Joshua 24:1-3,13-25

1) we know of shechem from extrabiblical sources such as Egyptian writings almost 2000BCE.

(Ralph's old teacher, Wright, was an expert on Shechem). It is where God speaks to Abram with an altar built. Jacob bought land and built an altar there, but idols were involved there. Later it will be the site of "anitdavidic rule" for the troubles after Solomon (I Kings 12). It was destroyed by Assyrai and partially rebuilt later. Some scholars (Noth) thought it was a sort of first capital city (remember Jeruslalem is conquered only by david)

2) I love the idea of saying what is ours in v. 13. We all inherit from the past, so we do not expend effort on what we inherit in culture, infrastructure, legacies. It is particularly salient ofr us whose ancestors took a continent from the indians and worked it on the back of slaves. Note v. 13 is one of displacment, not taking unoccupied territory.

This gift aspectalso makes it a good intro to upcoming Thanksgiving.

3) From v.14 we have a powerful anti-idolatry statement. If one would wish, this is a good place to speak of the depth of the idea of our minds as "factories of idols" and to look at the "idols of church and culture." How would we "put away gods?"

4) in v. 14 fear=revere= hold in awe. How with sincerity/integrity/completeness and faitfuly=amen=steadfastly=reliably serve could mean ritual worship and/or fealty, devotion.

5) v. 15 Choose today-this makes it possible for us to bridge time and see it apply to us, right now.

6) v. 19 notice God is a jealous Gode, a God who demands exclusive loyalty. God does not like the divine honor trampled, so reward and punishment are linked to loyalty.

7) Sin here is seen as both willful (pesa, and missing the mark (het)

8) Some see this as a political binding or a religious binding, or a mixture of both.

9) One could use Joshua as an example of leadership, especially becuase he follows a great leader.

10) the people pledge and repledge, but we all know that they will often fail through the generations. One could take up the idea of vows, kept and broken.

Joshua 3:7-17

First, I emphasize the
liturgical nature of the crossing of the Jordan. This seems like an
entrance liturgy to me. It certainly does not read as a military
incursion. It points up to the conquest as the arm of god, not the
military might of nascent Israel. With God as the warrior, it
downplays a warrior caste. (See Yahweh as Warrior by Millard Lind for
a good examination of the issue, also work by Patrick Miller.) Who
wants priests to take the point in any battle? You do want them in a
religious procession, however.

Second, in class, one
may wish to broach the idea of this as interpreted history,
Archaeology can be a friend to biblical factual accuracy, but it
often challenges it. Lately, some minimize almost all historical data
in the bible, and others seek to maximize it. It may be that Israel
moved in lightning strokes, but it could also be a more gradual
issue. Scripture has hints of it, certainly. Scholarly work is
imaginative reconstructive, see Gottwald’s transformation of
the conquest into a Maoist uprising of the oppressed.

Archaeology does
demonstrate changes. Early Israel seemed to have a hilltop base, not
an urban base. (Maybe that’s why Jericho falls) Distinctive
pottery is found in abundance at these sites, along with a house with
a loft for sleeping.

Third, in spiritual
terms, where do you cross the Jordan? Think of how the slaves saw the
Ohio as the Jordan. What prevents you from crossing it? When is
wishing better than achieving? What seems to be an insuperable
obstacle to reaching your Promised Land?

(Recall jesus and
Joshua have the same name: God helps/delivers/saves)

I saw the documentary
Ripples of Hope at the Heartland Film Festival. It’s about the
remarkable speech by Robert Kennedy at 17^th and Broadway
in Indianapolis to calm a crowd after the death of Martin Luther
King. It’s all the more poignant, as RFK would be gunned down
within two months. The night before King died, he was thinking about
our main passage this morning. Hear his words again: “I’ve
been to the mountaintop I’ve looked over and I’ve seen
the Promised Land. I may not get there with you, but I want you to
know tonight that we as a people will get to the Promised Land.”
No matter how great we are, no matter how healthy we try to stay, we
are all mortal; we are all flawed, even Moses.

When I was in high
school, we were assigned to write our own obituary. It forced you to
write a script for an imagined future. I knew right away that I did
not want to stay in Western Pennsylvania. I didn’t imagine that
God would call me to be a pastor. From another end, many enjoyed the
Bucket List with Nicholson and Freeman as cancer patients who wanted
to do some things before they kicked the bucket. Some folks have a
bucket list that they check off as they achieve a heart’s
desire.

Few of us will go to
our eternal reward having checked off all of our imagined futures.
Even Moses did not get to enter the Promised Land after forty years
of wandering. I find it moving to see this great man being given a
panorama of the land he worked to claim, but would not live to cross.
Some of the rabbis imagined that Moses was even given a vision of the
future in the Promised Land for his people. Scripture gives us a
glimpse of the Promised Land of heaven as a lodestar day after day.

Part of a finding a
spiritual path in life is to live so as to imagine a eulogy. An
outstanding check on our words and actions is the reminder of what if
this is the last thing I say or do? We do well to want to aspire to
level of a life well-lived so that it can be the subject of a eulogy.
A long time ago, one of the pastors here opened the floor to memories
of family and friends for the first time, in part, because it was
hard for him to write a eulogy for the departed. We want to be
remembered, as an element of living on, also as an element of our
lives being more than mere footprints in the sand. When Abraham
Lincoln was in the midst of one his terrible depressive episodes, he
told a friend that the only thing that kept him from taking his life
was the thought that his name would be forgotten.

I hold to a theology
that assumes that God holds our lives in the divine hand, but also in
the divine heart. Nothing worth saving is ever lost in the life of
God. I would even go further. and say that nothing worth saving goes
without regard in this life. I imagine our lives as ripple in the
pond that interact constantly with other ripples moving out toward
the edge of the eternal. In large measure, Moses was defined by the
journey toward freedom he led, not the destination itself. That
purpose kept him going even against so many obstacles, including
forty years of wandering. No matter how uncertain our steps, no
matter how our course may zigzag back and forth, God will help us
arrive at our final destination, the Promised land of our dreams, the
Promised Land of our faith. In the mean time, we have a promised Land
that beckons for us now, in ways that gives us energy and hope, a
goal toward which we can work and reach out here in the wilderness.

Here at the close of
the campaign season, we have some words of Jesus on the role of the
government and God. Both presidential candidates have bent over
backward to demonstrate religious fidelity. What is God’s and
what is not? The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.
It could be that Jesus can be flippant about it, as he sees all of
the world in God’s hands, so why get all upset about a
government tax? If that is the case, we need to be very careful
saying that one issue, or one political party, can capture human life
so that it can be equated as God’s will or God’s party.
As the title of Jim Wallis’s book says; God is neither a
Republican nor a Democrat. If we don’t hear that simple wisdom,
we are on the road of making an idol out of our limited political
views. When we declare out of bounds any consideration that God may
oppose American policy when we agree with it, when we think that God
has to be on our side, we have traveled a good bit down that road
already.

In the original
Presbyterian Constitution, also written in Philadelphia, we read “We
do not want to see any religious constitution aided by the civil
power and protection and equal and common to others.-no civil effects
of church discipline.” In other words, they did not want any
help from government for doing the work of the church. They did
expect fair treatment from the government, public safety and roads to
allow worship to be possible. We can all be in danger of keeping
church and state so separate that we do not let our religious ethics
impinge on our political decisions, the “naked public square.”
Many Americans see the separation of church and state as impinging on
religious practices, most notably prayer in schools or making a
religious holiday such as Christmas a secular holiday festival.

The Reformed tradition
has usually emphasized a separation of God and Caesar, as spiritual
and physical, but it does insist on the subordination of the
government to God’s will for the world. As Madison said, if we
were angels, no government would be necessary. Usually, that shows a
fierce opposition to the government intruding on the internal work of
the church. It does not see them as always in conflict either, even
as it warns that the church must be careful not to subsume it beliefs
and work under that of the government. No, it hopes that the church
can transform our politics and government. While different realms,
they do intersect. Calvin saw them both working for human welfare,
even though at different levels. When do God and Caesar work
together? Luther called government the left hand of God. Calvin
called governmental officials vicars of God’s work. We have
always insisted that the work of government be done justly. We cannot
paint all government with the broad brush of corruption and
self-serving.

In our time,
government acts to work out Mt. 25’s injunction to feed the
hungry and help to heal the sick. In our time, government, at its
best, is the search for the public good the common good. It looks
beyond what is good fro me alone, and pushes us to consider the state
of the nation: country first as Sen. McCain says, or as JFK said more
memorably, ask not what your country can do for you, but what can you
do for your country. The church does well when it praises that work.
At its best, government organizes the love of neighbor collectively.
It allows us the structure to live together. It tries to retrain our
worst impulses and attend to Lincoln’s “better angels of
our nature.” After all, angels are messengers. When you vote,
you carry a message that is also a prayer.

We move from God being gracious to the death of Moses. This follows a long blessing, to close his work.

First, I recommend Dennis Olson. Deuteronomy and the Death of Moses.

Second, Look at Kugel's the Bible As It Was. It walks one through developments about the death of Moses from M oses fighting death with tears, to b fight between an angel and an associate of satan that shows up in Jude 9, to the idea that Moses was assumed into heaven based on slight issues about "he was buried."

This is a eulogy. He did not fade away. Here God calls a close to a life. By all measures here, Moses was healthy. Natural force could have a sense of virility, but it more likely has a sense of being fresh and alive, even youthful. (This goes against his complaint in 31:2 of having a hard time getting around. His power and his prophetic stature are highlighted, with his intimacy with God. Still, god worked through Moses, as God works through all of us.

The grief is as for anyone, but then it does come to an end, and the new stage for the people begins. For spiritual development, one could go very far with envisioning our futures, alone and together. Where do we stand on the cusp of the promise, and when do we actively work toward it? In what way is heaven, a spiritual version fo the land of promise?

Most of us find it heart-breaking that Moses can come to the edge of the Promised Land and be given no more than a panoramic view. In a way, Moses dies as he lived. He would not permit himself to become the symbol of the nation. God, not he, was the leader for Israel. No grave would become a shrine. Olson (p.167) notes that cult for the dead is forbidden (Dt. 14:1)

Why doe she fail to enter the Promised Land. Dt. repeatedly intimates (1:37, 3:26,4:21) that he is dying for the people. At the end of 32, we are told that it is due to the sin at Meribah, with an added sense of holiness betrayed.

This refers us back to Numbers 20;2-13. At first, it seems a repeat of Ex. 17 at Meribah, but here something goes amiss. God tells Moses to speak to a rock, with a rod, maybe Aaron’s rod that has blossoms, in hand. Water will come. Instead, Moses calls the people rebels. Then he strikes the rock twice. A pun for the word for holiness (kaddish) emerges for a place name appended to Meribah (place of contention/trial/quarrel) I’m not sure what that means, other than Moses did not follow the special instructions to the letter.

Most people are mystified as to how this becomes the cause for Moses to be forbidden entry into the Promised Land. I suspect that his frustration has gotten the better of him, an dhe feels empowered to use God’s command as a baseline, instead of following it to the letter. In other words, he is starting to fall victim to power

Presbyterian pastors
take both Greek and Hebrew in seminary. So, we notice Greek-based
English words such as xenophobia, the fear of the stranger, the
other. We feel the need to train our children to fear strangers and
to keep them close. We all face it in the presidential election, if
race will be an issue in our vote. We hear broad hints of it when
Gov. Palin screeches that Sen. Obama does not see America like “the
rest fo us.”

Early Christians
countered xenophobia with xenophilia, hospitality, literally, love of
the stranger, the other. During the school year, we witness
xenophilia at, of all places, the local schools during lunchtime.
Volunteers for Big Brothers/Big Sisters have lunch, once a week, with
a student. It’s a small gesture, admittedly, but one where a
child realize3s that a stranger will try to get to know and support
them throughout the school year. I am particularly impressed that a
large number of high school students come in to share their time with
strangers the age of their younger brothers and sisters. I love how
other kids cast envious looks at the accompanied children, because an
adult comes in to spend a little time with a classmate. A lot of the
children are rarely on the receiving end of an envious look.

It’s not always
easy. School lunches have improved since the Dark Ages of my school
years. Mystery meat isn’t as popular, and peanut butter and
jelly sandwiches and salad are always available. Usually, I can feel
my cholesterol medicine kicking in just looking at the steam tables.
I will spare the gentle reader the effects of a school lunch burrito
on the system of someone in the fifties. It’s always good for a
laugh to see middle-aged men in dress shoes trying to play catch with
a football or a Frisbee. They run with legs moving very fast, but
stiffly, in a sort of scissor-kick. I like when the students will
show off one of their small electronic devices. Even with bifocals,
most of us can’t see the screen. Let alone what goes on it. I
like watching eyes glaze over when children describe schoolwork that
we have either forgotten or never even encountered in our school
days. School is an island of stability, order, and coherence in the
midst of a sea of chaos. In a way, both the students and the mentors
are tourists in a different world. The world of youth requires older
folks to bridge a chasm.

Xenophilia,
hospitality, makes room for strangers to expose what we all share in
common. It is a powerful vision to see adults taking the ideas,
concerns, and opinions of a child seriously, even if it is for one
short lunch a week. It’s a sterling example of how we can build
bridges across the divides. In religious tradition, we have so many
stories of Jesus appearing in the guise of a stranger. In Hebrews, we
hear that when we entertain a stranger, it could be “entertaining
angels, unaware.” For the Christian, the perspective to take is
one where we seek the image of Christ in those whom we met, to treat
them, as Luther said, as “little Christs.” In that
sense, Bib Brothers/Big Sisters teaches politics. The program builds
community. It teaches us the things we share in need and abundance.
It teaches us to care about the stranger, to avoid lumping people
into stereotypes and classifications. We get to see, firsthand, a
glimpse of the slow agriculture of making young hearts and minds
bloom in education. We see what hard work it is in building a future
together, for friend and stranger alike. Politics is all about seeing
friend and stranger as part of a whole, of how we live together and
move toward the ideal fo community.

This passage must be an
indication of my spiritual blindness, as I cannot guess why the
lectionary lifts this passage up.

After the golden Calf
episode, Moses continues to plead for the people. If I read it
correctly, he is using God’s favor as a lever to gain support
for the people, not himself. (Note: grace/gracious/favor are all
variants for the word, hen, in Hebrew)

Is the desire to see
God’s glory/ goodness/presence in relation to the breaking of
the covenant with the Golden Calf? We have just been told that in the
tent God spoke with Moses face to face, as with a friend. and ate
with the elders in ch. 24. Is it a desire to be in communion with
God by himself? Is the warning a universal, or is it in relation to
the Golden Calf episode. I’m not sure how to read God’s
glory as opposed to God’s face. Knowing and seeing are
emphasized as ways of being in contact with God.

In a diverse age, the
emphasis on distinction is decidedly uncomfortable. (Although notice
the verbal link of the face of God and the face of the earth)

This could be a way to
deal with seekers or with stages/phases in spiritual development, as
they desire for communion with god seem to be deep-seated.

The backside of God may
be just a bit of a joke, or it could be all Moses could bear. (a
kenotic moment?).

Janzen makes an
extended case (24:7-9 Exodus).sees God as not being arbitrary in
showing mercy but a demonstration of divine character God is also
free to respond to new situations. He sees god as mourning the loss
of relationshiop more than beign angry at the idolatry. God will not
look at us in all of our shame and guilt, but with the eyes of love.
Perhaps, only heaven will unveil God too us, or even there, we will
see God face to face but still only partially, given our limitations.

Last week we mentioned
contentment as an antidote to coveting according to the Westminster
Catechism. Today our reading from Philippians gives us a whole set of
virtues to aid our spirit of contentment.

The Bible suspects that
we cannot stand happiness for long. It happened in Eden, now it
happens near Sinai. The people get freed through the Red Sea, get
bread from heaven, and water from a rock. Right away they break away,
or maybe revert to Egypt. I think that anxiety is a culprit here.
With Moses gone, their frail trust in God is under assault. In large
part, the trouble with the golden calf is our response to anxiety and
uncertainty.

Context matters. Here,
the lectionary separate the story from context. At best, it links it
directly to the 10 Commandments. In the intervening chapters, we have
material on the covenant code and careful description for worship
materials. Aaron, Moses, and the elders have had a banquet in the
presence of God. Again, the people want a God at our demand. This is
not liturgy a response to God? Maybe we could look at it as a
counter-liturgy, as it contains some of the same words that describe
the freedom found after the Red Sea episode and elements in the
preparations just described in the chapter prior to this.

Moses’s
intercession is quite moving. Not only is he willing to tell the
people that they are wrong, Moses is willing to argue with God. He
could well be taking a terrible risk as he tries to calm the God who
destroyed the Egyptians at the sea. Would god take out the
frustration on him as well? Notice God calls them your people. He
returns to God’s own words and deeds. God may well be testing
him to see if he has fallen victim to seeing himself as the chief.
(On the other hand, maybe they are both sick of them) Notice as in
the psalms, he appeals to God’s reputation: Look at the
verbs-repent, turn back turn around), change or relent and remember.
Usually, these words are directed at our failings. It works. God
changes from the anger and frustration into finding a way to
continue.

Moses is bold in his
prayer, in talking with God. Paul teaches us bold prayer in our short
reading this morning as well.. Paul reminds us that the Lord si not
far off, but close to us, near. God does not turn away from us. God
always faces us. Paul aks that we pray to God about everything in
our day, not just the important stuff, not just the critical pleas
for help, not just the moral dilemmas, everything. Here he combines
the bold step of asking God for what we need with the important check
on perspective: thanksgiving. Thanksgiving reminds us that few things
are in our control. It pushes us to look for the good, the silver
lining in the middle of hard times.

The sheer act of prayer
can be calming. We live in an anxious time. We are bombarded by bad
news and worries constantly; it is a steady diet of trouble we face.
We do well to work through our troubles in talking with God. We also
do well to lift up the good things that happen to us everyday, the
good things we notice every day. If we make a habit of praying the
blessings, it opens our eyes to pay attention to them, instead of
merely taking them as our right. We don’t need to construct
golden calves of different gods. We don’t need to look to a new
Moses to save us. Our god is as close as the next prayer, the next
breath.

I’m going out an
a bit of a limb this morning, as I am linking the two tablets, the
Ten Commandments to the Lord’s Supper. I will use one of the
ten words as an example of communion touching on the way of life god
desires in the outline of the law of Sinai.

For instance, it is no
big leap to see the manna in the wilderness as prefiguring our bread
of life. Just as the manna honored Sabbath rest, so too does this
sacrament offer rest for our weary souls. Let’s look at a
difficult one, coveting. Coveting is an itch that does not know
satisfaction. It is more than merely wanting. In the Westminster
Catechisms, it includes not only being envious of the goods and good
fortune of others, but the planning to obtain them by any means
necessary. Here taking part of God’s spiritual bounty can ease
the urges of coveting, as everybody has plenty. The Catechism follow
the Reformed tradition of seeing the law as both prohibition and
guideline, so it has thou shalt not along with thou shalt for each
commandment. Even though most of the commandments are in a negative,
phohibitory form, they contain positive injunctions that we should go
out and do. No fale witness means tell the truth. To fight coveting,
the catechism urges us to learn to be content with our condition. My
prayer would be that the sacrament of Communion teaches and offers us
a sense of contentment in the presence, the living presence, of Jesus
Christ within each one of us. Instead of grasping we share in the
sacrament. Here, a little is more than enough.

Even though we are
under enormous financial pressure at the moment, World Communion
Sunday pushes us to consider our relative state. World Communion
Sunday is difficult in a world rent by violence and poverty. Jesus
lived in a most imperfect land in an imperfect time. Jesus lived in a
world driven by conflicts. World Communion Sunday is a ritual for
brothers and sisters in Christ. No matter our differences, no matter
our language, we all do the same action this morning in sharing the
bread and the cup. In Communion, we remember Jesus Christ as a
victim of religious violence and a death penalty wrongly inflicted.
His blood continues to cry out in sympathy with all of the victims of
violence in the bloodstained world. Jesus lived in a time when most
people were poor. “Give us this day our daily bread”
reflects a culture where people lived day to day as opposed to
paycheck to paycheck. Can we, being spiritually filled until our cups
runneth over, allow people not to have enough to eat and drink?

When we receive
Communion, it is taking God’s way inside of our lives. Eugene
Peterson has a fairly new work, Eat This Book. He speaks of reading
Scripture in a meditative way, where we savor it, chew on the tough
parts, and ingest it making it part of our lives. Today it is eating
the tablets. Since we do not receive communion frequently, we can
make that an advantage by taking the time until the first Sunday in
Advent, in about 2 months to consider the meaning and depth of what
we all participate in this morning. Last week we were reminded that
the precious water came from Sinai, the same place where they would
receive the 10 Commandments. In Communion, we receive Jesus Christ’s
presence, the embodiment of God’s way in the world, into
ourselves. God’s way does not begin and end with the Ten
Commandments, Jesus far outstrips them in the Sermon on the Mount. As
we absorb the elements of the Lord’s Supper, we absorb the
teachings of the Lord. As Paul said, we form Christ in the world
together, another way of speaking of the church as the body of Christ
today.

Context matters. Here, the lectionary and source critics separate the story from context. At best, it links it directly to the 10Commanments. In the intervening chapters, we have material on the covenant code and careful description for worship materials.

The bible suspects that we cannot stand happiness for long. It happened in Eden, now it happens near Sinai. I think that anxiety is a culprit here.

Idolatry is a bit murky here. It could be make us a god or gods. It seems that the calf is a representation of God, as Aaron calls it a festival to God in v. 5.(see 23:14) this seems to reflect back to ch. 24. The calf could be a look toward the gods of Canaan, as we will see in Hos. 8 and in small bulls found in sites there. It could be a precursor to an assault on Jeroboam’s work in I Kings 12.

Again is God at our demand or is liturgy a response to God? Perhaps, the revels are the oppositie of worship decently and in order, a self-indulgent practice.

It is worth considering if this is being presented as a counter-liturgy, as it contains some fo the same words that describe the freedom found after the Red Sea episode.and elements in the preparations just described in the chapter prior to this.

Calf in Canaanite view

Moses’s intercession is quite moving. Notice God calls them your people. He returns to God’s own words and deeds. (On the other hand, maybe they are both sick of them) Notice as in the psalms, he appeals to God’s reputation: Look at the verbs-repent (sub turn back/around), change (niham) and remember (zakar) It works God changes God’s mind (v. 14)

Aaron is worth thinking about here. If one is so inlclined we can go through the arguments of priesthood, including Levites v. Zadokites, or the purity of the Dead Sea Scrolls group against what they saw as impurity in the Temple.