Dear Friends:
At Rockfish Presbyterian we can close our doors but not our hearts. Thank you
for all you are doing and are willing to do to help the folks in our community.
We live on more than bread alone. What I promise to send to you each week is
some spiritual food until we can worship together again. It includes a Psalm,
prayer, scripture for the day, a meditation and some music. If you can’t
get the link to work call me. (Jamie had to show me). Be save but live without
fear. Do that by always making a joyful noise to the Lord.
Louie – 434-882-0977
The central event for Christians is
the death and resurrection of Jesus. In this time of pandemic fear, the idea of
death weighs heavy upon our hearts. While we live in an isolated community, we
are very reliant on our health care system. Just this week three of our members
made non-virus related trips to UVA. We are at that age where no news is good
news when it comes to our health. On a normal day we are often aware of another
neighbor with health issues. These days are not normal. Death is upon us. A
financial crisis is upon us. We pray for a vaccine, an economic stimulus, a
return to the way things were. The truth is, tomorrow will never be the same as
yesterday. We need a cure. So we pray for a resurrection.
The central event of the Old
Testament is the Exodus. You know the story. The children of Abraham freely
entered the land of Egypt to escape a shortage of food due to drought. They
overstayed their welcome and eventually lost their freedom. The Hebrew people became
a nation of slaves, dependent on the mercy of Pharaoh. Eventually Pharaoh
showed no mercy.
In their distress, the children of
Abraham cried out. After generations in slavery, the Hebrews had forgotten the
name of their God. But Yahweh had not forgotten them. Yahweh heard their cries
and responded by sending Moses. In a drama worthy of any Greek play, the power
of Pharaoh is dismantled by the will of Yahweh. Insects invaded the land, the
Nile River turned blood red, yet Pharaoh refused to admit defeat. Finally the
Angel of Death descends on the land. The Hebrew’s are instructed to place the
blood of a sacrificial lamb on their tents so the Angel will pass over their
habitat. Every other family, including Pharaoh’s, suffered the tragic loss of
the first born son. Devastated by the loss, Pharaoh ordered the Hebrew out of
Goshen. Lead by Moses, they begin their march toward freedom and the Promised
Land.
But freedom is never easy. Pharaoh’s grief
evolved into anger. He assembled an army of his finest charioteers and gave the
orders that not one Hebrew slave was to escape their sword. Imagine the fear
that must have arisen in the hearts of the Hebrew people when they saw the dust
of the chariots speeding their way. No one mistook the dust as a mission of
mercy. Before them was the Red Sea. Behind them was certain death. In their
fear they turned on Moses. “Why did you bring us out here to die?” Chaos began
to reign within the ranks. Folks were frozen in their tracks trying to decide
which death was preferable, the sword or drowning.
Moses lifted his rod and held it out over the
sea. I like to think he sang, “Wade in
the water. Wade in the water children, Wade in the water. God’s gonna trouble
the water.” Well that is not the way it actually happened. This was a song
sung to another set of slaves as they tried to discover their own promised
land.
Some of our favorite songs come from “Black
Spirituals”. W.E.B. DuBois calls this the only original American music. That is
certainly debatable but our hymn book would be lacking if it didn’t contain
such songs as There is a Balm in Gilead,
When Israel was in Egypt’s Land, and I Want Jesus to Walk with Me. A couple
of weeks ago our choir sang, My Lord
Daniel, Why Can’t He Deliver Me. Each song comes from a people longing for
divine liberation. The purpose of the spirituals was to convince the singers
that fear contradicts the will of God. To a person in chains, nothing elicits
more fear than the wrath of the owner.
Wade in
the Water embellishes
the image of the Red Sea Story in order to help runaway slaves take a critical
step toward freedom. A runaway knew if they were captured death might be the
most pleasant punishment. Runaways were used as examples to keep the rest of
the captives in line. If captured, the runaway would be beaten within an inch
of her life. In most cases, the owner was willing to lose one slave in order to
insure the rest of his capital remained obedient. After being beaten, the slave
would often be chained to a tree and given only enough water to remain alive
until a lesson had been learned by others. Eventually the slave died. Sometimes
the lifeless body would be hung from a tree as a further reminder of the fate
of the disobedient.
Imagine how much courage it would have taken
to have risk escape. Many owners trained dogs to run down escapees. The
horrific howls of the hounds could be heard as they jubilantly picked up the
scent of their objective. The only way to escape the hounds was to find a river
or stream. But this created its own quandary. The must enter the water in the
darkness. Sometimes the waters ran quickly. Worst of all few if any of the
slaves knew how to swim. Pharaohs Army was howling behind them. The waters of
chaos were standing in front of them. Both options offered death. And so they
sang, “Wade in the water. Wade in the
water children. Wade in the water. God’s gonna trouble the water.”
I love the line “God’s gonna trouble the water.” That seems to imply still water
will become turbulent. In Old Testament vernacular bodies of water were feared.
A storm could cause a tranquil stream to become a vehicle of death. When the
poet sings, “God’s gonna trouble the
water”, she means God will step inside the chaos and create hope. Moses
stretched his rod across the sea and it opened. The slaves escaped and then the
sea of chaos destroyed the chariots of Pharaoh. When American slaves stepped
into the water, the dogs could not follow their scent. The dogs became useless
as an agent of fear.
None of us can comprehend what it must be
like to live the life of a slave. But we know a whole lot about fear. The
numbers coming out of Italy are devastating. As a group of older folks, we are
the prime target of this virus. Thankfully it seems the virus is finally being
taken seriously. Each day we hear more test and more ventilators will be
available. We know the health steps each of us must take to protect ourselves
and the vulnerable. But fear still exists. We can’t see the virus but we can
read the predictions and they are horrifying. That said, I promise you one
thing, this virus will not be defeated by fear.
We need to think beyond ourselves. Each day
give thanks for the health care workers who are on the front lines.
Each day pick up the phone and call a church
member living alone.
Each day continue good health practices.
Each day think of a new way to displace fear
with hope.
Rather than giving in and believing you are
between a rock and a hard place, wade in the waters. Allow your faith to be a
troubling agent against this chaos.
As
a closing prayer listen to Eva Cassidy
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