Having been fed, so in our giving of thanks, we look beyond ourselves to the needs of others.
The food bank box has reappeared and will be in the vestibule until after worship on Sun 16 Dec.
Huge thanks to those who already filled the box prior to morning worship - that's excellent!
And many thanks to those outwith the congregation who have been so generous with donations.
Our Advent series this year reflects on important births. This week, we thought about Moses.
READINGS: Exodus 1:1-22; Ex 2:1-10;Acts 7:17-34
SERMON
Let’s pray: may the words of my mouth and the thoughts of all our hearts, be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our deliverer. Amen.
As I was looking at our texts for this morning,
and thinking of the Advent theme of hope,
I was reminded of Nina Simone’s classic song:
‘I wish I knew how it would feel to be free’
and of a particular event in the 20th century.
First, the opening verse of the song:
I wish I knew how
It would feel to be free
I wish I could break
All the chains holding me
I wish I could say
All the things that I should say
Say 'em loud say 'em clear
For the whole round world to hear
And the event?
It’s the evening of the 1st of December.
She’s had a long day at work.
Her shift over, she leaves, and heads for the bus stop.
The bus arrives, she gets on board,
walks along the aisle past empty rows of seats,
and settles herself just behind the 10th row.
Several stops later, the rows in front of her are now completely full.
More people get on board, but, are now all standing up the front.
The driver comes down to the 10th row,
takes a sign from its place on the back of the seat, and moves it a few rows back.
He looks at her, and those sitting in the several rows
that have suddenly changed their designation and orders them to move back
behind that sign – to give up their seats to the folk standing at the front of the bus.
One by one they get up and move...
except one.
She is not moving.
She’s tired – not physically –
she’s tired of giving in,
giving in to a system designed to beat her down:
to treat people like her as less than fully human.
The police are called.
She’s arrested and taken off to the police station for having broken the law.
The law that requires her to only sit in specially designated places,
the law that requires her to give up her seat on a bus, when asked,
to someone else deemed more worthy solely because of the colour of their skin, someone...white.
63 years ago, Rosa Parks made a stand for justice by the act of sitting down –
and, as the news of what happened that night on the bus in Montgomery, Alabama, spread,
hope for change began to spark, and light up the hearts
of those others who, like Rosa, were oppressed by racism deep, deep within
the structures of the society they lived in.
90 years before, the Civil War had seen the end of slavery;
even so, freedom was a long time coming for those in the South –
and while in law freedom has been won,
in practice, there are still those who continue to deny people of colour basic human rights.
However, on that night in December, Rosa, in a spontaneous act of refusing to move,
became a symbol of the Civil Rights Movement,
a symbol of hope.
Later, she would say:
'I would like to be remembered as a person who wanted to be free...
so other people would be also free.'
One, seemingly ordinary woman,
a woman of courage and conviction,
with a strong desire for freedom,
and with hope in her heart and in her God,
accomplished great change.
In the story of Moses that we heard earlier,
the desire for freedom is a key theme,
and underlying that freedom are acts by individuals, who,
despite the most dire of circumstances, manage to hold on to hope.
Let’s go back a little, however, before Moses is born.
Several weeks ago, we journeyed with Joseph –
son of Jacob;
Joseph the dreamer with the fancy coat;
Joseph the favourite;
Joseph the annoying little brother
who is eventually so loathed by his brothers
that he is sold into slavery by them and ends up in Egypt.
We know that in Joseph’s case, he prospers, and, in the end,
not only has found favour with Pharaoh,
not only has he rescued Egypt from famine,
he is also, eventually reconciled to his family –
they are welcomed by Pharaoh to join Joseph,
to settle in Egypt,
to live off the fat of the land,
and to prosper.
Time passed.
Joseph and his generation died.
Pharaoh also died.
The descendants of Joseph and his family had indeed prospered –
Egypt had been good to them and for them.
But Joseph’s story had somehow been forgotten.
A new pharaoh looked at these ‘foreigners’ and wanted them out:
and, isn’t that a recurring theme all down through history?
‘We don’t like them. They’re different.
They’re taking over. Time they went home’...
forgetting that for many, the UK...
sorry, I mean Egypt...
had been their home all their lives.
And so new laws came into force –
life became hard for the Hebrew people in Egypt.
Any rights or privileges were stripped away –
their freedoms were curtailed and they became slaves.
A system of genetic selection is put in place:
Pharaoh instructs the two Hebrew midwives – Shiprah and Puah –
to kill all baby boys.
With no men of their own to marry,
the baby girls when grown, would have no choice
but to intermarry, and eventually assimilate.
Into this time of dire darkness, then, we have a small story of hope,
hope held in the hearts of two women
of courage and conviction and compassion,
who chose to subvert the system:
who quietly disobeyed the orders of the most powerful man in the land.
Eventually, a crack down occurs –
and, it’s at this particular time that a couple marry, conceive,
and have a baby son, who they hide.
Now, this seems to be a second marriage:
for it appears there’s a sister on the scene.
Like the midwives, she’s pretty canny.
With it getting more difficult to hide the child,
the only seeming hope of survival is to put him into a reed basket
and, strategically, push that basket a little way downriver,
just at the time when Pharaoh’s daughter is bathing.
The sister looks on to see what will happen.
The baby happily drifts into view of the princess and before you can say:
‘perhaps I can find a wet nurse for you’
this seemingly insignificant baby is saved...
a baby, who we discover, in our reading from Acts, is ‘no ordinary man’.
This rather important baby is raised in Pharaoh’s palace, and later,
when seeing the treatment of his people, tries to do something about it:
admittedly, he makes a mess of it.
He’s forced to flee – where he marries, has children,
loses the ‘softness’ of palace living and toughens up.
It’s when forty years have passed,
that God calls him –
that God sees within him that man from long ago who wanted to help his people...
and God draws this out once more –
God has seen the oppression of his people and has come to set them free...
and it is within God’s call that this ordinary,
but not ordinary man, effectively becomes the symbol of hope for his people.
We’ve looked back at the story of the
birth of Moses and we look forward.
At Advent, and at Christmas, so often you’ll hear from scripture the words
‘as the time drew near.’
In the case of Moses:
‘as the time drew near for God to fulfil his promise to Abraham.’
In the case of the Christ-child, we wait, with hope,
as the time draws near to remember once again,
God’s promise to the whole of humanity,
fulfilled in the birth of one small child.
Like Moses, that child was born
at a time when things seemed darkest for God’s people,
living as they did under Roman occupation;
living under the rule of a puppet king –
Herod, the Great, who was so paranoid about losing power, that he, like Pharaoh,
issued an order to kill all boy babies.
Both have a time of waiting and preparation –
although Moses doesn’t realise that’s what it is until God calls him.
Jesus quietly prepares for his life’s work and before embarking upon it,
he spends time in the Wilderness.
God has seen the oppression of his people.
In Jesus, he comes to set them free...
Jesus becomes a symbol of liberating hope –
and the torch is lit,
and hope spreads –
not just to those under the yoke of Roman oppression,
but down through the ages,
to all people:
wherever the darkness looms and threatens to crush life,
there we find Jesus bringing hope:
fully human, yet, fully God –
God on the side of those chained into debt
by unscrupulous lenders and crippling borrowing fees;
God on the side of those seeking freedom
and finding themselves chained at the hands of human traffickers;
God on the side of all who are singled out and
bullied, or systematically brutalised for being somehow different;
God on the side of families fleeing unjust governments -
who long for asylum and safety, only to be met by tear gas canisters.
God on the side of all people who no longer need fear death,
for in Christ, even death has been defeated.
This first Sunday of Advent, we think of hope.
We think of seemingly insignificant people,
just getting on with their lives,
people who held hope in their hearts,
and, with that hope, were able to stand up for others –
by sitting down on a bus, like Rosa Parks;
or by subverting powerful kings, like Shiprah and Pruah -
ordinary people who trusted in God.
We think of all those following God’s call for freedom from oppression,
hope holders, hope givers:
even... people like us –
who can use our hands, our hearts, our voices, and anything else we have,
to let that hope shine in the darkness,
so that others may see it,
and take courage,
and know that God has seen their oppression and has come to set them free.
We, as God’s ordinary, extraordinary people,
continue the work that God began way back near the beginning of all things,
we continue the work as shown in the life of Jesus:
for we are now his body in the world –
the work of hope,
the work of justice,
the work of bringing in God’s kingdom,
where all know true freedom in God.
It is a work that is mix of the wondrous,
and the everyday, of sorrow and of joy;
it is our life’s work as Christians and may seem daunting...
but, if even the power of death has been defeated what have we to fear?
We need nothing more than to hold firmly on to hope in the One who calls us. Amen.
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