No doubt this is a gruesome passage for modern readers. The slaughter of unblemished lambs affronts our animal loving sensibilities. The directive to smear freshly drawn animal blood over and around an entryway is primitive to us. We scarcely are able to reconcile the words of Yahweh himself that he will pass through Egypt, presumably neighborhood by neighborhood, household by household, “striking down first born males.” The passage raises all kinds of moral and ethical questions, not the least of which is, “if God is love, how could he do such a thing?”

If you are among those for whom this imagery is a deal breaker, then please keep in mind: the Bible is not a history book. There is no archaeological evidence or textual record to support these claims. And anyway, historicity is not the point here. This is a passage about formation, and about how formation is fueled by hope.

Now, if you know me well, then you know that I’m a loyal fan of Beyoncé. Anytime I use the word “formation”, Beyoncé’s acclaimed 2016 Lemonade album starts playing in my head:

Okay, ladies, now let's get in formation
Prove to me you got some coordination
Okay, ladies, now let’s get in formation
I slay, I slay, I slay, I slay…

Okay, Beyoncé, if you are listening, forgive my corruption of your work. I love you. The rest of you, if you’re not familiar, feel free to look it up. Lewd and pulsating, it’s an invitation to women – particularly Black women, who still today are experiencing huge economic disparity in the workplace – to work together in formation so they can live more fully into their humanity, their power, their giftedness, and their authority.

And that right there, friends, is the book of Exodus. The people are invited into formation so they can live more fully into their humanity, their power, their giftedness, and their authority. The book begins with the trans-formation of Moses from an isolated, fearful herdsman into a leader of national prominence. It concludes with the re-formation of an oppressed and depressed tribe of Jews into an expectant young Israelite nation.

As all of this is unfolding, the people learn how to hope again. Their new leader, Moses, has a new way of talking, and a new way of walking. He’s got a fresh sense of purpose and an inexhaustible energy. His mind is sharp, his resolve clear. His unshakable hope is helping his compatriots to feel hopeful and to get in formation. They too are developing a new way of talking and a new way of walking. The sky looks bluer to them now. The air smells a little fresher to them now. The horizon is brighter, and notwithstanding centuries of servitude and subjugation, they are preparing to see what the future holds.

On January 20th 1993, Dr. Maya Angelou recited her original poem On the Pulse of the Morning on the occasion of the presidential inauguration of Bill Clinton. I’m sharing an excerpt because it beautifully encompasses the heart and soul of the Exodus story.

A Rock, A River, A Tree—
Hosts to species long since departed,
Marked the mastodon,
The dinosaur, who left dried tokens
Of their sojourn here
On our planet floor,
Any broad alarm of their hastening doom
Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages.
But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully,
Come, you may stand upon my
Back and face your distant destiny,

Here, on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister’s eyes, and into
Your brother’s face, your country
And say simply
Very simply

With hope—
Good morning.

Hope is essential to formation.

So here’s where I’m gonna talk about my organization, The Justice Center for Sacred Theological Studies, historically known as Johnson C. Smith Theological Seminary.

I began my service to this organization in 2009 as its Interim Dean. At that time, we had 17 students. Total. Across three distinct class years (freshman, middler, and senior), we had 17 students total. I became President in April 2010, and in May, we graduated 10 of those 17 students. We had no new enrollees in the fall, so we began the 2010-11 academic year with seven students total.
Our circumstances were indicative of national trends in higher education, and particularly in theological education, where enrollment declines were experienced among most of the roughly 275 theological seminaries in the United States and Canada.

Our Board of Trustees, of course, was alarmed. After twenty-four months of conversation, study, and deliberation, our Board took a bold action. We disaffiliated from the consortium to which we had belonged for 45 years. And in doing so, we left behind all the marks of traditional seminary education: campus, faculty, library, accreditation, and degree-granting capacity.

That was 12 years ago, I still feel knots in my stomach when I talk about it!

Today, though, we are an online competency-based educational institution. We have a catalog of roughly 100 mini courses on a range of subjects from practical theology and biblical exegesis to quantum physics and human aging. Roughly 500 people are taking courses from us right now. About 1200 people receive our inspirational newsletter twice a month. And we have a growing social media following. Praise be to God. Hope did that. Hope fuels formation.

I’ve entitled this sermon “A New Earth and a New Heaven” as a nod to Revelation 21, which reads, “Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away.” I flip-flopped the sequence, putting earth ahead of heaven, because the sermon is based on Exodus, and Exodus is an earthy book. Moses is a herdsman by trade. The enslaved make bricks with ingredients from the earth. Later, these people take up an agrarian, nomadic lifestyle. There’s a lot of earthiness in there!

More importantly and more interestingly, there is an interplay in this book between its earthiness and cosmic activity. For instance, in Chapter 3, Moses sees a bush that’s burning; it’s aflame, but it’s not consumed by the flame. Moses goes to inspect, hears a voice that is not embodied in human form. It’s the cosmic, the great cosmic, I Am.

Then, there are the plagues which seemingly are conjured out of a cosmic energy designed to get Pharoah’s attention by interfering and harming the daily existence of his people. Then later, Moses raises a staff and somehow summons the cosmic energy required to part a sea. Then, still later when the Israelites are hungry, there’s manna from heaven.

Could it be that this interplay between earth and heaven, the terrestrial and the celestial, the cosmic and the material is where hope abides and true formation originates?

I’m taking up the study of physics in my old age, and one of the basic principles of physics is The Law of Conservation of Energy, which states that energy is neither created nor destroyed. It’s all connected. It is not one-directional, but multi-directional. It moves top to bottom, bottom to top, side to side, round and round, and in waves. It is from this interplay of energy that the universe and all that is in it originates.

Now you may be confused about where I’m going with this. If so, no worries. I’m confused, too. I live much of my life these days in a state of confusion. But here’s what I’m proposing.

Humans are embodied energy. As energetic beings, created in the image of God, we have the capacity to summon energy: cosmic energy; divine energy; earthly energy. Some would say that’s what prayer is. We have the capacity to summon and channel energy such that it forms or reforms our current existence. We have the capacity to direct cosmic energy toward our earthly reality so much that hope abounds and doesn’t abate. We can summon, and channel, and shape energy that liberates people from all forms of oppression. We can channel energy to overcome injustice, free ourselves from judgment, tame negativity, heal our minds and bodies from hurt and trauma and disease, build healthy relationships, see the Divine in every living being, end suffering and violence, ensure human flourishing for all, become more Christ-like, make new art, sing new songs, let go of archaic beliefs, see new visions, dream new dreams, develop sustainable practices and leave the earth more equitable, more just, move loving, and more beautiful than we found it.

If physicists are correct, that there is one finite amount of energy across the universe, that energy is neither created nor destroyed, that all energy is connected and connects everything to everything else, then I have to wonder: if we make the Earth more amazing, are we making it so in the heavens, too?

Maybe this is what the apostle Paul was alluding to many centuries later when he wrote in his letter to the Ephesians, “For our struggle is not against enemies of flesh and blood but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in heavenly places.”

So again, friends, I have to wonder: if we make the Earth more amazing, are we making it so in the heavens, too?

Call me delusional, but as your preacher today, I’m beckoning each of us and all of us to participate in the making of a new existence, a healthier existence, a healthier Earth, and in turn, perhaps, even a new, healthier, better Heaven. Now: let’s get in formation.