Is the Lord With Us? Finding trust

"Is the Lord With Us?"

Finding Trust in the Face of Doubt

Rev. Alison Longstaff, May 18, 2014

Original version preached October 30^th 2011 in Ontario

Bath Church of the New Jerusalem

Joshua 3:7-17; Matthew 23:1-12; TCR portions 283, 284

Today we are looking at the story of the Children of Israel at the brink of the Jordan River.  They are at the very edge of all that they have dreamed of and worked so hard for.  The Promised Land is within reach!  It is steps away!  However, they are a rag-tag bunch and have arrived fairly ill-equipped to take the last few steps.  They are ill equipped except for one little detail---the Lord is with them and has been with them every step of the way.

Now let me set the scene.  The Jordan River is not such a big river.  If you visited the site of the crossing today, you might wonder what all the fuss was about, as it is little more than a stream.  It runs today at about one tenth of the size it ran at the time of this story, due to all sorts of redirection of water into field irrigation and housing developments.   But back then, it would have been about the width of the Saco River as it passes through Fryeburg. Picture the Saco River as it passes Fryeburg, and you would have an approximate picture of the Jordan River at the time of our story.  The Children of Israel simply have to cross this river and they will have achieved their dream.

Except... the children of Israel arrived at the Jordan during the time of the spring flooding.

So, picture the Saco River at its most frighteningly rough—overflowing its banks and thundering by with an overabundance of snow-melt or rain water, and this is more like what the Children of Israel were facing.  Put yourself in their sandals.  Remember that you grew up wandering in the desert, and while you are skilled at surviving all sorts of difficult desert conditions, navigating an overabundance of water is not your strong suit.  In fact, you have no idea how to swim.

Furthermore, at the point at which they crossed, the shoreline is not a nice sandy, flat stretch of land.  No, the banks here are steep and covered in thick thorn-bushes.  The ground is treacherous and difficult. You really can’t see your footing, and one slip could tumble you into the maelstrom.

Do you have the picture?  Here you are, on a steep slope, grasping a thorn bush, staring down into a roaring cataract, and you can’t swim---not at all.  All you have to do is cross this thing.  That’s all.  Simple.  So, how are you feeling?  You are just meters from your lifetime dream-come-true! Aren't you excited?  You must be raring to go! 

Hmmm.  Given the evidence in your face, how confident do you feel?  God has assured you that he is with you and that you will enter the Promised Land.  You have grown up with the story of how God miraculously parted the Red Sea for your parents, but as you stand in the thorns and look at the leaping, gushing flood, maybe you are having a few misgivings?

Now remember that the stories in the Bible are always speaking to the reader in real time, through metaphor, poetry, and symbolism.  They are not just about some strange people, long ago, but about you and me right here, now, today.  So I ask you, as we sit here together in our modern, vinyl-clad building; with bucket-loads of money, standing room only, no trouble paying our bills, no threat of having to “grow or close” in a few years, and no big expenses looming (like an entire building repaint or a complete kitchen renovation): I ask you to try, just maybe, to feel like these people in the story did—ill-equipped for the daunting challenge ahead of them, thinking their dreams are idiotic, that their plans and vision make no sense, and that going forward now will certainly result in, well, death.  Maybe that is too big a stretch. But please try. (Tongue firmly in cheek.)

So.  Back to our story.  You are standing right at the edge of something great that God had promised you, but you have this huge, terrifying, apparently impassable obstacle between you and the finish line. Everything you know and everything your senses tell you is that you are facing certain death. 

This is a classic crisis of faith.  God has set this situation up as both a test and as ongoing proof of God’s covenant with his people.  Covenant means PROMISE, and when God makes a promise, you can bet (S)He will keep it.  The question is not whether God is with us, the question is: how ready are we in these circumstances to trust in God?  God has promised that He blesses us and blesses our efforts.  God has promised that s/he is with us again and again and proved he/r guiding presence time after time, but the people in the story are a lot like us.  Each new challenge just seems to bring a fresh wave of insecurity and doubt. Each new challenge calls us out of our comfort zone and into a deeper walk with God—a deeper trust in providence.  How ready are we to place our trust in Providence this time around?

I don’t know about you, but for me somehow it doesn't matter how many challenges God has brought me through in the past. Each new challenge requires a re-commitment on my part to trusting God’s providence.  Remembering that God has indeed gotten me through until now helps, but I want a guarantee that s/he will get me through again.  I don’t want a risk.  I don’t want to jump without a safety net.  No matter how many times God worked miracles in the wilderness for the Children of Israel, they still doubted again and again.  That sounds like me. No matter how many times things have worked out for the best in my life, there is still such a large gap between my little desire to trust and the major leap of faith often required of me.  Tiny me.  Huge leap of faith.

Does this sound familiar?

When you and I are needing to make a leap of faith, what can we possibly do to find the trust we are lacking?  Let’s take another look at today’s Scripture.  We read, “the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth is going to pass before you into the Jordan…. ¹²¹³When the soles of the feet of the priests who bear the ark of the Lord, the Lord of all the earth, rest in the waters of the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan flowing from above shall be cut off; they shall stand in a single heap.”

The first thing to note is that the ark went before.  The ark “of the covenant,” the very symbol of the promise, takes the lead before the people.  Not only was the ark the symbol of the Covenant, it was their concrete reminder that God was leading them.  In that golden box, guarded by golden angels, was the story of how God had been with them and would continue to be with them.  When the feet of the priests carrying that box touched the water, or rather, when they skidded down the steep bank into the rushing flood, the flood waters stood up in a wall and let the entire company cross the river on dry ground.  When the priests, holding up the promise, took the plunge, the obstacles withdrew. 

And so the river divides after we take the plunge.  God requires us to get our feet wet first.  The priests leading the way with the ark remind us that when we put God first, we will have success.  We have to commit to the path. We have to make the leap, skid down the bank and into the river where we can’t swim, before God can divide the water.  But because we stepped out holding fast to God’s promise and God’s ability to work miracles, the waters part.

It is interesting to note that the name of Joshua is actually the same name that the angel Gabriel tells Mary to give to the holy baby in her womb.  Joshua in Hebrew becomes Yeshua in Aramaic, which becomes Iesus (Yay-soose) in Greek, which becomes Jesus in English. So the switch of leadership from Moses to Joshua at this point in the story has deep significance.  It is describing the same sort of spiritual energetic shift that is represented by a shift from a written law (the Hebrew Testament) to a living God walking among us, (Jesus). 

Moses, throughout the Scriptures, represents the law to us.  Moses represents the time in our spiritual development when we are still learning all the various rules and teachings about how to be a good person from whatever tradition we come. To develop as a truly living spiritual being, we must start as students.  We must first learn what others have decided is true and right.  Our teachings say that God provides such spiritual and moral teaching to every person in every context, sufficient for them to make the spiritual journey.  So no matter what our background and beginnings; no matter what tradition shaped and informed our learning, at some point we must begin to distill and sift among all the things we have learned and begin to live according to our own conscience.  We begin to reject and discard all that cannot live in our lives, and we put into practice all that resonates with our new spiritual identity. And that is a shift from law and learning, to life and living.  It is the shift from Moses to Joshua, and from learning about the rules of how to be good, to actually wanting and working to be good.

The switch from Moses to Joshua is this precise shift from rules and law to an active, living, vibrant spiritual life.  There is nothing wrong with being at a stage that we are still following Moses in our spiritual walk.  It is a necessary and vital part of our spiritual development.  But, we will not enter the Promised Land until we are ready to be lead by Joshua.  We must be people of spiritual courage.

 Joshua cannot lead a dutiful, rules-in-my-head version of spirituality into the Promised Land.  The only ones ready to survive the crossing are those with a committed intention to put all that they have learned into practice.  That shift can be daunting, and we can feel like we are stepping onto far less secure spiritual footing.  It a shift from head to heart, and it is a definite move forward in faith. It involves a lot more risk-taking, and takes a lot of trust and courage, but the rewards of stepping up and following Joshua will be those of settling into a green and vibrant spiritual landscape, not the sparse fruits of wandering in a wilderness. 

Stepping up to follow Joshua and the ark into the Promised Land also requires us to shift our consciousness from that of scarcity to that of abundance.  While in the wilderness, we survive by carefully rationing what we have.  We can’t do otherwise.  We are still pretty much in the illusion that it is our own efforts that are getting us through even though all along it has been God.

But once we move to settle in the land, we can prepare for an abundance that we have only previously imagined.  We have to believe it to see it.  We have to be ready to trust, and to step out in trust for the way to open.  Until we do, we stay in the thorns and the desert.  We really can and often do choose struggle and effort and barely making it over relaxing and allowing abundance to flow in.  It is just our natures.  It can feel safer.

After all, relaxing and allowing abundance to flow in sounds like hocus-pocus to us when we are used to spiritual desert-living.  I can only say that I have seen too many examples of this shift into welcoming abundance truly working to be able to discount it any longer.  Welcoming abundance, and seeing it begin to flow can bring up all sorts of uncomfortable feelings for us: feelings of guilt, unworthiness, and the fear of the responsibility it would entail. After all, should we really have a flood of abundance, we would have to step up in our response to it.  If this church should thrive and succeed and become the booming center for spiritual life that we envision, we will all be called into a greater level of love, activity and service than ever before.  Does that frighten you a little?  We must be strong and of good courage to welcome this new future.

We are indeed approaching this venture ill-equipped to go forward.  But it never was and never has been about us being good enough or ready enough to serve God’s purpose in the world.  God takes our few loaves and fishes and makes a banquet for thousands.  God does. We just have to show up and bring our whole selves, no matter how small and inadequate we may feel.  The Lord is with us now and has been with us every step of the way.  We just have to trust and commit.

When we refuse to listen to the fear and doubt, trust in God can flow in.  When we cultivate an attitude of gratitude for all that we have and a deep faith that God is already providing, then the Lord can hold back any flood waters of fear and doubt that might be threatening, so that we can walk through on dry ground---the dry ground of peace and trust.  This journey truly needn't look like a flounder through the rushing waters of struggle.  Peace is waiting the moment our feet touch the water. But we must commit to living in the Promise. God doesn't ask for a partial commitment.  God can’t work with a “well, I’ll wait and see what others do and then decide.”  God asks for all your heart and all your soul and all your mind.

So surrender your fears and inadequacies, your “yes-but”s and your “what-if”s.  We are enough, have enough, and will be enough because God promised it. God’s intention is for each one of us to be blessed and to be a blessing.  God’s intention is for the church to be blessed and to be a blessing. The only thing standing in the way is our fear.  We can see this promise fulfilled. We can become the living, thriving center for spiritual life that we envision if we can just push aside the fear and get our feet wet.

I would like to end by quoting Marianne Williamson.  This is a passage made famous by Nelson Mandela in his inaugural speech:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves ‑ who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God.

Your playing small doesn't serve the world.

There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.

It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

There is nothing to fear.  Go up and take this land.  Amen

The Readings: 

Joshua 3:7-17

⁷The Lord said to Joshua, “This day I will begin to exalt you in the sight of all Israel, so that they may know that I will be with you as I was with Moses. ⁸You are the one who shall command the priests who bear the ark of the covenant, ‘When you come to the edge of the waters of the Jordan, you shall stand still in the Jordan.’” ⁹Joshua then said to the Israelites, “Draw near and hear the words of the Lord your God.” ¹⁰Joshua said, “By this you shall know that among you is the living God who without fail will drive out from before you the Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Perizzites, Girgashites, Amorites, and Jebusites: ¹¹the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth is going to pass before you into the Jordan. ¹²So now select twelve men from the tribes of Israel, one from each tribe. ¹³When the soles of the feet of the priests who bear the ark of the Lord, the Lord of all the earth, rest in the waters of the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan flowing from above shall be cut off; they shall stand in a single heap.”

¹⁴When the people set out from their tents to cross over the Jordan, the priests bearing the Ark of the Covenant were in front of the people. ¹⁵Now the Jordan overflows all its banks throughout the time of harvest. So when those who bore the ark had come to the Jordan, and the feet of the priests bearing the ark were dipped in the edge of the water, ¹⁶the waters flowing from above stood still, rising up in a single heap far off at Adam, the city that is beside Zarethan, while those flowing toward the sea of the Arabah, the Dead Sea, were wholly cut off. Then the people crossed over opposite Jericho. ¹⁷While all Israel were crossing over on dry ground, the priests who bore the ark of the covenant of the Lord stood on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan, until the entire nation finished crossing over the Jordan.

Matthew 23:1-12

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, ²“The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; ³therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach. ⁴They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them. ⁵They do all their deeds to be seen by others; for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long. ⁶They love to have the place of honor at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues, ⁷and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have people call them rabbi. ⁸But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all students. ⁹And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father—the one in heaven. ¹⁰Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Messiah. ¹¹The greatest among you will be your servant. ¹²All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.

Portions of True Christianity 283, 284
The Ten Commandments are a condensation or short summary of the life necessary for a human soul to find conjunction with God, and God to find conjunction with the human soul. For this reason the stone tablets containing them within the Ark were holy above all else.

Miracles happened in the Presence of the Ark of the Covenant because the Law or Ten Commandments nested within it, and the Presence of Jehovah hovered around and within it. The Lord's power that was present in the Law that was inside the Ark split the waters of the Jordan river; and as long as the ark was resting in the middle of the riverbed, the people crossed on dry land.

Joshua 1: 2-9 portions “Arise!  Go across this Jordan, you and all this people, into the land that I am giving to you. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you everywhere you go."