Publications > Sermons

See and Free

Rev. Cindy Maddox
September 4, 2005

I began my fall worship planning in July.

I saw that this year the lectionary takes us through the whole story of Moses and the Exodus and the wilderness and the search for the promised land. I decided then that I would preach on this whole series of stories, this one giant story which is one of the primal narratives of our faith.

So, since July, I have been planning on preaching on this text today. It was to be a "free at last" kind of sermon.

But as the week wore on, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the images on the television and the stories online became more and more frightening and disturbing and alarming. I'm guessing that pastors across the country haven't had this much trouble preparing a sermon since 9/11.

But it was particularly difficult because the refrain of this text kept running through my mind. I saw people stranded on rooftops, and I thought, Where is the liberation for these captives?

I saw people crammed outside the convention center, and I thought, Where is their Moses to lead them out of this bondage?

I heard stories of the stench and decay and death, and I thought, Where is the freedom for those bound by such poverty that they have no choice to flee the coming flood?

I heard the stories and I saw the images, and I heard the voice of God saying, Let my people go! Let my people go from the Super Dome. Let my people go from the Convention Center. Let my people go from the chains of poverty so that they have choices. Let my people go from the bondage of red tape and bureaucracy and whatever else left them stranded for days without food or water or sanitation.

Let my people go!

God said it for the Israelites, and I believe God said it for those in Louisiana and Mississippi, too.

And I bet that nearly everybody here wishes they could help.

Yes, you can write your checks, made out to the church and marked for hurricane relief, and we will forward the money to the Connecticut Conference.

Yes, you can go to www.ucc.org and make a donation online, using your credit card.

And there is a meeting on Wednesday in Hartford that I invite you to attend -- a meeting of the Connecticut Conference of the UCC, where we'll brainstorm together on what we can do to help in the coming months.

But it doesn't seem enough, does it? It seems too small to click a button and give a credit-card number, and not risk anything to help. But for now, that's what we can do.

The time will come when we can do more. The time will come when we can go on a mission trip to help rebuild. The time may come when we can open not just our wallets, but our homes and our lives. The time may come when we will participate in public forums to discuss what went wrong and what we can do to change the systems that exclude.

But for now, we give our money, and we cry, and we talk about our feelings (however uncomfortable that might be), and we pray. We pray for comfort, for healing, for strength. We pray for liberation.

The Israelites prayed for it. They hungered and thirsted for it. And our text last week quoted God as saying, in a beautiful sequence of verbs:

I have seen the misery,
I have heard the cries,
I have known the suffering,
And I have come down to deliver my children.

And that's what we're waiting for -- the coming-down part.

Where is God?

Where is God in all this suffering?

Or, forget about God -- where is our government?

They saw the misery and heard the cries on television, just as we did.

Where is the coming-down part?

Where is our army, and where are our non-profit organizations that are supposed to be so good at emergency response?

Why did it take so long to figure out how to help these people?

I'm not being partisan here; I am not blaming Republicans or Democrats or any one person or official. I'm repeating the question I've heard from countless people this week: Where was the help?

We will probably never have answers to these questions that will satisfy us, and certainly not answers that will satisfy the people most affected by this tragedy.

And many people will lose faith -- faith that was already faltering -- in our government,
and possibly in God as well.

Where was God? This is the age-old question: Where was God?

God was in the mud pits of Egypt, sweating beside the Israelites as they labored in slavery.

God was in the ovens of Auschwitz, dying beside the Jews.

God was in the Twin Towers in New York, with the victims and survivors and heroes.

And this week, God was stranded on rooftops and deserted interstates. God was crammed into the Convention Center and the Super Dome with the living and the dead.
God was with those who broke into stores for food and water and diapers. God was slowly dying of thirst.

Wherever people suffer, God is there. And wherever people try to end the suffering of others, God is there.

God was in those who tried to bring relief.

God was in the helicopters and military vehicles and hospitals.

God was there when people shared what little they had.

God was in Sri Lanka, a tiny nation still trying to recover from the tsunami of last year,
who pledged $25,000 to our aid.

Where was God? Oh, God was there! God is always with those who suffer.

And God always wants to bring liberation. And God sends God's people to do it.

Just as God sent Moses to the Pharaoh, so God sends us to bring liberation today. Not just to the victims and survivors of Hurricane Katrina. Not just to those whose lives have been irrevocably changed by this storm. But to those who are in bondage of all kinds.

God sends us to bring liberation to those who are bound by the effects of prejudice.

God sends us to bring liberation to those who are excluded from civil rights.

God sends us to bring liberation to those who live in shame and fear.

God sends us to bring liberation to those who are slaves to a production mentality
that defines their worth by their work.

God sends us to bring liberation...to ourselves.

It is much easier to look at the marginalized and see what they need to be freed from,
than it is to look at those of us who are centralized and see what we need to be freed from. It is difficult to recognize our own slavery.

But we, too, are victims of prejudice -- our own prejudice toward others, as well, perhaps, as theirs toward us.

We, too, are slaves to a production mentality and to consumerism and to greed.

We are slaves to ideologies that place us -- as individuals, groups, or nations --
at the center of the universe.

And we are slaves to theologies that place us at the bottom of the universe, bound by hierarchical views of God and God's church.

And we are held in bondage by our preconceived notions of who God is and what God is doing.

To us God says, "Let my people go."

Let my people go from the bonds of prejudice, greed, and bad theology.

Let my people go from self-righteousness and self-centeredness.

Let my people go from idols and lies.

Let my people go. Let yourself go.

See the needs and meet them.

See the slaves and free them.

Amen.