Praying With Their Feet

Sunday, September 11, 2011

The Lord spoke to Moses face to face. Jacob wrestled with God. Isaiah, Job, Abraham, Nathan, Gideon, …why even the man named Cain, who killed his brother – and the slave girl named Hagar – even they had conversations with God. And hundreds of people spoke with Jesus face to face, hundreds ate meals with him, and hundreds more felt his hands on them when he healed them.
We have not been afforded the privilege of seeing God face to face, or being in conversation with God, or being in the physical presence of God’s Son.
But we do have the privilege of hearing and reading these conversations between a people and their God. Within the covers of the Bible we have the privilege of experiencing intimate conversations turned into something like prayer.
We stand right there with Abraham as he pleads with God to spare any who are righteous in Sodom and Gomorrah.
We hear the pain in Moses’ voice as he whispers a five word prayer for his sister, Miriam: “God, heal her now please.”
We are on our knees with Hannah, who with a bitterness of soul, wept in anguish, and prayed that God would give her a son.
We join the Psalmist’s praise of a God who laid the foundation of the earth, and made the heavens with his own hands.
We are humbled when we hear Jesus pray god to protect his disciples who are in the world. And our hearts break as we watch from the shadows as Jesus prays in the Garden of Gethsemane.
And there is the prayer that each and every one of us know – that prayer that has no words, when words are heavy and cannot be found…words that God knows before they are on our tongues…words that are sighs too deep for words…and our prayer becomes a breath.
Moses and the children of Israel have left Egypt and encamped where God told them. And because of where they were encamped, the Egyptian army overtook them. Behind them – the pounding of horses’ hooves and the clattering of chariots pressing down on them. Before them was the sea. The people were trapped…they were helpless. We can imagine them running in different directions trying to find an escape route; mothers carrying screaming babies; the elderly separated from the protection of their families. And the people cried out – “We would rather be slaves to the Egyptians than to die like this.” Moses said, “Stand still, wait for the Lord. God will work for you today – just watch and see.” And so while the people were standing still and waiting to be rescued from what would obviously be a certain and violent death…while they were surely praying any and every kind of prayer, it seems that God did not want them to stand still. “Moses, why are all of these people crying out to me?”…God asked…”They don’t need to stand still in this place…tell them to go forward!” And what was forward…was water.
Water in the Hebrew world represented chaos – Water was the great and deep void. Everything under the sun that could not be tamed – all that was unknown and feared. With self-preservation being the first human instinct – how can people with families willingly and voluntarily agree to walk deeper and deeper into a sea in which they will be drowned? “Tthis is not taking a risk, Lord…this is suicide.”
The answer to the Israelites prayers was not to wait on God to fix it – but to trust God enough to pray with their feet – to take action…to take a first step into the water.
Is there anyone here who has not felt powerless in light of the challenges that threaten to wash over us? Personal issues of health, finances…future and family. Anyone here who does not feel powerless when confronted with the sad reality of our world, the devastation of flood and drought, abuses of power, senseless killings, the general inhuman treatment to which our human family members are subjected.
The Israelites teach us that prayer is not limited to a verbal exercise. The Israelites show us that we need not limit prayer to standing still, and waiting, and hoping that this time God will hear us and decide that this time it’s our turn to be rewarded. I like this comment on this morning’s reading: Prayer is a covenantal exercise in which we work with God to find the answers that we seek. We should not just sit back and wait for God to perform. This story reminds us that there are times when prayer is meant to be the first act in a series of actions.…times when God is calling us to take a risk. Quite often it is the case that logic and the world tell us that the problem we seek to solve is insurmountable. But…wondrous things can happen – the waters of the sea can be turned back; divided, and become dry land --- when we are willing to take a step. And like the Israelites – when we step into the unknown, we are to do so knowing that we are not taking the step alone.
When faced with the challenges of life…it will be good to remember that there are times when we are called to pray with our feet – taking whatever action God calls us to take – always with the faith and confidence that God will be at our side.