Plundering the Blunder Thunder

 Plundering the Blundering Thunder— How God Provides When We Mix with the Secular Crowd Plunder. Blunder. And Thunder. Those are the three dynamics in play this morning. • Plunder—as in something of value, perhaps a treasure which belongs to someone else, which this other party, person or nation surrenders, during a time of social transition. • Blunder—as in a profound mistake, a clumsy attempt, an unintentional slip of the hand, or a slip of the foot, like when you attempting to apply the brakes but depress the gas pedal instead. • And finally, Thunder—and by referring to this type of weather phenomena, I’d like to call to mind anything in life that seems to come out of the blue, or out of a dark, brooding column of clouds. Thunder, in my imagination, is anything wild and uncontrollable—an event that affects and alters our course of action. Exodus 12:33–42 Psalm 105:37–45 Matthew 13:44—53 It sounds unlikely. It sounds absurd. It sounds inconsistent with what we know of God’s character. But let’s think about this. For the word—‘PLUNDER’—to be cast this morning in such a favorable light, it just seems immoral. Suppose, for example, if I were to preach to you today on how we must assume ownership of another church’s property, or if I exhorted you to pillage and to plunder the stores of meat in your neighbor’s refrigerator. Or suppose, because of our status as God’s people, if I sanctioned your seizure of toilet paper. My hope is that you’d revolt. You wouldn’t listen. You’d say, ‘That’s not who we are as Christians.’ And no where in the Bible, does it seem that we are instructed to plunder. Except here, in Exodus 12: “And so they plundered the Egyptians…” So allow me to offer up this tentative explanation. What’s going on in this story has nothing to do with armed conflict with God’s enemies, or with the supernatural seizure of a perceived enemies’ material supplies. In fact, according to the passage, the Egyptians willingly distribute their silver and their gold jewelry (and their clothing) because “the Lord had given the people (of Israel) favor in the sight of the Egyptians.” Moreover, in Psalm 105:38, we see “Egypt was glad when they departed for dread of them had fallen upon it.” So what’s really happening here if the Hebrews are both ‘favored’—and, the object of ‘dread’? And my answer is a Maybe. Maybe, after hundreds of years of accumulating wealth, the Egyptians had had enough. Maybe their shiny tokens and their shimmering trinkets and their ornate clothing no longer meant what it used to mean. And if this amazing superpower of the ancient world had suffered plague after plague (as Exodus 7—11 suggest they had), doesn’t a re-evaluation of what’s valuable seem likely…? I think it does. And yes, given our own modest experience of plague over the previous month or so, I think maybe that’s what’s happening when we are faced with our own experience of plundering the Egyptians today. In the Tom Hanks film, Castaway, Chuck Noland is this cut-throat Fed-EX employee who oversees a massive movement of goods around the world. He repeatedly tells his colleagues how they ought never commit ‘the sin’ of wasting time—because, after all, ‘time is money’ in the shipping business. But then, in the midst of a horrific thunderstorm over the Pacific Ocean, a cargo plane goes down and Chuck is the only one to survive as the fuselage crashes into waves. After drifting to the shore of this remote island, however, this overly-aggressive merchant of the modern world becomes a slave to the elements and to his own survival. And then, after years of being presumed dead, he builds a raft, floats back into the shipping lanes and gets picked up by this trawling vessel. And here’s the scene that got to me. During the company celebration of his survival and return, complete with a buffet of more crab legs and than Chuck had eaten in his five years away, he can’t help but reflect deeply upon the value of this extravagant wealth. What does it mean? You see, even here in these formerly United States of America, we’ve grown so accustomed to abundance and to luxury that we forget to ask. What does all this extravagance mean? Does it mean that we are the winners and others are the losers? Does it mean that we survive and thrive because of some national or racial superiority? I don’t think so. On the contrary— Based upon the texts we’ve read, the meaning of Israel’s plundering of Egypt means COMMUNITY. It means authentic encounters, in which no one is master and no one is slave. And it means that faithful allocation of God’s resources so that we might offer God our fierce PRAISE. Again, Psalm 105 offers this important context for the exodus experience of the Hebrews. Verse 45 says: He gave them the lands of the nations,     and they took possession of the wealth of the peoples, [not that we might become the new bosses, not that we might assert our sovereignty over others, but] that they might keep his statutes     and observe his laws. Praise the Lord! Praise, of course, is easier said—Praise is easier shouted or sung—Praise is more easily directed at the wrong people in power for the wrong things—than it is genuinely offered. The prophets—including Isaiah and Jeremiah—are filled with criticisms of people who appear to be worshipping God, but who’s hearts, “says the Lord, are far from me”. Centuries after meandering through the Sinai, the temple in Jerusalem is eventually built, and it’s gorgeous. It’s now the pride and the praise of Israel, which, in 587 BCE, exists as its own sovereign nation. But when the people flock to worship within that resplendent facility, Jeremiah 7:4 says, “Do not trust in these deceptive words, ‘This is the temple of the Lord…’” In other words—going to your designated House of Worship will not count as an act of praise before the Holy One. And this is especially true if we come into the Divine Presence with a mindset that is fixated on TRANSACTIONAL VALUE. I once bought a cowboy hat on the boardwalk in Wild Wood, New Jersey, from a man who promised me ‘top quality merchandise.’ There I was, minding my own business; I didn’t know that I needed a cowboy hat, but with his charm and his persistence, the carnival-barker convinced me to buy this over-sized, obnoxious, brown-Swede hat. And he told me it was the last one. Except that, on the next night, he seemed to display a new abundance of identical hats, being sold for half the price. You might call that the glory of the free-market and laissez-faire capitalism. But another phrase for it is TRANSACTIONAL VALUE. And so—let’s imagine putting God on par with transactional value. Let’s go shopping for the best bargain of faith. And let’s engage in selling the name of Jesus as if it were a brand. Does anybody see the problem? In a famous book, called Exit Interviews, the author asked people why they left one particular congregation to attend another, and one of the replies went like so: “It felt as if they were always trying to be better than the church down-the-street, or around the corner, and I get enough of that style of competition at work!” But listen to this—listen to Jesus, teaching in parables in Matthew 13—and let’s see if there’s not something more than transactional value: “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field…” Look! I want to be clear about what seems ambiguous here—which is to say, that neither Jesus, nor Matthew’s Gospel, nor me, want to condemn the honest buying and selling of merchandize. In fact, one could argue that without the thriving economy of the Greco-Roman world in the first century, we would have never heard of this lowly, peasant carpenter in the back-water town of Galilee. But, you see, what was originally taught in Hebrew or Aramaic becomes Greek, which is available to anyone and everyone whose bought or sold a hat. And here’s the lesson: 1) a life that values buying and selling will inevitably lead to despair; and 2) a life that finds itself in despair may become open to value the kind of treasure that cannot be bought or sold in the marketplace; and 3) here comes Jesus, spending most of his time and energy with peasants, artisans, despised tax collectors and dirty, smelly fishermen. Hmmm. It makes me wonder if he’s not up to something. “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.” I remember, when I lived back in Pennsylvania (in the suburbs of Philadelphia), my work as pastor included visiting a young couple, who had been part of our new church development. Ron and Debbie had run their own towing company—R & D Towing—and they were energetic and happy to help. But then doctors diagnosed Debbie with inoperable brain cancer, and she slowly began to slip away. After many months of hospitalization, they sent her home, where she drifted in and out of consciousness. And after one of those prayerful visits, I needed a break and went, by myself, to a barroom nearby, where I could be anonymous and watch the Philadelphia Flyers play the New York Rangers. And so there I was: slurping down beers and shouting at the television screen, when someone tapped me on the shoulder. It was Ron! He needed to get away too, and so leaving Debbie with the Hospice nurse, looking broken and disheveled, this ‘treasured’ child of God took up a place on the bar stool next to me... And look! I wanted to be alone; I wanted to keep my life as a pastor and my life as a consumer of beer & peanuts compartmentalized and separate. But, then and there, while throwing dollar bills at the bartender, Ron and I talked about God’s forgiveness and we listened for God’s hope unlike we ever did at church. And the fact is—there, at the bar, we were the church. And for a few moments, we understood what Jesus was teaching. “Therefore,” he claims, “Every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.” And speaking of ‘what is old’— in 1505, a man was returning home, after receiving his master’s degree in law. His father had spent his entire life, working in the copper mines, near Mansfeld, in what is now eastern Germany; and if only Martin Luther would follow through and become a lawyer, his working-class family would live luxuriously, with the monetary cushion we all dream of. But, as legend has it, Luther became sidetracked in his journey home. He found himself in an open field when an incredibly violent thunderstorm rolled overhead. And so, running between the lightning strikes, he clung to a large granite outcropping and prayed. He prayed to Saint Anne, who was the patron saint of his father’s business, copper mining. “Help me, St. Anne,” he said. “I’ll become a monk!” Now—I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, HOW CRUDE TO BARGAIN WITH GOD! HOW CRUDE TO ENGAGE IN A QUID PRO QUO! Did I hear that right? Did Martin Luther, destined for greatness as a lucrative lawyer, just offer to become a monk in exchange for God sparing his life? And the answer, of course, is YES! Be careful what you ask for! And by the way—it was Martin Luther, who later in life, helped to reform the church around that hidden transformational purpose—sola gratia et sola fide—and it was Martin Luther, who wrote, “It’s better to think of church at the Ale House than to think of the Ale House at church.” And so—there you have it. We are plundering the blundering thunder. We are entering into the places and spaces where transaction values are front and center… And yet! And yet, right there, in the midst of the marketplace, transformational value comes into view. Or maybe not. It could be that we’ve ‘bought the field’ and that somewhere in the midst of this Covid-19 pandemic, there is hidden, transformative treasure. The immeasurable grace and love of God in Christ is there. And it’s there when the crowd is too busy measuring and counting and speculating as to when the tragic situation will come to an end. One day, I have no doubt, it will be over. But, hopefully, not before you and I have plundered the blundering thunder all around us! Amen!