My Past as an Alien

Deuteronomy 26:1-11
Lent 1
March 6, 2022

When you have come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess, and you possess it, and settle in it, you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and you shall put it in a basket and go to the place that the Lord your God will choose as a dwelling for his name. You shall go to the priest who is in office at that time, and say to him, “Today I declare to the Lord your God that I have come into the land that the Lord swore to our ancestors to give us.” When the priest takes the basket from your hand and sets it down before the altar of the Lord your God, you shall make this response before the Lord your God:

“A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous. When the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labor on us, we cried to the Lord, the God of our ancestors; the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. The Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with a terrifying display of power, and with signs and wonders; and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. So now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground that you, O Lord, have given me.” You shall set it down before the Lord your God and bow down before the Lord your God. Then you, together with the Levites and the aliens who reside among you, shall celebrate with all the bounty that the Lord your God has given to you and to your house.

 

I have a question to ask. There is more than one answer, so I will ask it a few different times. Ready? Here is the question: how did you arrive here today? Someone will reply, “I drove along Abington Road, turned onto Grove Street, took another turn onto School Street, went down a few blocks, and found a space in the parking lot.” That’s a good answer.

But how did you arrive here today? Another person will say, “My mother was Baptist, my father was Roman Catholic. They compromised when they married and became United Methodists. I was baptized there, confirmed too, but wandered away after high school, until I met a Presbyterian. Neither of us went to church. When we married and moved to town, we brought our daughter to the Girl Scout troop. One Sunday, we decided to stop by, and we like it.” That’s another good answer.

May I ask the question again? How did you arrive here today? Somebody else will say, “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor. He wandered down to Egypt, lived there, worked there, and was enslaved there. When the Egyptians treated us harshly, we cried out to the Lord. God heard our cry and released us with an outstretched arm and a mighty hand. Then God brought us to this good land, flowing with milk and honey.” As we heard, that’s the answer from our text. It’s another good answer.

It is an old text, older than the book of Deuteronomy where it is first written down. Some scholars believe this is the oldest confession of faith in the Bible. In some form or another, people of faith have recited these words to declare what they believed and locate where they came from.

And it’s a reminder that, before faith is a list of rules, before religion concerns itself with how to hold your hands when you pray, it all begins with a story. At the heart of it all, there’s a story. It provides focus, purpose, and a shared history. Without the story, we are lost to chaos.

It’s like the moment that my friend Roger tells about going to hear a national figure at a community lecture series. He was looking forward to this wise and somewhat wacky sage offer his perspective on recent events. He particularly wanted his take on a national election that had been contentious. Alas, the great speaker spent most of his time complaining how the election had turned out. He droned on. Roger grew bored.

Then someone asked, “What was the problem?” The speaker blurted out, “We lost our narrative.” That is, we lost the story that holds us together, that gives us purpose, that directs what we do and what we value.

Not so the Jews: “A wandering Aramean was our ancestor.” That’s the first and oldest creed. In the beginning, was a wanderer. Not a home body, but a wanderer. A pilgrim. A risk-taker. Was it Abraham? Delightfully, it does not specify. And the wanderer became an alien, someone living far from home. Rootless, displaced, un-settled in the deepest possible way.

With that, the situation grew worse. The wanderer who became an alien became a slave. Captured and shackled to a stronger authority. There was suffering and abuse, deprivation and pain – until God turned, came near, and released the slave. And that would have been enough – except God also provided a new home. The wanderer - the alien, the slave - was given a home.

Now, that’s the story. It is THE Jewish story, the quintessential narrative that moves from wandering to nesting, from suffering to healing, from pain to redemption, all at the hand of God our savior. This is Israel’s faith. This was the faith of Jesus.

How did you arrive here today? You could recite the directions from home to the parking lot. Or you could unfold the narrative that brings you to this point. Chances are, it’s a larger story than any of us could summarize in a few words. But it speaks for us of what God has done, where we are now, and what God might be unfolding.

If we had the time this morning to give everybody the same attention, we would hear a whole lot of stories. Some of the themes would be the same: this is who we were, but this is what we are becoming. This is what we have endured, but this is how far we have come. At the heart of it all, this is what God has done. And the story is still going on.

This is Deuteronomy, which means “the second word.” No surprise that Deuteronomy is full of words. Here Moses gives some last-minute speeches before he steps out of the picture and the people of Israel cross into the Promised Land. He calls them to remember the Ten Commandments of God, declaring, “I gave them to you once in the Book of Exodus, and I’m going to give them to you again.” And he issues a warning: “When you enter the land of Milk and Honey, don’t get distracted by all the Milk and Honey; remember they are the gifts of God.” 

And the story beneath the words retells the memory of what God has done. We aren’t chained to Pharoah’s brick factory anymore. We are no longer confined to sphinx and pyramid. No longer restricted to the ceaseless drudgery of work. No longer wandering like an Aramean. No longer enslaved in the fleshpots of Egypt. The story for one has become the story of all. We have been claimed by the mercy of God.

This amazing story is one of both liberation and binding. God has come to free us in mercy and bind us by grace. The New Testament version puts it this way, “Once you were no people, now you are God’s people.” There is a decisive move from suffering to healing. And in one generation after another, we tell the story.

Some time back, on a Communion Sunday, a couple of teenagers were overheard talking about what they experienced. “I like it when we eat and drink in church,” said one. “Yeah, that’s pretty cool,” said the other, “but why does it take so long?”

What do you mean? “Well, they use such a little bitty piece of bread and a sip of juice, but then we hear all those words. Words and words and words.” The first teen thought for a minute, then said, “I think the preacher has to remind us what we’re eating.” Yes, that’s pretty good.

For the story sets the table. “And on the night he was betrayed, Jesus took bread, and blessed and broke it, and gave it to them, and said, ‘Take, eat, this is my body.’” That’s our story.

And before it was our story, it was the Passover story, a story so grand that the banquet can last three hours. There’s a whole lot of redemption to be remembered. The heart of it is this: “A wandering Aramean was our ancestor. He landed in Egypt, where he was enslaved, and God came to set him free.” This is what God has done. Don’t you remember? Because it’s our story too. We break the bread; we pour the cup. We remember.

But do not think for a minute that the journey was finished sometime long ago. The story also has a future. It is still unfolding, and to that we shall turn next week.

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.