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Hespeler, March 6 2022 © Scott McAndless – Lent 1
Deuteronomy 26:1-11, Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16, Romans 10:8b-13, Luke 4:1-13

Lemon meringue pie is my father’s favourite dessert. You give him a choice of pies and he will go for the lemon meringue every time. My mother, who is the baker of the family, makes some of the most wonderful and tasty pies I’ve ever eaten. But she doesn’t particularly make lemon meringue. I think it’s because she doesn’t think that her lemon meringue is as good as what her mother used to make. But anyways, when we were growing up, we had some wonderful pies but not often lemon meringue. When we did, it was always an occasion.

The Story

And whenever such an occasion came along, there was a story that got repeated in our family. We all knew the story, but we never tired of hearing it. The story went like this. When my parents first met and started dating, the day came when my father got an invitation to my mother’s parents’ house for supper.

My mom is the eldest child of her family, and you can imagine that her younger siblings were very excited to have their sister’s beau come to dinner for the first time. And, as the time to dine approached and my mother was helping out in the kitchen, they were entertaining my dad by telling him that my mother had prepared the entire meal including, they promised him, a very special dessert prepared in his honour. This was, of course, a lie. My mother had helped, but she had hardly prepared it all and she had not made the dessert. But perhaps we can forgive those younger siblings for their exuberance in talking up their elder.

The Surprise

Finally, the moment came, and the meal was served. It was all excellent, of course. And then the dessert – my grandmother’s inimitable lemon meringue pie. My father was served up a great big piece of pie and everyone present, especially those younger siblings, looked on as he took that first delicious bite from the tip. It was indeed delightful. But at that very moment, he looked down to see that, nestled between the lemon and the meringue, in the next bite he was about to take, there was a huge, dead beetle.

At this point in the story, we would all lean forward expectantly until someone would ask the necessary question. “What did dad do then?” “Oh,” came the ritual answer, “he just took out the beetle, put it by the side of his plate and kept on eating.”

What the Story Means to us

That was just one of the stories that was told in my house as I was growing up. I’m sure you have stories from your background as well. And the reason why some stories in particular get remembered and repeated is because they are more than just the memories of unusual events. They are remembered because these stories give meaning and even a sense of identity to the people who tell them. I mean, if you know my mother and father, you will quickly realize that that story conveys a great deal about their positive character traits and the loving relationship that they’ve shared for so long.

Stories and Memories

The other thing about such stories is that they are not exactly the same thing as memories of the actual event. Even though that story was told and passed on by people who were there, that doesn’t mean that it all happened exactly as the story is told. Quite possibly, some of the other people present would have seen the events of that night quite differently. The beetle probably didn’t look like I imagine that it looked when I tell the story. I imagine that it was huge! All of this is because memory doesn’t actually work the way that we think it does.

Human beings are actually not all that great at remembering events unless they do something. In order to store an important event in our long-term memory, we actually need to find some way to turn it into a story. It can be a story we tell ourselves or, even better, the story that we tell out loud to others, but unless we turn it into a story, it can very easily be lost to us.

How Stories Create Memories (and Not the Other Way Around)

But the simple act of turning the memory into a story modifies our recollection of the events. We change the memory to fit a narrative. And once we create a story, we remember the story rather than the original events. After that, every time we tell the story, we are constantly making our memory of those events fit what we need the story to tell us at this particular moment in time.

If, for example, the pie story were told at a celebration of my parents’ anniversary, we would probably hear it as a very romantic kind of tale. But, if it was told when someone was passing on the recipe for lemon meringue pie, it might be heard as something a little less romantic and a little more of a food safety warning. What’s more, researchers have demonstrated, when we remember that story, what we are actually remembering is not the original events, but rather the last time we heard or told the story.

A Sacrifice

All of this is basically because the way that we make sense of our world is by telling stories about it. And this is something that our reading this morning from the Book of Deuteronomy seems to understand and appreciate. The passage that we read this morning is an instruction for a particular kind of sacrifice.

It is the sacrifice of the first fruits, where the worshipers are to bring the first produce of their land and present it to the priest, who, by the way doesn’t burn it on the altar or anything like that, it is basically a gift to support the priestly family. But what is really different about this sacrifice is the requirement for every worshiper to tell a story.

And a Story

The story goes like this: “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous. When the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labour on us, we cried to the Lord, the God of our ancestors; the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. The Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with a terrifying display of power, and with signs and wonders; and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. So now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground that you, O Lord, have given me.”

And I find it fascinating that there would be this requirement in order to bring the sacrifice. Each worshiper is required to recite, not a prayer, not some liturgy, but a full story. One question I’ve got to ask is how tired did the priests get having to listen to that same story over and over again? But surely this was required for a reason. The writers of this law in Deuteronomy understood something important about human nature. They understood what I’ve been saying, just how important stories are to human beings. As I said, the stories that we tell are able to form and shape our memories. That is particularly important when you want to help your people form a common identity. They need to have a shared story.

How Stories Help us Process Memories

But stories are also really important for helping us to process our memories. Do take note of what this story in the Book of Deuteronomy tells. It’s actually a horrible story of mistreatment, abuse and trauma. It is a story of a whole nation that lost its homeland, that was subjected to slavery, oppression and abandonment by their God. And I’m sure you are aware of the extreme damage that those kinds of memories can do. You have heard, I imagine, of post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD. When people have gone through traumatic events, the memories that they carry in their mind and even in their body can be extremely destructive to their lives and their relationships. The more traumatic the events, the more potential for damage there is, but even mild trauma, if you carry it around with you, can have a very damaging effect.

How We Deal with Trauma

And here is one reason why that happens. When you’ve lived through something difficult, you tend not to want to think about it or dwell on it. This is understandable, of course. Remembering it stirs up painful feelings and so you’d rather just put it out of your mind. But remember what I said about us being storytelling creatures. In order to helpfully integrate a memory into our lives so that we can deal with it in a constructive way, we need to turn it into a story.

But if you don’t want to think about something traumatic that happened to you, you’re not going to be able to turn it into a story. That is precisely how a memory of a negative event can become dangerous. Because when you have not turned it into a story because you don’t want to think about it, the memory of the traumatic event doesn’t just disappear. Your brain holds on to those sorts of memories as a kind of survival instinct. They are, after all, memories of things that were or seemed to be dangerous. Your brain wants to keep those memories because they seem like vital information that will help you to survive future dangerous events.

When We Fail to Process Traumatic Memories

But, if you don’t examine those memories and turn them into stories, they cannot be stored in the productive part of your brain that can use them constructively. Instead, they get stored in a much more primitive part of your brain, you might think of it as your animal brain, called the amygdala. And when a traumatic memory is stored in your animal brain, you cannot deal with it rationally. Instead what happens is that you tend to get triggered by things that remind you of the original traumatic events. You may react irrationally with fear or by lashing out at the people you love with anger. As you can imagine, this can lead to some very difficult problems in your life.

So, what you actually need to do is to have the courage to examine the memories of the traumatic things that you have lived through. This can be extremely hard, and people often need help to do that. At the very least, they need friends who understand them and who they can trust to talk through these memories. Some people need trained professionals to help them to do this and there is absolutely nothing wrong with needing that kind of help.

But the process itself is relatively simple, even though it can be extremely painful and hard. The process is to turn it all into a story, a story about your life, about who you are. It is about telling a story in which the suffering is not the end of the story but rather a point on the way to the end. It is also about telling a story in which you discover something about who you are on the way through the struggle.

What the Story did for Ancient Israelites

That why I find that the story that the worshiper tells in the Book of Deuteronomy is so powerful. It is indeed a story about trauma, about slavery and oppression that an entire nation went through. The point of telling the story is indeed to face that dark history. But it is also very clearly the story of a people who do not allow their trauma to define or limit them. It is a story about people whose God heard them and who saved them “with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with a terrifying display of power, and with signs and wonders.” That certainly makes it seem as if they are indeed a very special people to have such a God.

The Stories You Tell

So here is the challenge I would like to leave you with today. Take some time to consider the stories that you tell about yourself or about your family – the stories that you tell to others and the stories that you tell to yourself. Consider how they shape not only your identity and your self-esteem but also the memories of the things that have happened to you. Are there ways that you could tell those stories differently so that they are more uplifting and affirming?

And if you do have some events in your life that you find particularly hard to remember for some very good reasons, I have an even greater challenge for you. In a safe context, preferably with someone you truly trust, tell those stories and find some way to tell them that don’t just make the trauma the end of the story. Consider how they can be stories of survival, hope and maybe even victory. Above all, find a way to tell those stories that makes it clear that there was a God who cared about you in the midst of what you struggled with. If you’re able to find that story, I suspect you might discover the truth that God really was there and has been with you ever since.

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Hespeler, 27 February 2022 © Scott McAndless
Exodus 34:29-35, Psalm 99, 2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2, Luke 9:28-43a

Moses sighed. He knew that this time of quiet and reflection would soon be over. Every moment he spent outside of this tent seemed to be a moment filled with requests, frustrations and endless demands. People were constantly looking to him to solve their disputes and fix their problems, tell them what to do and say the words that would bring them all together to face the daily challenges of a wandering life.

They would ask him to make decisions that would affect the lives of men, women and children. If they turned this direction, would they meet a dangerous enemy? If they turned that way, would they find themselves in a wasteland in which there was no water and no fodder for the animals to eat? The latest complex question they’d come up with had been about a matter of the inheritance of a family that had had no sons.

Escaping into the Tent

And this tent was the only place that he could go to escape all of that. He knew that no one would ever follow him into this place because they were all too afraid. They knew that he met with God in here – with Yahweh who had first been revealed to him at the burning bush – and they much preferred to let Moses wrestle with their demanding God on their behalf alone.

Moses knew that it was true, that he did indeed meet his God in this sacred space. But it didn’t happen in the ways that they all imagined that it did. It wasn’t really about spectacular lights and resounding voices. Most of the time, what happened in here was that Moses was able to quiet all of the thoughts that were in his mind. As he eased into a quiet state, pushing aside all of the worries and fears that he struggled with out there, it sometimes happened – by no means always, but sometimes. A word or a phrase or a thought would come into his mind that he knew did not originate from himself. He knew that it was a word from Yahweh.

Uncertainty

But even then, he still struggled with the messages that he received. He was not always sure that he understood them. He was not always certain that he had the interpretation or the application right. And, when God is involved, it seems really important that you should be able to get it right. People think that having some kind of divine experience makes things easier, but Moses knew from long experience now that it usually makes things harder.

And one of the hardest things about it was that people outside of the tent didn’t understand that. When he came out of the tent, when he spoke to them of the will of God, they expected him to speak in absolutes. There was no room for doubt or questions out there. There was no room for shades of gray; they wanted it all laid out in black and white. Moses couldn’t show himself as a fallible human, but rather as a spokesperson for the divine. And so, when he went out, it helped that he put on the veil.

How it All Started

There was a bit of a story behind the veil. It went back to the time when Moses had gone up to the top of the holy mountain all alone. There, on top of Mount Sinai, he had had the most extraordinary experience of his life. The encounter he had had with Yahweh up there was unlike anything that had happened to him before or since. Everything had been so clear up there and there had been no room for doubt. He had been given a keen insight into what measures were needed so that this people, who had so recently been freed of a life where everything had been controlled for them, could live together in peace and prosperity. He had been able to distill it all down to a series of laws that he knew would guide the people for generations to come.

It had been so exciting and exhilarating and, in those first few days afterwards, everything had seemed so very clear. But, when he came down and met the people, all of it was frightening to them. It was so clear to them that he had been in the very presence of God that they said that it was as if the skin on his face was putting off this strange radiance. They were afraid that they would die if they came too close to him. And so, Moses realized that he needed to tone it down a bit. He covered his face to put a little distance between himself and the people. It helped them to manage the fear and it helped him to moderate the way he was speaking to them. And so, they had been able to communicate in those heady days.

After the Mountain Top

But in the time since, the veil had come to be deployed differently. The kind of clear experience of the presence of God that Moses had had on that mountain was not repeated. Honestly, Moses was glad of that because it had left him drained and weary. People don’t actually manage that well with absolute certainty over the long term. It was replaced now with this seemingly endless struggle in the tent as he sought out the brief flashes of clarity in the midst of all the questions and the doubts.

But the harder the struggle in the tent became, the more important it seemed to hide that struggle from the people outside. If they were expecting him to come out of the tent every time with the same certitude that he had brought down the mountain, that was not going to happen. If they were looking for that same sense of radiance coming from him, they were likely going to be disappointed. But by pre-emptively donning the veil before he went out, he managed to maintain both the illusion of certainty and the inspiration of fear. Both of these things simply made it a whole lot easier for Moses to lead these stubborn people.

Back to Reality

And so, with yet another deep sigh, Moses opened his eyes. The time of quiet meditation was over. He felt as if he had been able to sort out some of the problems and challenges that were facing the people. Somewhere in there, he was pretty sure that he had heard a genuine word from Yahweh. He uttered a prayer of thanks, acknowledging the God who had allowed him to lead these people thus far. As he turned, he plucked the veil from the hook by the door and carefully covered his face. He could see very little through it, mostly just shadows and shapes. He knew that the people would see almost nothing of his own features. That was as it needed to be.

He stepped outside and all over the camp he saw the people turn towards him. All noise and conversation fell away as they waited to hear a word from Yahweh. And so Moses began to speak through the veil regarding the difficult question that had been posed to him. “This is what Yahweh commands concerning the daughters of Zelophehad,” he cried. “‘Let them marry whom they think best; only it must be into a clan of their father’s tribe that they are married, so that no inheritance of the Israelites shall be transferred from one tribe to another; for all Israelites shall retain the inheritance of their ancestral tribes.’” (Number 36:6-7)

An Ancient Religious Practice

The story of Moses and the veil in the Book of Exodus is one that has always struck people for its strangeness. It has long been thought that, somewhere behind this story, are ancient religious practices that may stretch back to prehistoric times. The idea was that the ancient priest or shaman would put on some kind of mask or face covering and, in so doing, be able to impersonate and speak for the god.

Such an ancient practice may indeed lie somewhere behind this story in the Bible, but I’m a little less interested with how it may have contributed to the creation of this story than I am in what such a practice tells us about it what it means to be human beings trying to relate to the divine. I see two key forces at play. On the one hand, we have the experience of the divine and on the other we have the practice of religion.

Religious Experience

There is a simple reality and it that is that people have been experiencing God for a long time. There are varying experiences, of course. And the God that people experience can be wildly different. But the reality that people have such experiences cannot be denied. I know we often are tempted to dismiss such things because personal experiences, almost by definition, cannot be independently verified. You cannot scientifically prove that somebody experienced God. Nor can you really disprove it.

But people have been having such experiences for centuries and they have sometimes had huge impacts on historical events. I have also had such experiences in my life, and I know a number of other people who have as well.

Fear and Authority

And there are two big problems that arise because people have such supernatural experiences. One is fear. People have a very natural reaction to be very afraid of such experiences and the people who have them. The other problem is the question of authority. How do we tell if someone’s experience of God is something that we should trust and listen to?

We see both of these problems being addressed in this story of Moses and the veil. We are told, first of all, that the veil is placed there to create a kind of distance between Moses’ powerful experience and the people because they are afraid. And we are also told that when Moses speaks through the veil, it becomes a sign that he is speaking for God and that, therefore, everything he says is authoritative.

The Function of Religion

In many ways, I would say, this veil is a symbol of the function of religion. Human religion is there in order to accomplish two things: to manage our human fear in the face of the experience of God and to sort out which pronouncements have authority. We don’t use symbols like a mask or a veil anymore to manage these things, but that does not mean that they are no longer important aspects of our religion.

Because here is what is at stake. No matter what happens to religion and the state of religion (and I realize that religion has been going through some rough times lately) these are issues that are not going to go away. People are going to continue to have experiences of God along with all of the fear and the difficult questions of authority that come with such experiences. It seems to be something that is built into our human nature.

Why we Need Religious Tools

And religion in all its various forms has been something that we have developed to help us manage those very problems. And I know that the history of religion has had its horrible moments. All kinds of terrible things have been justified by religious belief down through history. But I honestly do not think that just getting rid of all religious structure is the solution.

I believe that religion, done well, can give us the tools to manage and interpret these very frightening and powerful experiences in helpful ways. I believe that that is what Moses and other figures like him managed to do, not perfectly, but they at least tried to direct these powerful impulses in more productive ways.

What Paul has to Add

There is one other aspect to this story that is added in the New Testament. In his Second Letter to the Corinthians, the Apostle Paul makes reference to this story of Moses and the veil and he says that in Christ, the veil is set aside. The point he seems to be making is that because Christ revealed to us the very nature of God in human form, the old constraints of fear, authority and religion are no longer necessary.

I do have some reason to wonder whether Paul got that completely right. There is no question that Christianity has never stopped setting up religious systems to manage those very things throughout its long history. But Paul’s point is still rather helpful. So long as we are ruled in our religious practices by our need to manage fear and our desire to project authority, I don’t think we will fulfill our fullest potential as human beings seeking to relate to the divine.

The Problem with Religious Authority

In particular, that desire to project absolute authority from our religious experience has been particularly problematic throughout our history. The fact of the matter is that our experiences of God are rarely absolute. Oh yes, very occasionally, someone will have that top of Mount Sinai experience when everything is absolutely made crystal clear. But most of our experiences of God come when we are in the midst of our doubts and questions. That need to put on a veil and project absolute certainty means that we often hide the true nature of our encounters with God. And that is a problem.

I think that if we were truly honest, we would admit that much of our struggle to work out our relationship with the divine is in there, with Moses as I have imagined him, in the tent. We are often consumed with more questions and doubts than we would like to admit. But I do think it’s time to lay aside that temptation to hide that struggle behind a veil in order to project absolute certainty about our beliefs to the world. That doesn’t serve us, and it doesn’t serve the world. And it actually serves to obscure the real power of religious experience that I believe is our heritage as the children on God.

For children & families for the week of February 27.

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