August 11, 2019
Exodus 24
Exodus: The Story of God’s Love for God’s People: The Blood of the Covenant
The Rev. Martha M. Shiverick
Riviera Presbyterian Church
In another month we are going to install and ordain new officers to the session. We will do this during a worship service on a Sunday in September. Two new elders to the class of 2022 have already been on session. Karen Collier served two terms, sat off for the required one year and felt called by God to come back. Barbara Overton had finished one three year term and agreed to serve another term. Although ordination is for life, they will be installed back in to the ministry of serving on the session. But our other two elected elders, Mimi Sutherland and Susan Mazzola, have never served on session and never been ruling elders before. So they will be not just installed during the ceremony, but ordained as elders as well.
In the Presbyterian Church we believe in lay leadership. The full title of the position of Elder is Ruling Elder and ministers like me are called many titles…. we are called pastors and ministers which implies our work, we are called clergy, and ministers of the word and sacrament; but we are also called teaching elders. AND Teaching Elders and Ruling Elders are ordained with the same ordination vows. Both Ordinations are felt to be the same. And both kinds of Elders (Teaching and Ruling) make up the leadership of the Presbytery and the national church governing bodies as well. This year a Ruling Elder from our Presbytery who sits on the Leadership Counsel with me is also one of the Co- Moderators of our General Assembly. Pretty cool!
But what is essential and at the very root of our Reformed of Calvinist tradition is what is printed on the back of the worship bulletin each Sunday. In the listing of the staff and session is first the list of ministers. And it says who they are. It says: All the People. Central to our belief is that we all have been called by God to ministry and all are ministers. We are all here a priesthood of believers. Our work might be different, but all are ministers, all have a ministry, and God calls each of us.
And this morning’s lesson from Exodus tells of the people of God being commissioned, being sanctified for their work as God’s chosen. Listen for God’s message to us today as it is told in Exodus chapter 24.
Then he said to Moses, “Come up to the Lord, you and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, and worship at a distance. 2 Moses alone shall come near the Lord; but the others shall not come near, and the people shall not come up with him.” 3 Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord and all the ordinances; and all the people answered with one voice, and said, “All the words that the Lord has spoken we will do.” 4 And Moses wrote down all the words of the Lord. He rose early in the morning, and built an altar at the foot of the mountain, and set up twelve pillars, corresponding to the twelve tribes of Israel. 5 He sent young men of the people of Israel, who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed oxen as offerings of well-being to the Lord. 6 Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and half of the blood he dashed against the altar. 7 Then he took the book of the covenant, and read it in the hearing of the people; and they said, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.” 8 Moses took the blood and dashed it on the people, and said, “See the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.” 9 Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up, 10 and they saw the God of Israel. Under his feet there was something like a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness. 11 God[a] did not lay his hand on the chief men of the people of Israel; also they beheld God, and they ate and drank. 12 The Lord said to Moses, “Come up to me on the mountain, and wait there; and I will give you the tablets of stone, with the law and the commandment, which I have written for their instruction.” 13 So Moses set out with his assistant Joshua, and Moses went up into the mountain of God. 14 To the elders he had said, “Wait here for us, until we come to you again; for Aaron and Hur are with you; whoever has a dispute may go to them.” 15 Then Moses went up on the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain. 16 The glory of the Lord settled on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it for six days; on the seventh day he called to Moses out of the cloud. 17 Now the appearance of the glory of the Lord was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the people of Israel. 18 Moses entered the cloud, and went up on the mountain. Moses was on the mountain for forty days and forty nights. (The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.)
Commentators say we should not so much worry about who went up the mountain with Moses each time and exactly how many treks he made. Hebrew poetry and writing often is in couplets where something is repeated to give perhaps emphasis. And, although our initial reaction to all the sacrificial and ritualistic use of blood in this chapter is that it is pretty gross, we need to understand the culture and meaning behind it. The chapter is actually a swing chapter which is between the previous ones that set up the ordinances of God and what happens in the chapters that follow. The first thing that God does is to install the leaders and organize a worship service. We worship as a response to what God has done for us.
And we know that. We come each Sunday, not because we think that in doing so we will change God, but we come to be a community, to respond to the gracious love God has shown us, and to build ourselves up to do the ministries God has called us to do. Worship is a response. Worship prepares us for service. Faithfulness, loyalty, and obedience must occur in order for God’s purposes to be worked out. Worship occurs at all key junctures in the story up to this point and happens now as the Book of the Covenant with God has been set up and the people are to move forward. Moses’ role in this worship is to interpret God’s word to the people. He has, you might say, been assigned the role of being preacher.
So, back to Exodus… The worship space is set up. An altar is made and 12 pillars are set up which represent the 12 tribes of Israel. This is, after all, a worship experience for all of God’s people. All twelve tribes. None is left out. Sacrifices are made….The blood is poured into a bowl and poured on the altar and also on the people present. They are commissioned as leaders, as God’s people.
Following the worship, there is a meal. And God is as fully present in the meal as God is during the worship service. And they ate and drank. And then God called Moses and Moses left the group and went further up the mountain to be with God for forty days and forty nights.
We might get stuck on the animal sacrifices, the blood on the altar, and the blood sprinkled on the leadership that was present, but we would miss the whole point of the chapter. They are describing a rite of ordination, a part of worship, which in today’s world sounds like satanic ritual was common in the ancient world. Blood was known to be the life force, so its importance and power was tapped into. Ancient Israelites would have found this as common as our Baptismal rite with water. And after all, our communion does talk about the body and blood of Christ. Whatever its meaning to us, we are very steeped from both our Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament in religious rites referring to blood.
The importance of this chapter is that God has called God’s people to a holy vocation. All 12 tribes …. each person is God’s anointed. All are commissioned to a task. And the people responded to God’s call saying they will do what is asked. On two different occasions in this chapter in verses 3 and 7 the people respond to Moses’ readings of the commands and words given to him by God with the phrase, Everything the Lord has said, we will do. Action is required. They will be obedient to God’s law and command. And that response is their ordination vows and the beginning of their work in God’s service. Before, they were a people of God and God or God through Moses did the work. Now they have committed themselves, liturgically and vocally and vocationally to do God’s work on earth.
And then Moses left, to go up the mountain for 40 days and 40 nights. 40 is an auspicious and important number in the Bible. Moses was up on Mt. Sinai for 40 days, Jesus was in the wilderness after his baptism for 40 days and nights, the Jews wandered in the desert for 40 years and before that it rained for 40 days and nights during the Flood. 40 years is considered a generation. The number 40 is used with things to do with judgement. 40 is used with wilderness times. Those of you who heard our General Presbyter talk at last Sunday’s First Sunday Lunch, heard him say that many theologians feel that the church is now in a 40 year wilderness time. But, as he quoted Walter Brueggemann, wilderness times are opportunities to prepare, to regroup, and to redefine mission objectives. And, as we will see in the chapters ahead, that is what precisely is happening to God’s newly ordained and commissioned leaders of Israel during their 40 years in the desert. And Moses goes up to the top of the mountain for 40 days hear God’s word for them.
And I don’t know about you all, but this past week has felt like a bleak wilderness time to me. After the mass killings of last week, it felt like our culture and nation had hit an all-time low. No immediate gun legislation was enacted this week and instead the media made a circus of debates such as whether it was mental illness, violent gaming, or racism and bigotry that spurred on the violence. Really!?!? How depressing. I found I wanted to sleep and it felt like I was crawling home from the church each day to go to bed. I prayed we would not end up in polarizing debate instead of making change that might prevent another mass killing.
But then I realized that the blood of those victims was also the anointing of God’s people into action. Just like the people of Israel, we respond with just not words but action. It is not just about hearing, but doing the Word of God that is important and what sets the people of God apart from those who are not. We are a priesthood of all believers and we believe in a God who calls each of us to create the shalom, the peace and well-being that is meant for creation. God calls each of us to make our voices heard. We are God’s people who believe in unconditional love, we believe in equality and not bigotry and racism. Blood has been spilled on our altars and on us, and it calls us to follow our God whose love knows no bounds. We must individually and as a body called Riviera decide how we will answer the call to this ministry. Amen.