“God’s Stop to Identity Theft”
Exodus 19:2-8
**A special note of thanks to the Rev. Dr. Reed Lessing at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, who offered the suggestion of "identity theft" as a hook for the sermon in the weekly "Lectionary at Lunch" podcast.**
INI
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
If you watch even an average amount of television, I’m sure you’ve seen the following commercial enough times that you know the words to the jingle. It’s a man in costume, strumming a guitar, and he sings (feel free to sing along): They say a man should always dress for the job he wants. So why am I dressed up like a pirate in this restaurant? It’s all because some hacker stole my identity! Now I’m down here every evening serving chowder and iced tea. Should’ve gone to freecreditreport.com! I should’ve seen this coming at me like an atom bomb. They monitor your credit and send you e-mail alerts, so you don’t wind up selling fish to tourists in t-shirts! As advertised, if you go to freecreditreport.com you can monitor your credit score and take action to protect yourself against “identity theft.” Today a person needs to be careful not to let anyone get hold of their Social Security number or their checking account number. If someone does, before you know it you’ve been charged for all expense paid trip to Tahiti, a new jet ski, plasma television, and all sorts of goodies that someone else is enjoying on your credit. “Identity theft”…someone else pretends to be you…so that being you is no longer such a wonderful thing!
The children of Israel understood “identity theft,” but of a different sort. The children of Israel were the children of promise…supposedly a great nation. But there’s nothing great about being a slave in Egypt, baking bricks so Pharaoh can build another pyramid! There’s nothing great about living in a land that is not your own and serving someone else under the crack of a whip. What God had promised to the children of Israel…and what they experienced in the land of Egypt were two vastly different things. Though they had been made children of promise through God’s words to Abraham…to Isaac…and to Jacob, here in Egypt they were children of servitude. Where was the promise God had made to his people?
That God delivered Israel out of Egypt with his servant Moses is as much as anything about God restoring their identity. The children of promise lost that identity in Egypt…had it stripped from them like the computer hacker with your Social Security number. God intervened in Egypt…he took matters into his own hands and reminded the children of Israel, as well as Pharaoh and the people of Egypt, who was in control of things. God runs the show. God turns the Nile River into blood…God sends darkness upon the land…God rains fire from the sky… God alone has the power to even take away the firstborn child of Pharaoh and anyone else who disobeys him. God alone has the power to rescue the children of Israel from Egypt and restore their identity.
Who then is Israel? God tells Israel exactly who they are in the words of our Old Testament lesson today. He brings them out of Egypt…through the Red Sea…and to the base of Mount Sinai. There he says to them through his human mouthpiece, Moses, “If you hear my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” God’s people are his treasured possession…meaning he values them more than anything else. They are the thing he guards most securely and would do anything to protect. They are favored…he gives them the best of everything. They are worth rescuing and protecting. In our LifeLight Bible study currently we’re studying the book of Judges. And one of the frustrating things about the book of Judges is how God’s people Israel continually fall into the old habit of sinning. Then when God allows their enemies to subdue them, they cry out for help and he delivers them. Over and over this happens. You can’t help but wonder why God goes to such lengths for them when they repeatedly disobey him! The answer is that they are his treasured possession. He will go to any length for them. He will show enduring patience and compassion. He delights in forgiving them and bringing them back to himself.
God’s people are also a “kingdom of priests.” Because of the scandal over the past several years in the Roman Catholic church, many people have a negative reaction to the term “priest.” But a “priest” is a “go-between.” A priest is an intermediary. In the Old Testament, the priests were the people who offered the sacrifices to God on behalf of the people. They were the people who were schooled in God’s Word in order to share it with the people. All of God’s people are priests in the sense that they are to be a go-between for God and mankind. God’s people are to pray for others…going to God on behalf of the people…and they are to share God’s Word with them…going to the people on behalf of God.
God’s people are also a “holy nation.” The word “holy” we usually think of as meaning “pure” or “perfect.” The word actually means “to be set apart.” Something that is holy is kept separate for a specific purpose. For example, our sanctuary here at Shepherd of the Lake is a place we regard as holy. When we have the church bazaar or a spaghetti dinner or some other event, we don’t do it in the sanctuary. The sanctuary is set apart. It’s used for the worship of God’s people. Our communion ware is something we regard as holy. We only use it for the distribution of the Lord’s Supper. We don’t take it into the fellowship hall after the service and hand out coffee and juice and serve donuts with it. It’s set apart. It has a unique purpose. The same can be said of God’s people. God’s people are different from the rest of the world. They are set apart. They are not to take into the wickedness and evil living that the world loves. They are not to befoul themselves with dirty language and acts of unrighteousness. God’s people are to be a living example of God’s love and faithfulness. They are to reach out in love and compassion with God’s Holy Gospel of forgiveness and new life.
When God reminded Israel of their identity…who they were as God’s people…they responded eagerly. “All that the Lord has spoken we will do.” Of course as history would reveal, they would disobey God’s Word before they even left Mount Sinai…very shortly they would make a golden calf and worship it as their “god.” Through their sinful acts, the people of Israel would reject their identity as God’s people. They would make themselves victims of identity theft through their disobedience. Paul’s words we heard today from Romans 5 say the same thing about you and me. It says that because of sin, you and I are enemies of God. Imagine that…sin not only separates us from God…it makes us his enemy. But God sends his Son Jesus Christ to reconcile us to God, and therefore Paul says, “We also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” Jesus reconciles us to God the Father. Through his death on the cross, he is our Priest. He is the sacrifice that sets us right with God…and he is the bearer of the Word that communicates God’s love to us. He is the go-between…the intermediary. It is in him that we find our identity as God’s people. We are restored as children of God.
And that means that this account of Israel being delivered out of the slavery of Egypt and brought to Mount Sinai to have their identity restored…well it’s really about you and me. In fact, St. Peter as much as tells us so when he writes…not to Old Testament Israel, but to the church…“You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” You…people of God here in this place this morning…you are a “priesthood.” You are a people called to tell the works of God to all people. You are called to show Jesus as the sacrifice for all mankind and to present his love to all you meet. You are a “holy nation.” You have been set apart as God’s people to be different than the world. You are to reflect the glory of God and the love he shows in Jesus Christ with your every act…every word…every thought. And of course…you are his “treasured possession.” You have been called out of the darkness of slavery to sin. You have been delivered. You have been brought to the mountain of God. You have been brought here to the place where God meets his people in Word and Sacrament and you God has told you, “You are my treasured possession. You are the people I will go any length for…and I’ve done that by giving my own Son to pay for your sins.”
Sin and its master, Satan, are the number one perpetrators of “identity theft.” They love to distract you from the wonderful reality of the Gospel and from the wonderful task we’ve been given to be “priests and a holy nation” by sharing the Word of God. But Jesus died to defeat sin and Satan and thereby restore your identity. In Christ, you are set apart to do the work of God. In Christ, you are to share that love he so freely gives. In Christ, you are God’s treasured possession. This is who you are…this is your identity as a child of God. Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
