Yogi Berra, Making the Pitch, and Telling Stories

Parashat Sh’mot, Exodus 1:1–6:1

Rabbi Stuart Dauermann, Ahavat Zion Messianic Synagogue, Los Angeles

The Prophet Yogi Berra told us, “You can observe a lot by just watching.” Such sage advice! But it is true that we can learn a lot for our own lives by watching how our ancestors lived theirs.

That’s how it is with a cluster of verses from our parasha where Moshe meets with his brother whom he has not seen in forty years. The encounter is arranged by Adonai himself, and its details outline seven lessons in what it means to share our faith with others.

To learn those lessons, we must travel to Sinai.

Adonai said to Aharon, “Go into the desert to meet Moshe.” He went, met him at the mountain of God and kissed him. Moshe told him everything Adonai had said in sending him, including all the signs he had ordered him to perform. Then Moshe and Aharon went and gathered together all the leaders of the people of Isra’el. Aharon said everything Adonai had told Moshe, who then performed the signs for the people to see. The people believed; when they heard that Adonai had remembered the people of Isra’el and seen how they were oppressed, they bowed their heads and worshipped. (Exod 4:27–31)

What are our lessons in faith-sharing?

1. Faith-sharing happens within divinely-ordained encounters. God arranged the meeting between Moshe and Aharon. And we should be on the lookout for how God works in our lives to arrange situational set-ups where sharing our faith with others fits the occasion. We might share our faith out of some pervasive anxiety to do so. When we do, the encounter may not be about the one we’re sharing with but about our need to say something. But there are people around us whom God has ripened for our mutual encounter. We should pray for eyes to see and hearts to respond to the occasion.

2. Faith-sharing best occurs within a prior relationship, as demonstrated by Moshe and Aharon. These relationships may be with family or with friends. Sharing the knowledge of God is highly personal. Little positive and too much negative is accomplished through buttonholing strangers. Look at it this way: sharing the good news of Yeshua is an act of love, an intimate encounter. No matter what our intention, if we ignore this, our faith-sharing may come across not as an act of love, but as an assault. Not good.

3. But what is faith-sharing? At its root, it is telling stories, the story of Yeshua and the story of our life-renewing encounter with God through him. Patrick Henry Winston, head of the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at M.I.T., taught that what sets humans apart from all other mammals is our capacity to construct and tell stories. If storytelling is central to our humanity, shouldn’t we then share our faith with stories about Yeshua, who he is and what he has done? And shouldn’t we tell our friends stories of our own encounters with him? Yes, we should. That’s what Moshe does here with Aharon, and what he will do later, when he shares his faith with his father-in-law (Exod 18:8–9). Elie Wiesel said that God created people because he loves stories. We should show our love and God’s love to people by storytelling. It’s the human thing to do.

4. Faith-sharing includes demonstrating the power. People need more than a story. They need to know God is real. Moshe received from God an ability to do miraculous signs. This was a crucial aspect of the storytelling, because the One at the center of the story is a miracle-working God. We can see that this is so by considering the apostles. They lived with Yeshua as his story was unfolding, but that was not enough. When Yeshua asked Peter (Shim‘on Kefa) and the rest of the apostles who they thought he was, “Shim‘on Kefa answered, ‘You are the Mashiach, the Son of the living God.’ ‘Shim‘on Bar-Yochanan,’ Yeshua said to him, ‘how blessed you are! For no human being revealed this to you, no, it was my Father in heaven’” (Matt 16:16–17). Peter knew Yeshua’s developing story, but to come to faith in him, he needed more: he needed to experience the revelatory power of God. So will it be with our friends. This is why we simply must pray for God to show up in the mix, trusting that he can make himself real to the persons with whom we share.

5. This is a message to be passed down the line. When Moshe and Aharon spoke to the people of Israel, it was Aharon who relayed the story Moshe had told him. This is how faith-sharing happens. One person tells another who then tells others.

6. This good news fulfills ancient promises. The message Aharon passed on to the oppressed Israelites was no novelty. It was a confirmation of promises made to them long ago. This is why we must share the good news of Adonai’s saving work in Yeshua as something new, which is at the same time linked to ancient words and eternal purposes. It is no gimmick, but the flowering of eternity’s seeds.

7. Finally, the evidence that the good news we reported takes root in people’s hearts is not simply that they nod their heads in agreement, walk forward, or raise their hands. The evidence includes a new birth of worship that confirms that the Ruach is at work.

Almost sixty years ago, I participated in a panel discussion with the great J. I. Packer, who spoke indelible words I still remember. He said, “Don’t ask me to believe that a person who walks forward at a meeting is a Christian (or, in our terms, a Messianic believer). The evidence of being a child of God is that the person prays and worships God.”

We would do well to think about this, that the new birth is a new birth of worship. This comes from the seed of the word, embodied in the stories we tell.

Shim’on Kefa, Peter, of whom we spoke earlier, put it this way in one of his letters:

You have been born again not from some seed that will decay, but from one that cannot decay, through the living Word of God that lasts forever. For

all humanity is like grass,
all its glory is like a wildflower —
the grass withers, and the flower falls off;
but the Word of Adonai lasts forever.

Moreover, this Word is the Good News which has been proclaimed to you. (1 Peter 1:23–24)

Let’s go and tell some stories, sure that the God of Sinai goes with us.

Scripture references are from Complete Jewish Bible (CJB).