|
Foundry United Rev. |
|
|
“The Fire in Your
Belly” Labor Sunday Sunday, August 31,
2008 |
|
|
Exodus 3: 1-15 Rev. |
This
Labor Sunday I’d like us to look together at the life of Moses who has been
called the first labor organizer, the first liberator, the first prophet, the
one whom we need to understand if we are to understand Jesus. There
are three things about Moses’ life that prepared him to be a leader and
liberator of his people. The
first is that he was born the child of Hebrew slaves but adopted by a
daughter of Pharaoh, the King of Egypt. While he grew up in the royal palace,
a child of privilege, he could tell by the way he looked in the mirror that he
belonged to the group that was without privilege and oppressed. He was
blessed to grow up with a keen sense of the injustice in his world. He was
fortunate to grow up with an awareness of the distinction between the world
as it is and the world as it ought to be. Twenty
some years ago I attended the Industrial Areas Foundation’s national training
in community organizing for community leaders. IAF was founded by Saul Alinksy,
and today there are dozens of congregation-based local IAF organizations like
our own Washington Interfaith Network that are working for change in our
communities. The
first basic lesson that community leaders learn in IAF training is that there
is a tension between the world as it is and the world as it ought to be and
that leaders live in the world as it is with a vision of the world as it
ought to be. Those who can not grasp this basic truth cannot become leaders
of IAF groups. Not
everyone understands that the world as it is is not the world as it is meant
to be. There are those who suffer injustice and those who benefit from
injustice – both – who do not understand that injustice is a violation of
God’s creation rather than an aspect of its given nature. The
Bible is the story of life lived in the tension between the world as it is
and the world as God intends it to be. The plot of the Bible is God’s moving
to inspire women and men to move the world away from its injustice, closer to
what the world ought to be. The Biblical God can be defined as the one who
moves in human history on behalf of the world as it ought to be. Although
I am sure it caused him great distress and angst, Moses was fortunate to grow
up with a keen sense of the world’s injustice. It was an experience of his
childhood and youth. From an early age, Moses understood the tension between
the world as it is and the world as it ought to be. So this
is the first aspect of Moses’ life that is important. I suspect there is little
God can do with us unless we can see injustice in the world. If we are
perfectly happy with the world as it is, it will be hard to understand who
God is and what God is about. When
Moses was a young man, one day he saw an Egyptian master beating a Hebrew
slave nearly to death. Moses looked all around him and saw that there was no one
else around. He attacked the Hebrew master to stop him from beating the slave
and in the process the Egyptian died. The
next day Moses discovered that everybody knew what he had done. How? Who told
on him? He had looked all around. He had made sure that no one was watching.
Who could have told? There
was only one possible person who could have told on him. The only person who
could have told was the Hebrew slave he had rescued. Moses was betrayed by
the very slave whose life he had saved. Here
Moses learned another critical lesson he needed to know in order to be a
leader. He learned that injustice has the capacity to corrupt those who are
victimized by it as well as those who benefit from it. Injustice has the
capacity to corrupt those it oppresses as well as those who participate in
the oppression. Anyone
who seeks to lead change needs to know that those whom he or she seeks to
help will not necessarily be grateful or supportive or loyal. Moses could
have never been a leader if he had not learned this. If we
are motivated to lead because we think those whom we lead will appreciate or
like us for it, we will be quickly disappointed. If we expect those we seek
to lead to model loyalty and unity, we will be quickly disappointed. In one
of Arthur Miller’s plays there is a character who says, “Why is it that
betrayal is the only truth that sticks?” One of the themes of the Bible is the
persistent reality of resistance and betrayal from the very people God is
seeking to save. The
second great lesson of Moses’ life was that those he was called to lead would
never appreciate his leadership or follow him without complaint or resistance
or betrayal. So
Moses did what many of us do when we experience disappointment and betrayal.
He turned his back on his people. He left He
lived an affluent middle-class life for many years. One day
he was doing the tedious work of tending his father-in-law’s flock in the
wilderness. (All work that we choose to do to avoid our callings turns out
eventually to be tedious.) As he was doing his tedious job, he saw a bush
that was on fire but was not burning up. It was blazing that it was not
consumed. When I
was a student 20 years ago at IAF ten-day training, Ernie Cortes, an IAF organizer
from Once we
have seen injustice in the world, once we have tasted it, no matter how disappointed
we have been in our efforts to address it in the past, no matter how ordinary
and quiet a life we try to lead these days, there will be a fire in our belly
which we will not ultimately be able to ignore forever. In the
Bible, the belly was considered the place of passion within us. The belly was
the physical center of our souls. When someone had a strong feeling, they
felt it in their belly. We have made our hearts the place of our feelings,
but biblical people who were earthy and profoundly in touch with their own
bodies knew that the center of our feelings is our bellies. It is perhaps
part of the reason that Americans spent $427 million last year on Maalox,
Mylanta, Pepto-Bismol, Rolaids, and Tums. For
anyone who is spiritually alive, injustice in the world burns in our bellies,
even if we try to live quiet and ordinary lives. And the
fire in Moses’ belly was his path to God. The fire in his belly was holy
ground…a thin place. Addressing
injustice, leading change in the world, helping move the world closer to the
way it ought to be is actually a spiritual thing. It is about being whole
persons in relationship with God. The
fire in our bellies is our way to God. It is a sacrament, a means of grace. The God
of the Bible – the I Am Who I Am – lives in the place between the world as it
is and the world as it ought to be. It is here that we meet the God of the
Bible. Moses’
call was to lead a people out of slavery. It is not the only place but work
is one of the places that injustice becomes clear in our world. It is where
power is often most manifest. It is where we invest much of our lives and
energy. For many of us, it is the source of our livelihood as well as our
sense of self-worth. We
celebrate the labor movement on Labor Sunday because it is one movement that
address injustice in our world, a movement that Moses began, a way that God
has moved in human history to bring the world as it is closer to the world as
God means it to be. Some of
us find work to be a thing that causes a burning in our bellies. Jana is
about to lead us in prayer and I want to extend an invitation this morning.
If you are frustrated in some way by work in your life, I’d like to invite
you forward to kneel at the altar as we pray together this morning. Perhaps
you are finding it difficult to know the work you are called to. Perhaps your
work is not satisfying. Perhaps you are under-rewarded or in some way
oppressed by your work. Perhaps you feel over-rewarded and worried about
others whose work is not honored. If
work, in any way, is a concern in your life this morning, we’d like to invite
you to join us at the communion railing as Jana leads us in prayer. www.foundryumc.org |
|
|
|
|
|
|
