Holy Moses & the Wilderness Jazz, Exodus 33, 10/22/23
Holy Moses & the Wilderness Jazz
Exodus 33:1-4, 12-23
Rev. Dr. Rhonda Abbott Blevins
October 22, 2023
The Lord said to Moses, “Go, leave this place, you and the people whom you have brought up out of the land of Egypt, and go to the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, ‘To your descendants I will give it.’ I will send an angel before you, and I will drive out the Canaanites, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey, but I will not go up among you, or I would consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people.” When the people heard these harsh words, they mourned, and no one put on ornaments.
Moses said to the Lord, “See, you have said to me, ‘Bring up this people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.’ Now if I have found favor in your sight, please show me your ways, so that I may know you and find favor in your sight. Consider, too, that this nation is your people.” He said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” And he said to him, “If your presence will not go, do not bring us up from here. For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people, unless you go with us? In this way, we shall be distinct, I and your people, from every people on the face of the earth.”
The Lord said to Moses, “I will also do this thing that you have asked, for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.” Moses said, “Please show me your glory.” And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you the name, ‘The Lord,’ and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for no one shall see me and live.” And the Lord continued, “See, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by; then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.”
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It’s Jazz Sunday here at the Chapel! We resurrected an old tradition to incorporate jazz music in our worship on the Sunday of the Clearwater Jazz Festival. You want to know something interesting about the Clearwater Jazz Festival? None of the music is jazz music! (At least not this year.) The Beach Boys? Not jazz. Gladys Knight? Not jazz. Los Lobos and the Gipsy Kings? Not jazz. Kenny Wayne Shepherd? Not jazz.
Do you want to know the only place in Clearwater where you can find jazz music during the Clearwater Jazz Festival? Right here at Chapel by the Sea!
I am by no means a jazz aficionado, but I always enjoy jazz music when I hear it. What’s so impressive about jazz music, something that kind of blows my mind about the genre, is that jazz music is largely improvisational. Now, improvisational music seems easy enough when you’re a solo artist—you just do whatever you want. But how does improvisation work when you’re playing in an ensemble with other musicians? If everyone is improvising, shouldn’t it just be complete musical chaos?
Not so fast! While jazz encourages improvisation, it is not entirely freeform. The musicians adhere to a set of rules and conventions to ensure that their improvisations compliment what the group is doing to maintain the coherence of the song. Some of the key elements of improvisational jazz include:
· Chord progressions and scales. Each musician knows the chord progressions and the notes in the scale that will work when it’s time for improvisational riffs.
· Head arrangements. The “head” is the main melody of the song. The musicians play the “head” together to establish the tune, then the individual musicians can create their solos while the rest of the band plays the “head.”
· Listening and reacting. The musicians must listen to one another, play off of what the other is doing. This allows for seamless transitions between solos and keeps the music coherent.
· Nonverbal cues: Eye contact, nods, gestures—improvisational jazz couldn’t work without the nonverbal cues between musicians.
· Trust: Jazz musicians step out to do improvisational solos with complete faith in their bandmates to keep the rhythm and the structure and the tune in place. The musicians must know their bandmates have their back—that they won’t be left alone out there in some “jazz wilderness.”
But the wilderness is where we find Moses in our scripture lesson today. Not only literally, but metaphorically as well.
You see, God is telling Moses and the Israelites to step out in faith—to go and claim the land that God promised to their Father Abraham centuries prior.
Moses is smart enough to know that claiming the land God promised to Abraham would be no easy task. It’s not as if the land is empty, void of other tribes. In fact, God names six other tribes that already inhabit the land that Moses is told to go claim.
If you’re interested in what’s happening between Israel and Hamas right now, you can trace this millennia-long conflict to this scripture text . . .
“Go to the land,” Moses hears God say. Then God names six tribes that won’t be thrilled to give it up, “the Canaanites, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.”
Lions, and tigers, and bears. Oh my!
Moses knows the “Canaanites” and all the other “ites” aren’t going to give up the land without a fight. It won’t be easy. There will be bloodshed.
And then God tells Moses, “I will not go up among you.”
Wait. What?!? “You want us to leave Sinai and go up against all of these tribes WITHOUT YOU?!?”
Let’s stop here for a moment and think anthropologically.
This was over three-thousand years ago. Polytheism, the belief in many gods, ruled the day. And the gods were localized—each god lived in a particular place—a cult center or temple dedicated to that god.
Now, think back to where Moses first encountered YHWH from a burning bush. This “burning bush” encounter happened at Mount Horeb also known as Mount Sinai. That’s where Moses heard God say, “Set my people free.” So Moses went back to Egypt, and set the Hebrew people free. Now the Hebrew people are in the desert. Where exactly are they? Here are a couple of clues: they’ve just received the Ten Commandments, then they built a golden calf. All at the same place. Answer: Mount Horeb/Mount Sinai. That’s where they still are today. They are in the spot where Moses first heard God call to him from the burning bush.
Given that people in that day and time believed in many, localized gods, AND that Moses and the children of Israel are in the place where they believed YHWH to dwell, it stands to reason that Moses and the Israelites believe YHWH to be the god (little “g”) of Mount Sinai rather than the God (big “G”) of the cosmos. Mount Sinai was God’s home, in the mind of the ancient Hebrews.
So it makes sense that Moses thought he heard God say, “I will not go with you.” And it must have been terrifying, the idea of trying to conquer the land of the Canaanites, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites without God going with them.
Terrifying. Like stepping out to do a jazz solo with zero confidence in the other musicians to do their part . . . to keep the beat or to hold the melodic line.
And if you’ve ever been scared, if you’ve ever been anxious, if you’ve ever been fearful about what’s going to happen in the future, there’s only one reason underneath all of our worries about tomorrow—we don’t have faith that God will be with us.
I’ve been in a few conversations over the past couple of weeks about the war between Israel and Hamas—this war rooted in ancient hatred. A common theme I’ve heard people say is this: “It’s scary.” And I agree! It IS scary. The global implications . . . terrifying.
That fear and anxiety—that’s my set point. And maybe yours too. Like, I’m hard-wired for fear. But then I remember: God has never deserted us throughout the course of human history. Never. Not to say there haven’t been some very difficult things: wars and plagues and threats of all kinds.
Remember how people built bunkers during the cold war for fear of nuclear annihilation? Then we thought about how one huge asteroid could wipe us off the face of the planet? Thanks, Bruce Willis. More recently, it’s A.I.—computers becoming smarter than us and annihilating us or making us their slaves. It’s all terrifying!
And when Moses peeks into the future, he can envision the battles ahead with the Canaanites, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. It’s terrifying! The Hebrews are just one tribe! They have at least six tribes to conquer. Thinking about this, Moses prays the only prayer he can think to pray . . . “HELP!” More specifically, listen again to Moses’ request for God’s help:
If your presence will not go, do not bring us up from here. For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people, unless you go with us? In this way, we shall be distinct, I and your people, from every people on the face of the earth.
How will the Hebrew people be distinct? Because all the other gods are localized, relegated to a particular place or temple. IF YHWH will go with them into the “Promised Land,” this will be the only God among gods who travels.
But here’s the thing: God HAS BEEN TRAVELING WITH THEM ALL ALONG!
Moses is a little slow on the uptake. Think of all the times God ALREADY promised God’s presence to Moses:
· When God spoke to Moses from the burning bush there on Mount Sinai, God promised Moses, “I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.” Exodus 3:12
· When Moses was anxious about being God’s spokesperson to Hebrew people, God promised Moses, “I will be with your mouth and teach you what you are to speak.” Exodus 4:12
· When the Hebrews stood at the edge of the formidable Red Sea, “The Lord drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night and turned the sea into dry land.” Exodus 14:21
And yet, Moses STILL doesn’t get it. “If your presence will not go, do not bring us up from here,” he pleads with God. Well, duh! Moses seems oblivious to the fact that God HAS BEEN TRAVELING with them all along.
This would be like the jazz musician, whose band has always had his back for every improvisational solo, stopping the song and saying, “Whoa, fellas. Hold the music. If I do a solo, are you guys going to keep the beat? If not, then I’m not going to do a solo.” That lack of faith would ruin the song!
And it’s a lack of faith that ruins our song as well.
Why do we worry? Why are we afraid? Why does anxiety prevent us from living our best, fullest, most joyful life?
We somehow forget that God has been with us throughout all our yesterdays. We lack faith that God will be with us into our tomorrows. No wonder we’re such an anxious lot!
Into our anxiety, and into Moses’ worries about entering the Promised Land, Moses finally hears God say, “My presence will go with you.”
The other day a friend of mine was asking what I say when I find myself, as a pastor, at a hospital bedside and the prognosis isn’t great. I told her that my words vary but that there seems to be a common theme . . . I remind the hospitalized individual that God is with him or her. Sickness and death are solitary experiences even when surrounded by family and friends. No human being can cross the thin veil separating life and death with us; we go alone, save for one Presence that goes with us—the presence of God. I take great comfort in that. Perhaps you do as well. And if we can lean into that truth, then nothing on this side of that veil should make us worried. Nothing!
Now, fast forward from the time of Moses to the time of Jesus.
In the Gospel of Matthew, written with a Hebrew audience in mind, we read about how Jesus died and rose on the third day. And after his resurrection, he met the eleven disciples on a mountaintop in Galilee. These were his final words—the very end of the story according to Matthew: “Remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:20
These are the last words he utters to his beloved friends, which says to me that this was one of if not the most important things he told them: “I am with you always.”
This is the promise claimed by St. Patrick when he supposedly wrote or uttered his “Breastplate Prayer.” What purpose is a breastplate in battle? It serves as a protection. It’s a beautiful prayer. I won’t read the entirety of the prayer, but I close with a poignant part of the prayer, the part that hearkens back to God’s promise to be present with Moses and Christ’s promise to be present with the disciples.
May we, too, claim the promise of God’s presence as we step out in faith into all of our tomorrows.
I arise today
Through God’s strength to pilot me;
God’s might to uphold me,
God’s wisdom to guide me,
God’s eye to look before me,
God’s ear to hear me,
God’s word to speak for me,
God’s hand to guard me,
God’s way to lie before me,
God’s shield to protect me,
God’s hosts to save me . . .
Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks of me,
Christ in the eye that sees me,
Christ in the ear that hears me.
I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through a belief in the Threeness,
Through a confession of the Oneness
Of the Creator of creation.
(“Breastplate Prayer” attributed to St. Patrick)