( Deuteronomy 4:5-20 ) - [ Deutsch ]
Sermon on
"Sit down, rest," says Moses. The people have come a long way. 40 years have passed since that exciting night when they set out. In the meantime, children and grandchildren have been born.
In the 5th Book of Moses, from which the sermon text for today comes, the people of Israel are about to enter the Promised Land.
Moses pauses once more and thinks. He himself will only see the land from afar; he will not be allowed to experience a new beginning there. However, he will still pass on what is important to him – everything which matters.
We might ask, what connects me with them? What is my part in this? How is my life affected by the story of the Exodus? Is that not what biblical stories are for? To connect with my life, as if they were calling out to me: you are not the beginning. Your faith has a story, a long history.
Reading of the Scripture text
The last sentence of the text resonates. The Lord has brought us out of the furnace in Egypt, out of the hell of slavery. He has accepted us and made his covenant with us - that he will accompany us and keep us, guard and guide us along the right path. That is where it all starts - with freedom. Freedom from oppression, freedom from unjust, exploitative conditions ... that is a good, beneficial beginning. The furnaces, the hells on earth are still burning in many places in the world.
Mercilessly. Women arrested because their headscarves do not fit properly. Young men sent to the front on one-way tickets. Withered fields and dead animals, burning landscapes, flooded villages in the furnace of climatic change.
In contrast, the big word is "freedom". Pack your seven things. Get up, go out, I will be with you, God called out to the people of Israel 40 years before the great speech of Moses. And they quickly packed what they needed and got up and went out. God has been with them to this day. He will also be with them beyond this day, when they enter the land he promised them.
I can see the experience of freedom in the faces of the people sitting with me.
Overcoming lack of freedom takes time. And it leaves traces. It took 40 years of roving to come to terms with imprisonment. Sometimes it takes a whole generation. I think of the long healing process for war children and grandchildren. Yet the promise of freedom remains. God leads out of the furnace into freedom, even if there is a desert in between.
Now Moses reminds us of what is really important. What really matters, so that life can succeed after the new beginning. "God has led you into freedom", he calls out to us. This freedom must be preserved. For this, God has given us the document of his covenant - the 10 commandments, the 10 great freedoms. They help us to respect and protect the freedom of others as well. "Behold, I have taught you decrees and laws... Keep them therefore and follow them!" (Deut. 4:5-6a)
Commandments and laws - law and justice. Everything begins with freedom. To protect it, there are rules. Rules that make a community out of many different people. Commandments provide shelter to those who need it.
The early rule of law in Israel is unparalleled in the countries of the Ancient Near East. It is a welfare state. The idea behind it is: your freedom is a gift. You did not create it for yourself. Make sure that it also benefits those for whom life is difficult. What explosive power and idealism are contained in this. And how good that many countries have built up their own legislation according to this order. There should be even more who do so.
Law and justice needed to be demanded again and again in Israel. The prophets of the time of the kings, admonished that slaves should be freed, and widows, orphans and strangers enjoy special protection. They criticised where the rulers forgot God's mercy or took it so much for granted that it was no longer sufficient for others who needed it. They interpreted catastrophes that Israel had to experience, such as the capture by the Assyrians or the Babylonians or the destruction of the temple, as God's punishment.
Prophetic legal criticism is necessary and healing. All is not well or pronounced as such once and for all. Even the promised land after the desert migration is not paradise. Law must be enforced and sometimes adapted. Where do we still follow the 10 great freedoms? What moves and shapes us? What is important to us in our community? Over and over again I want to stop and question, just like Israel on the other side of the Jordan.
With the entry into the promised land, all could have been settled. After liberation from the large and small, private and public furnaces of this world, all should be well and life-sustaining. Experience teaches that it is never, at least not in this life, good once and for all. Freedom is a highly acclaimed and at the same time, always an endangered good.
The Hebrew Bible and the New Testament tell us that God continues to go with us - into the desert, through the desert and into the land - and also beyond the land. He accompanies people through catastrophes, he shows mercy and brings peace and a new beginning where everything seems to have come to an end. He forgives where people have lost their way; gives life where death seems to have the last word. He leaves no one on their own. Even till today. That is why it is so important to stop. Moses recognised this.
I look around me. I connect with the people on the other side of the Jordan, in the desert, in the Valley of the Jordan. They are part of my story, and this story continues to this day - I am a part of it. Thankfully, I get up. God has led me to freedom. He leads me on, me with his people, to whom I also belong, to whom his Church belongs. We all belong to Him and are together on the road.