Exodus 17:1-7

Matthew 21:23-32

Today's Gospel reading from Matthew invites us to welcome change! The religious leaders of the day want to know by what authority Jesus is doing the things he is doing and saying the things he is saying. Jesus, you know, is leading people out into the new and treacherous wilderness of having a personal relationship with God in lieu of subscribing to the current religious system of unbendable rules and regulations. He is teaching acceptance and tolerance and understanding of others, in lieu of the current practice of judgment, exclusion and condemnation. He is inviting people to explore the seemingly dangerous world of forgiving those who sin against you, loving all your neighbors, and even praying for your enemies. Jesus is urging people to leave the past behind and to step out into the future where they have only God to trust.

But people - especially religious people - don't like change. Don't like risk. So they want to know by what higher authority Jesus is encouraging people to leave behind the old-and-certain in order to take up the new-and-uncertain.

And this morning, I want to invite you to move forward with Jesus. For there are things in your life as an individual, and in our life together as a church, that demand we leave where we are at present and move to where Jesus knows we need to be. So let's talk today about moving from the old into the new. But first, let me tell you a story.

The other day, Ron Gabbard - the head of our highly trained, crack, precision custodial team - told me about a traffic stop he made one day when he was still working as a police officer up in Dayton, Ohio. Seems Ron was patrolling Route 22 when a car full of very old people crept by. On radar, Ron noticed the car was travelling at 22 miles an hour - in a 50 mile an hour zone. So Ron put on the blue lights and pulled them over.

Well, inside the car there was a very elderly lady behind the wheel, and three very frightened- looking elderly people in the back seat. As Ron approached the driver's side door, the power window zipped down and this lovely little blue-haired lady very nervously asked, "Was I going too fast, officer?"

Well, Ron could hardly contain himself. But being a highly trained police professional, Ron stifled his urge to giggle and said, "No Ma'am, as a matter of fact, you were going too slow. I clocked you at 22 miles an hour in a 50 mile an hour zone."

"But the speed limit sign said '22", the lady protested.

"No ma'am," answered Ron very politely. "The speed limit sign says '50'. The sign you saw was the highway sign for Route 22."

Well, the little old lady was terribly embarrassed, and Ron decided to just give her a warning. But as he walked away from the car, he again noticed the three elderly people sitting in the back seat. They still looked terrified.

"Ma'am?" Ron asked. "May I ask what's wrong with the people in the back seat?"

"I have no idea WHAT'S wrong with them," answered the little old lady. "They've been that way ever since we got off Route 119!"

I like this true-life-story (not) because I've known moments in my own life when it seemed like I was a passenger trapped in a car that was going much too fast. Come to think of it, the panicked look on the faces of the passengers in that old lady's car are pretty much what you see on the faces of God's people whenever he leads us from the old to the new.

We surely see terror in the faces of the Israelites in today's Old Testament lection. There they are in the Wilderness of Sin facing the latest challenge of stepping into toward the Promised Land. First they had to contend with the angel of death at Passover. And then with being backed up against the Red Sea as Pharoah's chariots swept down upon them. And then they had to grapple with running out of food and facing starvation. And now they're in the middle of the desert with no water and no hope. Can you see their panicked expressions? Can you understand why they grumble at Moses? Can you understand why they wish with all their hearts that they could just go back to Egypt - to the way it used to be?

Like the religious leaders in Jesus' day, and like many of us when we are confronted with the difficulty and upset of change, the Israelites resisted and questioned the whole experience. "Is God among us or not?" they asked when the uncomfortable challenges came.

Tom Troeger likes to tell a parable about why its so hard to deal with change. There once was a grand old church whose identity was beautifully expressed by a large cross sitting high atop its steeple. From every part of town, people could see the cross. And when they did, they knew the church was there. The cross was what identified the church as the church. Well, one day a great storm blew up and this huge icon fell. It twisted off the tower and came crashing through the roof. Fortunately, no one was hurt, but the fallen cross left behind what seemed to some to be a large, gaping, God-shaped hole.

Now the members of the church responded to this crisis by doing what church people often do when facing crises. They formed committees and had meetings. And as the members tried to figure out what to do, it became clear that there were two prevailing opinions. One, was to try to restore the God-shaped hole to the way it was before, and to return the cross to its rightful place high atop the steeple. Everything would be returned to the way it was.

But others weren't so sure. Maybe the cross fell because the underlying structures had deteriorated over time. Maybe they could no longer support it. Perhaps just filling in the God-shaped hole and remounting the cross would only cover up a deeper problem. Maybe it was time to rethink the whole idea of the cross, maybe get a new, lighter one that could be mounted closer to the ground. This generated lots of controversy, of course, since members of the first group thought the church just wouldn't be the church without its historic icon up on the steeple, blowing in the breeze, as it always had. And so the people of the church found themselves in a monumental struggle about what to do about the God-shaped hole.

Now, you can't understand the plight of the Israelites until you understand that their true dilemma out there in the desert was not just the daily hardships they faced, but even more importantly, it was the loss of their sacred identity. All the things they were certain of were gone. The frame of reference within which they understood the meaning of life, the nature of God, and the life of faith had evaporated. All their icons had fallen. And they were left with an incredibly large and uncomfortable God-shaped hole.

One of the things the Bible teaches is that people don't like having God-shaped holes in their lives. We want life to be organized, and understandable. We want faith to be simple and constant. We want God to be predictable and protective of our status-quo. And that's why the Israelites reacted the way they did when it was time to move from the bondage of Egypt toward the freedom of the Promised Land. Their first reaction was to try to prevent it, to resist it - to try go back to Egypt. To fill in the God-shaped hole by setting up the old icons again.

And they grumbled about Moses. And they cried out to God to bring them home. But God didn't.And many years later, when the harrowing journey was over, and the Israelites were at last safely tucked away in the Promised Land, the people came to understand something important about the loss of their icons and the changes required by the God-shaped hole.

They discovered it was not Moses who provoked the change. It was not Pharaoh. It was not fate. It was not misfortune. It was not the work of the devil. It was not the faithlessness of people.

Oh no, the icons fell and the God-shaped hole appeared, and the journey into the uncertainty of the desert began, because God was behind it!

Have you ever considered that the monumental changes you are facing in life right now may not simply be the work of the powers of darkness? Have you ever considered that, behind the falling of the familiar icons of the Christian Church in our day - prayer in school, the nuclear family, submissive women, traditional music, family values, moral authority, clearly defined divisions between right and wrong and between good people and bad people - have you ever considered that these long-revered icons just may be falling because God Himself is pushing them over?

"By what authority are you making these changes, Jesus?" the religious authorities asked as their icons fell. Why Jesus was forgiving sinners - for free and without using the God-ordained and approved services of the Temple. Why, Jesus was befriending tax collectors and prostitutes and telling his followers to leave no one out of God's love! Why, Jesus was elevating the status of women and talking to Samaritans and reaching out to lepers and everyone else the religious system said God didn't like. Why, Jesus was turning the old time religion on its head!

"By what authority are you making these changes?" they wanted to know.

Why, by God's authority. For whenever the foundations of our lives, our churches or even our society are too weak to support the growth of the kingdom of God, God puckers up his lips and blows - and our not-so-sacred sacred icons come tumbling down.

Now Jesus applies this to our lives by asking our opinion. A certain man had two sons. He went to the first son and told him to go work in the family vineyard. But the son said, "No way, old man. The Ryder Cup is on TV and I'm not going to miss a single win by the European team." But later, after thinking it over, the son changed his mind, turned off the TV, and went and worked in the field. Meanwhile, the father went to the second son and told him to go work in the vineyard. With a great big smile, the boy said, "Sure, Pop!" But as soon as his father was out of sight, the kid plopped down in front of the TV and turned on the golf match to cheer for the Americans.

Now here's the question Jesus asks: "Which of the two did the will of his father?" And the correct answer is "The first son - the one who refused at first, but then changed his mind."

You see, its hard to move from where you are comfortable and want to be to where God is calling you. When someone has hurt you and you hear the call to forgiveness and to work for reconciliation, every bone in your body wants to resist. When you're captured by a habit or an addiction, and you hear the call to work on becoming free, you're whole psyche tries to convince you that life wouldn't be worth living without that habit. When you encounter a person living a life outside the will of God, every fiber of your soul feels more comfortable as a judge than as a lover. When you see the love of God more clearly reflected in the lives of unbelievers than in the church itself, there's something inside that still resists believing that maybe God has left us behind to go work with others who - like the first son - may refuse at first, but ultimately do what the Father wants.

Oh, its hard to move from where we are to where God wants us to be. And that's why God pushes over our sacred icons and opens up God-shaped holes in our lives.

To persuade us to change our minds. To change our "no" to "yes".

It happened once at a little church in a small Midwestern town. It was a church where the sermons were fire and brimstone and where it was pretty clear what the church was against - which was most everything. Then, one day, the pastor called the deacons to his office. Choking back tears, he informed them that his youngest son, Roger, had AIDS. The deacons, of course were very sympathetic to their pastor for a few moments before they broached the subject of his need to resign. And he knew it was what he had to do - he couldn't subject the church to the shame and embarrassment of their pastor's son being both gay and having AIDS. He took out a sheet of paper and began to write. But then one old man - the oldest member of the church - piped up.

"Since when did Jesus start throwing people away?" he asked. "Why, if we can't love our pastor and his son through this, we shouldn't even call ourselves Christians."

Well, that started a whole other conversation. The result was a decision to embrace the family and even the son. They committed to an AIDS education workshop, and a few months later actually began a support group for AIDS victims and their families.

About half the members quit the church. You see, the closer you get to God's unconditional love, the less religious people want anything to do with it. But in the lives of those whose "no" became "yes", a ministry was born which, to this day, brings God's grace to many.

And it happened once in the life of a husband who - after thirty years of marriage - realized he'd made a terrible mistake. The kids were gone and now he and his wife had only each other. They didn't talk. They had nothing in common. They were resigned to a future of mutual misery.

But one day, they were at a wedding. And, somewhere during the service, the man was overcome by the sheer love and joy he could see in the bride and groom contrasted with the utter unhappiness he and his wife experienced. And then, for reasons unknown to even himself, he impulsively reached out and took his wife by the hand. She looked shocked. He squeezed her hand. She leaned her head against him. And that was the beginning. Today, they're learning how to be a couple again, and though its very hard work, there seem to be small miracles every day - ever since their "no" became "yes".

And it happened this week in the life of one our parishioners. He confessed to me that he's never really had or taken the time to study the Bible and get to know God in depth. But, by golly, he took one of those little yellow registration forms and signed up for our new course on getting to know the Bible. And I'll bet the experience will be rich, for God honors people who let even their longstanding "no's" become "yes".

Dear friends, all around us in the world today, icons are falling, leaving behind huge God-shaped holes. And make no mistake about it, it all ultimately folds into God's loving plan for our lives.

So what will you do?

Try to stay to Egypt? Or decide to move forward?

The choice you make will change your life forever.