What do we have to let go of?

Liberation happened fast; trust came slow. Along the way, God had to overcome the complaints of the people, and Moses knew that this newly liberated people were bent on rebellion. Then, when God's presence arrives in thunder and lightning and smoke, the people tremble and stay at a distance: speak to us yourself, Moses, but do not have God speak to us or we will die. The people can't handle having direct contact with God, it's too much. And like this people, we fear the vulnerability, trust, and faith that is required to follow God's clear voice.

It comes to a head when Moses is long in coming down from the mountain. Overwhelmed by their anxiety, the people respond to Moses' absence by giving into fear, and they ask Aaron for gods who will go before them. Enter the story from the emotional state of the people: yes, they have been liberated from slavery, but they are also new to freedom. They are failing to figure out how to trust, follow, and worship the God they cannot see, do not understand, and cannot control. The idol is meant to give meaning, structure, and order to their lives when the world isn't operating the way it's supposed to be. But God is real, active, alive, and personal. Idols aren't.

This people is just like all of us. When we are in the midst of it, we do the exact same thing. We construct idols: of money, sex, power, success, and the list goes on. Pastor Donnell has named his own from the pulpit: I have been confronting the way I have made an idol out of success. I am an overcomer. That's the story I tell myself about myself. But an idol that demands success will never accept failure, and therein lies the fear: will I be accepted and loved if I fail? What idols have you constructed out of fear and anxiety? What idols have you built because you cannot see, understand, or control God?

“If we want to become the people of God, then we must activate trust and faith, believing in the promise and provision of God, and give up our control.”

All of Peter's life he believed that the best way to follow and trust God was to obey the laws of God he received. Then comes the sheet let down from heaven, and in this vision God is telling Peter that the things Peter was rejecting in God's name in order to be obedient to God were the very things of God. Peter resisted this invitation three times. He lets go anyway, walks into a Gentile house, and says it out loud: God has shown me that I should not call anyone impure or unclean. The question he leaves with us is the hard one: what if there is something or someone you're rejecting in God's name; are you open to receiving a new vision?

There is a bigger thing to put down. Nationalism makes sense. It really does. It's just a collective understanding of existence. It's communion without God. Hidden in the nation-state and the nationalism it produces is this promise of security, freedom, independence, and self-determination, and the cost is that we are no longer our brother or sister's keeper. We only see competition with each other over scarce resources, borders to say who belongs, and the military power required to enforce them. So the tools have to go too. Violence comes at the expense of relationship, and in the family of God we're committed to relationship over control. Another trade off that violence requires is that it dehumanizes others at the expense of your own humanity.

“People of peace cannot use the tools of a violent world.”