This reading from Joshua is a
perfect example of what the Old Testament is like, which means it’s also a
perfect example of why we don’t read the Old Testament. Seriously. It’s 20%
laws that we don’t know how to (or if we should) apply to our lives, 5% stories
that are mostly familiar to us, 120% recap of stories that have already
happened and 1% wise, pithy sayings that we can put on t-shirts. And that’s
only the first 146% of the Old Testament!
So, it’s sometimes
hard to know what to do with the Old Testament. We tend to zero in on those few
wise pithy things in the text and ignore the rest, which is pretty much what I
am going to do today. We have fourteen verses in Joshua chapter 24 before we
get to the payoff; fourteen verses that nobody is preaching on this weekend.
It’s all about the wisdom; all about the nugget that reads: “…If you are
unwilling to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the
gods your ancestors served in the region beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites
in whose land you are living; but as for me and my household, we will serve the
Lord.”
That last
half-sentence is the snippet for your t-shirt; the Bible quote in your “About Me” on
Facebook; the verse on your door; or for those 9th
graders who are starting to think about Bible verses for their faith
statements, you could do worse than Joshua 24:15. Oh yeah, it’s
also on our bulletin cover. Nothing about the Perizzites and the Girgashites;
just this little bit of wisdom. Funny how that works.
So
I am going to talk a little about the
preceding fourteen verses today, because, as much as we cite Bible verses like
Joshua 24:15 in our daily lives as evidence that we are good Christians, the
real payoff is in how we get there. It’s not the destination, right? It’s the
journey. The Israelites need this long recitation of the history of their
people because they are so, so stupid when it comes to worshiping other gods. Yeah, Yahweh, you sent plagues on Pharaoh
and brought us out of Egypt, and parted the Red Sea, and you made Balaam into a
donkey, and you fed us in the desert from absolutely nothing, and you gave us
this land that we did nothing to earn, but, really, Yahweh, what have you done
for us lately?
The
Bible goes out of its way to treat the Israelites like they’re goldfish.
Seriously, guys, you don’t remember the pillars of cloud and fire? Actually,
no, because, if we’re following along, Joshua is speaking to the descendents of
those Israelites. These Israelites don’t
remember any of those things. They’re like the disciples… they forget, they
doubt, they wander, and they just make a mess of things. It’s enough to make a
person question God’s judgment about who gets to be his chosen people—isn’t
there anybody better than the
Israelites?
It’s
easy to think this way about Israel—or,
for that matter, the disciples who came long after them—but I think we aren’t
so different. How often do we ask: “What have we been given?” And how often do we remember the creator and giver
of all that we have?
You
see, the Israelites forgot about the Red Sea
and the plagues, and it’s hard to imagine we would do the same, but we do… all
the time. I don’t know about you, but when I get off a plane I am cranky and
ready to move my legs and get away from all the smelly, obnoxious people I’ve
been forced to befriend in the last several hours of my life. Rarely do I stop
to take a moment and marvel at the fact that we just flew through the
air—like a bird—at hundreds of miles per hour in a craft made of metal and
powered by highly combustible fluids, and we went through clouds, and maybe
storms—over mountains and sometimes vast bodies of water—and we somehow found
exactly the place we wanted to end up at nearly the right time, and—seemingly
against all odds—we didn’t come crashing down in a terrible blaze. Somehow,
amazingly, I’m alive and well. But most of the time I don’t care about
these things when I’m getting off the plane. I’m annoyed if we’re fifteen
minutes late, and I just want to find a Starbucks.
Or
how about when you have a long day and you come home and your house is in a
state of utter disrepair, children running about, spouse looking like he or she
needs a drink or three, and laundry in seventeen different piles in five
different rooms—not that I know what
this looks like—how often do we stop in that moment and give thanks to God for
this incredible gift of family that we have? <sarcasm> Of course, I don’t know why I’m using “we”
here because I clearly do this ALL the time <end sarcasm>. The people who tend to
give thanks for things like this are the people who know what it’s like to lose
it—to lose your loved ones, your treasured possessions, the things that really
matter. The problem with being the chosen people is that you forget what it
means to lose.
In the book of
Joshua we meet Israel
in their infancy, and little do they know that a storm is coming. The Promised
Land is theirs but its hold is tenuous. They are promised this land but they
are not promised that it will stay with them if they lose their way, and it
doesn’t take long for that to happen. They are always forgetting about God.
And, the more I reflect on it, the more I find myself thinking that, today, we
are pretty much the same. Here is our land flowing with milk and honey—well, at
least it’s flowing with beets, beans, and wheat. Here we have time for
recreation: sports, games, cabins, hunting and fishing for enjoyment as much as
food, toys, TV, internet... We have so many stinking things that are good and
great, and I’m not saying they aren’t. Sure, any or all of these things can be
misused but that’s not this sermon’s
message—that’s not where I’m going today.
Instead, I’m
saying that we have all these great, wonderful things—did you know that there is such a thing as soccer ball that harnesses
the energy of being kicked around, enough to charge a cell phone with only 30
minutes of play? That’s a real thing—and we have all these incredible
things but instead of being thankful, we want the things we cannot have. I wonder
how many of you immediately want that soccer ball—something you didn’t know
existed thirty seconds ago—because now it’s out there and you know about it.
It’s the same thing with iPhones and tablets and all that techno-junk—because
it’s out there, you need it. But again, this is not that sermon—not exactly. This is a sermon about choosing what we
serve. Is it God or is it something else?
The local peoples
whom Israel
displaced had all sorts of gods themselves. And at first it might not seem like
it makes sense to worship them when, you know, Yahweh just kicked some Egyptian,
Amorite, and Jebussite butt, but it’s so incredibly human to ask “What have you
done for me lately?” We do it of our community leaders and our sports teams and
our friends, so why not our God? Then, when somebody is telling you that
there’s a god that will bring you additional nice things—good weather, a long
life, many children—you wonder: What would it hurt to worship that god as well
as the God who helped out my ancestors back in the day?
This is not only a
story about Israelites; it is a story about us. God has given you things—no
lie—but more than things God has given you a promise on the cross that all the
things you want mean nothing compared to the life-giving power of the resurrection.
In a way, this is the same sermon I preached last week on right and left-handed
power, because the world of efficiency is forever telling you that there is
more to life: more comfort, more security, more wealth. Left-handed power—the
power we see most obviously on the cross—says something else. It says, There is something more to this life: it’s
self-sacrifice, it’s humility, it’s letting somebody else get the last word not
out of pride but out of deference to the other; it’s agape love—that love that
means loving another more than you love yourself. That’s what God expects
of us—not because it’s hard work, but because it is the kind of work that will
give us hope for a better world. The other gods end up being self-serving;
there’s no promise there beyond what they give you to get you through the day.
We want more; we
crave more; and sure, we get sidetracked by a world of efficiency and immediacy
that offers us shiny, beautiful things; but there’s a part of us that does hold
dear to what matters most. I know because, of all the places you could be,
you’re here. Some of you might be here because life has been terrible and you
need someplace to offer you hope—that is the Israelites in exile. Some of you
might be here because life is mundane and you need some purpose for your life.
Those are the Israelites in the wilderness. Some of you might be here because
life has been great and wonderful, but you can still imagine a better life that
the world of right-handed power can’t offer. Those are the Israelites in the Promised
Land. Some of you are here against your will because your parents made you
come. Those are the Israelites about 90% of their lives.
You are all of
them—and none of them. You are broken… and you are healed. You are sinners and
you are saints. There are other gods out there, and we worship them more than
we’d like to admit. But there is also something more… something that has
persisted for millennia in spite of every group or class of people who have
suggested otherwise. Somehow, against all odds, this God who values
self-sacrifice, humility, and turning the other cheek has remained our God in a
world that values pretty much the exact opposite. When it comes down to it, it
is left to us to decide as Joshua does. There are plenty of gods out there,
plenty of powers that offer nice, new things, but—for everything I’ve
experienced and all the roads that lead to nowhere—we have decided that as for
me and my house we will serve the Lord.
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