October 11, 2026 Exodus 19:3-7; 20:1-17 & Matthew 5:17-19 Foundations for a Beloved Community

 

What happens when a group of people who have been slaves suddenly becomes free? It is tempting to think that the answer is obvious: freedom means that nobody tells you what to do anymore. Exodus 19–20 suggests something more demanding.

Freedom is not the end of the story. Freedom begins the work of becoming a people. Israel has been brought out of Egypt. Pharaoh no longer owns them. They are no longer defined by bricks, quotas, commands, and the demands of someone else's economy. At Sinai, God asks them to consider something deeper: What kind of people will you become now that you are free?

That question lies underneath the Ten Commandments. They aren't simply ten isolated rules. Together they begin to describe the foundations of a moral community. Have something sacred at the center. Do not turn everything into an idol. Do not use God's name to manipulate or deceive. Make room for Sabbath, for rest, limits, and the recognition that human beings are more than what they produce.

Also honor those who came before you. Protect human life. Be faithful in your relationships. Respect what belongs to your neighbor. Tell the truth about other people and learn to govern your own desires. Seen this way, the commandments aren't primarily about making isolated individuals behave themselves. They are about making it possible for people to live together.

I have been reading Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind recently and his ideas work well with this Exodus reading. Haidt argues that human beings aren't simply rational individuals making independent moral decisions. We are profoundly social creatures. We need shared stories, rituals, loyalties, norms, and sacred commitments to overcome the constant pull of self-interest.

A community needs something that says: There are things we will not do to one another, and that is precisely what Sinai begins to create. Israel is being bound together around the sacredness of YHWH. That binding can produce extraordinary things: trust, solidarity, mutual obligation, generosity, restraint, identity, meaning.

A people can become more than a collection of individuals pursuing their own interests. They can become a community in which each person begins to understand. Our lives are connected. What we do affects one another. Your flourishing is part of mine.

That is one of the beautiful possibilities of morality. There is a danger here, too. The same moral commitments that bind a community together can divide it from everyone outside the community.

Morality both binds and blinds. A sacred community can become a community of compassion and mutual responsibility. It can also become an us that needs a them. The power of religion should therefore not be dismissed. It should be taken seriously. Religion is powerful precisely because it can reach deeper than rules. It can touch identity, belonging, imagination, hope, fear, love, loyalty, and the sense that some things are sacred.

That power can be used for cooperation and healing. It can also be used for exclusion and conflict. So the question isn't simply whether we need moral communities. We do. The deeper question is about what kind of moral community we are creating

Freedom without moral formation doesn't necessarily produce a community. Human beings need shared norms, rituals, stories, loyalties, and sacred commitments if they are going to resist the constant pull of individual self-interest. Reading Exodus adds something extraordinary to that observation. God doesn't simply say: here are the rules necessary to make your society function.

God says: “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” That sentence comes first. Relationship comes before regulation. Grace comes before commandment.

God doesn't say, If you keep these rules, I will become your God. God says, in effect: I have already brought you out. I have already claimed you. I have already carried you. Now let us consider what kind of people you will become.

The commandments are the practice of freedom, not a price. They teach formerly enslaved people how to live without becoming another Pharaoh to one another.  Consider covenant. Covenant is more than a contract. A contract says: I will do this if you do that. A covenant says: We belong to one another.

If I belong to you, I cannot simply do whatever I want to you. If you belong to me, your suffering cannot be irrelevant to me. If we belong to one another, then truth matters. The dignity of the other person matters.

A great experiment beginning at Sinai, How to turn a collection of liberated individuals into a people capable of living together? The answer is not simply law. They need to share sacredness, ritual, identity, restraint, belonging, and relationship. Exodus adds one word that changes all the others: covenant.

So, what kind of community are we becoming, and can our sense of belonging grow rather than shrink?  Can freedom become more than freedom from but freedom for?

For community and for God. We have been liberated. Now, what kind of people will we become in this covenant relationship with God and each other?

 

October 4, 2026 Exodus 14:5-7, 10-14, 21-29 & Matthew 2:13-15 - One Possible Past Closing + the Future Not Yet Visible

God Makes A Way

There is something remarkably fitting about reading Exodus 14 in a week when the end of more-or-less my daily radiation treatments is coming into sight, and when loved ones, like my wife and son, who are driving patients and who have been collaborating with other loved ones, found themselves completing a jigsaw puzzle they pieced together with one another.

At its heart, the Exodus story is about being caught between what has been and what will come next. The Israelites look behind them and see Pharaoh's army. Ahead of them is the sea. They are caught in a place where no obvious way forward seems possible. Moses tells them, “Do not be afraid, stand firm, and see the deliverance of the LORD.” Then comes that extraordinary command: 

“Go forward.”

I find that is as interesting as the spectacular parting of the sea. The miracle is not simply that the waters divide. It is that a people who cannot yet see the road are invited to take the next step anyway. 

That seems especially resonant at the end of my series of radiation treatments. For weeks, the family's calendar has been filled with appointments, drives, waiting rooms, machines, treatments, trips home, and the accumulating effects of one treatment following another. 

The routine becomes almost like a landscape of its own. I talked to the doctor today to confirm what will happen next. The hormone treatments will continue, and I have ten more sessions (two sessions to the originally scheduled that were missed). So, I'm more than 2/3rds of the way through. A handful of treatments remain. There is an end to a tiresome fatigue in sight.

But the end isn't quite the same thing as arriving. The Israelites didn't cross the sea and find everything finished. They enter a wilderness. Uncertainty, hunger, fear, wandering, manna, arguments, discoveries, and unexpected gifts will follow. The crossing marks a transition, not the end of the journey.

It makes the jigsaw puzzle feel like more than a charming coincidence. You complete a puzzle one piece at a time. No single piece tells you what the finished picture will be. Some pieces seem useless until you discover where they belong. Some pieces are almost indistinguishable from one another. Sometimes you try a piece and discover that it doesn't fit, so you set it aside and try again.

Eventually, you look down and realize something has emerged that wasn't visible when you began. Perhaps that is one way to think about these weeks of treatment.

There have been pieces that seemed ordinary: a ride to an appointment, someone opening a door, a conversation in a waiting room, a card, a gifted quilt from the community, someone making homemade muffins or providing materials to construct a paper chain where each link represents a treatment, sharing mysteries and musicals with the Radiation Therapists Sarah & Jackie, the doctors overseeing, encountering companions like Sarai and Marcia who are on journeys of their own, a person remembering your name, someone sitting with you quietly, or your family driving you to appointments and back home.

None of those things, by itself, looks like a miracle. Yet together they become a picture.

This is a quieter meaning of Exodus 14 for me today. God's work isn't necessarily confined to the spectacular moment when the sea opens. That work can also be found in the people who stand beside us as we wait for a way through.

There is even something beautiful about the fact that the people driving patients completed the puzzle pieces. Their job might be transportation: getting someone from here to there. But the Exodus story reminds us that getting people across difficult places is never merely transportation. It is companionship.

They aren't simply moving bodies along a route. They help people make a crossing.

That's what has been happening throughout these treatments. People have helped make the crossing possible, not by removing the sea, but by helping get to the edge of it, through it, and eventually toward whatever comes next.

I'm struck by the contrast between Moses' words and the Israelites' fear. Moses says:

“Do not be afraid.”

The people are afraid anyway. That matters. Faith isn't necessarily the absence of fear. The Israelites don't become courageous because someone gives them a convincing explanation. They are frightened people who nevertheless discover that they can move forward.

Perhaps faith sometimes looks less like “I know everything will be fine” and more like: “I don't know exactly what comes next, but I'll take the next step.”

And now, as the weekly treatments approach their anticipated end, another kind of crossing lies ahead.

The familiar rhythm will disappear. There may be relief. There is a vague uncertainty. Fatigue may not disappear just because the appointments stop. A strange emptiness may set in when something that has occupied so much of life suddenly isn't on the calendar anymore.

So perhaps the invitation of Exodus isn't to rush toward the other shore. It is simply:

Go forward. 

One piece. One day. One step. People are there beside you. Small acts of kindness. Ordinary moments in which the picture becomes a little clearer. When you finally look back, you discover that the story wasn't only about getting through treatments. It was also about discovering who was there with you while you crossed.

The puzzle is finished. The sea is opening. The road is appearing. And there is still a road ahead; not because we can see its whole shape, but because seeing the whole path isn't necessary to take the next step.

October 5, 2025 - Trusting that God Provides Manna for All

 

Reading: Exodus 16:1-18 

Sermon 

The story of manna in the wilderness is not simply about food. Manna is the product of God's teaching a liberated people how to live differently. This weekend, as I write, this reading is a well-timed lesson for Portland, Oregon. The Oregon National Guard has been deployed. Who knows what will happen by the time this coming Sunday rolls around?

The Israelites, newly freed from Pharaoh, find themselves in the desert, hungry and afraid. Freedom is not as easy as they imagined. Their first instinct is to long for the past, even for the days of slavery, because at least then the bread and safety seemed certain.

Fear always makes what happened in the past look safer and more stable than it was. I understand how this is attractive. I want a past where I felt safer. I dread escalating clashes during the night more than I did before this weekend. And I certainly can understand and empathize with the frustration of those who live near ICE facilities, where noise remains a persistent issue. However, even they know that sending troops here will not solve the noise disturbances.

Dramatic threats of "providing troops authorized to use full force" that stoke national divisions will not finally stop future confrontations between ICE and ICE protesters.  The last time I am aware of a protester threatening ICE officers or the building was in June, and that was handled by local law enforcement. 

I truly believe that the government's best response to any challenge, like God's, is not answered by exerting unilateral, unwanted control, but rather offering the "bread" of cooperation, coordination, and continued conversation. Helping Manna rains down, not in excess, not as luxury, but as sufficiency. Each day’s gift is enough, no more and no less. God’s lesson is profound: liberation is not only escaping Pharaoh, but unlearning Pharaoh’s economy of hoarding, anxiety, and exploitation. God shapes the people toward an economy of enough for everyone. 

Creator is currently modeling this economy on a small scale with the thriving Farmland Produce Distribution Project garden on Creator’s property. We are also engaging with the diversity, support, and prayers we are currently sharing with our current neighbors, the Madres.

This vision of sufficiency and sharing contrasts sharply with the voices of fear and division in our own world. We hear leaders describe cities, like ours, as “war-ravaged” and “out of control,” invoking images of scarcity, danger, and chaos. Such rhetoric is not far from the Israelites’ cry: “If only we had died in Egypt, when we ate our fill of bread!” It is the language of fear, telling us that safety must lie in control, in force, in protecting what we imagine is ours from those we imagine are threats.

But the manna story refuses this narrative. God’s answer to fear is not domination but provision. God does not send battalions to patrol the wilderness; God sends bread that all can gather equally. The divine pattern is not “full force if necessary,” but shared sufficiency. In God’s economy, no one hoards at another’s expense, no one is left hungry, and rest itself is sacred.

In the manna story, sufficiency is not only about daily bread but also about sacred rest. On the seventh day, no manna fell, and no one needed to gather. God built Sabbath into the pattern of provision, reminding the people that freedom also means freedom from endless work and anxiety. Some say this has been years in the making. Overall, describing Portland as war-ravaged is simply an inaccurate mischaracterization to fit into some "insurrection" narrative. It does not currently apply to this city.  

In our time, any deployed troops are currently a radical and a temporary corrective. We are told repeatedly that resources are scarce, that enemies are everywhere, that we must cling tightly to what we have and defend it with force. Yet manna whispers a different truth: abundance comes when we trust God’s provision and live in solidarity. True security does not come from militarization or fear of our neighbors. A loving, long-lasting response comes from ensuring that every neighbor has bread in their hands.

The manna story, then, is not a nostalgic myth but a radical vision. God’s justice looks like daily bread shared freely, enough for each, with no one left out and no one left wanting. Against the voices that call for fear, division, and force, manna invites us into God’s alternative economy: sufficiency, equality, and rest.

I am listening to and trusting in this coming Sunday's scripture. 

September 28, 2025 - A Burning Bush and God's Holy Name

Reading:  Exodus 2:23-25; 3:1-15; 4:10-17 

Sermon 

Pastor Emillie informed us that what we read during the beginning of the Narrative Lectionary year 4 supports the Gospel of John, which starts being read in January. Genesis connected the upcoming John readings to themes like creation, Word, light, covenant, temple, Passover, manna, water, and Spirit.

Exodus connects us to Jesus as the bread of life, living water, and the lamb of God. We start on this reading where Israel groans under oppression. Their cries rise, and the text tells us God “heard,” “remembered,” “looked,” and “took notice.” These verbs matter. Before God calls Moses, God listens. Today, we can sometimes feel that God is silent. The God we encounter in Exodus is not distant or indifferent; God is responsive and is moved by human suffering. This God is stirred into action by lament.

When Moses encounters God at the burning bush, the first revelation is not a theological treatise but presence: fire that does not consume, holiness that interrupts the ordinary. Moses is told to take off his shoes to recognize that the ground is already sacred.

A single bush should be fragile, easily consumed by fire. Yet here it blazes without being destroyed. This image resists the idea of one person “burning out” to accomplish God’s work. Instead, it points to a source of energy and presence beyond the self. Liberation does not depend on Moses’ strength alone. What results is sustained by God’s presence and by community.

Clearly, holiness is in the ordinary. The bush is not grand, not a cedar or an oak, just a scrubby desert bush. God chooses the ordinary to carry the extraordinary. Likewise, liberation does not rise from one heroic figure but from ordinary people, places, and shared struggles. It decentralizes heroism. Moses is not portrayed as extraordinary here.

Moses’ call begins with an interruption, not an achievement. Moses also isn’t seeking greatness; he’s tending sheep. God interrupts the everyday and calls him not as a solitary savior but as part of a larger story: God hears the cries of the people, and Moses is one voice among many who will act. Later, Aaron, Miriam, and the whole community join in the work. 

Finally, the fire symbolizes God’s sustaining presence. Fire can consume, but here it empowers. Moses’s role isn’t to be the heroic fire himself but to carry the message of the One whose fire sustains a whole people through their journey to freedom. 

Liberation begins in the awareness that God is present where we stand, even in the wilderness of exile and oppression. I also hear an echo here of what came to Jacob in his dream or when he finally meets Esau face-to-face, Jacob does not hide behind masks anymore. He takes action, recognizing his past mistakes, not because he has suddenly become heroic, but because he is finally facing the one he wronged and rises to a true call and relationship. 

At the heart of this story: Moses asks for God’s name. In the ancient world, knowing a name meant having a relationship, a point of trust. God does not give a fixed, controllable label. Instead, God offers mystery: Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh, translated as “I Am Who I Am,” or “I Will Be Who I Will Be.” God’s identity cannot be pinned down, yet is revealed in relationship, in action, in promise. This is not a God to be owned or wielded, but a God who will be faithfully present in unfolding history.

Moses resists the call. He names his inadequacies, his stammering tongue, his fear of leadership. God does not deny his weakness but answers it: “I will be with your mouth.” Still, when Moses cannot imagine himself as enough, God provides Aaron. To summarize, two primary truths are consistently revealed:

• God’s calling is not about solitary heroism, but about shared vocation and
• God hears the cries of the oppressed and acts, oftentimes through us.  

To know God’s name is to be drawn into liberation work, even when we individually feel unqualified. Our inadequacies do not disqualify us; they become the space where God’s presence and community sustain us.

In Jesus, there is the resonance of I Am. We live lives that embody God’s liberating presence among the poor, the excluded, and the broken. To know God’s name, then, is not to solve a riddle but to join a story: the story of a God who hears, remembers, and comes alongside us, calling us into the work of justice and freedom.