Running Out of Manna

Joshua 5:9-12
Lent 4
March 27, 2022

William G. Carter  

The Lord said to Joshua, “Today I have rolled away from you the disgrace of Egypt.” And so that place is called Gilgal to this day.

While the Israelites were camped in Gilgal, they kept the Passover in the evening on the fourteenth day of the month in the plains of Jericho. On the day after the Passover, on that very day, they ate the produce of the land, unleavened cakes, and parched grain. The manna ceased on the day they ate the produce of the land, and the Israelites no longer had manna; they ate the crops of the land of Canaan that year.


For the season of Lent, we have been listening to the Old Testament readings from the lectionary. A recurring theme is life on the threshold. Life on the edge. Faith in the moment of transition. And few transitions can come close to this one – Israel is passing from forty years in the wilderness into the Promised Land.

That’s the context for today’s brief story. Moses led the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt. God opened the Red Sea, and Moses led them through it. After they walked through the sea on dry land, they came to the mountain where God would give them the Ten Commandments to guide their lives. But the journey didn’t go in a straight line.

Moses came down the mountain with the stone tablets, and the people forged their jewelry into a golden calf. They grumbled there was no food: why should God bring us out here to starve? They complained there was no water: why did God bring us out here to die of thirst. A journey that should have taken eleven days on foot took longer and longer.

And the final straw came as they sent a dozen spies into the Promised Land to check it out. They did a reconnaissance for forty days. Ten spies came back and complained, “Those people in the land are giants, and we look like grasshoppers,” while two faithful spies (Joshua and Caleb) said, “No, no, we’ve got this, and God will open the way.” The faithful report was rejected due to the people’s fear – with that, God blew a gasket.

The Lord may be slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, but there are limits. And God decreed, “You shall wander in the wilderness for forty years, one year for each day that the spies were in the land.” And so they wandered. This way and that, zigzagging, going in circles, parking here, going there. The sojourn continued until every last one on them died in the wilderness, apart from Joshua and Caleb. Even Moses died.

And after the passing of that entire generation, it was time to go where God had told them to go. That’s the condensed version of half of the book of Exodus, and most of Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Now, we’re in the book of Joshua, and Joshua understands what must happen.

He sends a couple of spies. They immediately go to the house of Rahab, who had a warm and generous heart, and they see whatever there is to see. They return and give their report. Joshua takes them to the edge of the river, the Jordan River. They camp there and spend some time in prayer. After that, he tells the priests to carry the big box with the Ten Commandments and put that at the head of the line.

When it’s time to cross the river, the priests who carry the Ark of the Covenant, the big box, they go first. The water parts once again. All the Israelites behind them cross over, walking on dry land.

But there’s still work to do. Joshua calls for representatives from each of the twelve tribes, saying, “Get twelve enormous stones to mark the place where we crossed over.” They do this. It’s an impressive moment, one that frightens the resident kings of that land.

But there’s still something to do. All the remaining men folk in Israel have been born in the last 40 years, except for Joshua and Caleb, and they haven’t been circumcised. So Joshua takes another week or so to get that done. You can’t be part of Israel without the mark of the covenant!

When everybody’s feeling better, that’s where our text begins. God says, “I have removed the disgrace of Egypt from all of you.” And the people of Israel celebrate the Passover. It’s a new passing over.

And that’s the moment when we hear something unusual. It’s almost a throwaway line. If we were in a hurry to get into the Promised Land, we would have rushed right by it. So let me pause to call you attention to a remarkable announcement in our text: “On that day, the manna ceased.”

The manna. What is it? You remember the tale. When the people first entered the wilderness, forty years before, they had no food. They grumbled, they complained. They belly-ached to Moses, “We have no food.” As if it was the job of Moses not only to lead them out of Egypt but to feed them too, all “600,000 men plus women and children.” (Exodus 12:37)

Even before Moses could whisper so much as a prayer, the Lord said, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you. There will be enough for all of you to eat. There will be so much that you can collect it all in six days and keep Sabbath on the seventh.” And it was so. The people saw it fall from heaven, and said, “What is it?” It was manna. For forty years, they have been eating bread from heaven. For forty years, God has provided for them.

Let me pause the story to say you and I know what this is like. God has provided for us, too. Look around – here we are. Not after forty, but for two. That has been difficult enough.

Some have left town. Some have changed jobs, quit working, or retired. Some have slipped away to heaven. Some of us have gone blonde. All of us have been shaken and changed. And here we are.

And these accounts of Jewish scripture can be helpful for us, if only to wrap our hearts and minds around what has happened to us. Israel understood their time in the wilderness as a time of testing. They discovered what they needed was different from what they wanted. There was a sifting of priorities, a clarification of what’s truly important and what’s not.

I remember the uncertainty, leading to waves of fear. Rather than celebrate an Easter dinner with our kids, we put Easter baskets on the front porch and waved to them as one by one they came to pick them up. We ate our way through the cupboard, only going to the store when absolutely necessary, putting on blue rubber gloves when we handed over money or received change. Never had to do that before, but we got through.

And I’ll never forget that one Sunday afternoon after nearly everything collapsed. My wife said, “Do you think we could drive out to pick up a pizza?” Sure, where do you want to go? She thought for a minute and said, “Grotto’s Pizza, Harvey’s Lake.” Could we go the long way? Took us an hour to get there, ordered a large pie with pepperoni, drove around the lake, picked it up, ate on paper plates in the car, and took three hours to get home -- by way of Montrose. It wasn’t exactly manna from heaven. Or maybe it was. And what else did we have to do?

How have you gotten through the past couple of years? Stop and remember. What has kept you going? What has sustained you? Where have you gotten help? How did you learn to receive help? What has bubbled up for you? How are you a different person? A better person? These are the Manna Questions. They are signs that God provides, even in the wilderness.

One of the resources for the journey came from a retired teacher by the name of Kitty O’Meara. Have you heard about her? She lives in a Wisconsin farmhouse with her husband and five (or six) rescue dogs. She wrote a poem that made the rounds, one of the few times I can say, “Thank God for the internet.” It’s titled, “In the Time of Pandemic,” and goes like this:

    And the people stayed home.

    And they listened, and read books, and rested, and exercised, and made art, and played games, and learned new ways of being, and were still.

    And the people healed.

    And, in the absence of people living in ignorant, dangerous, and heartless ways, the earth began to heal.

    And when the danger passed, and the people joined together again, they grieved their losses, and made new choices, and dreamed new images, and created new ways to live and heal the earth fully, as they had been healed.[1]

That’s from Kitty O’Meara, now dubbed the “poet laureate of the pandemic.” She says she stayed home, rediscovered poetry, shot photographs of the nature around her, rested, reflected, lived by grace. That was the manna, the Bread from Heaven.

No doubt we could add a few things to our resource lists: connecting with friends, writing letters, learning Zoom, Skype, and other technological gifts; eliminating unnecessary activity; discovering the public library; getting started on exercise; discovering that air pollution can evaporate if more of us stayed out of our cars; trimming down our over-booked schedules; learning anew that one of the ugliest words in our language is “busy.” You could add to that life because you’re here. It’s all manna from heaven, given to sustain, help, and heal.

And then the day comes when the “manna ceases.” It happened quietly, without a lot of fanfare, because it wasn’t needed any more. And everybody had moved along.

Please take note: none of this means we can go back to the way it was. Israel doesn’t need to go back to Egypt, neither do they wish to return to the wilderness. They have changed, and we have changed. We can’t go back.

In fact, Jana and I took a webinar last week to learn about Christian Education in a time like this. For me, the greatest takeaway was when the leader said, “When people in your church say, ‘let’s go back to 2019,’ you need to tell them the bridge is out.” There is no way back; only forward. And we can decide together what we carry with us, and what we will drop and leave behind.

“On that day, the manna ceased.” God still provides. But now it’s up to plant new gardens. We can do it, because God has gotten us here and this land is full of milk and honey. Now God smiles, and the transitional manna will be replaced by the vegetables we are planting.

And what’s that song we’ve been singing?

We've come this far by faith, leaning on the Lord,
trusting in the holy Word; God's never failed me yet.
O can't turn around; we've come this far by faith.
We've come this far by faith.

Thanks be to God, who gives us this day our daily bread.

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.  

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[1] See her blog at https://the-daily-round.com/2020/03/16/in-the-time-of-pandemic/

If God Plays Hide and Seek

Isaiah 55:1-9
Lent 3
March 20, 2022

William G. Carter

 

Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters;

and you that have no money, come, buy and eat!

Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. 

Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,

and your labor for that which does not satisfy?

Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. 

Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live.

 

I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David. 

See, I made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander for the peoples. 

See, you shall call nations that you do not know, and nations that do not know you shall run to you,

because of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you.

 

Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near; 

let the wicked forsake their way, and the unrighteous their thoughts;

let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them,

and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. 

 

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. 

For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways

and my thoughts than your thoughts.

I remember the day someone stopped by and dropped into a chair in my study. It was the middle of a workday. She had a responsible job. Without any interrogation from me, she started detailing all that was wrong with her job. The hours were long, the people were dedicated, the salary was rewarding. “I couldn’t put my daughter through college if I didn’t have that job,” she said. “I like the job but it’s killing me. I’m wearing a set of golden handcuffs.” Anybody know how that feels?

Or there’s that man with the flashy car, the fast car, the red convertible. And he dresses like he should drive a red convertible. His problem is relationships. He’s had a few, most didn’t last. Now married for fifteen years, he seems happy, but he says, “Something’s missing. She’s wonderful. We never fight. We love one another dearly.” He paused, and then he said it, “But I don’t think she or anybody else can provide all that I want. What’s wrong with me?” I listened, and thought quietly, “I’m not sure there’s anything wrong with you.” 

Somebody else confessed her problem with prayer. Raised in a Protestant home, circumscribed by clear rules, learned a lot of Bible verses, yet now she has a hard time praying. “I pray for my family, I pray for my friends, I pray for the world,” she confessed. “But it feels like I’m merely working through a checklist. Going through the motions. What is it that Jesus said? ‘Heaping up empty words.’” I knew exactly what she was saying.

Moments like these come to all of us. Since it’s the season of Lent, I suggest we pay attention to them. At heart, they are spiritual moments. They don’t take place in a church – they take place in our souls. If we are honest, we know why they can be so disturbing. We are waking up and discovering that the world as we know it is not enough. And that why such moments can be so profound.  

The job pays well and it’s wringing us dry. The heavily cultivated relationship doesn’t provide all we want. The practices of faith ring hollow. We know these situations – and they resonate with countless others. The candidate we elect turns out to be a disappointment. The investment scheme is a bust. The good friend betrays you. The new car turns out to be a lemon. Promised a successful medical treatment, we become the rare exception. The dream for the future is dashed. The preacher who seemed so well-spoken becomes a bore. And so on and so on. You have your list, I have mine.

If we are spiritually attentive, we discover more than disappointment and disillusion. We have a hunger for something that the world cannot satisfy. Call it God, or grace, or salvation, or happiness, or some sense of completion or contentment, whatever it is lies beyond our ability to acquire it.  

Like the composer of the book of Ecclesiastes, that wise sage who had it all – and discovered it wasn’t enough. According to legend, that was King Solomon, one of David’s sons. He prayed for wisdom and God granted the prayer. He had money, fame, and a big palace. He also had 700 wives and 300 girlfriends (1 Kings 11:3). For some reason, I don’t think he was satisfied. It probably wasn’t due to the statistics; rather, it was because he was a human being.

And so, we have this remarkable poem today in the 55^th chapter of Isaiah. The prophet addresses it to people on the verge of going home. Well, they’ve been told they were going home. Truth is, most of them were born in Babylon, and Babylon has become their home. Their parents and grandparents had been stolen from their homeland. They were Jews from the kingdom of Judah and were kidnapped and forced into slavery in the Babylonian empire.

That was seventy years before. Mom, Dad, and the grandparents were mostly gone. And Isaiah says, “It’s time to go home.” Well, all they know is Babylon. All they know is the Empire around them. Maybe they had heard the stories of Abram and Sarah, Isaac and Jacob, Joseph and Moses, but that was distant history. Just like the Bible stories that you and I have heard – they happened a long time ago in a land far away. And there is a disconnection between those old promises of faith and the land where they now reside.

So Isaiah the poet pokes his finger in that disconnection. “Anybody thirsty?” he asks. “Anybody want a free meal?” Oh, they can’t imagine such a thing. They’ve had to work for their food. The Empire has made sure of that. But there is a meal offered to all of you, free of charge. They can’t imagine what he’s talking about. After all, this is poetry that does not rhyme. You must work on it – or give it enough imaginative space to let it work on you.

Then the poet asks a single question to probe and puncture: Why do you spend your money on the things that do not satisfy? How did he know?

How did he know that you can go up and down the aisles of Target, fill your shopping cart with all kinds of goodies that you had not imagine you wanted until you walked into the store, and by the time you push that heap of purchases out to the car, you’re already regretting some of the things that you bought?  Buyer’s Remorse, they call it.

This happens regularly to me. We had a lot of firewood delivered before the winter. I couldn’t find my hatchet. Rather than look for it in the garage (where we found it last week), I saw an ad for a super-duper wood splitter. Looked great! You attach this wedge thing on your power drill, push it on a chunk of wood, it splits the thing wide open. “Honey,” I said, “wait till you see what I ordered!”

About three weeks later, it shows up. There’s Chinese lettering on the outside of the envelope, no return address. I rip it open. Somehow the super-duper wood splitter looks smaller than the advertisement. But I click it onto the power drill, and then discover I need to charge up the drill. A few hours later, I take it outside and give it a spin. I hit the button – zzzz – sounds good! Then I press it on a chunk of wood, and it gets stuck. Nothing happens. A few more attempts, nothing happens.

I wonder, “Why did I throw away $39.95?” That’s the best description of my spiritual life that I can offer. Or to put it in the words of the poet, “Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?”

Suddenly I understand why seventy percent of the Psalms of Israel are complaints: we invest ourselves in goods, situations, and structures which can never fill the gaping vacuum in our souls. Once again, we are forced to wait on God. To pray that God will provide what the goods and kindred of this world cannot.

There’s a grand old hymn that we don’t sing enough. Maybe it is just too honest. The first two stanzas go like this:

            
   Spirit of God, descend upon my heart;
   wean it from earth, through all its pulses move;
   Stoop to my weakness, mighty as thou art,
   and make me love thee as I ought to love.

And then the second verse grabs me by the shoulder:

   I ask no dream, no prophet ecstasies,
   no sudden rending of the veil of clay,
   No angel visitant, no opening skies,
   but take the dimness of my soul away.[1]

It’s this “dimness” that provokes us to reach for the things that can never satisfy. We spend money, we consume banquets, we glug down the wine. We flick through the channels and grumble how there’s nothing to watch. We start reading the novel, then flick to the last page to see how it ends. We pay for a gym membership and never go. We tell ourselves the next purchase will make us happy, or the next friend will settle our unsettled hearts. Same old human condition: spending ourselves on the things that cannot satisfy.

When he comments on Isaiah’s poem, scholar Walter Brueggemann warns those far from home about becoming enslaved to the enticements of the Empire. You have a covenant with God, a long-standing love with your Maker. Don’t give in to the hype and nonsense of a world obsessed with consuming you. That would be to fall into the “wicked way,” the “unrighteousness” warned against by the poet.

By contrast, the poem that we hear today is full of invitations. They are offered in the verbs: come, eat, listen, delight, incline, seek, call, return. Forget all that counterfeit bread. Chew on something that will sustain you. Drink deeply from the water of life. It’s free, and it can be found.

There’s a young man from Virginia who has left the comforts of home to travel the world. He’s on a three-year service trip, traveling by ship, mostly, and finding ways to serve others in whatever port he lands. I’ve been following his journey off and on. Recently I was quite taken by his summary of what he has learned: “What I love most in this world cannot be confined by it.”

Let that sink in for a minute. “What I love most in this world cannot be confined by it.” He doesn’t tell us what That is, but we might be able to guess. Especially if we, too, are sufficiently fed up with the Empire’s junk food that we will come, eat, listen, delight, incline, seek, call, and return.   

Remember that old hymn that I quoted? There is a third verse:

Hast thou not bid us love thee, God and King;

all, all thine own, soul, heart, and strength, and mind?
I see thy cross; there teach my heart to cling.
O let me seek thee, and O let me find!

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

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[1] George Croly, “Spirit of God, Descend Upon My Heart,” 1867. Public domain, found in many hymnals.

The Future is in the Stars

Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18
Lent 2
March 13, 2022

After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, “Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.”

But Abram said, “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” And Abram said, “You have given me no offspring, and so a slave born in my house is to be my heir.” But the word of the Lord came to him, “This man shall not be your heir; no one but your very own issue shall be your heir.” He brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your descendants be.” And he believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.


For nine years, I lived in the countryside of Newton Township. There was a bit more elbow room than the housing development where I now reside. The kids had a big yard to play in. The snowy squalls in March offered a sense of adventure. But the greatest gift of living out there was the night sky. My place was just far enough out that the city light didn’t pollute the view. On a clear night, you could see a billion stars.

Some arranged themselves in constellations, like Orion and the Little Dipper. Others sprayed across the sky in haphazard fashion. On a brisk, cloudless evening, the heavens were full of twinkling lights. And more than once, I remembered the promise to old Abram: "Look toward the heavens and count the stars; so shall your descendants be."

His future was in the stars. How appropriate! Look up to heaven to see what heaven has in store for you. Maybe you saw the Bible picture as a child. An old man leans out of a tent and looks up to countless points of light. The caption on the picture said, "Abram believed the promise of God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness." (Genesis 15:6).

Now, the caption could also read Romans 4:3, or Romans 4:22, or Galatians 3:6, or James 2:23, because the same verse shows up no less than four times in the Christian scriptures too. The New Testament claims this was the moment when faith was born. God made a promise and Abram believed it. The apostle Paul said this is the essence of faith. Martin Luther began a reformation by agreeing with him. "Abram believed the Lord, and the Lord counted it as righteousness."

This is what we mean when we say we are “justified through faith.” We trust in God, and that trust is what sets us straight and makes the relationship right. For people of faith, Father Abraham has been our good example of faith.

God said, "Abram, pack up your things. I'm sending you to a Promised Land that will be filled with your children, and I'll let you know when you get there." And Abraham booked the U-Haul, packed up, and got on the way. Faith responds by stepping out

A second time, God said, "Abram, I will make your offspring like the particles of sand. Can you count the grains sand?” Well, they’re in the desert where there’s a whole lot of sand. And God said, “That’s how many children you will have." So Abram built a holy altar. Faith responds by marking the promise as holy. (13:18)

Today we hear the promise a third time. God said, "Abram, I will spread your name around the world; your descendants shall number like the stars in the sky." And Abram believed the promise.

There’s only one small issue and you know what it is. God has been promising all these children, but they haven’t shown up yet. God has been promising a future, but the clock is ticking. God makes a grand, sweeping, enormous promise, but it still seems far off. God must have a lot more time on the divine hands than old Abram. Can you trust a God who keeps making promises that you cannot see?

This is the question where faith begins, and it lies at the heart of today's story. Before Abraham comes to belief, he must wrestle it through. God whispers to him as if he were a prophet, and says, "Don't be afraid; You have a big reward coming.” Abram, whose name means “father,” replies, "Lord, that's exceedingly kind of you, but what about that child you keep promising? My name is Abram, father, but there aren’t any kids yet. All I have is Eliezer, the house servant.”

That’s when God says, “Look at the stars. Count them if you can. That’s how many children you shall have.” Abram believes – and this is the point where the story becomes interesting.

Abram does something that a lot of people do. After he hears God’s promise, he takes the matter into his own hands. He has heard what God will do, so he does what he can to make it happen.

It begins with a suggestion from his wife. Sarah has heard this old man babble on about God's promise to make him a father. One day, she says, "Listen, Abe, I don't have what it takes to become a mother. We've been trying for four or five decades, but it just hasn't happened. Now, I have a servant girl named Hagar. She's an Egyptian, but that won't be an issue for a few hundred years.”

“So if this God of yours says you will be a father, and I can't be the mother, maybe you should stop by Hagar’s tent. If something happens, it would be like having a baby of my own."

Now, I remind you this is the Bible, and not a book about morality. The Bible collects stories about how people before us made their way through the world, not particularly different from today. So Abram, who has been promised to be a father, stops by Hagar’s tent. Next thing you know, she conceives and carries his child. She calls the little boy Ishmael.

That’s about the time that Sarah, Abram’s wife, discovers the difference between theory and practice. Just because something sounded like a good idea doesn't mean that it is. After an explosive conversation, Sarah says, “I want you to get that illegitimate kid of yours out of here." Hagar and little Ishmael are sent away.

This is a hard story for several reasons: unfair to Hagar, Ishmael is left out, Sarah realizes her costly mistake, and Abram, who forced himself to become a father in a round-about way, doesn’t have a son anymore. Even harder is the truth that whenever God makes a promise, it's up to God alone to keep that promise. Try as we might, we can't force God's hand. That’s not trust, but manipulation. And we must wait on God.

We’ve been through that, haven’t we? Two years of pandemic, some saying it wouldn’t amount to much, some of us getting sick, some of us fearing for our lives, some of us having to wade through foolish advice, making career shifts, hunkering down, worrying. A lot of us had the abiding sense that we would get through it; others throughout history survived a lot worse. But how long, O Lord? How long? Isn’t there something we can do to turn the clock ahead – not merely an hour, but a couple of years?

Like Abram and Sarah, we realize we can’t do anything. Just keep going, keep hanging on, keep trusting. As for our aging patriarch, the clock kept ticking. He turned ninety-nine, with his younger wife turning ninety. They have learned the hard way that they are powerless to create their own future. So imagine how they’re going to respond when a couple of angels stop by for a meal and announce their baby is coming.

Both bust a gut laughing. They simply don’t have any other alternative. It’s a hysterical laugh, a sad laugh, but it’s a laugh of improbable faith, too. I remember a comedian, a former rabbi, declaring that the serious business of comedy started with Abram and Sarah. Ninety-nine and ninety, informed that the baby is due - all they have is laughter. “Really, Lord? Are you serious? And good Lord, what if you are serious? Look how wrinkled we are!” Can we truly trust there’s a future? Really?

One of my preacher friends tells about a terrible drought on the island of Crete. The crops withered. The ground cracked open. The villagers were afraid. They asked the local priest, "What can we do?" The priest thought for a moment, and said, "Nothing will save us except a special prayer for rain. Go to your homes. Fast during the next week. Believe God will hear you and return to worship next Sunday for the special prayer for rain." The villagers did as they were told. They went home and began to fast.

The next Sunday came, the church bells rang, and all gathered at the church. The priest grew furious when he saw them. He said, "Go away. You didn’t obey. I will not lead the prayer for rain." "But Father," they protested, "we fasted, and we believed."

"Go away,” said the priest, “I will hear no more of this. None of you believe God will send the rain." "Father," they said, "how can you say that we do not believe?"

"Look at you," he replied. "You come to church, but none of you carry umbrellas."

See who gets the last laugh. For when the time was right, God gave Abraham and Sarah a little baby boy, a child of their own. He was delivered in the parking lot of the Senior Citizen Center. And they named him "Isaac," which means "Laughter." Every time they called his name, every time “Isaac” rolled from their tongues, they remembered God always has the last laugh, the God who never runs out of time.

Beyond all human effort, beyond all mortal limits, faith leaves us with a lengthy list of promises. "The law of God shall be written upon our hearts." That's a promise. "The meek shall inherit the earth." That's a promise, too. “You shall love the Lord, you shall love the neighbor” – we regard them as two commandments, but they are both promises. We shall love; it’s a promise.

The greatest promise is one that we hear at the greatest moments of extremity. "God shall be with us and wipe away every tear from our eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain shall be no more; and God shall make all things new." (Rev. 21:3-6)

A promise is only as good as the One who makes it. That’s why our story today ends with a strange ritual. Abraham believes; his belief makes him righteous, but he wants to know, "Lord, how can I be sure that you will do what you say?" Without offering a straight answer, God commands him to cut up some animals, and chase away the vultures.

When a deep and terrifying darkness descends upon Abraham, God himself draws near. It is a strange, eerie moment, one of the most mysterious of all scripture’s accounts. God comes “like a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch.” Yet the inexplicable scene has such a simple meaning: God comes. God is good for his promises. God will act regardless of our comprehension. God will finish what he has started. We testify to that truth together.

Someone told me Edmund Steimle, the great Lutheran preacher of the last century. He was a well-spoken, thoughtful interpreter of the faith. So wise, so compassionate, not afraid to face uncertainty. But I did not know that Steimle lost his wife on the Saturday before Easter. She woke up feeling poorly. It took a quick turn for the worse. By nightfall, she was gone.

When Easter Sunday, as much out of habit as numbness, Steimle went to worship in his church. There was a brass choir, a huge bank of flowers, and crowds of joyful people. They opened their hymnals, he said, and all around him, the people began to sing about resurrection.

"I tried to sing," he confessed, "but the words got stuck in my throat. People were singing about the power of God to raise the dead, and I didn't believe a word of it. I couldn't believe a word of it. Not then. Not in the shadow of my wife's death. I slammed my hymnal shut, and just stood there, arms at my side, not singing a word, tears streaming down my face."

"Suddenly it struck me: in that moment, I could not sing. But I was surrounded by people who could sing on my behalf. Even though I could not believe in the resurrection at that moment, they did. And they kept singing the hymns for me, until the time came when I could once again sing them for myself."

“Abram, Abram, go out and look at the night sky? Are you able to count the stars? The stars that I myself have set int the heavens?” That’s how many children you will have. Your future is in the stars.

And for the rest of us? "The day is coming when every tear shall be dried, and death shall be no more." Can you believe it? Yes, you can, because the promise is held in the One who holds the stars. He’s the only One who can keep it, the only One who can keep us.

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

My Past as an Alien

Deuteronomy 26:1-11
Lent 1
March 6, 2022

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, 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. 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.” When the priest takes the basket from your hand and sets it down before the altar of the Lord your God, 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. When the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labor on us, we cried to the Lord, the God of our ancestors; the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. 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; and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. 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. 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 have a question to ask. There is more than one answer, so I will ask it a few different times. Ready? Here is the question: how did you arrive here today? Someone will reply, “I drove along Abington Road, turned onto Grove Street, took another turn onto School Street, went down a few blocks, and found a space in the parking lot.” That’s a good answer.

But how did you arrive here today? Another person will say, “My mother was Baptist, my father was Roman Catholic. They compromised when they married and became United Methodists. I was baptized there, confirmed too, but wandered away after high school, until I met a Presbyterian. Neither of us went to church. When we married and moved to town, we brought our daughter to the Girl Scout troop. One Sunday, we decided to stop by, and we like it.” That’s another good answer.

May I ask the question again? How did you arrive here today? Somebody else will say, “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor. He wandered down to Egypt, lived there, worked there, and was enslaved there. When the Egyptians treated us harshly, we cried out to the Lord. God heard our cry and released us with an outstretched arm and a mighty hand. Then God brought us to this good land, flowing with milk and honey.” As we heard, that’s the answer from our text. It’s another good answer.

It is an old text, older than the book of Deuteronomy where it is first written down. Some scholars believe this is the oldest confession of faith in the Bible. In some form or another, people of faith have recited these words to declare what they believed and locate where they came from.

And it’s a reminder that, before faith is a list of rules, before religion concerns itself with how to hold your hands when you pray, it all begins with a story. At the heart of it all, there’s a story. It provides focus, purpose, and a shared history. Without the story, we are lost to chaos.

It’s like the moment that my friend Roger tells about going to hear a national figure at a community lecture series. He was looking forward to this wise and somewhat wacky sage offer his perspective on recent events. He particularly wanted his take on a national election that had been contentious. Alas, the great speaker spent most of his time complaining how the election had turned out. He droned on. Roger grew bored.

Then someone asked, “What was the problem?” The speaker blurted out, “We lost our narrative.” That is, we lost the story that holds us together, that gives us purpose, that directs what we do and what we value.

Not so the Jews: “A wandering Aramean was our ancestor.” That’s the first and oldest creed. In the beginning, was a wanderer. Not a home body, but a wanderer. A pilgrim. A risk-taker. Was it Abraham? Delightfully, it does not specify. And the wanderer became an alien, someone living far from home. Rootless, displaced, un-settled in the deepest possible way.

With that, the situation grew worse. The wanderer who became an alien became a slave. Captured and shackled to a stronger authority. There was suffering and abuse, deprivation and pain – until God turned, came near, and released the slave. And that would have been enough – except God also provided a new home. The wanderer - the alien, the slave - was given a home.

Now, that’s the story. It is THE Jewish story, the quintessential narrative that moves from wandering to nesting, from suffering to healing, from pain to redemption, all at the hand of God our savior. This is Israel’s faith. This was the faith of Jesus.

How did you arrive here today? You could recite the directions from home to the parking lot. Or you could unfold the narrative that brings you to this point. Chances are, it’s a larger story than any of us could summarize in a few words. But it speaks for us of what God has done, where we are now, and what God might be unfolding.

If we had the time this morning to give everybody the same attention, we would hear a whole lot of stories. Some of the themes would be the same: this is who we were, but this is what we are becoming. This is what we have endured, but this is how far we have come. At the heart of it all, this is what God has done. And the story is still going on.

This is Deuteronomy, which means “the second word.” No surprise that Deuteronomy is full of words. Here Moses gives some last-minute speeches before he steps out of the picture and the people of Israel cross into the Promised Land. He calls them to remember the Ten Commandments of God, declaring, “I gave them to you once in the Book of Exodus, and I’m going to give them to you again.” And he issues a warning: “When you enter the land of Milk and Honey, don’t get distracted by all the Milk and Honey; remember they are the gifts of God.” 

And the story beneath the words retells the memory of what God has done. We aren’t chained to Pharoah’s brick factory anymore. We are no longer confined to sphinx and pyramid. No longer restricted to the ceaseless drudgery of work. No longer wandering like an Aramean. No longer enslaved in the fleshpots of Egypt. The story for one has become the story of all. We have been claimed by the mercy of God.

This amazing story is one of both liberation and binding. God has come to free us in mercy and bind us by grace. The New Testament version puts it this way, “Once you were no people, now you are God’s people.” There is a decisive move from suffering to healing. And in one generation after another, we tell the story.

Some time back, on a Communion Sunday, a couple of teenagers were overheard talking about what they experienced. “I like it when we eat and drink in church,” said one. “Yeah, that’s pretty cool,” said the other, “but why does it take so long?”

What do you mean? “Well, they use such a little bitty piece of bread and a sip of juice, but then we hear all those words. Words and words and words.” The first teen thought for a minute, then said, “I think the preacher has to remind us what we’re eating.” Yes, that’s pretty good.

For the story sets the table. “And on the night he was betrayed, Jesus took bread, and blessed and broke it, and gave it to them, and said, ‘Take, eat, this is my body.’” That’s our story.

And before it was our story, it was the Passover story, a story so grand that the banquet can last three hours. There’s a whole lot of redemption to be remembered. The heart of it is this: “A wandering Aramean was our ancestor. He landed in Egypt, where he was enslaved, and God came to set him free.” This is what God has done. Don’t you remember? Because it’s our story too. We break the bread; we pour the cup. We remember.

But do not think for a minute that the journey was finished sometime long ago. The story also has a future. It is still unfolding, and to that we shall turn next week.

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

Repentance is a Dish Best Served Warm

Joel 2:1-2, 12-17
Ash Wednesday
March 2, 2022

Blow the trumpet in Zion; sound the alarm on my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming, it is near— a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness! Like blackness spread upon the mountains a great and powerful army comes; their like has never been from of old, nor will be again after them in ages to come.

Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; rend your hearts and not your clothing. Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing. Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him, a grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord, your God? Blow the trumpet in Zion; sanctify a fast; call a solemn assembly; gather the people. Sanctify the congregation; assemble the aged; gather the children, even infants at the breast. Let the bridegroom leave his room, and the bride her canopy. Between the vestibule and the altar let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep. Let them say, “Spare your people, O Lord, and do not make your heritage a mockery, a byword among the nations. Why should it be said among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’”

“Return to me,” says the Lord. “Return to me.” That’s the message tonight. We gather to pray and sing, listen and respond, all in the intent to make the journey back to God, who is both our source and destination. For those who wish, the sign of ashes will be offered, as a recognition of our mortality. Time is short, but the invitation stays ever before us. “Return to me.” 

And how shall we make that journey? That’s the concern for the prophet Joel. His land has been ravaged by a horde of locusts. The army of insects has mowed down the crops, adding insult to the famine across the land. The ecological disaster has gotten everybody’s attention. Is this the judgment of God? Are they being punished for something? Who can say?

Yet if there is to be a return to the Lord, it must be taken seriously. Nothing superficial will do.

In one of his stories, Garrison Keillor tells about the return of those who wandered away from Lake Wobegon. It was Christmas time, he says, and the exiles came home to their small town that doesn’t appear on any maps. One of them is Larry Sorenson, who he dubs, “Larry the Sad Boy.” He had been saved twelve times in the Lutheran church, an all-time record. Keillor goes on:

In the course of eight years, he threw himself weeping and contrite on God’s throne of grace on twelve separate occasions – and this in a Lutheran church that wasn’t evangelical, had no altar call, no organist playing “Just As I Am Without One Plea” while a choir hummed and a guy with shiny hair took hold of your heartstrings and played you like a cheap guitar – this is the Lutheran church, not a bunch of hillbillies – these are Scandinavians, and they repent in the same way that they sin: discretely, tastefully, at the proper time, and bring a Jell-o salad for afterward. Larry came forward weeping buckets and crumpled up at the communion rail, to the amazement of the minister, who had developed a dry sermon about stewardship, and who now had to put his arm around this limp soggy individual and pray with him and see if he had a ride home. Twelve times. Even (the) fundamentalists got tired of him. Granted, we’re born in original sin and are worthless and vile, but twelve conversions are too many. [1] 

He's got a good point. All of us are prone to wander from the Lord we love, but how many times do we wander back? And when is it mere play-acting?

Joel knows the time-honored rituals for repentance: fast from your meals and devote the time to prayer; grieve over your sins, mistakes, and miscues; gather with others for support and mutual devotion; and rip your clothing. This is the Jewish sign for mourning, an outward sign of the inner torn emotions.

This is where Joel pushes further. Don’t rip your clothes, rip your heart. Get to the essential center of the soul – in Jewish thinking, the heart – and open it completely. If change is to come, if repentance is to be real, it must come for the deep place where thought and action coincide. Otherwise we keep going though the motions and no return truly takes place.

Like Larry the Sad Boy, who kept repenting and repenting, and effected no change in his behavior. Keillor says, “He came up on Christmas and got drunk and knocked over the Christmas tree. That was before 2:00 p.m. He spent the next eight hours apologizing for it, and the penance was worse than the crime.”[2]

Perhaps old Larry didn’t understand the true character of God. He imagined a finger-wagging Deity, dishing out guilt and retribution. He was consumed by his own wretchedness, too immobilized to make a change. But the prophet Joel perceived a different Mystery at work. Reaching deeply into Israel’s greatest statement of faith, he declares God is “gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing.”

This is our hope, too, for we have seen God in the person and work of Jesus of Nazareth. His invitation persists, once, twice, a dozen times, a thousand times: “Return to me,” says the Lord, “with all your heart.” Your broken heart. Your cracked-open heart. Your defenseless heart. Your available heart. “Return to me.”

And let that return be congruent with our behavior, so that God knows we are serious.

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved. 

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[1] Garrison Keillor, “Exiles,” in Leaving Home, pp. 189-190

[2]Ibid.