Rector's Note: The Parting-3.22.26

On Wednesdays in Lent the Montgomery County Episcopal Deanery, of which St. Peter’s is a member, has been holding a Wednesday night program featuring a simple meal and a program reflecting on one of the scriptures that are heard at the Easter Vigil.

Titled For Such a Time as This, Stories that Strengthen us for the Work at Hand,  the program is led and the soup provided by a different parish each week. The programs are held at the Church of the Messiah, 1001 DeKalb Pike in Lower Gwynedd Township.

In previous weeks we explored the Story of Creation, The Flood, and The Binding of Isaac. Last night was St. Peter’s turn to lead. Suzanne Teleha and Kelly Sacco made soup for 30, and I led the reflection on the Parting of the Red Sea.

To give you a taste of what we did, I thought I’d share the narrative with you. I wrote this version of the story from the perspective of the Sea. Last night we told it as a biblio-drama, with everyone in the room acting as either the Sea, the People of Israel, or Pharaoh’s Charioteers. Then we discussed the story from those various perspectives and considered how the narrative speaks to our current moment.

At the end of this note, you’ll find some questions for your own reflection.  If you really want to get into the experience, act it out with a few friends or family members.  Next Wednesday from 6:30 p.m. to 8, the Rev. Chris Exley, rector of All Hallows Church, will lead the final reflection on the story of the Dry Bones. I hope to see you there. Contact Suzanne at steleha@gmail.com if you’d like to help make soup.

The Parting

You may call me the Red Sea, but that is not my color. Or you may call me the Reed Sea, though I’m not that shallow.  Neither is my name, but I answer to anything. All I know is that I am the Sea, and have always been – always moving, always changing, always here – in constant conversation with the breezes and winds. Every day is the same; no day is like another. That’s how it is when you are a body teeming with life and movement and wave and calm.

On this particular day something catches my eye far out in the desert beyond my shores. It is a pillar of smoke, followed by a cloud of dust. The wind whispers to me: “It is the Lord High God in that smoke.” And I reply, “It is the people Israel in that dust. “

They are coming our way, we agree. And so, we watch and we wait.

The pillar of smoke that is God draws closer. And the cloud of dust becomes a crowd of people -- looking behind them in fear like ones in flight for their lives. And the pillar and the people are making their way to us, zigzagging across the desert.  I can hear the bleating of their sheep and goats. The trembling of tambourines. The cries of fear.  They run right up to my shores and they face me.

 They can go no further. I am the deep, too vast to swim across. They have no boat, no ark. I am a dead end.

The wind dies down, my waves recede, the sea birds still, and in the calm, I can hear… complaining:

"Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us, bringing us out of Egypt? Is this not the very thing we told you in Egypt, 'Let us alone and let us serve the Egyptians'? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness."

A man steps forward with a staff in his hand.

“This is Moses,” the wind says to me, for she has been everywhere and knows everyone. “The leader of the Israelites and friend of God.”

Moses says to his people, "Do not be afraid, stand firm, and see the deliverance that the Lord will accomplish for you today; for the Egyptians whom you see today you shall never see again. The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to keep still."

We all watch and we all wait. And in the silence Israel trembles. The pillar of smoke and the angel of God place themselves between them and what’s coming. 

On the horizon, another cloud of dust appears. It is Pharaoh’s chariots and charioteers --horses and riders. I can hear galloping and the crack of whips and the clattering of wheels as they make their way following the trail of Israel, in hot pursuit. They careen across the wilderness, kicking up sand, until they stop not far from my shore, facing trembling Israel. Between the two, pursuer and pursued, stand the pillar of smoke and the angel of God.  The standoff lasts all night long.

 Until God says to Moses: “Raise your staff, Moses. Stretch your hand toward the waters and see what I will do.”

Then God’s voice is in my ear, as familiar as the first day it called me into being, and it says to me, the sea, “Part! Divide in two and let the dry land appear. Make a path for my people Israel to cross.”

And I obey. I split in two at the Word of God, a wall of water on the right, and a wall of water on the left, with a path between – a way where there was no way before.

And Israel takes her chances. Some run right through to the other side. Some go carefully so as not to get their sandals full of mud. And some dance across, playing their tambourines with shouts of praise and wonder.

Pharaoh’s chariots and charioteers watch in disbelief as their prey escapes. They look at my wall of waters, one on the right and one on the left. They see Israel rejoicing on the other side. But they do not see the trap.

Charge! Someone cries and those chariots and charioteers rush right into my muddy seabed. Their wheels get stuck, and their horses panic. 

Then God whispers into my ear, “Return!”

My waters rush back to their right path. The dry land disappears. There is only the deep. There is only me, the Sea.  Pharaoh’s armies are no match for my waves, which toss them out upon the shore, a threat no more.

And from my other side I hear rejoicing and singing and the sound of tambourines: "Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; horse and rider he has thrown into the sea."

Israel has been delivered from water into wilderness. She does not know it yet, but her journey has just begun. I will not be the first body of water that she will cross at the command of God. And I, the channel of her first birth, watch as she picks herself up and takes her first halting steps into the way, into the truth, into the light.

Questions for reflection:

These Lenten gatherings invite us to apply these stories of deliverance to our lives and our world today.  Who are these characters, Israel, Pharaoh’s army, and the Sea, today?

·       Israel – who is fleeing from capture, seeking freedom, in need of deliverance?

·       Charioteers: Who is in hot pursuit? Following orders? Or caught in the middle?

·       The Sea: who is a dead-end, an obstacle with the potential of making a way where there is currently no way?

Who do you identify with in the story and why?

What does this story say about what God is equipping us to do in these times?