Looking Towards the Promised Land

This is the last sermon in the series that I have been preaching on the Exodus experience and the wilderness wanderings of the Israelites. This morning, Moses stands on the top of the mountain looking over at the Promised Land. What was he thinking? And do we think the same things from time to time?

How do you suppose Moses felt as he stood on the top of Mount Nebo and saw the Promised Land off in the distance? It was so near, and yet so far! If he reached out his hand, he could almost feel the rich soil on the far side of the Jordan River. If he closed his eyes, he could almost taste the milk and honey that the land would provide. But he would only experience its blessings in his dreams.

Do you suppose he was resentful? After all, Moses had led the Israelites for 40 years through the wilderness – for most of his lifetime! – and now, when they had almost reached the end of their journey, he wasn’t going to be able to enjoy the fruits of his labor. We could understand if Moses resented that. Or he might have been relieved. 40 years is a long time to lead a big group of people through new territory and new experiences. It had been a very tough job. Just ask any parent how she feels when the last child has graduated from high school and the duties that come with being a band parent have finally disappeared! Oh, yes… it’s a relief! And Moses surely must have been happy for the people he had led for so long. Only a few more days, and they would take possession of the land they had been promised! That is certainly an occasion for joy!

Joy… resentment… relief… maybe Moses felt all of those emotions mixed together. But there’s one more emotion that I’m sure he felt: a deep sadness. Moses had probably imagined life in the Promised Land more than once. Little children would run and play in a place of their own, place that was safe. Their mothers would bake bread with wheat from their own fields, and their fathers would drink wine made with grapes from their own vineyards. The soil would be fertile, and the rain would be abundant. Even the luxuries of milk and honey would be available to everyone. But Moses would never experience that. He must have felt like an aged grandfather feels as he holds his first-born grandson. He can see in his dreams that child holding a son of his own; but he knows that he won’t live to see it. Joy for the blessings of the future mixed with the deep sadness that he will never experience those blessings: that must have been how Moses felt as he stood on Mount Nebo gazing at the Promised Land.

I feel a little bit like that every year during October when I’m planning that month’s worship services. October always begins with promise as we celebrate World Communion Sunday. My sermon for that day always emphasizes our unity in Christ, and the welcome that all Christians receive at the Lord’s Table. We sing music from around the world, and even the prayers come from other countries. The first Sunday in October is a joyous celebration of Christian unity! It offers a vision of all Christians joining together to serve Jesus Christ. How does the hymn “Onward Christian Soldiers” describe it? “One in hope and doctrine, one in charity.” That’s what I can see from the mountain top on the first Sunday in October.

But the last Sunday of October always yanks me back to reality. That day is Reformation Sunday. Many churches don’t celebrate Reformation Sunday, but those in the Reformed Tradition do – Presbyterians, for example, and many UCC churches. Reformation Sunday is the last Sunday in October, the Sunday just before October 31. On that day in 1517, Martin Luther posted a list of debate topics on the door of the church in Wittenberg, Germany. They were topics on which Luther disagreed with church officials. Luther only wanted to discuss these topics; but church officials threw him out of the church altogether because he dared to question Roman Catholic doctrine. And so, the Reformation began. It has that name because it was a movement to “reform” the church, which Luther believed was off on the wrong track about many, many things. But instead of reforming the Roman Catholic Church, Luther’s efforts led to a split in Christianity: Protestants went one way, and Roman Catholics went another. It has taken nearly 500 years for these two sections of Christianity to even talk to one another, let alone work together!

So much for the view of Christian unity that we can see from the mountain top. The reality is that we Christians have a long, long way to go before we are really united in ministry. We still throw one another out of the church now and then. More commonly, these days, we throw ourselves out! UCC congregations do that regularly if they take exception to a stand that the national church takes on an issue – they just leave the denomination. Methodists, Presbyterians, and Baptists do the very same thing! Almost every week I read of congregations withdrawing from a denomination because they don’t like the action of other people who are in it. “One in hope and doctrine, one in charity”? Not in our lifetimes! We get all wrapped up in who’s right and who’s wrong, and we forget that our goal is not to judge one another, but to serve Jesus Christ in the best way we can!

So, like Moses, I stand on the mountain top in October, and I can see what blessings might be realized if we would all work together. At the same time, I know that I’ll probably never experience those blessings. But in the midst of my sorrow, I can see signs of life in the Promised Land that are already starting to appear around us. They’re like the little snowbells that pop up in our gardens in January. Even though the world looks cold and dead, these little flowers remind us that spring is on the way. The signs of the Promised Land are like that, too. In the middle of the reality of church arguments and splits, and some Christians refusing to talk to others, these signs give me hope that one day, we might get where we’re going.

One sign is the history of our own denomination. 57 years ago, the Evangelical and Reformed churches joined with the Congregational Christian churches to form the United Church of Christ, because they were all convinced that they could do more together than they could do alone. Our denominational seal contains a phrase from one of Jesus’ prayers in the gospel of John: “That they may all be one.” Our ancestors dreamed of Christians uniting to serve Jesus Christ. After 57 years, we’re still trying to do that. Another sign is as close as the Milton-Union Council of Churches. The Council of Churches to which we belong is made up of a lot of different kinds of churches: Brethren churches and Nazarene Churches and Methodist churches as well as UCC churches. All of us believe a little differently and practice those beliefs a little differently; but we all join together to feed the hungry and clothe the naked. Ohio has a Council of Churches, too. There is a National Council of Churches, and even a World Council of Churches! We may not be one in doctrine, but some of us certainly try to be one in hope and one in charity! Finally, I take heart in the work of organizations such as Church World Service. Donations to One Great Hour of Sharing as well as proceeds from the CROP walk go to Church World Service. The mission of Church World Service is to “work… to eradicate hunger and poverty, and to promote peace and justice around the world.” It is active in over 30 countries, and works with 37 Christian denominations, as well as Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and members of the B’hai faith. Surely that is a sign of God’s kingdom springing up among us!

But most of all, I hope in the future that is in God’s hands alone. If we stand on the mountain top and look beyond even the dream of Christian unity in this world, we can catch a glimpse of a unity that will never be fulfilled in this life. It is a unity that joins Roman Catholic and Protestant, Russian Orthodox and Pentecostal, Quaker and Methodist and Baptist, all in one great hymn of praise and worship. It is the unity that will be realized around the table of Christ when time itself comes to a close, and all God’s people join in one final, grateful feast of fellowship. We’ll celebrate that unity next week when we celebrate All Saints’ Day here in worship. Of course, we’re not there yet. That’s because we’re all only human, and we make mistakes. We are limited by our cultures and our customs, our backgrounds and our families, our situations and our economics. And because we’re limited, the church on earth will never be perfect. We will always need reformers, prophets who speak the truth in love to correct the church when it wanders off the path. Our unity will probably never be complete in this life. But we are headed towards the Promised Land, where all divisions will be healed, and where Jesus Christ will be worshiped completely and perfectly. When I stand on the mountain top and look way off, I can see it! And if you join me there, I’ll bet that you can see it, too.

Who Was That Masked Man?

Many fictional crime fighters wear masks to protect themselves from the criminals they fight. God wears a mask, too, but it's for a very different reason. What is that mask? Maybe this sermon will help you to think about that very thing.

I hope that you smiled when you saw the title of today’s sermon. Did it bring back memories of a black-and-white TV show that you watched many years ago? So, who was that masked man? Why, it was the Lone Ranger! I remember watching that show when I was a kid: the Lone Ranger on his white horse Silver, and Tonto, his faithful companion on his paint horse Scout. At the end of each episode, after the Lone Ranger had cleaned up the town of outlaws, or saved a widow’s farm, or provided a role model for an adoring young boy, somebody would ask “Who was that masked man?” And somebody else always responded, “Why, don’t you know? That was the Lone Ranger!”

The Lone Ranger was one of a long line of heroes who wear a mask. Batman, Spiderman, the Green Hornet: all of them wear a mask. And they all wear a mask for the same reason: for protection. They want to protect themselves from retaliation by the thugs they help to put in jail. After all, if you’re fighting criminals, it’s a risk to let them know who you are. That’s why people are put into the witness protection program after they have testified against someone like a mob boss. When you’re fighting evildoers, protecting your identity can be a very wise thing to do.

God hides his face for protection, too. But God doesn’t hide his face to protect himself from evildoers; God hides his face to protect us. In this morning’s reading from the book of Exodus, you heard God’s response when Moses asked to see God’s glory. “You cannot see my face,” said God, “for no one can see my face and live.” To protect Moses from harm, Moses was only permitted to get a glimpse of God’s back. The sight of God’s face, where his full glory is visible, is off limits. If Moses had seen God’s face, he would have died. He might have met the same fate as the bad guys in the movie “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” They melted when they opened the Ark of the Covenant and confronted God’s glory! God’s face – God’s full presence in all its majesty and power – is just too much for human beings to see.

So, does that mean that God has to remain invisible and unknown? Do we have to rely on reports of God from people of the Bible who experienced God long ago? Of course not! We can see glimpses of God all around us right now! One obvious place is in the natural world. We can see part of a painter through her paintings, and we can catch glimpses of a sculptor through his statues. In the same way, we can see some of God in creation. When we gaze at the multicolored beauty of a forest in autumn, or stand in awe on a rocky shore next to thundering ocean waves, or marvel at the intricate laciness of a dragonfly wing, or consider the incredible vastness of the universe, we catch a glimpse of the one who created it. God is beauty, power, complexity, and majesty; and we can see that reflected in his creation. Many years ago I learned a song that asks, “Did you ever look at the sunset, with the sky yellow and red, and the clouds suspended like feathers?” If you have, then you’ve seen God.

But we can see God in more than just creation. We can look at the face of Jesus Christ. Now, we can’t look at the historical face of Jesus. That is lost to us forever in the mists of the past. The pictures that we see of a fair-skinned, bearded young man may not look anything at all like the historical Jesus! But that really doesn’t matter. What does matter is that Jesus shows us what God looks like. In the gospel of John, Jesus claims “If you have seen me, you have seen my father.” He wasn’t talking about the color of his hair or his eyes. He was talking about tuning in to God’s feelings, values and actions. He was talking about understanding what is most important to God. He was talking about knowing how God responds to us – and how God wants us to respond to him.

When we look at Jesus, we see someone who loved people, accepted them, and was patient with them. We see a healer, a teacher, and a friend. Oh, we see someone who got angry, but most of the time that anger was directed against the oppressive structures of society that keep some people poor and hungry; and against the powerful leaders who keep those structures in place for their own benefit. Jesus got angry with the religious leaders of his time because they didn’t care about the people at all. They only cared about the quality of their own lives! Jesus wanted all people to have lives that were good and full of joy. And that’s what God wants for us, too. When we see God’s face, we don’t see the face of a judgmental tyrant who takes pleasure in punishing us. We see the face of a loving parent who wants the best for all of us.

But we see God’s face somewhere else, too. We see God’s face in the faces of people around us. Now, it’s not a perfect resemblance. We frequently distort God’s face through worry and pain and suffering. Sometimes it’s marred by rage or frustration or grief. But behind all of our responses to the situations that this very imperfect world throws at us, the face of God still shines through. We can see God’s face in the serenity of a young mother holding her baby – and in the contentment of the child who snuggles in her lap. We can see God’s face in the concern of a nurse for her patient – and in the trust of the patient who is in her care. We can see God’s face in the zeal of a crowd that has gathered to demonstrate on behalf of a living wage for migrant workers – and in the gratitude of those migrant workers that someone cares about them and about their families. God hasn’t hidden his face from us at all. It’s all around us, wherever we look, in the faces of our family and our friends and even those unknown people we see on the street and on the evening news.

And that means that we are the face of God for other people! That’s a sobering thought, isn’t it? We Christians claim to have the spirit of Jesus in our lives. If that is the case – and Jesus himself says that it is – then when others look at us, they see Jesus; and if they see Jesus, they see God in us! What do they see when they look at us? We all know what they should see, because we know that kind of people we should be. We should be people who offer love, compassion, and mercy. We should work for justice, but also try our best to offer forgiveness. We should be people who look for the best in others, but who don’t get discouraged when we see the worst, because we live in hope. We should point beyond ourselves to the God who created us, because that’s what Jesus did in his life, death, and resurrection.

Yes, we are God’s face now, through the spirit of Jesus Christ who has called us to love the world the way that God loves it. We don’t show God’s full glory, because no one but Jesus Christ can do that. God’s face is masked by our own very human faces – and by the problems and the sorrows of our world. But every now and then, we catch a glimpse of God’s face – in creation, in our experience of Jesus Christ, and in the people around us. And when we do, we won’t have to ask, “Who was that masked man?” We will know!

 

Golden Calves

We don't worship idols anymore. We left all those other gods long ago in the past. Or at least, that's what most people think! This sermon suggests otherwise. Maybe... just maybe... we still worship some of them today. What do you think?

“Hi, it’s really nice to meet you!” Meeting new people is always a pleasure. But what do you say after you exchange names? Well, you might start with, “So, do you live around here?” Or you might ask, “What kind of job do you have?” Or you might even ask, “Can I friend you on Facebook?” But I’ll bet that you’d never ask anyone, “What god do you worship?” I imagine that you’d get a blank stare if you asked anyone that question. That’s because most of us, at least, here in this country, worship the same deity. Jew, Christian, and Muslim all worship God (with a capital G). We may understand who God is and how he works differently; but whatever name we give to him, it’s the same god that we’re all worshipping.

But it hasn’t always been that way. In the days when the Israelites left Egypt, there were a whole slew of gods that people worshipped! There were as many gods as there are choices at Frisch’s breakfast buffet. You picked the god who suited your particular needs, and worshiped whichever one you wanted. Baal, for example, was a very popular god. You’ve probably all heard of him. Baal was a fertility god who sent rain to make sure the crops grew. The statues of Baal that have been found in archaeological sites are usually holding a lightning bolt. If you were in the middle of a drought, you might want to sacrifice a few bulls to Baal so that the corn would grow. Or you could worship Anat. She’d be the goddess of choice if you needed somebody whacked upside the head. Anat was really something. She fought like Rambo; and she was so tough that she wore a belt made out of human skulls! If your neighbors were sneaking in and stealing your sheep in the middle of the night, worshipping Anat might well put a stop to it. And if everything else failed, you’d worship El. El was the big kahuna, the chief god who kept all the other gods in line. El was the go-to guy if your sacrifices weren’t working, because he could put in a good word for you with any of the other gods. Even back then, it wasn’t what you knew but who you knew!

But the Israelites were supposed to only worship Moses’ god, Yahweh – the Lord. The story of the golden calf shows that they had a little bit of trouble adjusting to that. After Moses’ god had led them out of Egypt, through the Red Sea, and all the way to Mt. Sinai, that god spoke to the Israelites out of smoke and fire on the mountain. And they were scared to death! They weren’t used to having a god thunder at them like that! So they asked Moses if he would please talk to God in the future. So Moses went up to the top of Mt. Sinai to talk with God and get instructions to give to all the people. When this morning’s story begins (Exodus 32:1-14) Moses had been gone for 40 days; and the Israelites had begun to wonder if he was ever going to come back! Maybe he had displeased his God; and he was lying dead up on the top of Mt. Sinai. Maybe this god was too dangerous to worship. The Israelites started thinking that maybe they should worship a different god. After all, they knew Baal and Anat and El. Moses and this god of his – they didn’t know them very well at all. So the Israelites made a golden calf just in case Moses never came back. And… well, you know the rest.

From our perspective 3,000 years later, the story seems almost unbelievable. God led the Israelites out of Egypt, through the Red Sea and into the wilderness in a pillar of fire and cloud; he provided manna and water from a rock, and they made a golden calf to worship? What in the world were they thinking? We would never do such a thing! We would never worship anyone but our God! That’s what we all think when we read this story. And we believe it. After all, we go to church as often as we can. We try our best to follow the Ten Commandments, and to love our neighbors as ourselves. Besides, we don’t worship idols today! I remember back when I was in seminary, one of my professors asked the class to remember the last time that we gave a hellfire and brimstone sermon against worshiping other gods. Of course, none of us had ever preached a sermon like that. It’s just not an issue today… is it? Maybe it is. I think that we do still worship other gods. Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t know of anyone who has a statue of Baal sitting on an end table in their living room. But a god doesn’t have to look like a human being or a calf or any other animal. A god is simply something we worship in the hope that it will take care of us. Our god is whatever comes first in our lives. Our god is our highest priority. If we’re honest with ourselves, most of have a god or two tucked away in our back pocket just in case the Lord doesn’t work out. In fact, those gods that were around in the time of the Israelites are still here. They just have different names these days.

Remember El; the god who knew all the other gods and could put in a good word for you if you needed it? He hasn’t gone anywhere. Today, though, his name isn’t “El,” it’s “Status.” His worshippers are concerned about making the right impression with the people they think are important. They need to be acceptable to the movers and shakers; because, after all, it’s not what you know, but who you know. This god even has a brother whose name is “What will people think?”  His worshippers consult with him before they do anything that might be the least bit controversial. “Volunteer at a soup kitchen? Write a letter to the editor protesting cuts in food stamps? Join a demonstration on behalf of the homeless? My goodness, I couldn’t do that! What would people think?”

That fertility god, Baal, is still around, too. These days, though, we don’t ask him for lots of rain to make the corn grow. We ask him to make our dollars multiply so that our wallets are fat! We pray prayers like “Please, make the stock market go up,” or “Could you arrange for me to win the lottery?” Lots of people pray for enough money to buy all the things that they want, when they should be praying for the wisdom to know the difference between their wants and their needs. As long as people believe that having lots of money and owning lots of stuff will save them, Baal is guaranteed to have plenty of worshippers.

But what about Anat, that tough babe with the skulls hanging on her belt? Surely nobody worships her any more? Oh, I think that she has more worshippers than El and Baal put together! In the ancient Middle East, Anat was the goddess of violence and war. Our news today is full of the brutality of ISIS in the Middle East, random shootings around the country, and daily murders in inner city Chicago. The leader of one national group responded to the Sandy Hook school shootings this way: “The only thing that stops a man with a gun is a man with a bigger gun.” For too many people, the only solution to violence is more violence. As long as that’s the case, I’d say that Anat worship is alive and well!

Now, we have no excuse for worshipping other gods. When the Israelites said that they didn’t know the god of Moses, we can’t argue with them. They had seen Moses’ god provide food and water for them; but they had also seen that god destroy the whole Egyptian army in the Red Sea. Was Moses’ god a god of peace or a god of war? They really had no idea. Maybe that god would turn on them one day if they displeased him! Did they really want to worship a god like that? But we can’t make that statement! We know Jesus Christ; and Jesus clearly said, “If you have seen me, you have seen my Father.” When we see Jesus heal lepers and invite them back into the community, we see God including all people in his kingdom of grace, not just the movers and shakers. When we taste the bread and wine of Holy Communion, we remember that Jesus feeds us not with growing corn, but with himself. And when we hear Jesus say, “Blessed are the peacemakers,” we hear God promising us a kingdom of peace where violence has no place, and where all brokenness is healed. We know God; and we know that God loves us unconditionally! If you have a god in your back pocket, you might want to get rid of it. God accepts us as his children, satisfies our deepest needs with his own presence, and invites us into his kingdom of peace. After the death of Moses, Joshua proclaimed, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” I hope that you decide to do the same.

God in Our Midst

Where is God? Far off... or right here? And what kind of a God do we worship, anyway? One who threatens us... or one who loves us unconditionally? This sermon might make you think about those two questions.

Some years ago, a number of very distinctive black billboards with large white letters appeared along the highways. Each one was a brief memo signed by God. One of them, for example, said, “That ‘Love your neighbor’ thing? I meant that! Signed, God.” Another said, “Life is short. Eternity isn’t. Signed, God.” But the one that really stuck with me warned, “Don’t make me come down there! Signed, God.” When I read it, I didn’t know whether to cry or to laugh.

I wanted to cry because the billboard makes God sound like an angry parent who has heard one too many squabbles from the kids downstairs. I could just see God standing at the top of the stairs, brow furrowed in anger, shaking a disapproving finger at the misbehaving children below. This kind of God is threatening, one who remains far away from us – unless, of course, we don’t behave ourselves! Then God shows up, all full of spit and fire. But that’s not the God that Jesus talks about. The God that I know is loving and joyful! The God that I know would be downstairs playing right along with the kids, laughing with them, and offering a comforting hug when one of them got an ouchie. Yes, I want to cry when people have an image of God as a stern disciplinarian who warns “Don’t make me come down there!”

But that billboard made me want to laugh, too; because whoever designed it didn’t know much about the Christian faith. We Christians believe that God has already come down to us at least three different times! One, of course, was on Christmas, when God was born as a human being in Jesus Christ. Another was on Pentecost, when God came to us as the Holy Spirit to live among us and to fill us with the grace of Jesus Christ. But long before Pentecost and long before Christmas, God came down to be with the Israelites as they journeyed in the wilderness on their way to the Promised Land.

After the Israelites left Egypt and crossed the Red Sea, they traveled to Sinai, the mountain where Moses had first heard God call to him out of the burning bush. There they saw the glory and power of God in a thick, black cloud and eruptions of fire on the mountain top. There they saw Moses go up on the mountain to receive the Law that would define the Israelites as God’s people. And there God gave Moses instructions for building a Tabernacle, the place where God would live in the midst of the people. Our scripture reading this morning summarized those instructions (Exodus 25:1-9; 40:16-17; 34-38). If you want to read all of them, you’ll have to read 13 whole chapters of the book of Exodus! (The original instructions are in chapters 25-31; and then, just in case you missed them, they are repeated in chapters 35-40.) That Tabernacle was made with the very finest materials, and filled with beautiful colors to remind the people of God’s glory. And when it was finished, God came down from the mountain to live there in the midst of the people that he had chosen for himself.

Now, God could have stayed on Mt. Sinai. God could have given Moses the Law and then said, “Now, you know what you’re supposed to do. Keep your noses clean! Don’t make me come down there!” But God didn’t do that. God came down off that mountain to live in middle of the noise and the confusion and the messiness of the camp. In fact, God gave Moses the instructions for building the Tabernacle even before God gave Moses the Law! God was even more interested in living with his people than he was with telling them how to behave. God couldn’t wait to come down and live in the middle of the people he loved!

And God is still with us today. Oh, we no longer meet God in a big, beautiful tent like the Israelites did. These days, we meet God in all sorts of places. Why, just here in our own country, we meet God in church sanctuaries like this one, in small rooms in rented storefront churches, and in huge auditoriums that hold thousands of people. Other places around the world, people meet God in ornate Russian Orthodox churches topped with gold-leafed onion domes; in medieval cathedrals in France adorned with stone gargoyles; and in thatched-roof huts with dirt floors in Africa. They meet God in Chinese pagodas, in South American fishing boats, and in Middle Eastern refugee camps. They meet God through joyful song and dance, through dignified chant and the fragrance of incense, through speaking in tongues with hands held high, and through sitting silently with hands folded in prayer.

But Christians around the world have one thing in common. All of us meet God here at the Communion Table -- the table of the Lord. All of us gather around this table to remember. We remember that we are God’s people, not because of what we do for God; but because of what God did for us. God loves us so much that God not only came down to live with us during our earthly lives; God gave himself for us so that we might live with him forever! Why, God doesn’t say, “Don’t make me come down there!” On the contrary, God says, “Here I am, right now; and then I’m bringing you back home with me!”

So when we share the bread and the cup in the sacrament of Holy Communion, stop and ponder the mystery in the silence of your hearts. The table is the evidence that God has come to live with his people. The table is the proof of God with us right now. And the table is the foretaste of the banquet that all Christians will one day share at God’s heavenly table.

God is in our midst, and will always be! Thanks be to God!