Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday August 28, 2022
Scripture Reading: Deuteronomy 34:1-12
(Note – this summer, each Sunday we have been the theology of our favourite hymns. This week’s hymn was “Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah.” Even though the hymn isn’t referred to in this reflection, when you listen to the words, it is very much a hymn of Moses and the Israelite people and their time in the desert wilderness.)
So while “We don’t talk about Bruno-no-no-no,” this week I do want to talk about Moses. (Reference to the announcements, and this week's Church Family Movie, Encanto.)
A couple of summers ago, instead of looking at our favourite hymns, we spent the summer looking at our favourite stories that we remembered from Sunday School; and that summer, the most popular Sunday School story was Moses in the bullrushes.
The Sunday that we looked at that story, we saw how the story of Moses in the bullrushes was actually less about Moses and more about the cunning of the women around him – his mother, his sister, and the two Hebrew midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, who managed to conspire to trick the Pharoah who had said that all baby boys born to the Israelite people were to be killed at birth. And so Moses survived, but that was just the beginning of his story. (And when bible study resumes this fall, we are going to be picking up our meandering through the Old Testament with the book of Exodus and the story of Moses, so this morning is just a preview!)
Moses was raised in the palace of the Pharoah as his adopted grandson, but after killing an Egyptian slave driver who had been beating one of the Israelite people, he fled out into the desert. That was where he encountered God in the burning bush, and where God told Moses that he would be the one to set the people free from slavery in Egypt.
Moses went to Pharoah and demanded that Pharoah let his people go. 10 plagues visited the Egyptian people before Pharoah agreed to release his slaves – from locusts to hail to the river turning to blood to darkness covering the land, and finally the death of the firstborn children.
And then when the Pharoah finally released the Israelite people, they had very little time to flee, taking with them unleavened bread – bread that hadn’t had time to rise.
Pharoah regretted his decision almost immediately and sent soldiers after his escaping slaves, but when they got to the shores of the Red Sea, God worked through Moses, and Moses was able to part the waters so that the Israelite people could cross to safety on the other side.
And then Moses continued to lead them through the desert wilderness towards the promised land. The people complained that they were thirsty, and God worked through Moses to make water flow out of a rock. The people complained that they were hungry, and wouldn’t it have been better if they had been able to stay back there in Egypt where yes, they were slaves, but at least there were cucumbers and bread to eat; and again, God cared for them by making manna, bread of heaven, fall from the sky each night, and quails to descend on their camp so they could have bread and meat.
To make sure that they didn’t get lost, God moved in front of the people, looking like a pillar of cloud during the day, and a pillar of fire at night time.
And then, in the middle of the desert, they came to Mount Sinai. Moses climbed to the top of the mountain where he was able to converse directly with God; and there on the mountaintop God gave to Moses the 10 commandments and the rest of the law for how they were to live well with one another and with God when they finally reached the Promised Land.
And then most of the rest of the book of Exodus and the book of Leviticus are filled with the law that God gave to Moses. Then we come to the book of Numbers, which contains some law, but also some stories from the Israelite’s time in the desert.
Here we read about Moses sending 12 spies ahead of the rest of the group to scout out the Promised Land. They went there and found the abundance that God had promised them; but at the same time, they found fortified cities and people living in the land. They were afraid to invade the land, even though God promised them victory over the people who were living there. (Which makes this a very problematic story when we look at it through a post-colonial lens – God promising to take the land from the Indigenous inhabitants to give to the colonizers. I suspect that this is going to be something that we will wrestle with in bible study when we get there.)
Anyways, the twelve spies decide to exaggerate their findings when they come back to the people, saying that the inhabitants of the promised land were like giants, and they felt as small as grasshoppers standing next to them. And so the people were afraid to carry on to this land. More rebellion against Moses and against God, more complaints about being hungry in the desert.
And as a result, the people spent 40 years wandering in the desert, rather than a journey of a couple of months that it might have been otherwise. My Old Testament professor at AST, Dr. Susan Slater, refers to this time as the “Desert School” – the people had to spend 40 years in the desert learning to trust that God would meet their needs in a place of scarcity, before they could enter the land of abundance.
Which brings us to the book of Deuteronomy. The book of Deuteronomy is set on the banks of the Jordan River as the people are poised to cross over and enter the Promised Land. They have spent 40 years wandering in the desert wilderness since they have left Egypt. A generation has passed, and many of the people who left Egypt are no longer alive. But here they are.
Most of the book of Deuteronomy is a second recitation of the law that Moses received from God back in Exodus and Leviticus, with God imploring the people not to forget their lessons learned in the Desert School; not to forget that they depend on God for everything, even when it is less obvious in a land of abundance. God implores the people to choose good rather than evil once they cross the river to leave the desert behind them.
And then we come to chapter 34, the chapter we read today. This is the final chapter of the book of Deuteronomy. There, on the banks of the Jordan River, still in the wilderness, Moses dies. Moses, the greatest prophet of the Israelite people, who led them out of slavery to freedom, who spoke to God on the mountaintop and in the desert, the one who God worked through to part the waters of the sea and make water flow from a rock – Moses dies before the people enter the Promised Land. I remember listening to Deuteronomy as an audiobook, and my eyes filled with tears when Moses died – after all that he did for the people and for God, he didn’t get to see the fruit of his labour. The closest he got to seeing the Promised Land was looking across the river at it, from a mountain in the desert wilderness.
And I can’t help but ask the question, where’s the justice in that. Surely Moses should have been allowed to reap some reward for his labour after doing so much. Why couldn’t he have lived just a little bit longer, to be able to cross that river and place his feet on the soil of the land he had spent his life leading the people towards?
The only answer I have to this is that the journey wasn’t about Moses. He didn’t lead the people out of slavery and across the desert so that he could enter the promised land – he did all of this so that God’s people could enter the promised land.
And in the same way, I also think that our own faith journeys, while they are our journey, is not so much about us as individuals but rather is about us collectively. We journey together as companions on the way, encouraging one another, supporting each other when we are struggling, helping each other to carry burdens, celebrating with one another. When my faith falters, I know that your faith will help to carry me on. If I don’t get to see the Promised Land with my own eyes, I know that the small amount that I was able to do will help others to see that Promised Land. We support each other, we support our neighbours and our communities, but it goes even beyond that. When we work for Mission & Service or for Avenue B or for Romero House, we are supporting people we will likely never meet. We are part of this interconnected web of creation and God’s love really is for all.
We gain much from our journey of faith – we gain peace and hope and love and joy and community and support. But in the end, just like for Moses, it isn’t about us. We exist as a church, as a community that follows the way of Jesus, so that we can serve God’s mission by serving God’s people in so many different ways.
It’s not about us.
And may the Holy Spirit equip us for this work, and guide us on the way. Amen.
Image: “Death of Moses”
Frank Wesley
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