairs as the priest, his robes flowing in the breeze, began to preach.  He started to cry as he began to invite the people to, “Imagine a beautiful white clapboard church.  Imagine the shutters, the wooden colonial pews.”  He continued to describe the building for them.  After a few moments of this imaginative exercise, he said to them, “That, that is not St. Mark’s church.”  He continued, “I want you to look beside you, to the dirty, smelly, exhausted people with whom you sit.  Those people, you all, YOU are St. Mark’s church.”

It is in these moments when we have the chance to most fully become the church of Jesus Christ.

Thanks be to God.  Amen.

1 Walter Brueggemann, An Introduction to the Old Testament (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2003), 58.(return)

2 This story was on CNN’s ‘Anderson Cooper 360’ on Monday night, September 5, 2005.(return)