Living in the Spirit
October 21, 2014

Scripture Reading: Deuteronomy 34:1-12

Joshua son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom, because Moses had laid his hands on him; and the Israelites obeyed him, doing as the Lord had commanded Moses. — Deuteronomy 34:9

Before we explore forward, it would seem wise to look back toward from where the Israelites had come. Abraham was actually the one who first received the promise of the land and he faithfully followed God’s guidance in his journey to find it. There are no battles reported; he simply settled on land among the Canaanite people. They all had to deal with famine. Abraham and his company traveled to Egypt to survive. During that travel Abraham was fearful of the strangers so he told the leader there that his wife, Sarah, was his sister. He did use a small militia once to save his nephew Lot. But other than the normal challenges of an agrarian society, his greatest perplexity was establishing his linage. He accomplished that by having two sons, Ishmael, the son of his wife’s slaves, and Isaac, the son of Sarah. Life is always more complicated than the simple reporting of facts. People are humans after all and humans can be drawn into discord when pride and land and power come into question. Ishmael and his mother were sent away and Isaac became the heir apparent.

Isaac’s son Jacob, later to be named Israel, had twelve sons but favored his son Joseph much to the chagrin of the others. The older brothers sold Joseph into slavery and he landed in Egypt, but things worked out well for him there. When Jacob and his sons back in Canaan experienced famine Joseph moved them all to Egypt and provided for them. After Joseph’s death the remaining family, now known as Israelites, were enslaved by the Egyptians where they remained for some 400 years until Moses was called by God to lead them out of Egypt, which he did. In the aftermath of that exodus the Israelites wandered through the wilderness for 40 years until they arrived at the point of today’s scripture.

I review this story to give us a feel for what had happened to these Israelites that brought them to the edge of the river that led into their “Promised Land”. Had they kept the quest for their homeland alive through all those years telling stories of their forefathers around the evening fire? What impact would several generations of slavery and its oppression have had on this population? I have always wondered why they wandered in the desert for so long. The Promised Land was not that far away. Did they need that time to prepare for such a new and different life? And what happened to Ishmael?

Now this is an extremely truncated version of the story but it illustrates well that humans can do some pretty stupid and sometimes even evil things while under the guiding arm of God. It shows that God seeks leaders to clear the paths for God’s people, and as needed turn them around when they wander down the wrong way. It also reminds those of us who have accepted the call to love God through our Lord Jesus Christ from our doorposts to the ends of the earth that our answer to that call has never been more needed. The misuse of power and greed that has spread throughout the earth has caused famine, oppression, war and contagion and all of God’s children are in need of God’s restorative love. In our scripture above, it was Joshua’s turn to inherit the mantel of leadership. Today it is our turn.

This story makes me wonder what the backstory of ISIL is. Radical Islamist, I hear, but what made them that way? Whose sons are they? Who were their grandfathers?

Prayer: Almighty God, may all your children from the east and the west, the north and the south across borders of land and borders of fear and isolation find your peace, hope, and love through our acts of love as taught us by your son Jesus, the Christ. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights reserved.