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Getting Your Feet Wet
Rev. Dave Kovalow-St.
John V
11/0/08 V
Joshua 3:7-17
I mentioned in the children’s sermon last
Sunday that Halloween did not start out as the black and orange costume
party we know today. The name “Halloween” comes from All Hallows Eve, and it
used to be importantly mainly as the night before All Hallows Day (now known
as All Saints Day). But lately, in the contest between remembering
saints and collecting candy – saints increasingly get the short end of the
stick. It’s hard for saints to compete.
And you know why. Remember when you first
heard about Halloween? Mom and Dad – who usually stood BETWEEN you and
candy – told you to go to all your neighbors and say the magic words (and
the magic words weren’t even please and thank you!). Oh, there were other
rules, but for free candy, we were willing to wear ANYTHING. Halloween is
great, and the week after, every kid in America gains ten pounds and walks
around on an all-day sugar high.
However, this year there is at least one
group of people even higher than all the kids on a sugar buzz. I’m talking
about the political pundits.
If you watch a lot of news you know our
country’s talking heads are just GIDDY gabbing about politics. I suspect
some of them may go into withdrawal soon now that the election is over, but
right now, they can’t stop interviewing the winners, the losers, the
possible cabinet members, the economic advisors (“Tell us again how the
incoming administration will respond to the crisis”) – when President-elect
Obama finally gets a dog, I’m sure that mutt will have interviews on all the
major networks.
And since Rev. Victoria had to look at gifts
last week (speaking of which, if you haven’t yet filled out a gift survey,
please do), I was torn between whether to focus on the Saints that
Halloween inadvertently causes us to leave behind, or on a Christian
perspective regarding last Tuesday’s election. Finally, I got enough
sugar in my system (‘cause there was a lot of candy left lying around) that
I was able to see some connections between the two, and ways to link them
with the lectionary reading we just heard from the book of Joshua.
Deuteronomy
Let me see if those connections work for you
or if they really were just the sugar talking. Joshua describes the
children of Israel after they’ve wandered forty years in the wilderness.
Scholars tell us that the people who put the book of Joshua together were
the same ones who wrote down what Moses said in Deuteronomy. And
Deuteronomy isn’t just the book right before Joshua, it’s a precursor to
Joshua; we need to read Joshua through the lens of Deuteronomy.
So let’s start with that.
The book of Deuteronomy is three long (LONG)
Mosaic sermons (next time you think I run long, be grateful: the children
of Israel probably felt like they spent 30 of their 40 wandering years just
listening to Moses preach at the end). In his sermons, Moses explains why
the people had to wander for so long. Here’s the reason: they disobeyed
God and, consequently, they were cursed.
Moses expands this into a broader theological
principle that animates not only the book of Deuteronomy but also Joshua,
Judges, 1st and 2nd Samuel, 1st and 2nd Kings, and some of the prophets.
That idea is this: as an act of love and
sheer grace (or unmerited favor) God made a covenant with Israel, freed them
from slavery, and promised to give them a land. This promise was NOT given
just to do something nice for an obscure bunch of Egyptian slaves. God made
(and fulfilled) this promise in order to give Israel a platform from which
to model how God wants all the people of the world to live. We are
to live a community in which…
n
People are loyal to one
another,
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People honor each other, and
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Everyone has enough food and
clothing and warmth because the “haves” share with the “have nots.”
God gave them the Ten Commandments and other
instructions to spell all this out and Deuteronomy 15 sums it all up this
way: “If there is anyone among you in need…do not be hard-hearted or
tight-fisted…. Rather open your hand willingly.” In other words…
(You ready? Here’s the first of the
“connections” I was talking about.)
…Moses, in Deuteronomy, is telling people to
act like saints.
Deuteronomy can be boiled down to this: if
you obey the commandments, you will be blessed; if you disobey, you will be
cursed. If you put God first and love your neighbors by opening your hand to
them, and do other things God says, you will be blessed.
If you do not, you will be cursed.
And that sounds right, doesn’t it? At
the very least, it sounds like it SHOULD be right. The only trouble is, all
of us know obedient people (loving people) whose lives are a mess, and we
also know disobedient people who manage to prosper even when all the rest of
us are watching our pensions disappear, mortgages skyrocket, and stocks
sink.
However, over the years I have come to
recognize an incredible truth. When I do what God wants, my finances may be
secure or they may be a house of cards, but I’m comfortable with the man in
the mirror. I have a sense of blessing; of moving with the currents that
lead to life. But when I go against God’s purposes, even if I end up with
money or recognition, down deep I feel like I have let down God and myself –
it’s the opposite of feeling blessed.
Joshua
Anyway, that’s Deuteronomy, the prelude to
Joshua. The Book of Joshua finds us with the children of Israel on the east
bank of the River Jordan. They have served their time in wilderness for
disobedience; now they’re ready to walk into the Promised Land. Joshua may
even have T-shirts for them saying, “Obey and Be Blessed; Walk on In.” But
before the walk begins, he instructs the priests to go first, carrying the
Ark of the Covenant—symbol par excellence of the presence, promise, and
power of God. The people are to follow the ark across the river and into the
Promised Land.
One problem though: it’s flood season; the
River Jordan is overflowing its banks. How are we going to get across?
Joshua says don’t worry about it: “When the feet of the priests touch the
edge of the river, the waters will be cut off.” In other words, for the
people to receive the land, the priests must step into the floodwaters while
carrying the heavy, cumbersome ark.
Now, the Jordan in flood was not like the
raging of the Mississippi in Iowa or the White River in Indiana last summer,
but if I were standing on the edge of a river that might be 10 or 15 feet
deep, and if I were carrying an ark, and it felt heavy, awkward, and tipsy
on my shoulders, I would be hesitant to step into a deep, fast-moving
current. Wouldn’t you?
Our Flood-Stage River
As I was writing this sermon, it seemed to me
that many aspects of our national, state and local lives are flooding, at
least figuratively speaking.
• The war in Iraq goes on, Afghanistan is
getting worse, Iran wants to go nuclear, Russia is feeling its oats, and
rebels are doing horrible things in the Congo.
• Unemployment figures are flirting with
record highs; the stock market is doing the same with record losses; and, as
if to illustrate the point, this week we learned America’s automobile
industry is doing so bad that, in the last year, Mattel’s “Matchbox Cars”
made more profits than all three of our major automobile makers put
together!
• Food pantries around the country report a
40% average rise in their number of clients compared to a year ago; and the
general church budget we will vote on at next week’s congregational meeting
reflects all kinds of cuts made necessary by our stewardship team’s
insistence on being financially responsible.
That sounds to me like a world moving in the
direction of curse.
HOWEVER…this is where All Saints Day, and the
election, and our reading from Joshua come together. God has given us a
vision of community in which everyone can be blessed. We may stand on the
edge of a flooding River Jordan, but have the vision; we have the ark, …we
just need to step out in faith if we’re going to make it to the Promised
Land.
Are you ready? Are you ready to put your
feet in the Jordan? Are you ready to do what God asks to cross through the
flood into the place of blessing? For that matter, are you ready to trust
God’s promise that BLESSING is where our journey ultimately leads?
The imagery of All Saints Day does two things
to help us answer that question. First, it reminds us of the people who have
gone before us and put their feet into the river and found God to be
trustworthy. Second, All Saints is an implicit invitation to follow their
lead.
The theologians behind Deuteronomy and Joshua
are not at all shy about getting in our faces about this. They tell us: we
can obey and follow God’s vision for human community towards blessing. Or,
we can disobey (we can continue in idolatry and violence and disrespect and
economic policies that leave too many people out) and we can expect the
curse to multiply.
Take last week’s election as a case in point.
Indiana went to Obama, but the margin was so incredibly thin it was
essentially a tie. I suspect this congregation was equally split. But that’s
all right. It’s all right for Christians to disagree on which strategy –
which party, which candidate – will better get us where God wants us.
The one thing we can not disagree on is that
God’s will is the only criterion that matters. If we voted on the basis of
anything less than: “Who is more likely to help our state, our county be
where God wants us to be,” then we were in essence saying, “Let the curse
multiply!”
God needed us to vote as Saints last Tuesday.
Having said that, Tuesday is already past. Regardless of whether or not
your guy won, there is a NEW Jordan River in front of us. Given what
happened, what are the steps we need to take now that will move is in the
direction of the Promised Land?
Communion and the Flood
Well, I don’t want to overdo this comparison.
The imagery of Joshua and the priests at the River is not a direct fit with
our situation. For starters, once they took that first step, the Israelites
passed through the flood on dry ground. I suspect you and I are going to
have to struggle with the flood a little more than that. (Swimming suits
would be handy; snorkels may be necessary.) But, like our ancient fathers
and mothers, if we trust God, we WILL get there, because God is with us and
God is trustworthy.
We may not carry an ark to represent that
truth, but we do have a loaf and a cup. They represent the presence of the
living God. We eat the bread; we drink the cup. The symbols enter into our
bodies so that wherever we go and whatever we do, we KNOW that God is with
us, leading us to the Promised Land. Surely that is enough to give us
confidence – confidence as a country, as individuals, as a church –
confidence to step into the Jordan; confidence to go where he tells us to
go. Amen.
V V V
HYMN
With that as prelude, it’s
time to prepare for offering and communion, which we’ll do with the hymn on
page 469. Please turn to 469 and join in singing verses 2, 3, and 4 of I
Am the Light of the World.
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