Sermon Sunday, October 1, 2006 +------------------------------------+ | Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost | +------------------------------------+ [9]Numbers 11:4-6, 10-16, 24-29* The LORD*s spirit comes upon seventy elders -------------------------------------------------------------------------- REMEMBER A few years ago, I remember watching a show on VH-1 called *I Love the Seventies*. In what amounted to a shameless infomercial for a CD collection, the program featured the music, the culture, the styles of a time that for many of us must seem like ancient history. I must have caught the beginning of the show because the segment featured music from the early years of the decade, seventy- one, seventy-two and seventy three. If you knew nothing else about those years, the program would probably have led you to conclude that there would have been no better time in history to have lived. The trouble was, in the interest of selling CDs a lot of the, shall we say *less than memorable details of the day*, were for what ever reason completely left out. I mean, those of us who were around back will probably never forget the Arab oil embargo and long gas lines, skyrocketing inflation that impacted just about everything, the cost of clothing, radios, and food, particularly meat. The decades have come and gone, but I still remember how things played out at our house*what seemed like endless weeks of rice, noodles, and meatless casseroles, enough to make a young boy like me weary and weak. I began to covet the taste of real beef, if even a measly hamburger! Although I wasn*t even ten years old yet, I still have distinct memories of walking past the meat counter in the grocery store dreaming of the taste of what lie behind the glass. Of course, there was great comfort in knowing that a lot of other people were feeling the same way too, even television*s Archie Bunker himself. In an episode of All in the Family from around that time, Archie bellyaches to Edith and the rest of the family because the can*t afford meat for his requisite potatoes. But then one night, Edith surprises everyone with the most delicious and tender meat any of them, especially Archie has ever tasted. He insists on knowing where and how she managed to come by this delicacy, but she resists. Edith, never one to keep secrets finally spills the beans. *It*s horse.* And with that revelation Archie*s eyes open wide, his jaw droops and his fork falls like a lead balloon. The lesson, don*t complain too much because you might end up with more than you bargained for. If you*ve ever gotten sick of eating at MaCDonald*s on a cross-country trip, imagine how it must have been for God*s people wandering in the wilderness for forty years. The same blasted food, the same boring manna day in and day out day, no wonder their strength was dried up. If that were all we had to look at, we*d probably feel the same way too. But, all this complaining really masks a more profound issue, their inability to trust God. Here and now, the food, the constant wandering, the heat, the sand that worked itself into the hair, the teeth, the eyes made life back in Egypt seem not all that bad. They may not have been a lot of job satisfaction there, the work environment may have been less than desirable, the hours a bit too long, but at least in Egypt they could count on three squares and a place to lay their heads. Compared to this manna stuff, even leeks and onions seemed appetizing. For all the troubles their grumbling gets them into with God; they*re human beings responding in a way that I dare say you and I would too. Hey, even the slavery of the past seems a better alternative to the anxieties of the present and the uncertainty about the future. And while we don*t worry so much about where we*re going to find water to drink, how we*re going to scrape up our next meal, or when we*ll have to pack up our tents and move on in search of some new place to call home for a while, we still struggle to find our way in an often confusing and disorienting world. We live in times quite unlike any we*ve ever known before, days, weeks and months marked by anxiety, fear and deep suspicion. Sometimes it seems like everything that we*ve known to be true about our world, about our relationships with others, even about ourselves, everything we*ve ever assumed and even taken for granted is called into question. Old responses, behaviors and answers just don*t seem to work anymore. As the foundations are shaken and the ground gives way we feel a sense of profound loss and sadness. As the people did with Moses, we look to the experts for a sense of direction, for answers, for clarity and certainty but even they are at a loss to provide us what we need. Goodness knows they like Moses have got their own problems to deal with. *Oh, Lord, where am I to get meat to give all this people?* Like passengers in a small boat cast off from its moorings without any oars, we drift aimlessly with no idea of where to go, of what to do. Of course, for those who find themselves in the wilderness, there*s always the temptation to think that maybe this is all one great big mistake, that maybe we ought to turn back to the way life once was or that we at least thought life was, a far simpler time, when the answers were so much more clear and unambiguous, when at least we could count on our daily ration of *leeks and onions*, when the rules of the game were well defined and we knew just exactly where we stood. We*re all prone to that kind of thinking, no matter who we are. Here in the church, we recall the glory days when the pews were full and everyone was happy, when we didn*t have to deal with the kind of contentious and potentially divisive issues that we face today. As a nation we remember the good old days of baseball, apple pie and mom. In our own lives, we reminisce about a by gone time when life was beautiful and all was right with the universe. As someone once observed, *the past just isn*t what it used to be.* The children of Israel lament, *We remember the fish we used to eat in Egypt for nothing.* But the difficulty of the present leads them to forget, to keep from remembering their years of bondage to their taskmasters and the misery and suffering that went along with it. How quickly God*s people forget, forget that it was God who beheld their misery and willed to do something about it, that it was God who worked through Moses to get Pharaoh to change his mind, that it was God who led them out of Egypt, through the waters of the sea to safety on the other side and gave them manna to eat. How easily we forget too. How easily we forget our own bondage, from all that cuts us off from God and from each other, the sin that separates us like a wide gulf from the one that gives us life. But because of God*s great love for us in Jesus, forgetful people like you and me have been brought near to his throne of grace. And as Paul urges us, *Now that we have come to be known by God, how can we turn back to the weak and beggarly elemental spirits?* Of course, that*s not to say we don*t honor the past or at least try to understand the past, our own personal history not to mention the faith, the contribution, the insight of the countless saints who*ve gone before us, who themselves lived with a profound awareness of God*s guiding presence in their lives. The past is just that, the past, not some day of wine and roses that we can somehow return to. But in the pages of the past we call our own, in the past we share together as God*s people we see and know a God who walks with us, who provides for us and shows us the way even if we don*t know what*s around the corner. Wandering in a wilderness of uncertainty isn*t so much about finding our way out as it is discovering God*s gift of abundance even in the dry desolation, the promise and hope we share together as God*s people. As those beloved by God, we*re called to step out in faith into an anxious and uncertain world. Whose to say where we*re headed, or what the outcome may be. But because of Christ, we can trust that God goes with us, we can sense presence of the one who has claimed us in baptism and who will never, never let us go. As the stirring Christmas hymn reminds us, *We walk by faith and not by sight; with gracious words draw near, O Christ, who spoke as none e*er spoke: *My peace be with you here.** And now, may the God who abundantly provides for our every need grant us his peace now and forevermore. Amen. Pastor Brian Peterson References 9. http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=26101885

[ Mon, 02 Oct 2006 03:10:18 -0500 ]

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