What a long and difficult journey it had
been. The people were worn down,
exhausted. For years – generations,
even, going back many centuries – their lives have been marked by pain and
hardship, struggle and toil.
Slavery.
Warfare. A massive relocation to
a new land.
Finally, it appeared that the worst was
over. Future generations would have a
home to call their own, a land in which they could live in freedom.
But first, their leader – a man named Joshua – gave a speech which directed
the people’s attention back to their past.
According to Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase of scripture,
Joshua called together all the tribes of
Israel at Shechem. He called in the
elders, chiefs, judges, and officers…Then Joshua addressed all the people:
“This is what GOD, the God of Israel,
says: A long time ago your ancestors, Terah and his sons Abraham and Nahor, lived
to the east of the River Euphrates. They worshiped other gods. I took your ancestor Abraham from the far
side of The River. I led him all over the land of Isaac, Jacob, and Esau. I let Esau have the mountains of Seir as
home, but Jacob and his sons ended up in Egypt.
I sent Moses and Aaron.
I hit Egypt hard with plagues and then led you out of there. I brought your ancestors out of Egypt. You came to the sea, the Egyptians in hot
pursuit with chariots and cavalry, to the very edge of the Red Sea!
“Then they cried out for help…. [I] put a
cloud between you and the Egyptians and then let the sea loose on them. I drowned them.
“You watched the whole thing with your own
eyes, what I did to Egypt. And then you
lived in the wilderness for a long time.
I brought you to the country of the Amorites, who lived east of the
Jordan, and they fought you. But I
fought for you and you took their land.
I destroyed them for you. Then Balak son of Zippor made his
appearance. He was the king of
Moab. He got ready to fight Israel by
sending for Balaam son of Beor to come and curse you. But I wouldn’t listen to Balaam – he ended up
blessing you over and over! I saved you
from him.
“You then crossed the Jordan and came to
Jericho. The Jericho leaders ganged up
on you as well as the Amorites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hittites, Girgashites,
Hivites, and Jebusites, but I turned them over to you.
At this point Joshua then recites the words
we’ve already heard: “Therefore, revere
the LORD, and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Choose this day whom you will serve.”
And the people said, “We will serve the LORD
our God, who brought us and our ancestors up from the land of Egypt, out of the
house of slavery, and who did those great signs in our sight.”
This is a pivotal moment, the moment when a
wandering, nomadic, oppressed people become a powerful prosperous nation. Joshua’s speech – and the question he poses –
is important. I’m sure it would be easy
to just enter the land and build their new nation, forgetting all that had happened, the long, difficult journey from
which they had come. Perhaps there were
even those among them who wished to do just that: just forget the past, forget the hardship,
forget the sorrow. Surely there were
families who had lost members during the ordeal, young men in battle, old women
who found the journey to be too difficult, and infants who didn’t make it due
to the severe living conditions.
There was much sorrow, heartache, and
grief. There was not one among them
whose life had not been affected by tragedy in some way.
How does a person, a family, or a community
move forward while living with tragedy, sorrow & grief?
The question is not unique to the people of
Israel. In our own time, there are those
who have lived through tragedy and sorrow.
Millions endured the horrors of the
concentration camps during World War 2, while others faced their own horrors on
the battlefield of that, and many other wars.
Some still remember the grief and heartache of the Depression, while
others are experiencing their own stories of tragedy in the midst of the Great
Recession that began almost five years ago.
Other tragedies and sorrows are more
personal. In my own family, and in the
families of many people I’m close to, there are stories of illness and
death. There are stories of broken
relationships and divorce. There are
stories of hopes and dreams deferred or denied, stories of identity struggles,
stories of the difficult process of “coming out,” stories of “families”
stitched together from the torn fragments and pieces of other families that had
fallen apart.
I said last week that the story of King
Solomon is our story, that, in fact, we ARE Solomon, that his mistakes and his
triumphs, his gift of God-given wisdom and his ability to ignore it, all
belongs to us as well.
Today, I tell you that Joshua’s story, and
the story of the people of Israel, is our story. The pain of the past that is theirs, is also
ours. And Joshua’s speech – and the
people’s response – is a way of working through that grief and sorrow.
“Remember the God who brought you out of
Egypt.” Why? Why remember the God of the dark past? Why not the God of the bright future?
Because:
the God who brought them out of Egypt was the God who was with them, the
God who accompanied a homeless, nomadic people, a people without a home, a
people fleeing from the horrors of slavery.
It was this God who gave them hope while they were still in Egypt, and this
God who accompanied and guided them, never abandoning them, through the
wilderness.
The people of Israel are now in a land of
privilege. That makes it even more
important to remember where they have come from. As Otis Moss of Trinity United Church of
Christ in Chicago points out, “They have gone from being a landless, nomadic,
formerly enslaved people to a community of ‘landed,’ empowered, and budding
military power. The people of Israel are
no longer looked upon by the surrounding communities as insignificant, but they
are now perceived as a military threat and a growing economic force.”
“Remember the God who brought you out of
Egypt.”
The people among whom you now live have many
other gods, false gods, fairweather gods who dwell amidst prosperity and
wealth, gods who depend on good times; and when bad times come, these gods fade
away.
The God who brought you out of Egypt is not
that kind of God. This God was there for
you, even in the darkest moments of your past.
When death visited you, this God was there. When you lost everything, and even your
closest friends abandoned you, this God did not abandon you. When you wandered in the wilderness without a
home, lost, this God wandered with you.
When family relationships broke down, and you
wondered how you could go on, this God was there with you. When the hopes and dreams you had for your
life or for the life of a loved one fell apart and nothing was left, this God
did not abandon you. When you struggled
to figure out who you were, and accept who you are – and when others turned
their back on you because you didn’t fit their
image of who you should be – this God stayed with you. When your family quilt began to resemble a
ragtag quilt stitched together from torn, frayed, and mismatched pieces of
cloth, and no longer resembled the finely embroidered quilts of other families,
this God’s love surrounded you.
And so as you get back on your feet – as you
enter the land God has promised you – do not forget your past, and do not
forget the God who guided you and protected you. Do not forget the God who brought you out of
Egypt. Do not forget the God who wiped
your tears. Do not forget the God who
helped you find your way out of the darkness of despair and back to hope.
I mean, there are many other gods from which
you can choose. You can choose the god
of prosperity. You can choose the god of
wealth. You can choose the god that is
found through an endless pursuit and acquisition of material goods.
But these are fleeting gods. These are gods like the gods of the
Mesopotamians, gods who came with the blessings of spring rain, but who fled
when the rains stopped; gods who appeared when the crops were plentiful, but
who vanished during times of drought and famine.
“Remember the God who brought you out of
Egypt.” Remember the God who was with
you through all your trials. Remember
the values that got you through, and celebrate together, work together, and
strive for love and compassion in the future, because love and compassion is
what got you through the past.
Last week, we heard about King Solomon, who
achieved great prosperity and success.
In the process, the god he worshiped became a god of prosperity and
success; he forgot about the God of wisdom, the God of love, who was with him
even before he became king, even before he acquired prosperity and success.
So let us choose this day whom we will
serve. Let us remember the God of our
past as we look to our future. To quote
James Wheldon Johnson: let us sing a song full of the faith that the dark past
has taught us; let us sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought
us. Let us choose to serve the God who
has brought us thus far on the way, lest our feet stray from the places where
we have met God; lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, forget God.
Let us remember the God of our past as we
look to our future.
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