Another Night With the Frogs

Exodus 8:1-15

April 30, 2017 • Mount Pleasant UMC

This may come as a surprise to my family, but I have a streak of stubbornness in me. I know, I know, it’s shocking, but it’s true. But I get it honestly; it was inherited, a fact I saw very clearly when my Dad took me out to teach me how to drive. We had a 1977 Chevy Chevette, with a manual transmission (most of the kids here have no idea what that is). So Dad took me out to the country roads around Sedalia, of which they are many, and put me behind the wheel. Now, I had never driven anything in my life, but that didn’t stop me from thinking that I knew everything about how to do it. He showed me the clutch, the gas pedal and the brake pedal, but impatient me acted like I already knew what was what. I was ready to go while Dad was trying to tell me how to do certain things—like avoiding collisions. But I wasn’t having it. I knew it all, as we all tend to when we are teenagers. So Dad was giving instructions and I’m pretty sure I was shouting back that I knew what I was doing—stubbornness meeting stubbornness. I’m not sure how long we spent out on that road, but I’m pretty sure we didn’t make it much more than a mile when Dad took the car back over, drove me home, and signed me up for Driver’s Education. Someone else would have to put up with my stubbornness; he was done teaching me how to drive. And I can’t say that I blame him!

Sometimes stubbornness is an asset; it’s a good thing to have when you are standing up for your kids or your family or an issue that you are passionate about. There have been a lot of times when I have sat down with a family to plan a funeral and I’ll ask about some of the defining characteristics of their loved one and someone will say, “Well, they were stubborn—but in a good way.” Being stubborn in your beliefs can be good as well—as long as it doesn’t prevent you from seeing and experiencing what God wants you to see and experience. Stubbornness can be an asset—or it can push you away from God. It can even cause you to have to spend another night with a whole lot of frogs.

This morning, we’re looking at part of a much longer narrative from the life of Moses, and it may be a scene you’re familiar with from such movies as The Ten Commandments or The Prince of Egypt. A quick recap (if you read the suggested Scriptures this week, you’ll hit many of the highlights of Moses’ story): Moses was rescued from a genocidal Egyptian ruler and then raised in the palace by the daughter of that same ruler. When he was an adult, he killed an Egyptian and had to flee to the desert to escape a death sentence himself. After spending forty years as a shepherd, Moses found himself called by God to leave the desert, to return to Egypt to rescue the Hebrew people (his own people) from slavery. Because he grew up in the palace, he is uniquely suited to this task, as he would know how things work in the palace. Some speculate that the Pharaoh on the throne by the time Moses returns might well be someone Moses grew up in the palace with, a step-brother of sorts, though we don’t know for sure because the Bible only calls him “Pharaoh.” Whoever he is, Moses comes to him and tells him that the God of the universe demands that he release the Hebrew slaves so that they could “hold a festival” in the wilderness (5:1). Now, some say Moses is lying to Pharaoh here, because what he really intends to do is to take them away for good, but the language Moses uses here indicates a pilgrimage, a sacrifice, a change of masters. Going to the wilderness to worship God would mean that they were changing at the least from listening to Pharaoh to listening to God, and at the most, it would mean they were leaving behind the Egyptian gods as well. There’s more going on here than a vacation request and Pharaoh knew it; this is truly an exodus: a reorientation of life under a new master (cf. Oswalt, “Exodus,” Cornerstone Biblical Commentary, Vol. 1, pgs. 320, 341).

Of course, Pharaoh isn’t all that anxious to lose his status as master and lord to the Hebrew people. Nor is he all that anxious to lose his workforce. I can’t imagine it surprised anyone that Pharaoh didn’t just stamp Moses’ request “approved.” Instead, he challenges not only the authority of Moses but the authority of God. “Who is the Lord,” he asks, “that I should obey him and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord and I will not let Israel go” (5:2). And so begins the struggle of authority, a struggle which results in ten different plagues being visited on Egypt. All of the plagues are, in some sense, a show of power of the God of the Hebrews—the one true God—over the gods of Egypt. Egypt had all sorts of gods that ruled over various parts of creation—a god for the sun, a god for the water and so on; Moses comes along with a God who rules over everything, including these made-up gods of Egypt. The plagues were one way to demonstrate that truth in dramatic fashion, that the gods of Egypt were no gods at all. And perhaps we see that most dramatically in the plague of frogs.

The plagues come as a way not only to demonstrate God’s power but also because, as God tells Moses, “Pharaoh’s heart is unyielding” (7:14). Over and over again, we’re told that Pharaoh hardened his heart or that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart so that Pharaoh would not let the Hebrews go, and that is troubling—especially if it is God hardening Pharaoh’s heart. How could God demand something from Pharaoh that he is also preventing Pharaoh from doing? As with many of our misunderstandings of Scripture, the answer is found in the way the word is translated. In the original text, the word used in chapter 8, in the passage we read this morning, literally means that Pharaoh’s heart was “heavy.” The original readers would have understood that there’s a reference here to the Egyptian understanding of the afterlife. Egyptians believed that, when a person died, their heart would be weighed, and depending on the outcome of that test, they would either be ushered to the afterlife of happiness or they would be devoured. The heavier the heart, the greater the doom in the afterlife. So the writer is saying that Pharoah, by making his heart heavy, is sealing his fate in the afterlife (Walton, et. al., Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament, pg. 82). And when it says that God has hardened his heart, that’s just another way of saying the same thing. God “made his heart heavy” by sending the plagues, but it’s still Pharaoh’s choice that seals his fate because he is working against the living God.

So, in some sense, the plagues were an act of grace and mercy, giving Pharaoh a chance to turn back, to do the right thing, to choose to obey God. The first plague happens when Moses takes his staff and touches the Nile River, which then turns to blood. The Nile, then and now, is the lifeblood of Egypt. It runs the length of the country and it is the main source of water for humans, animals and crops. To have it turn to blood, even for a short time, would be a public health emergency. The author says, “The fish in the Nile died, and the river smelled so bad that the Egyptians could not drink its water” (7:21). Then, the most amazing thing happens next: Pharaoh’s magicians are able to do the same thing “by their secret arts” (7:22). Pharaoh assumes from this act that God’s power isn’t unique, but here’s the amazing piece to that: why would they want to do the same thing? If they really wanted to impress Pharaoh or prove their power, why didn’t they reverse the plague instead of making it worse?

The same thing happens with the second plague, which is the one we read about today and the story we want to focus on for the rest of our time this morning. Frogs come up out of the Nile, probably due to the water being uninhabitable, and they cover the land. They are everywhere—the author says they are in the bedrooms and on the people, in the ovens and kneading troughs. Frogs came up from everywhere, from the Nile, from ponds and streams and canals. Can you imagine, the entire land covered with frogs? And, once again, the magicians somehow make frogs appear as well. And, again, if I were Pharaoh, I would be saying, “Hey, don’t make more frogs appear. Make them disappear! You’re not helping here!” By the way, this is the last plague that the Egyptian magicians are able to duplicate—a fact for which Pharaoh was probably very grateful (Enns, NIV Application Commentary: Exodus, pg. 206)!

Ancient Egypt had a goddess named Heka or Heket—it’s spelled and pronounced several different ways. Heka had the head of a frog and the body of a woman and was mostly associated with childbirth. She was a fertility goddess, a goddess of life-giving power. She was said to assist in childbirth for Egyptian woman. In this plague, then, the source of life is quickly becoming a source of death. Just as the Nile was a source of life for Egypt, so the frog represented new life, and a life that lived in two worlds at once: water and land. This world and the next world. It’s almost like God is saying, “They want to worship a frog? I’ll give them more frogs than they can count!” What this plague boils down to is a contest between the God of the Hebrews—Yahweh—and one of the gods of the Egyptians—Heket (Oswalt 342; Dunnam, Communicator’s Commentary: Exodus, pg. 113; Enns 205). The question is whose God will still be standing when the day is out?

Here’s the answer to that question, in case you’re wondering: the God who created all things, who upholds and sustains all of creation each and every second—he is the one who always wins the battle. And we talk about other gods threatening to take Yahweh’s place in our lives, but honestly, it’s not the gods that are the problem. We’re the ones who often seek out other things to worship. We might not worship frogs or goddesses of childbirth. But we worship other things. We allow other things to catch our attention. Money, pleasure, power, a better job, another person, our own success, even a church building or our personal preferences in worship—any or all of these things can become gods that we worship, things or actions that become more important than the one true God. The way we live will demonstrate who it is we worship, or as one scholar puts it, “Our actions flow from who we are at our very core. And who we are is determined by whom we worship” (Enns 237). Put those other gods up against the one true God, and our small little gods will not be standing at the end of the day. There is only one outcome in this contest in Egypt: Yahweh will rescue his people, even if he has to overrun the land with frogs to do it.

So there are frogs everywhere. Frogs on the kitchen counter. Frogs on the seat when you go sit down. Frogs in the bathroom, frogs on the roof, frogs sitting on top of you while you watch TV. Egypt is a big country, and Exodus says frogs “covered the land.” I can’t even begin to imagine how many frogs that was. This plague, though, even more than the Nile turning to blood, gets Pharaoh’s attention. He calls Moses and his brother Aaron back to the palace and asks them to pray to God to take the frogs away. He even makes the promise that if the frogs go, he will allow the Hebrews to leave (though we know he’s lying). But Moses plays along and asks Pharaoh when he would like the frogs to leave. That’s a strange question, don’t you think? If he’s asking now, wouldn’t you think he means, “Now is when I would like the frogs to go away”? But Moses is wanting to make sure Pharaoh knows that the plague leaving is God’s work and not just a coincidence. It’s a little like the man I read about this week who was late to a meeting and drove into a full parking lot. He was not a particularly religious man, but he started praying anyway. “God,” he said, “if you find me a parking spot, I’ll go to church every week. I’ll never miss a Sunday.” Just then, a parking spot opened up, and the man quickly amended his prayer: “Never mind, God, I found one.” When Moses gives Pharaoh the option of setting the time for the frogs to leave, it’s to remove any question about the miraculous nature of the event (cf. Oswalt 343).

Now, I don’t know about you, but if I were Pharaoh, and there were frogs everywhere as far as I could see, my answer would be, “Right now. Make the frogs go away right now.” But that’s not Pharaoh’s answer. When Moses asks him to set a time, he says, “Tomorrow” (8:10). Wait, what? You seriously want another night with the frogs, Pharaoh? What is up with his response? Many commentators think Pharaoh is still playing games with Moses, trying to throw him off his game. He would have expected Pharaoh to say, “Right now,” so he says, “Tomorrow” because that’s unexpected. Besides, he might be thinking, if the frogs go away on their own overnight, he won’t have to abide by his promise to let the people go (not that he’s going to anyway). So by setting the time of “tomorrow,” Pharaoh’s trying to grab onto whatever little power he might still have left (Oswalt 343).

Tomorrow—another night with the frogs. You know, we’re not that different from Pharaoh because, given the choice, we will often choose another night with our own frogs. Not literal frogs, of course—I hope. Our “frogs” are the things that represent our disobedience to God, our determination to set our own course rather than following his plan and leading. We call those things “sin” in the church, though that word has fallen into disuse and ill repute in the larger world today. You may remember what I shared a couple of months ago, that the word for “sin” in the New Testament actually means “to miss the mark,” to aim toward a target or a goal and miss, sometimes widely. It’s an archery term, but we can think of it in other ways as well. Especially when we first moved to town, and sometimes still today, I use my GPS to get to places I’ve never been before. When I don’t know the area, and I’m trying to keep an eye on the road signs and the GPS at the same time, I often miss my turn. I can almost hear the audible sigh as Siri has to recalculate my route. Taking the wrong turn can end me up in places where I don’t want to be or didn’t plan to be—somewhere other than my goal. That’s what happens when we don’t follow God’s instruction, don’t listen to “God’s Positioning System,” and we choose our own route. We end up in a place we don’t want to be, never planned to be, and should not be—and that’s especially true when we insist on holding onto our “frogs,” our sins, those things that distract us from our relationship with God for “just another night.”

Pharaoh wants to keep the frogs around for one more night. So what are the “frogs” we prefer to keep around or hold onto? What are the things you know you should give up but can’t bring yourself to, the things that get in the way of your relationship with God? What are your “frogs”? I’m talking about the things we think of when we say, “Jesus, I’ll follow you and serve you, as long as you don’t make me give up…” What is it you would put at the end of that prayer? What is the sin we’re so familiar with that we don’t even notice it anymore? That’s your “frog.”

One of the important ministries here at Mount Pleasant is Celebrate Recovery, a group which faithfully helps folks find their way out of addictive lifestyles. We say it’s for those with hurts, habits and hang-ups, which pretty much covers all of us on some level. And Celebrate has helped so many people put their addictions behind them; many of you are here this morning because of that ministry. But there are untold number of others in our community for whom addiction is still a lifestyle; they can’t imagine what life might be like without the thing they are addicted to. The frightening thing is that the drugs that are available today have become more and more addictive, locking people into a life of endless using unless something or someone intervenes. Often, such an addiction leads to a life cut short. The number of deaths from heroin overdose recently surpassed the number of deaths by gun homicides in our country, and our community is not immune. Over Easter weekend, just two weeks ago, there were at least three heroin overdose deaths here in Vigo County. It’s called an addiction—whether with heroin or whatever it might be—because the body becomes dependent on the substance. I knew a man who had gotten mixed up with various kinds of drugs and felt he couldn’t get out. He believed he was trapped, so he tried to commit “death by cop.” He tried to get the police officers to kill him. When that failed, he spent time in prison and after he got out, he said he was clean. He claimed to have found Jesus, and for a while, the semblance of religion was enough. But it wasn’t long before he disappeared from church and fell back into his old ways. When will you give that up? Tomorrow, it’s always tomorrow.

Another “frog” that comes along might be called simply “pain.” By that, I mean the ways we allow ourselves to become defined by the pain that has happened in our lives. A woman was going to a counselor to deal with the abuse and struggles she had early on in her life. She had begun to make great progress, when suddenly one day, as her counselor was speaking, she backed away and shouted, “No!” The counselor asked her what was wrong, and this was her response: “I can’t give up my pain because if I do, I won’t know who I am anymore!” Even though it hurt, she had allowed herself to be defined by the pain, the hardship, the abuse. She was not who God had made her; she had become whatever her abuser had told her she was. When we allow ourselves to be defined by the hurts in our lives, the hurts become more important than the healing God offers. When will you give up that identity, that frog? When will you allow God’s grace and mercy to find you and heal you? Tomorrow. it’s always tomorrow.

For myself, I know the “frog” I most often hold onto is unforgiveness. When I’ve been hurt, it’s always been a struggle for me to let that go. I know many times when I’ve heard the call to forgive, even preached it to myself, and my response has been the same as the Pharaoh: “Tomorrow.” Another time. Not today. I’m still content to be angry, hurt. I still want to be angry! I’d like to think that, as a pastor, I’m always the most forgiving person in the room, but when I look in the mirror I know that’s not true. I find myself often praying, “God, I’m going to give you this unforgiveness, for the sake of my soul and for the sake of my relationship with you.” But that’s not my natural tendency; my natural self wants to always say, “Tomorrow.” It’s always tomorrow.

Maxie Dunnam, a great preacher in our tradition, once put it this way: “There are things that will bury us if we do not bury them—resentment, guilt, self-hatred, remorse, the constant need to prove, neurotic fear, self-condemnation. There are things within us that must die if we are going to live. There are things that would undo us, that would cripple us, that would make us less than persons.” Those are our “frogs,” so why do we think that tomorrow would be better than today to get rid of them? Why do we procrastinate? Why do we demand another night with the “frogs” when we could instead find freedom from the things that block or break our relationship with God? To hold onto our “frogs” is, in one way, invalidating everything that the cross and the empty tomb means. It’s ignoring the work Jesus did to bring about our salvation on Good Friday and to bring us eternal life on Easter. Remember again the words of our Covenant Prayer, the prayer we share at the beginning of each year: “Christ will be all in all or he will be nothing.” He will not share the throne of our hearts with anything else. Why do we insist on spending another night with the frogs when Jesus wants to give us freedom from guilt, freedom from hopelessness, freedom from the things that bind us? 

There’s another side to this matter, though, and that’s what happens the next morning. As the story goes, the frogs don’t simply hop back into the Nile when Moses asks God to remove them. The frogs all die where they are—in the houses, in the fields, in the courtyards, and (you’d have to assume) in the kitchens, in the bedrooms and in the bathrooms. Now there are dead frogs everywhere. And they begin to stink in the heat that is the Middle East. Exodus says, “They were piled into heaps, and the land reeked of them” (8:14). Sometimes, even when we get rid of the “frogs” in our lives, sometimes even when we’ve been delivered by God himself, there is still a “stink” around. There are still consequences, even when we walk away or run away from our sin, even when we know we’ve been forgiven. We have this idea that if I’m forgiven, I should be set free—but that’s not true. It’s not Biblical and it certainly doesn’t work that way in the world we live in, but that’s what Pharaoh thinks should happen. As soon as the challenge is over, he goes back on his promise. He doesn’t think he should have to “suffer the consequences of his actions” (or lose his work force) now that the crisis is averted. Yet, we know that often we do have to deal with the “stink” and the devastation that our choices have caused (cf. Oswalt 343). Sometimes that is lived out in legal ways, as there may yet be consequences to things we have done. Other times, and perhaps this is the more frequent one, it is lived out in relational ways, when we have to mend the fences we have broken by holding onto our “frogs.” Perhaps we have pushed people away, or hurt or abused them in pursuit of our sin. Maybe we have broken promises or in some other way harmed one of God’s dearly loved children. Dealing with the “stink” involves conversations that are meant to bring healing and wholeness. Those are difficult conversations to have, but they are necessary if we are to fully be frog-free and hope-filled.

Certainly that’s at least part of what Paul had in mind when he told the Romans, “Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone” (Romans 12:17-18). That little phrase, “as far as it depends on you,” is very important. Not everyone will be willing to believe that you are ready or able to walk away from your sin, or that you are truly repentant of the harm or hurt you have caused. But God calls us to do whatever we can to mend the relationships, to live at peace with him and with others, and leave the rest up to him. As far as it depends on you, love God and love one another. It comes back to what I said a little bit ago: our actions demonstrate who we are, and who we are is determined by who we worship. Do we worship the one, true God of love, compassion and mercy, or do we worship the “frogs” that hold us captive? Are we ready to embrace the grace of God or are we determined to spend one more night with the frogs?

This morning, when you entered the worship center, you discovered lots and lots of little frogs on the pews. When you leave this morning, I want you to find a frog and take it home as a reminder of this morning’s message, but also as a call to daily leave behind the “frogs,” the sins and broken pieces of your life for the sake of your relationship with God. Put your frog somewhere you will see it and use it as a unique call to prayer: “God, is there anything in my life right now I’m holding onto that I shouldn’t? What do I need to give up, here and now, to be able to follow you more faithfully?”

As we go to prayer this morning, whether you come forward to the steps or stay in your seat, I’m going to ask us to pray with our hands open on our laps as a symbol of our willingness to give up those things that hold us back, the things that we tend to grab onto but really stand in the way of our relationship with God. Open hands as a symbol of open hearts, open for whatever God wants to do right now, today, in our lives. Let’s pray and give God our “frogs.”