Introduction
It's a formidable job to remember the world you create. There are so many distractions. A Mozart can remember his concertos and symphonies and masses, but we are not Mozart. A Tom Roberts can recall all the Heidelburg masterpieces he painted, but we are not Roberts. We can barely remember the notes we wrote to remind us of the things we have to do tomorrow. Even when we work on a task, we often forget the details weeks later. Imagine with me the creation of the world. Imagine making all the worlds and planets. Imagine making all the Yorkshire terriers and the lakes and golf courses and supernovas. Imagine placing people here and knowing them intimately. I'm tired already, aren't you?
God however is never tired. He never wearies. He that keeps Israel never slumbers nor sleeps. So says the Psalmist. (Psalm 121) And God who never tires, never forgets either. The tragic story by American playwright Tennesee Williams dramatizes a true story. It's very human to begin looking for something and then forget what you're looking for. Williams told a story of someone who forgot -- the story of Jacob Brodzky, a shy Russian Jew whose father owned a bookstore. The older Brodzky wanted his son to go to college. The boy, on the other hand, desired nothing but to marry Lila, his childhood sweetheart -- a French girl as effusive, vital, and ambitious as he was contemplative and retiring. A couple of months after young Brodzky went to college, his father fell ill and died. The son returned home, buried his father, and married his love. Then the couple moved into the apartment above the bookstore, and Brodzky took over its management. The life of books fit him perfectly, but it cramped her. She wanted more adventure -- and she found it, she thought, when she met an agent who praised her beautiful singing voice and enticed her to tour Europe with a vaudeville company. Brodzky was devastated. At their parting, he reached into his pocket and handed her the key to the front door of the bookstore. "You had better keep this," he told her, "because you will want it some day. Your love is not so much less than mine that you can get away from it. You will come back sometime, and I will be waiting." She kissed him and left.
Spoiler alert: She did return years later, and at the bookstore, she told him the true story of their love and marriage which she thought would bring him to himself. But he didn’t remember. Tennessee Williams's 1931 story "Something by Tolstoy" reminds me how easy it is to miss love when it comes. Either something so distracts us or we have so completely lost who we are and what we care about that we cannot recognize our heart's desire.
The Exodus story
God however will not forget as Brodzky did. He will not be distracted by other enterprises. He will love us and long for relationship with us. He will deal with things in His good time. God will still take His time, leaving us in Egypt yet another year. It reminds me of the story of Noah and the ark. Remember, the people of the known world had gone mad, and God had to bring judgment on them. He instructed Noah to build a boat which he began to do and according to the story took him 120 years to finish. All the while he was preaching. All the while he ached for humanity to join him in the ship. Even after the fulness of time had passed, there was yet one more week of patience, invitiation for people to join the Noah family in the rescue ship. But, alas, no one else would come. Here too, we see an apparently forgetful God who is being blamed for the troubles of the Jewish people there in Egypt. Moses joined the chorus of blamers in the last chapter. Now God answers and says He will never forget.
What did God say?
Listen, He affirms His own nature and His own promises. He says, " and I have remembered My covenant. ‘I am the LORD, and I will bring you out" You have His assurance that whatever He has said, He will do. And all the "I will" of God carries His guarantee. They are not constrained to our time periods. They are not ours to fulfill. They are up to God, and God will perform His promises. Do you believe this?
He reminds us again in the Exodus story of His being the God who is larger than an elephant, but who will never forget. "He remembers His covenant love to our ancestors," we say in the Amidah, and we name them. So it is here in the text that the genealogy of Moses and Aaron are listed, as God's reminder that He did not forget His promises, He will use the Levites, He will use whoever He wants to use.
Conclusion: What lessons do we learn from today's teaching?
1) What God says He will perform.... He will perform
2) Complaining to God will not change matters.
3) Genealogies are very important in the Jewish religion and thus a Messiah had to come from the right lineage. If someone comes as a candidate today, it's too late. Lineage records were destroyed over 1900 years ago.
4) The integrity of the promises of God are wrapped up in the name of God, Yahweh, who was, who is, and who is eternal.
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