There is an old story of a boy coming home from Sunday school and his mother asking him: “What did you learn at Sunday school today?” To which the boy replied: “Our teacher told us about the Exodus.” “And what did she say?” asked the mother. Said Billy: “She told us that when the Hebrew slaves escaped from Egypt, Pharaoh sent his soldiers and chariots to bring them back. When that happened the Hebrews sent a squadron of fighter jets to strafe and bomb them. Then they sent in tanks to finish them off. After that, they had a whole bunch of ferry boats take them across the Red Sea.” Billy’s mother asked him: “Did your teacher really say that?!” “Well, no,” responded Billy. “But you’re not going to believe what she did say happened!”

Billy is not alone. Many thoughtful students of the Bible have asked what happened down through the centuries. Many have found the story of the Exodus incredible, difficult if not impossible to believe. “But it was a miracle,” say traditional believers. “We believe it not in spite of it’s being absurd, but because it is absurd. God can do anything God wants to do.” That is what many Christians believe today and if you are one of them I certainly respect your right to hold that kind of faith.

But before I go further, let’s remind ourselves what the Bible says happened. If you’re like me you are probably visualizing Cecil B. DeMille’s version of the Exodus. The children of Israel are fleeing from Egyptian slavery. Though Pharaoh had said they could go to their ancestral homeland, he changes his mind and sends an army of chariots to bring them back. The Children of Israel are terrified and have some very harsh things to say about Moses’ leadership. “Why did you bring us out here to die? Slavery in Egypt was better than dying in this wilderness.” Then Charlton Heston as Moses lifts up his arms and God divides the Red Sea with two great walls of water. The Hebrew people go through to the other side in safety. When the Egyptian chariots continue to pursue them, Moses holds out his hand and the sea comes crashing down and they are all drowned. It’s a great story and it made a great movie, but as I said before it is an incredible story, difficult if not impossible for many to believe. “So, preacher,” ask some of you. “What do you think actually happened?” I’m glad you asked! Let me first give you a little background on this great escape.

When the Hebrew slaves fled from their captivity, there were three ways they could begin their journey to Israel, the Promised Land. The normal and expected way would have been to take the great highway that went from Egypt to Gaza along a relatively narrow strip of land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. But that escape route was impossible. It was the first place the Egyptian army would have looked for them. The Egyptian chariots could easily go on that highway and kill or capture as many Hebrews as possible to take back to slavery.

South of this Highway is the Red Sea, but the Hebrews had no ships to take them across to the other side so that way of escape was also impossible. But at the northern end of the Red Sea was a third way to freedom, the Reed Sea, a marshy area extending from Egypt to the Wilderness on the other side. That was the path the children of Israel chose: the Reed Sea, not the Red Sea. By the way that is how the word in Exodus should be translated: “Reed Sea” not “Red Sea.” You can investigate this in Exodus chapter 13, verse 18. If your Bible is like mine there will be a little note at the bottom of the page saying how the word should be translated into English. But while you are checking this out in Chapter 13, verse 18, go on and read the rest of the verse: “The Israelites went up out of the land of Egypt prepared for battle.” Keep that in mind as I try to answer your question as to what I believe happened in the Exodus.

I believe that the Hebrew people – women, children, old people, and animals were the first to slog their way through this marshy place. The Egyptian chariots, following orders blindly, attempted to pursue them through the swamp. When they did, the wheels of their chariots were hopelessly mired down. At that moment, the armed Hebrew men, as tough as the Israeli army today, attacked and killed them all. Not from blood lust, mind you, but to be sure no one brought word back to Pharaoh where the Hebrews had gone.

So there you have it: two very different stories of the Exodus; one that happens because of a miracle by God; the other by the inspired action of the Hebrews themselves. But if my story is what actually happened, then why is the miracle story the one we have in the Bible? I believe the answer is found in a word Don Klinefelter shared with me this past week. Throughout their entire history the Hebrews were a “God-intoxicated” people. As far as they were concerned, God was the cause of what happened in human life. They believed passionately that God intervened in the natural flow of history to change what happened to human beings. Many people believe that today, but the Hebrews had a way of reading the hand of God back into their history so that God, not human beings, caused miracles to happen. That was the understanding that inspired them to write the books of the Bible. Were they lying? Not in the least. They truly believed that God intervened in human history to set aside natural laws and cause miracles to happen.

As I said earlier in this message, you have every right to disagree with what I have said. That is the freedom we all have in the United Church of Christ. But I have a responsibility as well as freedom. I have the responsibility you have given me as your pastor to share truth with you as I understand it. Yours is the freedom to agree or disagree. What joins us together in our church is not that we all believe the same thing but that we love and care about one another. Our love binds us together as seekers after truth.

But one critical question remains: how can we as contemporary Christians discover God in our lives! In a conversation with Terry Stulce about this I suddenly realized he was the right person to finish this message. Terry….

I believe in Miracles

Thich Nhat Hanh wrote a book entitled “The Miracle of Mindfulness”. In the book, he details how we blind ourselves to miracles of life in the present moment with thoughts that keep us in the past or project us into the future. If I look deeply at my life in the “now”, miracles abound. He is fond of pointing out that life is always and only in the “now” and that if we are not in the “now” we miss our appointment with life.

 I believe that miracles in the Bible are metaphors not meant to be taken literally. Belief in miracles is not an article of faith. I don’t have to believe in miracles in order to profess a belief in a higher power. If we open our eyes, miracles are everywhere; from the ubiquitous power of gravity to photosynthesis that makes ever flower bloom.

If you want to witness “God at Work”, look at images from the Hubble telescope that show stars being created and galaxies being formed. We can witness the birth and death of stars from a distance of 11 billion years ago. Now, that’s a miracle!

Terry Stulce
September 14, 2014