Many of you know that
I’m a life-long, ardent Philadelphia Phillies baseball fan. This facet
of my life was cemented in 1980 when I was eleven year’s old -- Rebecca’s age
-- and they won the World Series title for the first time since the team’s
inception in 1883, when they were known as the “Quakers.” Steve Carlton, Mike Schmidt, Tug McGraw …
talk about some giant childhood heroes! My nostalgia bank remains in full account of
that season.
I didn’t think about
the strictly business side of baseball back then. Nor did I think about it when the team won the
World Series for just a second time in 2008, or when they got to but lost the the
big title series in ’83, ’93 and ’09. But
this season, we Phillies fans – and fans of a great many other teams,
excluding, yes, yet again, the Yankees – realize that the strictly business
side of the national past time can stare you hard in the face. I say “national pastime,” but there are
times when I kind of have to agree with Erma Bombeck who believed gossip was
really our national pastime! Anyway,
the strictly business side of the game stares a fan hard in the face when it’s
the mid-season trade deadline and your beloved team is but a spent shell of its
former championship self. The usually formidable Fightin’ Phils are
dead last in their division and have nearly the worst winning percentage in all
of baseball (poor Houston helps our self-esteem). So the team ownership traded away two fan favorite
star players to teams still in the race this year and thus cashed out on this
season in the hope of being able to invest in rebuilding the next.
What a tough spot to
be in, knowing when to make sacrifices, to turn away from presently unpleasant
and despairing circumstances in order to start building-up hope again for the
future. There is always the possibility of more
failure, that tough decisions, inspired by glory-filled days of the past, are
made that might end up creating deeper disappointment and disaster.
In sharing these words
about the crossroad of past, present and future, I’m no longer just talking
about baseball. It’s a long-time great sport with many people
involved, but what I’m much more significantly talking about in this time of
worship is a great nation with multitudes of a historic people. I’m speaking about the Hebrew people at the
time of the great exodus from Egypt. I’m speaking about the fact that in a time of
desperation, many of them were fully tempted to make a huge, extremely risky
trade while the nation was wandering in the Wilderness of Sin (really, the
region was called “Sin” … though the hard to translate Hebrew word, which also
is the root of Sinai, as in Mt. Sinai, does not refer to our lapsed spiritual condition;
metaphorically, though, it’s gold!)
Recall the earlier
movement of the epic story. The Hebrew
people had been living in Egypt. A life that had begun there as foreign but
safe sanctuary under the authority of their ancestor Joseph and a different,
deeply grateful Pharaoh, had shifted several hundred years later into a life of
horrendous enslavement. The Pharaoh of
several hundred years later was threatened by the sheer number and rigorous strength
of the Hebrew people living under his dominion, fearing that they might one day
choose to side with enemies. So he
decided to force them en mass into ruthlessly enforced hard labor. Plus, in a monstrous population control
project, he also at one point ordered the murder of baby boys.
The very brave,
totally inspiring actions of two Hebrew midwives saving one special baby boy
followed, sparking God’s plan for life beyond the hopeless, entrenched
injustice of Egypt. This boy was, of course, Moses, whom God --
many years, one particularly mysteriously burning bush, and one miraculously
split open sea later -- worked through to deliver the Hebrew people to
freedom.
But freedom from
Egypt’s institutional oppression meant entering harsh times of trial in the
wilderness. This wasn’t a well-packed
up and prepared for camping trip; this was escape and survival, holy calling
and desperate hunger. As desperations
danced with their wandering steps, holy hope for a better life dimmed and greater
grew bitter, ungodly complaining.
We can understand this
with great compassion. Who wouldn’t
express such fearful misery after being led out by the Almighty into a new
adventure, all the while faithfully trusting in a better life to come, but then
landing in a life-threatening wasteland, a season of despair where needed commodities
and hopeful conviction are scarce?
In that climate, so
also arose a particularly dark and idolatrous temptation. The people contemplated making a trade -- a trade
back to Pharaoh’s team, a trade back to regular meals despite the bloody brutal
bondage of bodies, minds, hearts and souls.
How was
God to respond to this? To all of the second-guessing,
faith-choked cries?
God listened and
loved. God received the laments and did
not condemn the people for having a lack of trust in divine power and
provision. God steadfastly honored and
further invested in the promised plans of glory God had for these chosen
children, for team salvation. God immediately provided the needed, demanded
nourishment – in the form of manna and quail -- in order to dispel that sinful
temptation of turning back. It was a
bit of test of faith, for the choice was before them – they could keep playing
out fear-induced fantasies about life under Egyptian oppression or continue
living on into the field of holy promise and expectation that no matter what,
God provides.
The Scripture tells us
that for a space of time they chose rightly.
They chose to turn away from the false face of Egyptian life and instead
turned toward the fresh face of hope that, in God’s providence, was looking at
them through whatever lay ahead in the wilderness. The team vote was for further restoration,
not liberation-reverting re-entry. They
chose what some writers of Judeo-Christian spirituality call the Way of
Leaving, which is also just as much the Way of Arriving.[i] It
is the way of people putting roots down not in land or houses, but in God
alone.
In reading this part
of the great epic story of Israel, we must be careful not to miss a very vital
detail and all-around applicable teaching about life with God. This decision making process, this faithful
discernment, happened only after choosing to obey Moses and Aaron’s summons of the
whole congregation of Israel to “come near before the Lord.” In other words, in that season of despair, in
that faith challenging crisis, the people were called to be in worship
together. Once gathered, they then had
fresh faithful courage to take a second look over at the wilderness. To
their great surprise, what they saw of the wilderness during that gathering of
praise and prayer was “not an empty, deathly place, but the locus of God’s
sovereign splendor …a nurturing place.”[ii] They further and more fully understood that
they were God’s team, that their salvation was trustfully in play.
In what places today
are people struggling to look through and across a wilderness of desperation, of
sin? Where are people, and more
personally, where are you having trouble detecting and trusting and hoping in God’s
promises of glory days to come? How are
we, as the great body of Christ, who is our Bread of Life, providing “manna”
and “quail,” the kind of provision that calls attention to the biblical truth
that God always provides? These are vital, ongoing questions for us as
faithful individuals, as faithful families, and as a faithful body of Christ’s
fold.
Before we move from
sermon to further songs, prayers and offerings of praise, I’m inspired to lift
up one way to do this as FPC, as Faithful People in Christ. We do so through our teaming up in ministry
with the Open Cupboard Food Pantry in neighboring Clinton. Coordinated and delivered by congregational
leaders Bill and Angela Mannion, I encourage you to understand how your many
contributions to this ministry as extending real, tangible hope in God’s
steadfast promises and provisions. It
fills physical, emotional and spiritual needs for people in need across
northern Hunterdon County, people wandering through the realities of sin,
hoping to receive the grace of their daily bread. We love our neighbors by helping them turn toward
their wilderness experiences and see glimpses of the holy, abundant life God
desires for all.
I could not locate
more recent statistics this week, but I know that back in 2009, over one
hundred thousand pounds of grocery store items – food and health necessities –
were donated and distributed. I understand that FPC is presently giving an
average of 20 pounds per week, and that we have well exceeded a ton of
provisions since we partnered with this ministry a couple years ago. My heart is so warmed each time I see items
for donation being dropped off, especially when I happen to know well that the
person giving these gifts of faith, hope and love is also struggling through a
wilderness experience. If the Way of
Leaving is also the Way of Arriving, then it’s also true that the Way of Giving
is the Way of Receiving.
And you know what I
really love and give thanks and praise to God about? Location, timing … how our congregational
giving of modern day needed manna and quail mostly takes place at the entrance
to our sanctuary, just when we are answering the faithful call to come near the
Lord in worship. That collection box is kind of like the jar
with a piece of manna in it that the ancient Israelites were commanded to have
present during worship. What better
location and time to turn in hope and face God’s good glory alive in the wildernesses
of this world? Amen.
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