St. Andrew’s Pictou, August 21^st 2005

 

Where the Buck Stops

Exodus 1:8-2:10

Matthew 16:13-20

 

A friend called me from across the Atlantic Ocean this week to share some insights that came from two sayings:

1 We don’t see that world as it is, we see the world as we are.

2 The world doesn’t see us as we think they do, the world sees us as we are.

 

The insight that he believes he received from theses two sayings is that while our lives are greatly influenced by our choices, there are other limitations to be taken into consideration; there seems to be another force at work that is irrespective of our choices. We can make all of the choices we want, but there are certain obstacles that are “in the works” and they are influential.

 

I had a couple of correctional caveats to add:

1 There is more than one force at work: the force for evil, as well as good,

2 Why couldn’t you consider that making choices actually influences those forces or tap into them? By our choices, we tap into good or we tap into evil.

 

The bottom line here is that each of us, has to consider what we are going to be and do in life, and how or if we influence the ongoing human saga.

 

Sometimes things are good for us; sometimes they are not so good, but the issue is: can you or I affect change? Does the strength of our character, or does what we do make a difference?

 

Times were not good for Joseph or the people of Israel where we find them in the Exodus reading.

 

“…a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.” The good times we read about last week, where Joseph interpreted the Pharaoh’s dreams and saved the people from starvation were long gone; years have passed. The Jewish people were numerous and the Egyptians were feeling threatened. To the Egyptians, the slaves were doing so well, it looked like they were taking over the country.

 

The Egyptians tried to strengthen their position by working the people hard and were ruthless to them. To cut down on the birth rate, the Egyptians told the midwives to kill the newborns if they were male. Only the females were allowed to live.

 

Now the midwives followed God, not the Pharaoh and allowed the male babies to live. They lied and said the Hebrew women were so strong that they had the babies before they were able to get to them.

 

One Levite mother hid her baby for three months, until she could hide him no more, but she devised a scheme. She did not accept the going norm, she made a choice.

 

She put the baby in a papyrus basket, “plastered it with bitumen and pitch; she put the child in it among the reeds on the bank of the river. His sister stood at a distance, to see what would happen to him.

The daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, while her attendants walked beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her maid to bring it. When she opened it, she saw the child. He was crying.”

 

You know how the story goes: His sister was there, she volunteers to get a nurse for the child, brings his mother, and Pharaoh’s daughter pays the mother to bring up her own child as a favour to the princess.

 

Pharaoh’s daughter even names the child, Moses, “because” she said, “I drew him up out of the water.” Three thousand years later we miss what would have been see as a very humorous twist in the story: the Egyptian princess being the unwitting agent of God.

 

To get this little baby boy to safety involved the participation of a lot of people:

-parents made love and created the boy,

-the mother gave birth and protected the boy for three months from Pharaoh’s decree,

-his sister played a critical role as a messenger in the life-saving scheme,

-the Egyptian servant brought the baby to Pharaoh’s daughter,

-Pharaoh’s daughter reached out in compassion for the baby,

-God Almighty called Moses to life so that through this story so that he would later lead his people to freedom in the Promised Land.

 

In the vernacular language of today, Moses’ mother “used the system” to her advantage.

 

Like I pointed out to my friend, there are two systems at work here: good and evil. Evil in the person of the Pharaoh who tried to destroy life, and good was manifested in the will and compassion of the women involved in preserving life.

 

When Pharaoh decreed that the boy babies would die, the midwives went against the king’s law. The mother and the sister went against the king’s law. The Pharaoh’s daughter went against her own father’s law.

 

When each of these women was asked to bow to a bad law that would destroy life, they refused to pass the buck and did what was right to preserve life.

 

I want you to remember these women the next time you hear former Nazis and other people who allowed people to die and when asked to account and they said, “We were just following orders!”

 

They weren’t following orders; they were “passing the buck!” passing the buck of individual, personal and moral responsibility.

 

Each of us in our day to day lives get in situations where we are to make choices that support life or death, healing or destruction, hope or despair, and the buck stops with us when we are presented with these choices and the responsibilities that follow.

 

We either stand as men and women of integrity, or we pass the buck.

 

Where does the buck stop? The buck stops when it meets a woman or man of integrity who uses their power to choose to do the right thing.

 

Today’s story illustrates how our friend Jesus Christ knew the mark of character and integrity.

 

“…he asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say that the son of man is?’”

 

Some of the people who knew about Jesus said he was John the Baptist, Elijah, or Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.

 

Can’t you just see Jesus rolling eyes or shaking his head?

 

Then he lowered the boom: “But who do you say that I am?”

 

We have to note here that Simon Peter was first:

“You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

 

According to Peter the buck was stopping right there with him!

 

Then an amazing thing happened. This was not just the answer to a question, the answer turned out to be the credentials for the releasing of a spiritual power.

 

To the answer that Peter gave, when he refused to pass the buck was an awesome declaration by the Messiah, himself:

“Blessed are you Simon, son of Jonah!

For Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in Heaven.

And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.

I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

 

With all of our talk about church and building church, in this statement we have the clear statement that: God builds his church on a foundation of faith.

 

If the buck stops with us and if we are willing to have faith, God builds the church.

 

If we ask people to church, if we ask our neighbours to come to church. If we invite our children to come to church, God will build it. If we truly believe, God will build it. But if we don’t stand up and be counted, if we pass the buck if we think that other people will ask people to church, the church will not be built and it certainly will not flourish.

 

Indeed, the buck either passes with every choice we make or every choice we don’t make, which is also a choice.

 

Not making a decision can also be passing the buck.

 

There was a story on TV the other night where a woman pulled forward from an intersection after the light changed, lost control of her car, hit a tree, killed her 13 year old daughter, her daughter’s best friend and injured a young male passenger.

 

A tragic story, but it got worse. Investigation showed that the cruise control had not caused the accident as the driver alleged; she caused it when she put her foot on the accelerator. So she went to jail for vehicular manslaughter.

 

This woman lost big time. She used to live in a mansion, had a beautiful daughter, husband, and a great life. In anger, she put her foot on that gas pedal and eventually the buck stopped right there in the court room, and she went to jail for the rest of her life.

 

There is nothing new today in 2005 in Pictou, then there ever was.

 

Each one of us still has to answer that powerful question from Jesus:

“Who do you say that I am?”

 

If we truly believe that Jesus is the Christ of God, the Messiah, than we would collectively and individually show that faith and believe in the evidence of how we lived our lives, and God would build the church.

 

God would fill the church, and the balcony. We would have to add additional services.

 

Don’t say that Pictou doesn’t have enough people. There are thousands of Pictonians who don’t go to church and this building only seats 500! That number doesn’t include the busloads that would come to visit just to experience the joy of the redeemed.

 

I know this to be true, because the Messiah I believe in said, that if we believe that we would be given, “the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever (we bind) on earth would be bound in heaven and whatever (we loose) on earth would be loosed in heaven.”

 

If we believe then our love would be bound together and be united into a powerful strength for good, and our attitudes and the attitudes of others would be loosened to allow the kingdom of God to flourish.

 

All this can happen if the buck doesn’t stop with you, and if the buck doesn’t stop with me.

AMEN                    Rev. Alan Stewart