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Children can be pushy and selfish when it comes to activities they enjoy. Cries of “Me first!” fill the air. But when it comes to something new, or something a little scary, they hang back with a wait and see attitude. Younger children may hold on to a parent’s knee and press the side of their faces against a parent’s leg. No one likes to be first when the experience or outcome is uncertain.

Are adults any different? People prefer security to risk. Most everyone will choose the well- worn path. It is hard to imagine a more well-worn path than religion. Tradition, ritual, familiar sights, sounds, smells and stories convey a sense of security. If it is a little boring so what? Boring is safe.

The irony of faith, however, is that so many of the sights, sounds, smells and stories we encounter in the Bible are anything but safe. They have little to do with tradition, and everything to do with risk. Indeed, the safe, well-worn path requires no faith at all. Robotic, habitual repetition is all that is required.

How very different are stories of the Bible.

Paul taught his generation that the Lord no longer honored the ancient and traditional practice of circumcision. Instead of circumcision of the flesh, God was looking for circumcision of the heart. Instead of an outward sign of an ethnic association, the Lord wanted an inward embrace of new priorities and values.

The Lord gave Peter a vision of eating “unclean food,” the food of gentiles. He entered the home of a Roman Centurion – Cornelius -- and baptized his entire household. Throwing out the traditional menu, Peter embraced a whole new way of living out his faith.

The Bible is full of such stories of new experiences overturning old ways.

Jesus challenges the most traditional institution in Jerusalem when he turns over the tables of the money-changers in the temple. How will pilgrims buy their doves for sacrifice in the temple if they can’t exchange their idolatrous Roman coinage for Temple shekels? But then again, once Jesus’ “once-and-for --all” sacrifice on the cross is accomplished, the religious practice of the sacrifice fades quickly away.

King David rattled his generation when he moved the Ark of the Covenant from its traditional home in Shiloh to the very untraditional Jebusite city, Jerusalem. His son Solomon took an even more drastic step when he built a permanent home for the two stone tablets of Mt. Sinai in the first ever Temple of Jerusalem.

Faith grows not in following the well-worn path, but rather in stepping out into the deep water, or perhaps, as in today’s reading from Exodus, through the deep water.

After Moses led the people of Israel out of Egypt following the horrifying experience of Passover, the Egyptian army set out in hot pursuit of their fleeing slaves. With the sound of chariot wheels rumbling behind them, the Israelites came upon the Red Sea.

Moses strikes the water with his staff, and suddenly the sea parts, a clear path, the way of escape is open before them. No one had ever seen anything like this before. With walls of water rising on either side before them, one has to wonder. Is this really a way of escape? Or is it the final calamity?

What were the first words spoken among the Israelites standing before the pathway through sea? Was it, “Me first!” Or, “After you?”

Whichever words were spoken, one thing is certain. As is the case in all new experiences, faith led the way.