Lenten Apocalyptic: Rending Our Hearts

Apocalypse is an unveiling, thus why the book of Revelation is called Revelation, and in some Bibles the Apocalypse of St. John. In a sense the book is to show what is underneath the events and happenings in this age that is passing away. This revealing of apocalypse removes an outer layer and opens up to view what has been covered over.

The second chapter of Joel calls for a tearing off of clothes and a tearing of the heart. This is in response to this terrible and unsettling geopolitical event of Joel's day, that Joel also identifies as the day of the Lord. The uncovering of this looming event as the Day of the Lord is to also bring about an opening of the hearts of the people of God.

This rending open of the heart as a response to apocalyptic is perhaps counterintuitive to how apocalyptic thinking is presented to us. Many "End Times" focused and/or obsessed Christians can seem to cover over their hearts within apocalyptic expectation and prediction. Their is an appearance of heartlessness in expecting, looking for, and basing political decisions and actions upon expectations of the end of the world being near.

But as I think about what I have studied and read in the Hebrew Prophets, and in my reading of the Apocalypse of John, this covering over and hardening of the heart to what happens in the world is not the only direction their words can be taken. Rather, I am coming to think that apocalyptic is supposed to lead us to repentance. This repentance based on hearts opened to the levels of meaning and the suffering in the world, uncovers the suffering and upheaval as itself a sign that something other needs to come, if not also the revelation of its coming.

At least a Lenten apocalyptic should be this. Fasting (of various kinds), alms giving, greater perseverance in prayer and meditation during Lent should lead us to large and small Apocalypse, and thus lead us to ever greater and deeper repentance. An apocalypse of our hearts, where our hearts are rent open to the world and its suffering and thus opened up to the nearness and approaching age to come, The Day of the Lord. Apocalypse (properly understood) then should make us a compassionate people without judgment, who identify with a failing world, and wish to bring what Good is here into the world to come, confident this is what God, the Good, is doing.

Uncover your hearts and see the coming of the Day of the Lord.

Lenten Apocalyptic

One of the Readings for this past Ash Wednesday was From Joel. Something about the urgency and upheaval Joel saw coming in the world and which Joel names as the Day of the Lord, struck a chord with the upheaval in the middle east the continuing strife and wrangling in our civic and political processes. I have been lead into a bit of Lenten apocalyptic. I was wrestling to articulate this Lenten unveiling in my Ash Wednesday Sermon Apocalyptic as seeing in the upheavals in our lives and the worlds as revelations, as those things that expose truth, and proclaiming the coming of the Day of the Lord. Thus leading to repentance and preparation to receive God's judgment and transformation, that is salvation.

I hesitate to say much more. There is a mystery here, there is something profoundly sacred and thus something that can be profaned. Apocalyptic, God's unveiling has been seen as God doing the destruction that reveals, and that brings the world to its big destructive end, like the lair of a villain whose finally been exposed. Like bond or the super hero those in the know somehow make it out of the imploding lair unscathed, but not so lucky are others. Though there is probably something to this image: the destruction of the villains lair is due to some flaw in the villain, or the plan or the operation of some device that brings everything crashing down. There is in our current state of affairs, what we might call this present age, or "The World" and in humanity a fatal flaw. We and the world aren't as we should be. This is the Christian story. this is why there is Ash Wednesday, Lent, Good Friday, and Easter.

The earth quake in Japan, in conjunction with so much else that is going on in these past several months in the world, held my attention as I thought of Joel's and the prophet's (like Amos) Day of the Lord and their poetic and prophetic utterances. In these confluence of astounding and devastating, and even hopeful but staggering events of recent months is there something to be uncovered, is something being opened up to us and are we to repent and open ourselves up to what is coming?

Reviewing this Lent on Holy Wednesday

I did not, as is perhaps obvious, post every day, though of the last 42 days I have posted 20 times. I am not sure I am closer to the answers I was looking for when I chose to use posting to this blog as a Lenten discipline. Also, I failed in my goal. Also, I haven't written much explicitly on my vocation. I began there, but then I seems that most of what I have ended up posting has been a practice of being a public intellectual in the sense that i recounted here, and which J.K.A Smith talks about in the introduction to his The Devil Reads Derrida.

In this sense I suppose I have become aware of a good bit: there are a number of people who I know outside the interwebs who read this blog and appreciate my POV on things, actually appreciate is not quite right, if I am interpreting their feedback correctly over this period of more frequent blogging. Well it seems that when I write I give a perspective either that helps them give articulation to things they have been mulling over but not been able to give full expression or a differing perspective they find of interest.

I think I have learned a great deal from the post on McLaren and the Emergent church, both about the potential of speaking but also concerning my own hesitancy to speak out on such things in this public forum. But, I also am learning the need to reflect openly about what may lie behind a position I take, that is I suppose to practice an "archeology of knowledge" on my self. Which I'd argue is what we do when we stop and tell the story of our beliefs, intellectual positions, and philosophies and theologies. Perhaps not surprising to some Derrida continues to be a helpful companion in this. Though, not really because of his conclusions he himself seemed to have come. And he may think that I am not as ruthless as one could towards Christian orthodox doctrines. Yet, I find him helpful even there where I know he came to other conclusions.

This all still feels a little over exposed especially after posting this on Sunday. I feel a bit of resistance to what this all might mean. I am not really comfortable with what seems to be this public role as part of my vocation.

Thirsting for Beauty

This past week has been kind of rough. Within three days of returning from my retreat at St Gregory's Abbey, I got sick, and was not all that functional for the next three days. In the illness and as I tried to make some sense of the Lectionary texts for the Fifth Sunday in Lent I found myself in a deep longing for things saturated with beauty and feeling that so little even that which purports to be beautiful is truly saturated in it. Mary's extravagant action of anointing Jesus' feet with very expensive perfume had me transfixed and the result of her action as described by John The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume." (John 12:3) In all my preparation for this sermon I tried to focus on Isaiah 43, or the Philippians passage, or both Isaiah and Philippians, but to no avail. This one verse describing Mary's astounding and seemingly incomprehensible act of extravagance wouldn't let me be. Mary just kept saying contemplate what I did there, take in the fragrance of Christs burial, take in the olfactory beauty.

Today as I was preparing for service and attempting to get some order to my thoughts for the sermon, I was astounded at how deeply I was longing for beauty and how despairing I was feeling that one could actually find things truly saturated with it. I was truly feeling a sense of a world devoid of beauty even as I reflected on things that I would usually think beautiful, or recent movies. It was quite troubling.

After service and weaving John 12:3 and Mary's action throughout a sermon in which I also touched on Isaiah 43 and Philipians 3:4-14, it occurred to me that this longing and desire for beauty to fill the world and feeling its absence, was a desert experience. Something to be expected to some degree in Lent, and in the midst of various forms of fasting and discipline. I am thirsty and hungry, as we are in the last stretch of Lent things are feeling a bit barren, I am finding this expressed in myself in this experience of a world devoid of beauty. So, we'll see what Holy Week and Easter bring. But until then I think I'll remain thirsting for beauty and finding a world devoid of it.

Lenten Retreat

Since I have been a pastor Lent has always felt to me like a time to take a personal spiritual retreat. Yet, Lent always seemed ill suited as well, as one is also preparing for Holy Week and Easter services and as a pastor I wanted to also provide places for Lenten reflection and studies. It was difficult to let myself get away. Last year I finally simply went ahead and did it. And I discovered that Lent was a very good time for me to go on retreat. It got a little hectic after I got back because I took it the week before Palm Sunday. So I have scheduled the retreat earlier in Lent and this is feeling good.

This will be the longest retreat I have taken, 4 days. There are many things I feel I need to wrestle with God about. Also, Kate is coming along as she did last time, but by taking a longer retreat I am able to go for about a day and a half a head of her, and so will have about a day to pray and think before she arrives which I feel will be good. We'll see.

I will be praying with the monks of St Gregory's Abbey, I find it is very restorative to immerse myself in the full cycle of prayer and their life, well as much as I can as a guest. I actually like to get up at 4 am when I am there, and those who know me, know that I am a night owl, so mornings usually not my favorite time of the day.

So I am going to be away from the interwebs for the next four days. I have a couple of posts that I have been working on the past two days, and I will schedule them to post while away so you will have something from me to think about while I am away.

Lent and Fasting

I don't remember much about the sermon this past Sunday. Reflected some about the meanings of wilderness and desert. Then took the three temptations of Jesus and attempted to show how they are at root common human temptations. Through those two things I hoped to present Lent as a boundary time, in which we can encounter ourselves and God, and not a time of self-denial for the sake of the feat of restraint and fasting. A colleague of mine and fellow Covenant pastor blogged about this to some degree. And a number of people have wondered about this taking on. Lent is so connected in peoples consciousness with giving something up for Lent, that we seem to not think of why it is that Lent is associated with giving up something.

Lent as I have said recently in more than one place and occasion is associated with giving small things up, because Lent is a fast. The giving up coffee or chocolate or meat for lent is a form of fast. Fasting and Lent are associated because fasting is also a sign of repentance, as well as a means to turn ones focus on prayer, away from satisfying bodily needs. What I take from all this is that Lent is to be a time when we stop and look at what has been dominating our lives and turn aside from those things that perhaps in only small ways have been distracting us or leading us away from God. Lent is a time of repentance, that a time set aside to recognize and in recognizing turn from ways of being that have gotten in the way of our call before God. Fasting tells us that even good and necessary things can so distract us, and that at times we need to turn aside from those things to focus and pray and repent.
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We aren't to give things up for the sake of giving things up as if taking things out of our diet or life automatically make us more spiritual or prepare us for being formed into the image of Christ. Though, God can certainly use even things poorly motivated. In the end Lent is a time to turn and return, to let go of ourselves into the embrace of God.

The weekend

Over the weekend the community had a room shuffle. We are preparing to have 7 people in the community house. The most we have ever had and we had hoped that we would already be in the second living space by now, but we are still awaiting some construction that has yet to be done before we move in. so 4 of the current six members were moving rooms so we will have room for the seventh person who has been away for the past 4 months. Until we can move into the second space, which hopefully will be soon. That took up Saturday and we are still working on finishing that up.

Before that it had been a full week, with Ash Wednesday and a number of appointments, so I was not able to work as much as I would have like on my sermon for Sunday. On Saturday morning I had no real idea what I was going to preaching on the first Sunday of Lent. But one thing about moving is that one can also rehearse lines of thought for a sermon, or so I discovered on Saturday. By Saturday afternoon I had realized that the core of what I was going to preach I had already written in Reconciler's bi-weekly e-newsletter.

If you think I had some time Saturday evening to work on the sermon you are mistaken as it was closing night for the Busch Fest and cast party and birthday celebration of the stage manager and props guy. We left there somewhat early but I was very tired, so we went right to bed when we came home.

Sunday then was spent getting the sermon together. And it did come together though not as well thought out as I'd have liked, but it did prompt some good discussion and a couple of conversations after the service. Sometimes I think that the less polished sermons invite more engagement, if I leave some holes in the presentation then people are able to fill in the blanks left. I perhaps need to think about that more and see if there are ways to achieve this even in a more polished sermon.

So given that weekend I did not post anything, as is obvious, and I think the demonstrates why. I really didn't have any energy to post anything here over the weekend.

Exposure: I'd much rather be waiting and watching in the shadows.

I already feel a bit exposed by this daily discipline. This already feels like I have walked into a place with no shade, where the sun beats down on the ground with unrelenting intensity. I should perhaps explain, since I don't have that many readers of this blog, to whom am I exposed, my wife asked? Though it is more the choosing to be out in the open. I have approached this blog much like I approach spending a night at a goth club. At a goth club if you arrive early say 11 pm you will find maybe one or two people on the dance floor most wandering and lurking at the edges of the dance floor, in the darkness away from the various lights of the dance floor. you'll greet anyone you know but you'll stand or sit on the edge, waiting, watching. The ideal goth club is one that has either a slight labyrinthine character whith seating away from the dance floor or plenty of seating near and around the dance floor but still in the shadows of the club, places where one can simply wait and watch. I am often among the few who will venture out on the dance floor, but only if I love to dance to this song, but then when the song is done, I'll go back to the edge of the dance floor and wait. Eventually on a good night soon the club will fill, and then suddenly it seems all these lurking Goths are on the dance floor together all having discovered that they just have to dance to this song if the DJ is good there will be several songs in a row that one dances to before returning to the edges to watch and wait in the shadows of the club.

This is something like how I have approached this blog (and I suppose my approach to the various social media of the interwebs as well): I may post something if some thought of event simply has captured my attention and wont let me go. But then It will be several days or even weeks before there is something else I must write about. But then there are periods where I will write a couple to several posts to this blog in a row, before going back into the shadows and wait and watch.

Perhaps now it is clear why this posting daily feels a bit like finding oneself in the desert sun exposed squinting wondering why I chose to leave the shelter of the dark and overgrown forest.

Lenten Spiritual Discipline and Vocation

Lent has begun and I am taking up blogging as a spiritual discipline, and am looking at blogging each day during Lent. Part of what I hope to do in taking up blogging is to unpack and explore why I have taken this up as a Lenten discipline. Part of this is that, as the subtitle of this blog indicates, at least a purpose of this blog is to explore my sense of vocation. As the Title of this blog indicates this vocation engages church and world in ways that are somewhat peculiar, or in the least not what is generally expected, the coincidence of pastor and goth, continue to surprise people and cause at least at first some discomfort. That I engage both the church and the goth scene and subculture simultaneously (along with other urban subcultures and scenes), creates a number of tensions, as well as fairly consistent puzzlement, admittedly even from myself on occasion.

I think I have found myself of late resisting aspects of the peculiarity of my vocation. I am perhaps seeking to avoid a certain public nature of my calling. As the Community of the Holy Trinity and Church of Jesus Christ, Reconciler have taken more form, the pressure of my pastoral ministry in both places has caused for a greater and greater desire for withdrawal. As I enter Lent oddly enough, I am suspecting that this desire for withdrawal is avoidance of the complex nature of my vocation and its public nature. Thus it seems that an appropriate Lenten discipline is not to withdraw (though I have planned a spiritual retreat in Lent) but to engage my vocation and to do so in this public space. this is at least in part seeking not only to explore my vocation but also to confront the temptations of this peculiar call.

I hope that this may be of some interest and perhaps even help to others, who perhaps find themselves in a matrix of communities and tensions between worlds in their call to serve Christ and the Church. And I ask for your prayers for me a sinner as I undertake this discipline of engagement. I also invite dialogue and conversation.

Inter-Religious dialoge

Church of Jesus Christ, Reconciler, Immanuel Lutheran Church and St. Elias Christian Church have come together to sponsor a Lenten Wednesday evening series, The Children of Abraham about inter-religious dialogs between Jews Muslims and Christians. Last night was the first in the series with our presenter was Dr. Michael Trice who oversees the ELCA's ecumenical and interfaith relationships. He talked about the state of inter-religious relations in the ELCA. But he was also talking about interfaith dialog that went beyond talking about differences in scriptures or belief, but also seeking to find places to meet around the problems in the world and our local communities. He was presenting inter-religious relations as coming together around issues that as religious communities we could work together on to find solutions.

To illustrate this he showed a video about the ELCA's Peace not walls campaign that was made in consultation with an inter-religious panel. Trice both wanted to show what the ELCA was doing around one issue that needs inter-religious cooperation the Israeli/Palestinian conflict but also wanted feedback from those in attendance some from the Ismaili Center in the Edgewater neighborhood of Chicago.

Michael Trice's emphasis was on working together on difficult issues. So inter-religious relations is about overcoming differences by working together on common areas of difficulty that we all agree need solutions or resolution. What I heard from those who attended and spoke up was agreement but wanting to lift up difference, to admit and deal with the difference- difference that may also mean conflict. Thrice seemed to have a primarily negative view of conflict, which is understandable I suppose because conflict seems to so easily lead to violence and prejudiced reactions. Thrice seemed to still be seeking that enlightenment common ground, only moving it from intellectual and philosophical realm to the realm of action and cooperation. Common ground is working together. A significant response to this view of difference was to ask why just the three religions and why was Thrice focusing on essentially Jewish, Muslim and Lutheran relations. There is significant differences within each of all three religions Muslim Jewish and Christian, and this hasn't begun to ask about other religions that don't fit under the rubric of "Abrahamic Religions". My own thought is why limit it to just the religious, why not cooperate with atheists and agnostics etc. What I heard in these questions was in speaking of "Abrahmic religions" or "faiths" there is an attempt to cover over the differences with a common or shared origin (at least claimed or believed) but that this emphasis does not lift up difference. Somehow if we are to work together it must not be by ignoring our differences, but understanding them and even perhaps living with the conflict that is probably implicit in those differences. The differences are significant and should not be ignored for some common ground that emphasizes similarity over difference.

Second Lenten Reflection

My Lenten reflections over at Holy Trinity's blog on the sayings of Brother Lawrence seem to be weekly in frequency. The next reflection is posted here.

Lenten Reflections

As part of my Lenten disciplines I have begun again to keep the minor hours of prayer in private meditation and prayer as the Rule of Holy Trinity recommends when one is at the house during those hours (as I have been most days recently and will probably be throughout Lent). In my meditation I decided to read some Brother Lawrence as my Lenten reading. I have also decided to posts reflections on that reading on Holy Trinity's blog. The first reflection is posted. Enjoy.

Sermon notes with Scriptures

As I noted in a previous post Tripp who was slated to preach at Reconciler on Sunday fell ill and I chose to take on the task of preparing and preaching a sermon at short notice. Needless to say I did not attempt to write a manuscript. The responce from most everyone in attendance last night was such that I thought there might be something to glean for people from the notes alongside the scripture texts that I took into the pulpit with me last night. So here it is I hope you enjoy. (LEK 2/26/2007

First Lent: The Language of our Identity

Monte and Journey, but were not on a journey, time will pass and we will find ourselves at Easter. “Journey” attempts to tell us something about Lent that is other than what Lent is. Lent is understood by what it is not!
One may say this is poetic or metaphoric language. Yet we speak not simply to be poetic, the art of Christian language of religious language is to hear the word of God by speaking otherwise. We come to our identity through affirming who we are not.

The language, or the way of speaking in our three texts is perhaps interesting in several ways:

Scripture and the experience of the people of God are used both to thwart and affirm God’s will.

Second words of scripture are used to identify ourselves with God through connecting what is said of Jesus Christ with a passage from the Hebrew Scriptures.
Lastly the people of God are told to identify themselves by what they are not, so they can be who they truly are.
God is described in ways that can seem contradictory to us.

The Word used to protect and to destroy.
Luke 4:1-13
4:1 Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness,
4:2 where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished.
The experience of God’s people wandering in the desert, Israel the Son of god. Manna and rock that brings watter.
4:3 The devil said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread."

Jesus is not being more wholistic in his use of scripture, in fact he in some sense uses a proof texts to combat an interpretation based on simile: Israel wandered in the derert you are Israel, the Son of God, this is appropriate for you to do as the Son of God. But Jesus here give priority to God, over his own experience. The devils words seek to affirm that God would relieve him of hunger in the desert, or allow him to do so. Jesus simply affirms dependence on God.

4:4 Jesus answered him, "It is written, 'One does not live by bread alone.'"

This is not an unwarranted conclusion from various texts in portions of the Hebrew Scriptures. Again here the devil is not quoting scripture but it is like the first temptation an extrapolation, perhaps even a contextualization an interpretation that could be.

4:5 Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world.
4:6 And the devil said to him, "To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please.
4:7 If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours."

One may say this is an easy retort, obvious, but the implication of the devils words are that this is the order God has given, that could be backed up by scripture. Note that Jesus does not seek to deny that the devil has this power, nor that god hasn’t so given to the devil the arena of political power in human affairs. Only that even if that’s true Scripture is still clear, one can only give oneself over to God and no one else. No one else has power over us in any ultimate sense. The Devils control is provisional as the devil recognizes

4:8 Jesus answered him, "It is written, 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.'"
4:9 Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here,
4:10 for it is written, 'He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you,'
4:11 and 'On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.'"

Here the Devil finally quotes from scripture, up until now there has only been allusion, in fact it is the quote from the psalm we prayed today

4:12 Jesus answered him, "It is said, 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'"
4:13 When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.

The Word identifies us in our words.
Romans 10:8b "The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart" (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim);
10:9 because if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
10:10 For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved.
10:11 The scripture says, "No one who believes in him will be put to shame."
10:12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him.
10:13 For, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved."

Salvation is to be identified by the Word of God. Christ Temptation in the desert is the beginning of our understanding of how to live by the words that come from the Mouth of God.

Speaking who we are not in agreement with God.
Deuteronomy 26:1-11
26:1 When you have come into the land that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess, and you possess it, and settle in it,
26:2 you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from the land that the LORD your God is giving you, and you shall put it in a basket and go to the place that the LORD your God will choose as a dwelling for his name.
26:3 You shall go to the priest who is in office at that time, and say to him, "Today I declare to the LORD your God that I have come into the land that the LORD swore to our ancestors to give us."
26:4 When the priest takes the basket from your hand and sets it down before the altar of the LORD your God,
26:5 you shall make this response before the LORD your God: "A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous.

So far what is spoken is expecte it is memory, this is in the past, but then the ritual changes, and for perpetuity this is spoken as if it is always the present, and the experience of those who are offering the first fruits.

26:6 When the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labor on us,
26:7 we cried to the LORD, the God of our ancestors; the LORD heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression.
26:8 The LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with a terrifying display of power, and with signs and wonders;
26:9 and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.
Then we return to the first person singular.
26:10 So now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground that you, O LORD, have given me." You shall set it down before the LORD your God and bow down before the LORD your God.
26:11 Then you, together with the Levites and the aliens who reside among you, shall celebrate with all the bounty that the LORD your God has given to you and to your house.

I and we know who we are by identifying with that which we are not. Lent is a journey to that place that transforms us into Christ. We are not Christ, and yet we are all little Christs, we are not the Son of God, but we are the children of God, may I say the Son’s of God.
God’s word identifies us and the world.

God and God’s Word as refuge, covering like a mother birds feathers
Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16
91:1 You who live in the shelter of the Most High, who abide in the shadow of the Almighty,
91:2 will say to the LORD, "My refuge and my fortress; my God, in whom I trust."
91:9 Because you have made the LORD your refuge, the Most High your dwelling place,
91:10 no evil shall befall you, no scourge come near your tent.
91:11 For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.
91:12 On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.
91:13 You will tread on the lion and the adder, the young lion and the serpent you will trample under foot.
91:14 Those who love me, I will deliver; I will protect those who know my name.
91:15 When they call to me, I will answer them; I will be with them in trouble, I will rescue them and honor them.
91:16 With long life I will satisfy them, and show them my salvation.

Yet what we find in this psalm are two images, one of the protective care of a bird for her young, the overshadowing is that protective sheltering care, which for the psalmist moves easily into militaristic conceptions of a fortress, and armies. We in our conceptualization divide the two.

Conclusion:
God is not a mother bird, but there is something of the way a mother bird protects her young that tells us about God.

The one offering the the first fruits off the land did not experience slavery in Egypt (not even the first Israelites to enter the land had known slavery in Egypt for that generation died wandering in the desert for 40 years) yet these agricultural free Israelites were to for perpetuity identify as slaves freed from slavery, they are who they are not, because it is this fact of beign freed from slavery in Egypt that is constitutive of who they are as the people of God, Israel.
Gods word identifies them in a particular way that is other than they are, This is a process of the Word being near to us through confession and faith, we are brought near to God, by being defined by the Word. Our identity comes from something other than ourselves, we speak words foreign to ourselves.

The problem comes though that this operation of the language of faith is not magical, it can be abused as Satan does in his temptation of jesus in the desert. This is why the tradition of the Church warns us away from trusting our experiences. The devil can cause us to make too much of our experience of God, our own sense of urgency and political expediency, our own confidence that our experience of God, should define our language and concepts about God.

My Sisters and Brothers, we are all here called out from who we are to be who we are not. We are here to be formed by the Word of God, we are not the measure of this But god is the measure. God is beyond our language and yet we must speak what God is not to learn who God is. We must conform ourselves to the revelation of God, be aware that some will abuse that very revelation in an attempt to enslave us. We in the end can also enslave ourselves if we give priority to our won experience and grasp to tightly to our identity.