NRSDeuteronomy 26: 1-11
1When you have come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess, and you possess it, and settle in it, 2you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and you shall put it in a basket and go to the place that the Lord your God will choose as a dwelling for his name. 3You shall go to the priest who is in office at that time, and say to him, “Today I declare to the Lord your God that I have come into the land that the Lord swore to our ancestors to give us.” 4When the priest takes the basket from your hand and sets it down before the altar of the Lord your God, 5you shall make this response before the Lord your God: “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. 6When the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labor on us, 7we cried to the Lord, the God of our ancestors; the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. 8The 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;9 and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. 10So now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground that you, O Lord, have given me.” You shall set it down before the Lord your God and bow down before the Lord your God. 11Then you, together with the Levites and the aliens who reside among you, shall celebrate with all the bounty that the Lord your God has given to you and to your house.
May the blessing of the Lord rest and remain upon you always, for the sake of Jesus. Amen.
Today’s reading comes at the end of a long speech that Moses delivers in the book of Deuteronomy. At this point in the story of Israel, the people of God have not yet entered the Promised Land, but once they take possession of the land and have settled in, Moses commands that they are to make an offering of first fruits in thanksgiving for the blessing of the land. They are to go to “the place that the Lord your God will choose as a dwelling for his name,” meaning Jerusalem, and there present their first fruits to the priest as a declaration of their having taken possession of the land the Lord gave them. Once the priest takes the offering and places it before the Lord’s altar, the Israelite is to confess his faith in a creed that begins: “A wandering Aramaean,” meaning Jacob, “was my ancestor.” Remembering that Jacob was later renamed Israel, what follows is a recitation of Israel’s sacred story: chapter 1, The Sojourn in Egypt; chapter 2, The Oppression of the Pharaoh; chapter 3, The Lord Hears the Cry of Israel; chapter 4, The Exodus; chapter 5, The Entrance into the Promised Land; and the Conclusion, The Sharing of the Lord’s Blessings with the Levites and the Aliens of the Land.
Over fifty years ago the Old Testament theologian Gerhard von Rad hypothesized that this creed from Deuteronomy 26 was the ancient germ around which the traditions of Israel would come together in what we know today as the first five books of the Bible, the Pentateuch, or in Jewish practice, the Torah. Subsequent scholars have convincingly argued that this creed was probably not as old as von Rad originally thought, but the idea that this was and is a creedal formula is still a widely held assumption. But how is a recitation of historical memories a creed?
The creeds we’re most familiar with, the Apostles’ and Nicene, are more like statements of belief: “I believe in God the Father Almighty,” “I believe in Jesus Christ, the only Son,” “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the author and giver of life.” When we’ve studied these creeds in Sunday School, Confirmation, or Bible Study, we’ve normally approach them as a summary of doctrines that form the theological core of Christian faith. Even when the creeds take on a more story-like character, as when the Apostles’ Creed recounts the birth, life, and death of Jesus, we typically understand those events as articles of faith: I believe that Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary, that he suffered under Pontius Pilate, that he was crucified, died, and was buried, and on the third day rose again.
In Deuteronomy 26, though, the faithful Israelite is not being asked to believe that Jacob was his ancestor, or that Jacob went down to Egypt, or that the descendants of Jacob suffered oppression at the hands of the Pharaoh. Rather, faith here is not so much subscription to a set of beliefs, but instead the adoption of a story, Jacob’s story, as my story. For Israel, belief centers not so much on doctrines, but on identifying yourself with a story that continues to unfold in your own life. Faith means believing that I am part of the story that began with my wandering ancestor landing in Egypt, and that continues with my life being oppressed, and God hearing my cry, and God delivering me and bringing me to a land of milk and honey.
Every time I lead or participate in a Passover Seder, I’m always struck by that part of the service in which the worshipers confess that the Exodus was not just something that happened to their forebears many generations ago. They confess, instead, that they were saved by God’s mighty hand and outstretched arm, that they marched through the Red Sea, and that they then rejoiced with Moses, Miriam, and Aaron as they – together -- sang the Lord’s song, “The LORD is a warrior, the LORD is his name” (Exodus 15:3).
What if we approached the Apostles’ Creed in a similar way? What if instead of reciting the creed as a pile of beliefs to which we must sign on in order to be a Christian, what if we embraced the creed as our story? It is, after all, a magnificent story that mirrors the vast dramatic arc of the Bible itself, reaching all the way from creation to consummation, from beginning to end, from Alpha to Omega. What if we were to adopt the creed as the template, the pattern for understanding and living our own lives? What if we saw our own lives as the unfolding of the mysteries of God, marching in the footsteps Jesus, making our own exodus, passing through the waters of Baptism to take on our own crosses as we live toward the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting?
That’s a story worth living, and it’s a story that stands in stark contrast to the stories we’re sold every time we turn on a TV or open a magazine. The model life advertised in most media runs more or less like this: Get born; get educated; get a job; get a house, a car, a lifestyle; get married; get kids; get a bigger house, a better car, and a more luxurious lifestyle; get really happy; and then, quietly, peacefully, without any fuss or muss, get dead. Get, get, get, get, get, then get some more. That’s the life story that culture, market, and economy peddle to us every day of our lives, but is that the life we really want?
Some people trace their ancestry back to Ellis Island, or to the Mayflower, or all the way back to the old country, but my ancestor was a wandering Aramaean.
In the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
