Crossing The River

This is the message I presented at Tompkins Corners UMC on the 24th Sunday after Pentecost, November 3, 2002.  The Scriptures were Joshua 3: 7 – 17, 1 Thessalonians 2: 9 – 13, and Matthew 23: 1 – 12.

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Last week I spoke of how the Hudson River at Beacon gives me a connection back to the Mississippi River. If there has been one constant in my life, it has been the Mississippi River. Though I grew up in many different parts of this country, it always seems like I return to “Old Man River.” Be it through my grandparents living less than five miles from the river in St. Louis, my going to school in northeast Missouri, my home in Memphis, or teaching positions in Illinois and Minnesota, it always seemed that the Mississippi River was somewhere in my own backyard.

And just like many other parts of this country, the Mississippi River of one section is radically different from other sections. In the north, from its headwaters in Itasca, Minnesota, to Minneapolis, the River is a narrow stream that one can walk across in the winter when the ice cover is thick and deep. In fact, when the river freezes over, it often freezes over all the way down to the Missouri and Illinois sections. When the Mormons living in Nauvoo, Illinois, were forced into the exile that would lead them to Utah, they crossed the frozen Mississippi in one of the coldest winters known.

Between Minneapolis and St. Louis, the river is dominated by the locks and dams built by the Army Corps of Engineers during the 1930′s and 1940′s to combat the floods that once were a plague and fixture of the farms along the river. Below St. Louis, the river is the one Samuel Clemens wrote about as Mark Twain. As it flows slowly down to New Orleans, it changes into the delta country that gave birth to the “Blues” that drifted north to Chicago and the sounds of jazz that came out of New Orleans. At New Orleans, the Mississippi turns into the alluvial flood plain spreading out into the Gulf of Mexico. At Memphis, the Mississippi is about three miles wide. On a good day in the summer, just like a good day in a Minnesota winter, you can walk across the river.

I can imagine how it must have felt to settlers traveling west when they first stood on the eastern banks of the Mississippi, looking at all that was on the western shore and wondering how they would get across. Those who sought commerce on the river were at the mercy of the river, able to only transport goods downstream and having to find ingenious ways to go upstream.

But when the technology of the time enabled them, they built engines to power the steamboats that gave birth to the stories of Mark Twain and later enabled them to build the bridges that crossed the river at St. Louis, Memphis, and Vicksburg.

The Israelites must have had the same feeling as they stood on the banks of the River Jordan, looking across its waters into the Promised Land. But rather than any particular technology, the Israelites had the Ark of the Covenant, the vessel in which they carried the tablets of the Ten Commandments. Hardly the secret weapon that Indiana Jones attempted to obtain, it was the physical embodiment of the Holy Spirit and represented the connection, the bridge, between God and the Israelites.

With the Ark preceding them into the river, just as Moses parted the waters of the Red Sea with his staff, the waters of the River Jordan parted and the tribes of Israel triumphantly entered the Promised Land, claiming the ancient homeland once again. It is important to note that in any battle the Israelite army entered into, if the Ark of the Covenant led them into battle, the army was undefeated. When they Israelite army was too proud and confident in its own abilities and left the Ark behind, they were defeated. The Ark of the Covenant served as a reminder of the connection that existed between the people of Israel and God.

I think this was one of the reasons for Jesus’ anger being directed at the Pharisees and leaders of Israel in the Gospel reading for today. Through their roles as leaders and guides, they served as the bridge, the connection between God and the people. Yet they were more interested in their own appearances than they were in keeping the connection open.

The breadth of their appearance was about as wide as the Mississippi is wide at the bridge crossing in Memphis. It’s just that the faith of the leaders was also just about as shallow. It is one thing to make an effort to show your righteousness but without action, such a show is meaningless.

Instead of being the connection, the bridge that the people needed, the leaders were more often barriers, keeping the people away from God through their rules and interpretations of the Law. And, in putting up barriers, they took away the initiative of the people to seek God. Each rule, each barrier pushed the people further and further from God. As they moved further from God, they became lost once again.

Jesus sought to be the bridge between the people and God, a task that many leaders had forgotten. We are constantly reminded in the Gospels that Jesus came to restore the connection between the people and God, to make it easier to close the gap that existed.

One might think that would be the end of it but we have seen over the years a repeat of that very situation, of leaders who put great importance in their own appearance and less in helping others to find and hold onto the connection with God. It was this “lukewarm” Christianity that Wesley so visibly hated; it was this reliance on show rather than on action that lead him to seek a better way.

Wesley was one to quickly point out that we are not perfect and that perfection is a very difficult, if not impossible, thing to obtain. But, having accepted Christ as our Savior, it is our duty to seek perfection through our actions. It is almost a necessity that we put into action what we say.

In his letter to the Thessalonians, Paul pointed out that he continued to work as a tent maker in order to provide for his own well being and in order not to be a burden on his converts. His main point in the section of the letter that we read today is show that his ministry was motivated by a desire to spread the Gospel and not for any riches or glory that might come to him for his works. In the closing passage of this section of the letter, Paul points out that the work of the Thessalonians also served as a bridge to those lost in the secular world seeking to find solace and peace. Their work also served to contrast the love and grace of God to the legalism of the Jewish religion of the time.

There comes a time when we each face a river. Perhaps it a real river like the Mississippi or the Hudson, but more often it is a crisis in life that cannot be described in any physical dimension. We are reminded that in order to cross such a river we need assistance. Crossing the Mississippi proved to be easy for the early settlers of this country who first used flatboats or steamships and later bridges. But such bridges or means of crossing the river don’t help when it is the depths of our soul that must be crossed.

Then, our only hope can be found in the one who came to close that gap, Jesus Christ. Through him, we are promised access to God, to salvation and freedom from sin and death. And once we have crossed that river, once we have reached the other side, then it becomes a part of us to help us find their way across. We are reminded that our faith is not so much show but more a cause for action. That we, having taken on the job of being Christ’s servant in this world, must help others cross the river.

You Have To Get Your Feet Wet

This is the message I presented at Modena Memorial UMC on Reformation Sunday, the 23rd Sunday after Pentecost, October 31, 1999.  I exchanged pulpits that Sunday as their pastor was at Walker Valley UMC.  The Scriptures were Joshua 3: 7 – 17, 1 Thessalonians 2: 9 – 13, and Matthew 23: 1 – 12.

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When I first read the Scriptures for today, I could not help but think of the movie “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” In that movie, the first of the Indiana Jones movies, Indiana Jones takes on the task of finding the lost Ark of the Covenant and in the process fighting the Nazis for its possession. The Nazis wanted the Ark because they saw its usefulness as a weapon of war that would bring them victory. Now, there may be some truth to that because whenever the Israelite army went into battle with the Ark in front of them, they seldom lost the battle.

But it was not with the Ark used as a death ray as suggested in the movie. Rather, the Ark contained the tablets of stone upon which the Ten Commandments were carved. The Ark was the embodiment of God and when the Israelites followed God, they were an invincible army. It was only when the army failed to believe in God and trusted in the “magic” of the Ark, such as when they fought the Philistines in 1 Samuel 4 – 6 that they lost the battle and the Ark. However, the Philistines were stricken with such horrible plagues that they quickly returned the Ark to Israel.

In the Old Testament reading for today, the Israelites are about to cross the river Jordan into the Promised Land. God tells Joshua to pick twelve priests, one from every tribe of Israel to carry the Ark. When these twelve touch the waters of the river, the river will stop flowing and a path across the river will be made clear so that the nation of Israel can cross over on relatively dry land.

I grew up as a second-generation military brat, the son of an Air Force Major and the grandson of an Army Colonel. If I had been given the opportunity I would have jumped at the chance to attend the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. But my vision prevented that.

The primary function of the service academies is to prepare individuals to serve this country as its military leaders. As such, part of the training the cadets and midshipman received is designed so that they will understand that there are men and women who must ultimately carry out the orders that their leaders give.

The college where I did do my undergraduate studies is not far from the birthplace of Omar Bradley. It was said that Bradley was a soldier’s soldier, a general who understood that there were men who must carry out his orders. The soldiers liked General Bradley because he understood them.

And though I use a military analogy, the same is true in private industry. Good leaders in business today understand what they are asking their workers to do. That is the point of the Old Testament reading today; the leaders of Israel were the ones who got their feet wet so that the nation could walk across the river Jordan.

And I think that is part of the exasperation that Jesus must have felt in the Gospel reading for today concerning the leaders of society. They sat in positions of authority, accepting the accolades that went with the position but were not willing to get involved in the heavy work that went with leadership.

And we all now people in business or elsewhere who are like that. They like the trappings of power but make impossible demands on the workers or refuse to give the workers anything that will make the job easier. Companies with this type of structure find themselves quickly in trouble.

In the Epistle reading for today, Paul noted his conduct while he preached the Gospel in Thessalonica. He stated that though he was a messenger of God, that position gave him no special status or power. As the messenger, it is also important to note that he “urged and encouraged” rather than “demanded” that the Thessalonians lead a life of God.

The point expressed by Paul and Jesus in the Gospel reading is simply. If you wish the respect that comes with leadership, you must earn it; it does not simply come with the position. And my friends, this does not apply to just a select few among us who are the designated leaders. It applies to each and every one of us.

The challenges we face in today’s society are seemingly insurmountable. The divisions between us because of race, social status, or economic status will not go away because of who our leaders are now or who want to be our leaders. They will go away when we, as individuals guided by Christ, do His work. In the last of the Gospel reading for today, Jesus notes that there is only one teacher and one Messiah and we are all His students.

There is no way that we can call persons to Christ if we ignore what is going on in the world around us. John Wesley was not the first preacher to preach against the inequities of society in 18^th century England. Other preachers did so as well but Wesley was perhaps the first preacher who called upon his parishioners, the founders of what is now our United Methodist Church, to take action.

Someone once asked me to define the differences between Methodism and other Christian denominations. Since all Christian denominations have in common the belief that by our faith in Christ, we are saved by the grace of God, what is it that makes us Methodists? Quite simply, for Methodists, the question is “Having been saved, what shall you do next?”

We can never be perfect and, even as saved individuals, we will never approach perfection. But that should not stop us from trying to reach perfection, of reaching a better state of grace. And that requires that we do, as John Wesley stated, “Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the time you can, to all the people you can and as long as you can.” (John Wesley quoted in the The 365-Day Devotional Commentary, p. 671)

Jesus pointed out in Matthew 23: 11 “The greatest among you will become servants” and in verse 12, “All who exalt themselves will be humbled and all who humble themselves will be exalted.” If we are to be good leaders, we must first be good servants.

Our lives as Christians must be more than hearing the Gospel preached on Sunday. Auguste Sabetier wrote

Merely to reproduce his words is not to continue his work’ we must reproduce his life, passion and death. He desires to live again in each one of his disciples in order that he may continue to suffer, to bestow himself, and to labor in and through them towards the redemption of humanity, until all prodigal and lost children be found and brought back to their Father’s house. Thus it is that, instead of being removed far from human history, the life and death of Christ one more take their place in history, setting forth the law that governs it, and, by ceaselessly increasing the power of redemptive sacrifice, transform and govern it, and direct it towards its divine end. (From “The Atonement” by Auguste Sabetier as quoted in The Double Search by Rufus M. Jones)

If we are to be Christ’s disciples in this world, we must continue His work. Sometimes it feels like a hopeless cause and we desperately wish to have the Ark of the Covenant preceding us in battle, as it did for the Israelites as they took over the Promised Land. But no one knows where the Ark of the Covenant is today. At the conclusion of “The Raiders of the Lost Ark,” we see a government working putting the crate holding the Ark away in some obscure government warehouse. There is a legend among some Middle East Christian sects that the Ark is in a church somewhere in Ethiopia. But there is no sure way to determine if that is true or not.

Paul wrote the Thessalonians,

When you received the word of God, you accepted it not as a human word but as what it really is, God’s word, which is also at work in what you believe.

By our faith and acceptance of Jesus Christ as our Savior, God’s word takes on a newer meaning. The word of God is embodied in Christ and when we accepted him, it is as if the Word of God precedes us each day.

We stand on the banks of the river Jordan, looking across at the Promised Land. But to get there, we have to get our feet wet. We have to accept Christ as our Savior and we have to then let His presence in our lives show us the way that we must go. We cannot sit back and let others do it for us. The invitation to you today is that simple, shall you get your feet wet?

Who Shall Enter The Promised Land?

Here are my thoughts for the 24th Sunday after Pentecost.  The Scriptures for this Sunday are Deuteronomy 34: 1 – 12, 1 Thessalonians 2: 1 – 8, and Matthew 22: 34 – 46.

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When looking at the Old Testament reading for this Sunday, my first temptation was not to do what I had done in the past (see “What’s Next” and “What Is the Promise?”). But after watching a show on the History Channel about Moses and the journey from Egypt to Mount Nebo, I had second thoughts.

In this particular show, one of the commentators mentioned that it was very difficult not think of Martin Luther King’s “Mountaintop Speech” any time you read of Moses standing on the slopes of Mount Nebo and looking over the Promised Land.

Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn’t matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And 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. And I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. (http://www.afscme.org/about/memphist.htm)

As readers of this blog should know by now, Memphis is my home and I was a senior in high school that spring. So it is only natural that I should think about Dr. King and the words he spoke the night before he was assassinated.

But during these times when the economy is so mixed up and there are those who see the makings of another Great Depression (which almost makes me wish I had kept the term paper I had written that spring on that moment in American History), perhaps we need to review just exactly why it was that Dr. King came to Memphis and what that fateful trip some forty years ago means for us today.

During a heavy rainstorm in Memphis on February 1, 1968, two black sanitation workers were crushed to death when the compactor mechanism of the trash truck was accidentally triggered. On the same day in a separate incident also related to the inclement weather, 22 black sewer workers had been sent home without pay while their white supervisors were retained for the day with pay. (http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/memphis-v-mlk/)

On February 12^th 1,375 workers (mostly sanitation workers but with other Department of Public Works employees) went out on strike for job safety, better wages and benefits, and union recognition. At the time of the strike, workers were paid $1.70 per hour and were asking for $2.35 per hour; the city’s offer was a 5% (or 8-1/2 cents) raise.

Dr. King was invited to Memphis to aid in the effort to bring about reconciliation between the workers and the city as well as bring attention to the disparity between classes. It should be noted that not many people outside of Memphis were aware of this strike. When this strike began a similar strike by sanitation workers in New York City had just ended. Even the respected New York Times did not consider a similar strike in a town of just 500,000 people to be newsworthy. The city of Memphis was able to keep the problem below “crisis-level” and out of the public’s eye.

So it was that on April 3, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. stood before a gathering of strikers and supporters at the Mason Temple in Memphis, Tennessee and gave what has become known as his “Mountaintop” speech. This speech, which in part outlined the history of the civil rights struggle, concluded with the words that described what he saw as the future of this country.

Sadly, his vision that he would not complete the journey came true the next day and I have to wonder if, in the forty years since that day, we have decided that it is not worth the effort to complete the journey ourselves.

Interestingly enough, it has been forty years since Martin Luther King stood on his mountaintop and saw into the Promised Land of equality and freedom. For it was forty years between the time the people of Israel first saw their Promised Land and the time that they were allowed to enter it. Remember that the Israelites had the opportunity some forty years before the Old Testament reading but their fears and lack of faith in God kept them out.

In Chapter 2 of the Book of Numbers we read how they arrived at the edge of the Promised Land (verses 12 – 14) and sent spies into the land. In Chapter 13, the spies returned with their report that the land indeed flowed with milk and honey. But they also exaggerated the power of the people who lived in the land. While two of the spies (Caleb and Joshua) would report the truth and indicate that they could enter without difficulty, the others quickly supported the initial report.

In Numbers 14: 34, God punishes the people for their rebellion and lack of faith by having them continue their wandering for another forty years, one year for each of the forty days that the spies were in the land. Forty years of wandering as one generation died and another generation took its place. It has been forty years since Martin Luther King stood at the mountaintop and saw the Promised Land. It has been forty years but what do we see today?

No longer is it just a journey down the mountaintop and across the plains of Jordan to the Jordan River. For it seems that there is a chasm between where we stand on the mountaintop and the Promised Land; a chasm that once was a little crack but now appears to be a wide and impassable canyon.

In a report last Wednesday in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, it was stated that the gap between the rich and poorer continues to increase. The Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development indicated that the income for the top 10% continues to increase and is leaving the middle and lower classes behind as the incomes for those two groups stagnate. In the United States, the richest 10% earn an average of $93,000, while the poorest 10% earn an average of $5,800. The other point noted in this study (conducted over a twenty year period from 1985 to 2005) was that social mobility was lowest in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Italy. It also pointed out that the highest inequality and poverty were highest in the United States, Mexico, and Turkey. Finally, as other reports have noted, the gap between the rich and the poor has widened since 2000.

This report comes at a time when our political discussion is about whose taxes will be cut and whose will not; about whether money will be taken from the rich and given to the poor or whether those who have the most should be expected to pay a more equitable share.

It only seems fair that the rich and the powerful should be the ones to enter the Promised Land; after all, they have twisted and turned the words of the Bible to justify everything they have done, from destroying this planet’s environment to denying human rights to selected classes and groups of people. They have taken words of the Bible that call for fairness, equality, and concern for the less fortunate and turned them into words against fairness, equality, and concern.

I am not going to comment on the validity of the tax plans offered by either Senator Obama or Senator McCain; suffice to say which ever plan becomes the law of the land will have sufficient loopholes and considerations for special interests so that not much will be different from what it is now. But the words that we hear echo across our country should not surprise us, for we have heard them before.

When Susan Hamill proposed a new tax code based on Judeo-Christian ethics for the State of Alabama in 2003, it was the Christian Coalition and the conservatives of the state who opposed the plan (See “Do as I Say? Or Do As I Do?”). The mantra of the lower taxes crowd, it seems, is that we want lower taxes but we do not want equality nor do we want people to pay their fair share.

What good is opportunity for all if we treat one person with less respect than we demand for ourselves? What good does it do us to recite the Pledge of Allegiance and end with the pronouncement that our Republic stands for liberty and justice for all if we are going to deny liberty and justice to some people.

There were those among the Israelites who told the truth about the Promised Land but they were denied the opportunity to enter because it was their people who rebelled against God, not individuals. So too does it seem that our completion of the journey must be the journey of a nation, not just a few select souls.

In the Gospel reading for today Jesus reminds us that we are to love God with all our heart and soul and mind and then love our neighbors as ourselves. What does it say about what is in our hearts and our minds and our souls if our words are full of hatred and we show no respect for our neighbors? What does it say if we are far more concerned with our own well-being than we are with the well-being of others?

Do I help someone who has the ability to help themselves but doesn’t do anything? Of course not; after all, even God refused to do that. When the children of God were wandering in the wilderness, God made sure that they had sufficient food to eat each day. Those who took more found out that the extra spoiled. And on the day before the Sabbath, when God commanded the people to take two portions to get them through the Sabbath, those who did not quickly found out that there was nothing for them to eat that day. The covenant between the people and God works two-ways; both parties have to be involved.

But what if the person is unable to take care of themselves; what if they are a new-born baby or an elderly person? Do we ignore them just because they cannot do the work? What if we pass laws that restrict the ability of a person to do things (in the state of New York, they teach felons how to be a barber; yet, the licensing laws prevent felons from obtaining the proper license to cut hair)?

When I was a senior in high school in Memphis, Tennessee, there were laws and regulations designed to limit the ability of people to get a better education. Remember “separate but equal?” The laws and regulations of the city limited the ability of people to earn enough money to feed and clothe their families. Are we to say that things are better now?

I believe in the social component of Christianity. While there is a need for an individual to come to Christ, there is also a need to reach out to others in the name of Christ. And to be truthful, I read and hear the words of many who claim the name of Christ but do not live the life of Christ.

I read Paul’s words to the church of Thessalonica and I read about the words of a man who gave up the good life so that others could have it as well. He didn’t do it for profit or for selfish reasons; he did it because he was called to do so.

We stand on the mountaintop and we see the Promised Land. But between where we stand and where we want to go is no longer the River Jordan. Now, it is a big, wide chasm that grows because we do not love our neighbor as we love ourselves. It is a big, wide chasm that grows each day because too many of us are more concerned with what we have and what we might lose than we are with what others don’t have and what others have already lost.

The question of the moment is not necessarily who shall enter the Promised Land but rather will we ever enter the Promised Land? We can but we need to change our tune.

As I was finishing this, I was thinking of the words “the River Jordan is deep and wide”, words from “Michael, row the boat ashore.” But in my search, I found this hymn which I think is more appropriate.

River of Jordan (Peter, Paul, and Mary)

I traveled the banks of the River of Jordan to find where it flows to the sea. I looked in the eyes of the cold and the hungry and I saw I was looking at me. I wanted to know if life had a purpose and what it all means in the end. In the silence I listened to voices inside me and they told me again and again.

There is only one river. There is only one sea. And it flows through you, and it flows through me. There is only one people. We are one and the same. We are all one spirit. We are all one name. We are the father, mother, daughter and son. From the dawn of creation, we are one. We are one.

Every blade of grass on the mountain, every drop in the sea, every cry of a newborn baby, every prayer to be free, every hope at the end of a rainbow, every song ever sung is a part of the family of woman and man and that means everyone.

We are only one river. We are only one sea. And it flows through you, and it flows through me. We are only one people. We are one and the same. We are all one spirit. We are all one name. We are the father, mother, daughter and son from the dawn of creation, we are one. We are one.