Ready to Respond

Exodus 12:1-14, Romans 13:8-14

About a week ago, I stumbled into a Facebook group for people who own those countertop pressure cookers known as “Instant Pots.” And amid the posts about perfect eggs, amid the eagerness to share the good news of fast and delicious meals with anyone who will listen, there were a few particular pleas for help:

“Quick, I need a recipe for something I can make to feed 30 people doing hurricane recovery work in my neighborhood.”

“We’re collecting Instant Pots for residents of Houston who’ve lost their kitchens; can you help?”

And then – one, then another:

“We’re emptying out the freezer before Irma comes. What can I make with four pounds of frozen chicken, or with a lot of ground beef, that will last through the power outages or evacuation?”

And Facebook was ready to respond.

“You shall eat lamb roasted over the fire, with unleavened bread and bitter herbs,” God tells the people of Israel, as they are in the midst of a series of natural disasters, knowing they may need to flee. “You shall eat it [with] your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it hurriedly. It is the Passover of the Lord.”

The presence of God is coming into the lives of these people with extraordinary and dangerous power, and they must be ready to move, ready to respond – even in the middle of a ritual meal.

It’s a dramatic, this moment when the presence of God and our response to God is literally life and death; the whole future in the balance.

Paul has that same sense of momentousness, writing to the Roman believers in the first years of the Christian movement.

You know what time it is,” he says, “now is the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers.”
The alarm is about to go off, the race is about to start, the fullness of salvation is pouring over the horizon any moment now. So get dressed for action!

This is faith as edge of the seat anticipation – at that first, perilous, Passover meal, eaten ready to flee; in Paul’s momentary expectation that not only he, but all believers are about to be swept up in the fulfillment of God’s ultimate plans for heaven and earth.

Is that what you feel, about your relationship with God?

Do you feel that taut awareness, the humming expectation, about what we do together at the altar this morning?
Do you feel that way about your private prayer, your service to God’s people, or the nature walks or music or whatever else connects you to God?

Do you feel that eager anticipation, salvation on the threshold?

No?
Neither do I, mostly.

Oh, it’s urgent when I pray for someone I love in the crisis of an illness, or the path of a hurricane, but mostly prayer is much calmer, routine even.

And yet the inrushing power of God, the transformation of our world and private lives is what we’re here for. Not just here in these pews – here on this earth. We’re here to experience at any moment – at every moment – the redemptive power of God, active now. But it’s so, so easy for that to be lost to us, living day after day when the world doesn’t end.

You and I live in a world where, for the most part, everything else feels urgent.  Work deadlines, school and sports schedules, family matters, getting dinner on the table, getting answers from the doctor, getting stuff done around the house, getting a little time to myself, even.

We know that God is always with us. That God is here, whether or not we’re paying attention, and it can be reassuring to know that God doesn’t depend on my meeting deadlines. But for some of us (for me), it’s hard to keep up that sense of momentousness without an appointment, a time limit, that urgency.

These days there are cell phone apps that will sound an alarm for you when it’s time to pray. But the world won’t put peace on the priority list for us. Salvation doesn’t come with a deadline from the boss or the teacher; the presence of God can’t be red-flagged in your email inbox.

Yet that’s what we’re here for, whether we know it or not. We are – like the Israelites in Egypt, like Paul in those early decades after resurrection – created and called to be a people of eager anticipation, dressed for action, ready to respond to the kingdom of God coming now.

It’s counter-intuitive, but perhaps the way to reclaim that vibrant expectation in our daily prayer, that eager responsiveness of a soul ready for God, is not to get everything else done so we have time, but to reject urgency altogether, and just stop.

The Bible calls it Sabbath. You can call it whatever you want, but I know that for me, and probably for many of us, the only way to reclaim that keen alertness to the presence and action of God, is to act sometimes as if nothing is urgent at all.

I still remember one Lenten Saturday, years before seminary, when I had two or three deadlines looming at work, prep to do for coffee hour the next day, a car inspection due, and an overflowing list of correspondence and chores, and I ran by the retreat day at my church for just a few minutes – there certainly wasn’t time to stay! – and found myself stopped.

There was a prayer in the first few minutes, or some word of scripture, that just stopped me,

made me stand still, and say, “No!” to the long and urgent list of things to do.

Some long, uncounted hours later, I was surprised by a humming, joyful anticipation singing in my soul. Salvation, healing, the kingdom of God were all on my heart’s threshold, and I felt dressed for action, ready to go, not exhausted by that long and urgent list, the way I had been in the morning.

I’ve had to learn that over and over and over again, year after year. Had to learn that that expectant, eager readiness, that vibrant sense of the dawn about to break, the presence of God on the threshold now, doesn’t come from obeying the urgency of my tasks, but from stopping.

From stepping out of the race, for a time, and discovering that God has been seeking me, full of that eager anticipation, all along. God has been ready to act, as soon as I stopped long enough to be made welcome in the presence of God.

Will you stop, this week, in the midst of all that is urgent?

Will you stop, amid the work that’s due, and the breaking news of another natural disaster, the traffic, the chores, the homework?
Will you stop the slow regularity of your routine, and the tiresome waiting for news, if you’re retired and past deadlines, or spending time waiting in medical offices?

Will you stop the urgency of the ordinary, for long enough – however long – to discover salvation on your own heart’s threshold, and let your soul fill with the readiness to respond to the action of God, who has been seeking you with that same ready eagerness, all along?