Story Sermon from 01-22-2006


Abstract:
The only answer I can give is that you don’t know what’s inside of you, until you feel the hand of God.

Body:
In our early worship service, The Story, we try to do more story-telling than expository sermons. This is the one I did yesterday. It has some problems, some of which I fixed on the fly. I couldn't record yesterday, but here is the manuscript. Don't bother fact-checking the geological science of the metaphor - it's just a metaphor!
~winces~

The text was from Exodus 17:1-7.
My Life as a Rock
by Dave Barnhart, preached on 01-22-2006
I was born in fire and water, far beneath the sea. I don’t know how long ago. When you are a rock, time passes differently than it does for humans. It could have been millions and millions of years ago. It could have been yesterday - I don’t know. Magma pressed upward from under the earth, and when it cooled it became rock. Rain washed mud from those volcanos, and it settled into the ocean. The sediment built up year after year after year. The weight of all that mud and gravel pressing down eventually made me - a stone. I'm what you call a conglomerate. So, really, I came to be much the same way you did. Layer after layer after layer of life washes down over you, shaping you, molding you into who you are. You have many layers. You go through life under the illusion that you are one being, that you aren’t made up of pieces from all over. But you have many layers, many pieces. God only knows how many.
After another long period, the sea rolled back, and the land lifted up. I’ve been through earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, all kinds of things. I rolled down a mountain, then I watched as that mountain was worn away to nothing - to dust. At one time, all this land was covered with lush jungles, and all kinds of creeping, crawling things. But the world changed. It got cooler and hotter. The plants died, and all that life gave way to dust and sand. Today, as far as the eye can see, sand, sand, sand. That’s fine for me. I’m a rock. The thing I hate is cold. Water gets down into your cracks and crevices, and when it turns cold, it hardens, and expands, and it cracks you open, and you can feel it breaking you into pieces. You feel bits of yourself crumbling away. I’m not as young as I once was. Wind blows the sand over my sides, carving out my ribs. I’ve grown smaller.
I have seen many things. In fact, I thought I had seen it all. One day, I began to feel something new. A rumbling, as though of thousands of marching feet. Some old feet, some young feet. When you are a rock, you learn to feel things through the earth.
Over the horizon came more people than I had ever seen. Some drove sheep and livestock. Women carried babies strapped to their backs. One old man, the one they called Moses, walked in front, carrying his walking stick. As they drew closer, I could hear their conversation. Some of the crowd were asking, “how much further?” Some were simply crying. One man said, “save your tears! We don’t have enough water as it is!” They stopped a short distance from where I sat. All those people. So thirsty.
Someone was shouting. “Why did we even bother to come out here? We’re all going to die of thirst!” Angry voices. Worried voices.
I wish I could say that I felt sorry for them. But I’m a rock. Just a stone. I never really felt much in the way of emotion. Just sort of a general numbness. Oh, I watched with interest. I’ve seen how short your human lives are. I’ve seen plenty of people and animals die, watched as their skin changed color and melted. I’ve watched their bones bleach white in the sun, until they were covered by the sand and disappeared. All that remains is tiny particles, blown away by the wind. So, no, I didn’t really feel any pity. But I watched with interest.
Moses turned his back on the crowd, and walked toward me. His eyes were lifted toward heaven, and he was whispering. He said, “God, I’m at my wits end. What can I do? God, these people are about to kill me.”
Then I felt a whisper. Just a breeze. Moses straightened up, and called over some of the older men. They came and stood around me. I felt a strange heaviness, as though someone else were standing right beside me.
Then Moses raised his stick up in the air, and brought it down on me. It didn’t hurt. Look, wood doesn’t do much to stone, not like that. I was surprised the stick didn’t break. I’m what you might call hard-headed.
But then I felt the place where Moses had hit. It felt different somehow. I don’t know how I had missed it, but after thousands of years, the groundwater had shifted. It was pressing up against me, through me, slowly wearing through all my layers of sediment. I felt a weak place along one of my seams, and inside of me I felt something well up - something I never knew was there.
Water burst out of me. A spring erupted in a shower of gravel and mud. When the crowd saw the water, they surged forward, dipping their hands, bringing out jars and waterbags, filling anything they could find. I kept thinking the water would stop, that it would run out, but it just kept flowing and flowing. I hadn’t seen that much water in millions of years. I had almost forgotten what water felt like. You know what it felt like? It felt like being born again. It reminded me of the sea. And even though I thought I was beyond feeling anything, even though I thought I was only a stone, I found that I was weeping for joy. The Hebrews couldn’t tell, of course - they thought the salty tang was from the spring water. But those were my tears.
You know what I learned that day? I learned that you don’t really know what’s inside of you until God touches you. You’ve got no idea what’s inside of you, or the reason you were made, until you feel the hand of God.
Moses gave me a name that day. Meribah. It means, “is the Lord with us, or not?” If you are alive, you’ve probably asked that question. The only answer I can give is that you don’t know what’s inside of you, until you feel the hand of God. And once you do, nothing is the same.

Posted: Mon - January 23, 2006 at 12:42 PM           |

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