God Taps #2 | “Wayward”

5:00 Balaam beat it to get it back on the road. Then the angel of the Lord stood in a narrow path through the vineyards with walls on both sides. When the donkey saw the angel of the Lord, it pressed close to the wall, crushing Balaam's foot against it. So he beat the donkey again. Then the angel of the Lord moved on ahead and stood in a narrow place where there was no room to turn, either to the right or to the left. When the donkey saw the angel of the Lord, it lay down under Balaam, and he was angry and beat it with his staff. Then the Lord opened the donkey's mouth, and it said to Balaam, What have I done to you to make you beat me these three times?

5:57 Balaam answered the donkey, You have made a fool of me. If only I had a sword in my hand, I would kill you right now. The donkey said to Balaam, Am I not your own donkey? Would you have always ridden to this day? Have I been in the habit of doing this to you? No, he said. Then the Lord opened Balaam's eyes, and he saw the angel of the Lord standing in the road with his sword drawn. so he bowed low and fell face down. The angel of the Lord asked him, Why have you beaten your donkey these three times? I have come here to oppose you, because your path is a reckless one before me. The donkey saw me and turned away from me these three times. If it had not turned away, I would certainly have killed you by now, but I would have spared it.

6:57 Balaam said to the angel of the Lord, I have sinned. I did not realize you were standing in the road to oppose me. Now if you are displeased, I will go back. The angel of the Lord said to Balaam, Go with the men, but speak only what I tell you. So Balaam went with Balaam's officials. This is the word of God for you, the people of God. Thanks be to God. Outstanding. And you thought the movie Shrek was the first appearance of a talking donkey. The story of Balaam and his unfortunate burrow reads like a Shakespearean comedy. All the elements of a raucous tale are here. We have a frightened king, a monarch, searching for a way to vanquish potential enemies.

7:56 This king dispatches henchmen with a few bags of gold to search for a wizard, a professional diviner known to be good with a curse. But there's a problem. This soothsayer, Balaam, is now taking direction from a deity who likes these people who have swarmed out of neighboring Egypt. In fact, after slipping off to confer with heaven, Balaam delivers bad news to the royal cronies. He's sorry, guys, he says, but God won't let me go. Now the king has been around the block a few times. He knows that when a prophet says, I can't come, it usually means try again, but next time bring more money. To get a good psychic, you need to pay a little more. So his royal highness sends more numerous and more distinguished officials, better negotiators with deeper pockets.

8:58 But even in front of these emissaries, Balaam stands firm. Houses full of silver and gold, he says, are not the issue. God's word is. And with that, Balaam again checks signals with God. And a good thing too, for this time, the Lord declares that the prophet can go. With one caveat, Balaam must follow divine instruction. jubilant the officials of moab depart to tell the king that his spiritual fixer is on the way his grace smiles on receiving the news it looks like the price is now right and the king will soon see his enemies cursed these negotiations set the scene for one of the zaniest scenes in the bible Now, Balaam, the prophet, while riding his donkey to the courts of Moab, runs smack into an angel of the Lord.

10:03 An irony of ironies. This is the joke here. The soothsayer, the guy who gets paid to look for signs of the divine, cannot see the angel, but his beast of burden can. As the curtain drops on our scene, it's clear that the true visionary in this text is not a king or a prophet, but a donkey. I hope you received a small donkey on your way in here today. If you didn't get one from the ushers on the way out, I hope that it will remind you of something that the Apostle Paul said to the Corinthians. God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. And maybe that's all this story has to say.

10:56 Maybe. Still, I keep coming back to the fact that God gives Balaam permission to go to Moab and then the next day God turns around and puts an angel in the prophet's path. Why? Did God's mind change? On second thought, you better not go to Moab. What's going on here? Why is God being so annoying? Why put an invisible angel in God's way, in Balaam's way? When you think about it, today's text offers us kind of a reverse of your typical biblical call story. God taps Balaam on the shoulder, but God doesn't say, I need you to do this thing. Instead, God cautions, I need you to not do this thing. When the king asks you to curse these people, don't accept. Don't be tempted by bags of gold to do something wrong, something harmful something awful God's instructions sound to me kind of like the Hippocratic oath you can go to Moab you can interact with the king but remember this priority number one is do no harm does God still tap people on the shoulder and say whoa for heaven's sake don't do that does God still plant angels in front of people who are about to do harm?

12:41 This morning I want to tell you the story of Roberto Mosquera. Roberto arrived in the United States in 1980, almost 50 years ago, as part of the Mariel Boatlift. Anybody here remember the Mariel Boatlift? A few of you do. In the face of grave economic conditions under Fidel Castro, private American citizens, many of them Cuban expatriates, brought more than 100,000 Cuban refugees to the U.S. This exodus was not officially sanctioned by the U.S. government. It was family members chartering boats to rescue other family members. One of the people who crossed to the U.S. at that time was a woman named Matilda del Parral.

13:40 Matilda was a political prisoner in Cuba. She had been jailed for refusing to attend local Communist Party meetings. So when the boat lift began, Matilda scooped up her daughter and her young son and got on a fishing boat bound for Miami. was Roberto's mother. Roberto Moschera grew up with his mom in Miami, although in his youth, Roberto made some bad decisions. He joined a gang and was later arrested for shooting a rival gang member in the leg. Roberto took a plea deal. Now typically somebody like Roberto who was charged with a shooting like this and who was not a U.S. citizen would have been deported for his crime, but we had no official relations with Cuba. And so the young man served his time in an American jail. And this is where Roberto's story charts a new course. While serving his sentence, Roberto Mascara became a born-again Christian. And after being paroled, he chose a new path. He went to trade school. He became a specialty plumber. He married. He now has four daughters who are American citizens. A little over a year ago, not this past summer, but the summer before, Roberto Mascara was on his way to a plumbing job when he was pulled over and arrested by ICE.

15:23 46 years after his mother brought him to this country to escape repression, Roberta was told that his time in the United States was over. ICE then placed Mascaro on a military transport plane and flew him to Eswatini. Now, if you don't know where Eswatini is, you're like me. I had to look it up. It is a small, landlocked country about the size of Connecticut in southern Africa. It used to be called Swaziland. The United States has paid the king of Eswatini an undisclosed amount to take and imprison deportees. With no due process, Roberto is now incarcerated in a country where he has no chance of parole and no access to legal counsel.

16:29 CBS News, The New York Times, Amnesty International have all run pieces on Roberto and Muscara. this past Friday. Just two days ago, a three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit unanimously ruled, unanimously ruled, that the Department of Homeland Security's policy of deporting people to third countries is unlawful. In their decision, the court remarked that this practice violates due process by failing to give migrants sufficient notice and a chance to contest deportations to places where they have never been and have no contacts and no rights. I imagine the next stop for this case will be the Supreme Court.

17:27 As you may be able to tell, Roberto's story has gotten under my skin. Maybe it's because this plumber from Miami is the same age as me. Maybe it's because this born-again Christian, who was a productive part of our society, was whisked away without any court procedure. Maybe it's because the United States is now engaged in disappearing people, in sending folk to gulags in countries where they've never stepped foot before. or maybe it's because of the story of Balaam. Let's take a look at the arc of this one one more time and see if it doesn't sound familiar. It starts with an anxious king, Balak.

18:25 Balak sees the Hebrew immigrants as a threat. He offers bags of gold if someone will come and curse them. And that's when God steps in and says, hold on. God taps Balaam on the shoulder and says, you shall not curse these people. So Balaam declines the offer. When the king asks a second time, God says, okay, you can go and talk with the king, but you must do only what I tell you to do. So Balaam saddles his mighty steed and that's when he runs smack dab into an angel. Why does God set up the angelic roadblock? Is the Almighty messing with the prophet? Don't go. Okay, go. No, wait. Here's how I read it. I think God senses something in Balaam. Maybe Balaam is weighing those bags of gold in his heart.

19:30 I mean, how bad can cursing one group of aliens be? Or maybe Balaam is not nearly as wise or perceptive as he claims to be. I mean, what sort of prophet cannot see an angel waving a flaming sword right in front of him? Or maybe Balaam is simply in a foul mood, a stop the floor, blame others for your problems mood. The passage actually supports all these theories with one harsh piece of evidence. Needing to get to Moab in a hurry, hustling to be the mouthpiece of a god, the prophet Balaam takes out his staff and beats his faithful companion. And this leads to a remarkable exchange.

20:24 What the heck? The donkey exclaims. I've been faithful to you for years. Jeepers, man, I'm trying to save your skin. At that moment, the invisible angel with her sharp sword pops into view. The angel makes God's beef clear. Why have you beaten your donkey these three times? I've come here to oppose you because your path is a reckless one before me. your path is a reckless one before me those feel like important words right now they remind us that to be called is to start on a journey it's not to arrive at a destination it's to begin being crafted by our creator it is not to receive God's unconditional stamp of approval the lesson at the heart of today's text is that God cares about how we pursue our callings.

21:36 This is true for us as individuals and it's true for us as a society. from time to time when talking with people at the church door back there after a service someone will say to me what can I do preacher what can I do to make a difference Janet Lures asked me that question just Friday night I typically reply in a broad manner. I often quote my friend, Reverend Tom R., and say, do the good that is yours to do. I like that phrase because I think Tom's phrase honors the unique calling that God has for each one of us. We're each placed in unique circumstances. We have unique work to do. And I'm going to be saying more about that kind of unique nature of our circumstances and our calling in future sermons, even next week.

22:37 But today, I want to make a specific request of you. About a month ago, I asked our outreach committee to review Roberto Mascara's story and to make recommendations on possible actions that this congregation might take. and all of you online might take to address the practice of secretive deportations of immigrants and asylum seekers without due process. After a prayerful study, our dedicated outreach committee has developed a concrete plan, and we now have a page on the website that was just put up. They have placed a desk in the back in the narthex, and they've got one up at coffee hour today, and you can go and talk to them to learn how you might play a part in this effort. Basically, we're asking you to, right now, start a letter-writing campaign.

23:38 The committee has drafted nonpartisan letters that you can send to members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and to the U.S. Ambassador to Eswatini. Those of you in our online campus who would like to participate can go to FAPC.org slash advocacy to learn more and to obtain the templates for these letters. My friends, I know you're busy people. I know you're juggling concerns of your own. I know you come at issues of immigration from different perspectives. It's a challenging time to figure out what to care about in this wide and wild world. So I do not make this ask of you lightly.

24:42 But I must confess that this is the question that this text has laid on my heart. Will you stand in the middle of the path and say, you shall not curse these people? Will you be an angel or perhaps a donkey in the way?