THE PHANTOM LORD
A sermon by George R. Pasley
Exodus 1:15-21; Matthew 16:21-28
The King of Egypt had a name
His name was Ramses II,
Greatest Pharaoh ever,
According to the scholars,
Great Ancestor,
According to the Ancients,
Builder of cities,
According to architects,
Mortal foe,
According to his vanquished neighbors,
God,
According to his people.
What Pharaoh said
Became law
What Pharaoh wanted,
Pharaoh took,
What Pharaoh commanded
Was done.
But Pharaoh commanded
Two Hebrew slaves,
Lowest of the low,
Women, midwives to other slaves,
To kill the Hebrew boys.
In all the world
No one dared disobey
The Pharaoh, King of Egypt.
It is even said the River
Rose at his command-
For sure great armies marched
This way or that,
Depending on his whim.
To do otherwise meant death,
Life depended on obedience.
But two lowly Hebrew slaves
Let Pharaoh's mighty words
Go through one ear and out the other
Without a second thought.
Were they deaf?
No.
Were they fools?
No.
Were they contrary and stubborn?
Perhaps.
Were they ignorant.
No, they knew the real truth:
Pharaoh, King of Egypt,
Ramses II,
Great Ancestor,
Builder of Cities,
Mortal foe,
God to his people,
Was only phantom lord,
The so-it-seemed-lord
The greatest pharaoh ever, perhaps,
But Real Lord-Not!
No, those lowly Hebrew slaves,
Two women,
Shiphrah and Puah,
They knew another Lord,
The real Lord,
The great Elohim,
The first name in the Bible,
Found in the very first verse,
Creator of the universe,
Giver of life,
Redeemer from death
Liberator of the lowly,
So they did not fear Pharaoh
But gave their fear to God
In love and faithfulness
With courage and with cunning.
So in our bible
Their names are given,
Shiphrah and Puah,
Spelled, remembered, spoken
Given life after theirs is gone,
And the name of the King of Egypt
Is never mentioned,
Never spelled,
Forgotten by the Hebrews.
***
My brother-in-law Dan has a name for a certain type of adventurer-
adrenaline junkies.
Some of them climb tall buildings and leap by parachute. Others climb cliffs and bridges and leap by harnessed rope. Others bungee jump on the back of a friend.
What they do is foolhardy, stupid, reckless, and many die even though their stunts are practiced and planned for safety. Each one will freely acknowledge the danger of their games. They have no sorrow for the ones who die; all know the risk. They have no nickname of themselves, but they do have a nickname for death. The call death the Phantom Lord, and they know his presence when they stand upon the edge.
Fear of the Phantom Lord will make them turn back from the edge, unhook their gear, and walk away. But their refusal to be afraid, their stepping off the edge, gives them an experience profound, and in that experience they find their life.
So it is with us.
"If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it."
But if that is how it is, how do we do it? We do it by following this advice, given by French pastor Andre Trocme to his village during the Nazi occupation: "Look hard for ways to make little moves against destructiveness."
That whole village, Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, offered safe haven to Jews, saving several thousands from the gas chambers during the war. Such resistance was courageous because it was dangerous, but it was the way of love and faithfulness, the way that Jesus walked on his steep road to the cross.
To take up the cross and follow Christ is to proclaim- nay, it is to sing, it is to shout at the top of your lungs
MY LORD IS JESUS CHRIST
And then to live in ways that resist those who would invite you to follow a different, phantom lord.
It may be something as ridiculous
as recycling
or it may be something as easy as taking pork-and-beans to the Lord's Table
But it may be something as rewarding
as volunteering to have a Little Brother or Little Sister
or it may be something as risky
as taking an unpopular stand in an angry room
or it may be something as committed
as offering long term care for someone who can't care for themselves
completely
Or it may be something sacrificial,
Like giving gifts to God’s work in the world
Instead of exchanging Christmas presents,
Or it may be something truly costly,
Like volunteering to work for mercy
In some violent corner of the world.
Those actions whisper to the world:
I know what you see,
You see weakness and uselessness
You see hatred
You see sacrifice and drudgery and pain
But you do not see what I see
because you are not looking with the eyes of Christ.
This is another way to live,
Risky perhaps and even more-
It is resistance to a way of life that is life-diminishing
And it is mid-wifing to a way of life that is dynamic and life affirming and
An experience profound.
Not too long ago I attended a protective order hearing, in which a woman asked for protection from her abuser.
She was afraid, so much so that her attorney told me she was close to vomiting several times as she told her story.
She did not want to enter the courtroom, because her abuser was there. She had not the courage to walk through the door. But she knew something, and that something was that her abuser was wrong, and the only way to freedom and life was to face him in open court. And so she did.
But she was only able to do so because she was given strength by many others who served God at less risk: the people of the women’s network who worked behind the scenes, the victim’s advocate who never left her side, the attorney who took her case, and her family who prayed for her and gave her guidance.
Our job as Christians may not require our blood- but it does require our life, given in faithfulness and sometimes courage in testimony that God alone is Lord.
It may seem very hard. It may seem fruitless. It may seem impractical and dangerous. But Because the Midwives feared God, God did business with them.
So I know that God will do business with us.
In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen.
