Sunday, September 13, 2020
Dear St. Luke Community,
What a week. On Wednesday morning most of us woke up to an orange sky and unhealthy air quality for days to follow. Many of us are feeling the weight of everything, if not for ourselves, certainly for those most affected. Many of us have lost our rhythm, our usual ability to to move through tasks seamlessly, our usual good nights sleep, our usual, well just our usual. We are, in many ways, experiencing a kind of wilderness time, where the usual is no longer experienced and what’s to come is still unknown.
In our focus scripture for Sunday, (Exodus 14:10-31) the Hebrew people followed Moses into the wilderness with God’s promise for the promised land.
But as they were fleeing Egypt, the threat of the Egyptians who were on their heels, plus all the uncertainties that the wilderness brings became too much for them. And they blamed Moses for not letting them stay in Egypt, the only place they knew as home.
It seems that what was familiar, even if it was slavery, was preferred over the unknown. And what does Moses tell them to do? Well you’ll have to stay tuned and come Sunday to find out.
But here’s a hint:
We cannot go back to the usual. And while we may never know what it means to live as slaves or to be victims of oppression, we do know what it means to travel in the metaphorical wilderness of our lives. We’ve lived wild chaotic periods of our lives personally at different points of our lives, but now we’re living it collectively: as a state on fire, as a country on the brink of a volatile election, and as a planet experiencing a global pandemic. We cannot go back to business as usual; but we can travel deep into the wilderness with God who leads us to the promise of God’s grace and mercy.
See you Sunday,
Nicole