No longer slaves, the Israelites moved with dry feet away from the havoc in Egypt and into the quiet of the desert. Freedom and deliverance ­ yes ­ but at such a cost. Both Egypt and this wandering people had paid a price larger than they had expected.

Time had passed. The joy had been baked out of the journey. The movement of the ragged band of Israelites looked to many of them less like a triumphal march to the Promised Land and more like aimless wandering in a hot place without enough food and water.

Soon the Israelites were willing to trade their freedom for an onion, or a fish. The vividly remembered free meals of Egypt were beginning to look far better than the hunger they felt in the present. The vision of the Promised Land wavered like those dreams that pause at the cusp of sleep and wakefulness. The Israelites were restless in their journey. They longed to submerge again, to have creature comfort without effort and security without risk ­ even if it cost them the new life that was beginning to open in front of them.

Security is seductive. We long for it so much that we are willing to abandon our values and sacrifice the things that really matter in this life to gain creature comforts and the illusion of stability. Look at this straggling line of people standing listless in the desert sand. God, through the voice of a prophet, has called them out of Egypt yet they would rather be lead by melons than Moses. The Israelites think they want their old meals of garlic and leeks back again, even though they come with a big side dish of slavery.

Moses shakes his head. Moses shakes his fist ­ at God, at these childish, whining people, and at the strain he feels in his situation.

It must have felt to Moses as though he was tied to these people by the wrists and ankles. Moses must have felt like he was dragging this grumpy group through the sand behind him. He was the captain of a ship that had more anchors than crewmembers. "Full stream ahead," Moses would say, and someone or another would whine, throw themselves overboard, and generally impede the progress of the journey.

Moses wanted out. "Just kill me and get it over with," he suggested.
But God had other plans.

Have you noticed that God always has other plans?

God knows that Moses can't do it all by himself.

Of course Moses never was doing it all by himself, but he needed a reminder that he wasn't working alone. So God said "gather seventy elders." And then God filled them with some of his spirit and the meeting tent was full of spirit empowered leaders. But God is a god of abundance. Abundance means lots and lots ­ a full measure ­ pressed down, shaken, and then filled past overflowing. So not just the expected seventy in the tent filled up with the spirit, but two more ­and them out in the camp in front of God and everybody.

Things have a way of bubbling up.
And we can recognize God's spirit in the midst of it
if our eyes, minds and hearts are open.

Joshua wasn't very open. "Moses," he says, "make Eldad and Medad stop it." Joshua wanted Moses to clamp down on this outbreak of God, this undomesticated spirit that wouldnıt stay inside the tent. Someone much later would say "go into all the world and make disciples." Moses simply said, "would that all Godıs people were prophets."

A prophet is a conduit, a pipeline from the kingdom of God bringing living water into the desert of our hearts. A prophet brings the word of God to those who ask for bread and helps them see that manna is better than melons and freedom under God is costly but worth what ever we are asked to give, or to give up.

There are melons, leeks and garlic luring us in our age. The names change but the risk is real. Comfortable things that lull our hearts to sleep and invite us to fall into slavery surround us. God's desire is that his people make it to the Promised Land ­ all his people ­ and that all that we have and all that we are should be available to be pressed into service.

Some things are simply more valuable than others. Those who cast out evil or raise up good in the name of God are to be encouraged, even if they belong to another group. And we are warned not to make the way difficult for those who are beloved by God ­ the "little ones" of whom Jesus speaks ­ the poor, the old, the weak, the sick, the powerless and voiceless ones who live invisibly among us.

This is the sense behind Jesus' words in the Gospel according to Mark. In the vivid language about cutting off hands and feet or plucking out an eye, Jesus makes clear that the sacrifice of a part of our life is better than the loss of the whole. Better to give up a little something that we relish than to risk it all over things that are not ultimate.

One commentator remarked that "this week's gospel text confronts us with a kind of operatic force. Jesus uses exaggerated notions and actions to make his disciples face the gravity of what they have done. By rebuking the unknown man who offered healing and exorcism in Jesus' name, the disciples had stopped up a tributary of divine compassion from flowing to those in need. In response, Jesus offers his disciples some of his harshest, most demanding judgments on what believers should do in order to avoid committing such sins."

"The Jesus of love and mercy now uses images of force and fury to illustrate how deep his emotions run on this subject. Those who willfully erect 'stumbling blocks,' whose actions hinder the progress of 'little ones,' are declared better off at the bottom of the sea. Jesus' greatest anger, his darkest emotions, his bitterest tears were reserved for those who took advantage of the 'others,' the 'little ones' -- the poor, the weak, the young, the old, the sick, the outcast. Jesus did not try to curb his tongue when castigating those who took unfair advantage or practiced outright abuse against the 'others' and 'little ones' of the world."

We have done good things in this parish. But there is more to do.

There are deeds of power to do in the name of Christ far from the walls of this place.

We live in a time of unprecedented wealth in America. Collectively, we can afford more melons and leeks than were held in all of Egypt in the days of Moses.

But look at our country. There are many older Americans who cannot afford the medicines they need. There are young families with no health insurance. There are schools that are falling apart from lack of adequate funding. And there are little ones of all ages going hungry.

Turn on any radio or television and you will hear politicians of both major parties offering tasty tax cuts for you and for me. Have some more of the pie they say with a smile. Who wouldn't like a little more? But for most of us this is a case of the powerful offering aid to the comfortable. And the hope of luxury can be as strong a captor as the bonds of poverty.

The offers are tempting. But we need to listen hard to another voice.
For until we are all free, we are all still slaves in Egypt.

Last week we listened as Jesus set a child before the disciples. Jesus said, to the disciples, and to us, "Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me."

Listen now to the voice of one of Jesus' little ones. This is from an interview by Raymond Wheeler of CBS-TV with a sharecropper's child in Selma, Alabama:

Mr. Wheeler asked, "Do you eat breakfast before school?"
"Sometimes, sir. Sometimes I have peas," the child replied.
"And when you get to school, do you eat?"
"No, sir."
"Isn't there any food there?"
"Yes, sir."
"Why don't you have it?"
"I don't have the 35 cents."
"What do you do while the other children eat lunch?"
"I just sits there on the side." The child's voice cracked as he whispered the words.
"How do you feel when you see the other children eating?"
"I feel ashamed," said the child, and broke into tears.

I think that the wrong person is feeling ashamed. I think that there are millions of Christians in this country and yet our country is still full of sick and hungry little ones. What could be a greater stumbling block than a tacitly supported system that lets children go hungry, and leaves the sick without care?

God is calling us to move to motivations beyond the desire for more melons or the fear of millstones. In the spirit of the author of the letter of James: Let us submit ourselves therefore to God. If we resist the devil, he will flee from us. Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Let us be ready to put to the side those things that are not essential to life so that all might live more fully and, one day, together, we can cross the river into the land where love rules and God reigns.