7.3.25 ~ The Card Deck of Faith

Good morning!

Several months ago, we covered the Torah portion that revealed details of the Exodus through the Sea and three murmuring sessions from the Israelites (Ex. 14).  In this week's Torah portion, we have another water narrative, which concludes the life of the 'water bearer' herself: Miriam (Moses in the basket, the sea & Miriam’s song, bitter waters of Marah, striking of the rock, Miriam’s pool; providing water for 40 years). With hindsight, we see this water theme continued through Numbers 20 where Moses strikes the rock the second time, after Miriam’s death (Num. 207-13).

On this 33rd day of counting towards the first fruit of the wine, I want to talk to you about faith and our journey through life by visiting the scene at the Reed Sea. When Pharaoh’s chariots are coming the people begin to panic. Though we are not given all the scenarios that could be running through people’s minds there are really only four possibilities or could there be five? Within these possibilities there would be faith-filled people and non-faithers; good guys and bad guys. If you were Moses you'd encourage the good guys and you'd discourage the bad guys. You'd say okay, who are the good guys and who are the bad guys? The bad guys want to die or surrender, maybe the bad guys want to fight, but the good guys want to pray - right? What does Moses do? To everyone he says stop, don't do what you're planning, don't even pray. What is the meaning of what Moses is saying here? What is he really saying? If you think about it, how many different options did Israel have at that time? You can either surrender, commit suicide, fight or pray. Those are really the only four things you can do. So every possible option is being covered by the group. Moses says stop, you're not doing any of those. Don't go back to your default settings of how you personally handle crises. What exactly does this mean?

Many of you might be familiar with a 'memory recall study' that was done years ago. They showed them playing cards for about 3-5 seconds to see if they could remember what was on cards and repeat them back. What they would do is they would show cards from a regular deck and then ask for the people to say what you saw, ace of hearts, two of hearts, etc. However, what they actually did in this experiment was that there were a couple cards in the deck that they doctored. So for example, there would be a five of spades that they would take whiteout and whiteout one of the spades, so really there was only four spades, but it was a five of spades.

They wanted to see how people would identify these cards. What did people identify it as? You guessed it, they all said, either the four of spades or the five of spades. They did this with hundreds and hundreds of college students and a number of students identified it as a five of spades and a number of students identified it as a four of spades. But not one student in the whole experiment said it's a doctored card. Not one! What does this mean?

It means that when you have a preconceived notion of the possibilities and reality, you can be looking at a card that says I'm not any one of these preconceived notions and you will take the hammer and you will smash the round peg into the square hole and you will say no, you're not what I see you as. You are a four of spades or a five of spades, because reality has four of spades in it, it has five of spades in it, but it doesn't have this kind of card, so I'm going to make you into something you're not. This is what we do all the time, and we especially do it in times of crisis.

What do we do when we're faced with a crisis in our lives? When something is going wrong what is the immediate thing you do? You get the adrenaline rush and what's the response, fight or flight, what am I going to do. Let's figure out what I can do, let's plan it and let's do something fast. The adrenaline says do something, do something now. Now that's fine, but there's a problem. What if you don't have all the options ahead of you? Is it always within the human view to see all of the options?

What is it that Moses says to the people here? What he says to the people is this is the time for faith! Huh? What does faith/emunah mean? Faith means not just focusing on what you can do but making another very subtle suggestion and that is the following...Israel thinks there are only four possible options here. They can either surrender, fight, commit suicide or pray out of desperation. They don't know that the sea is going to split. We know that the sea is going to split because we've read the story so many times, but if you didn't know that the sea is going to split you'd also think those four are our only options. The big question is: what does Yahweh say? Moses could have easily tipped his hand, he could have said don't worry guys, the sea is going to split. He doesn't say that. What he says is what they need to do. What you need to do is stop thinking about what you can do right now because you're so consumed with what you can do. It's not going to be any one of those options, you have to open yourself up to the possibility that you're going to be saved/yeshua, he tells them, but you don't know how (Ex. 14:13). Indeed, what happens? There's the fifth, anomalous card that comes out of the deck and the sea splits and they go through.

What is faith all about? Could it be more than the definitions we’ve held to for so long (Rom. 10:17)? Truly, for Israel this is a lesson in faith. What is faith all about? Faith means sometimes not even praying. Because there are two kinds of prayer you can have. The prayer that we have out of desperation is really just another way that we act, that we try to manipulate the situation where we try to control it. Sometimes it's not just about controlling the situation but faith says I can only control the situation so much and what I need to know is never make the mistake in my attempts to control the situation that those are the only possible ways that this situation can work out. What faith says is 'yeah, there are these ways but you know what, it may not work out that way, I may not be aware of another card'. Reality might admit of another card of the deck, which I have no idea that's there. Human humility requires acknowledging that and saying Yahweh has it in his power to make something happen that I can't even imagine.

That's exactly what Miriam did at the beginning of Exodus (Ex. 2). What did Miriam do? When Miriam stood by and Miriam watched to see what Pharaoh’s daughter was going to do with the baby and we asked Miriam how is this going to happen? Miriam couldn't tell you. The daughter of Pharaoh is going to come and then that is going to be the way, and I'm going to be the one to save Moses because something I - it was inconceivable. It was a fifth, anomalous card. Miriam says I don't know how it's going to happen, but just because I don't know doesn't mean I can't watch. I'm not giving up hope, I still can watch. Miriam has faith and she's able to see it.

As I pray for you daily, I know, for many of you, that these are days that call for faith/emunah; watching God do what only God can do.

Tomorrow we will finish our memorable tribute to Miriam. But today, as we head into the July 4th weekend, let's step forward into faith watching the water become dry land.

Shalom!