Numbers 13:30 14: But Caleb quieted the people before Moses, and said, Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we

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1 Rev. Dane Womack Fort Smith FUMC July 3, :30 Roebuck & 11am Sanctuary THE GREAT ADVENTURE: Bible Heroes Come To Life Joshua & Caleb: The Power of Vision Numbers 13:30 14:11 30 But Caleb quieted the people before Moses, and said, Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it. 31 Then the men who had gone up with him said, We are not able to go up against this people, for they are stronger than we. 32 So they brought to the Israelites an unfavorable report of the land that they had spied out, saying, The land that we have gone through as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants; and all the people that we saw in it are of great size. 33 There we saw the Nephilim (the Anakites come from the Nephilim); and to ourselves we seemed like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them Then all the congregation raised a loud cry, and the people wept that night. 2 And all the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron; the whole congregation said to them, Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would that we had died in this wilderness! 3 Why is the Lord bringing us into this land to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become booty; would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt? 4 So they said to one another, Let us choose a captain, and go back to Egypt. 5 Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the Israelites. 6 And Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, who were among those who had spied out the land, tore their clothes 7 and said to all the congregation of the Israelites, The land that we went through as spies is an exceedingly good land. 8 If the Lord is pleased with us, he will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land that flows with milk and honey. 9 Only, do not rebel against the Lord; and do not fear the people of the land, for they are no more than bread for us; their protection is removed from them, and the Lord is with us; do not fear them. 10 But the whole congregation threatened to stone them. Then the glory of the Lord appeared at the tent of meeting to all the Israelites. 11 And the Lord said to Moses, How long will this people despise me? And how long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of all the signs that I have done among them? If God rains down ten plagues on your slaveholders including turning water to blood, sending countless frogs, thunderstorms of hail and fire, locusts, 3 days darkness, and the death of their firstborn. If God splits open a massive sea so that you can walk through on dry land no less then allows that same sea to collapse upon your enemy. If God provides you endless manna and then countless quail to eat. If God repeatedly does unbelievable acts of power and might on your behalf, 1

2 then you might learn to trust that sort of God. You might be excited to see what that sort of God would do next. That s a God worth following, worth getting excited about. And yet, every chance the Israelites get to give up on God, they take it. Today we pick up the story in the book of Numbers. Numbers, if you ll remember takes its name from the very lengthy census of the tribes of Israel. Very dry reading. But if you make it through that part, you find out the Israelites are just about to make it through the wilderness and into the land that God has chosen for them Cannan. So God calls on Moses to send spies into the land for an inspection. They are gone 40 days. They return with good news. At the end of forty days they returned from spying out the land. 26 And they came to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation of the Israelites in the wilderness; they brought back word to them and to all the congregation. 27 And they told him, We came to the land to which you sent us; it flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. That sounds great. Exactly what God had promised. But there s bad news, too. 28 Yet the people who live in the land are strong, and the towns are fortified and very large; and besides, we saw the descendants of Anak there. 29 The Amalekites live in the land of the Negeb; the Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites live in the hill country; and the Canaanites live by the sea, and along the Jordan. They go on. We are not able to go up against this people, for they are stronger than we.... The land that we have gone through as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants; and all the people that we saw in it are of great size. 33 There we saw the Nephilim (the Anakites come from the Nephilim); and to ourselves we seemed like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them. Now the crowd gets all wired up 1 Then all the congregation raised a loud cry, and the people wept that night. 2 And all the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron; the whole congregation said to them, Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would that we had died in this wilderness! 3 Why is the Lord bringing us into this land to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become booty; would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt? 4 So they said to one another, Let us choose a captain, and go back to Egypt. Now, there s a couple of these spies that don t really want to go along with everyone else. We ll call it the minority report. And Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, who were among those who had spied out the land, tore their clothes 7 and said to all the congregation of the Israelites, The 2

3 land that we went through as spies is an exceedingly good land. 8 If the Lord is pleased with us, he will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land that flows with milk and honey. 9 Only, do not rebel against the Lord; and do not fear the people of the land, for they are no more than bread for us; their protection is removed from them, and the Lord is with us; do not fear them. 10 But the whole congregation threatened to stone them. Then the glory of the Lord appeared at the tent of meeting to all the Israelites. 11 And the Lord said to Moses, How long will this people despise me? And how long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of all the signs that I have done among them? Up to this point in the story, Joshua and Caleb are pretty much unknown characters. They are nobody. And yet, in this moment they do an incredibly brave thing. They stand up against the prevailing sentiment. They avoid the mob. And they proclaim what they understand to be God s truth. God has brought us this far. Look what all God has done for us. God is only asking us to remain faithful. Stay the course and God will do God s part! Let s remain faithful in spite of our fears! Yet the people won t hear it. No. No. No. Should ve died in Egypt. Should ve died in the wilderness. Why is God doing this to us? Caleb and Joshua do not actually have some grand plan for a military takeover of Canaan. They don t really have a vision of their own. They only vision they have is the one built on the memory of what God has already done. Remember those plagues? Remember that Red Sea? What about the manna? God can take care of this too! God is for us! God needs, or maybe we need, people like Joshua and Caleb. People who can see beyond the immediate risk and danger. People who can call us back to the bigger story, the grand arc of what God has done is doing. God may not need visionaries, but God certainly needs voices that remind the world and even God s people of who God is and what God is doing. It s not the grand vision or the belting voice of a powerful leader, but the fragile voice of the unsuspecting faithful who remind us who we are and who God is. We can do this because we know who God is. And we know who God is because God of what God has repeatedly done for us. That s vision. This is a fantastic story about the struggle to remain faithful in the face of adversity. The mob mentality takes over and the entire team is ready to jump ship. And so we need the voices of the faithful few to keep us on the right track, even we cannot see the way ourselves. 3

4 At the same time, I d suggest these stories of Joshua and Caleb and many others in the OT should come with a warning label like the FLAMMABLE! imprint on the side of a gas can. These texts are combustible. One of the critical themes of the Old Testament is Israel s return to their (occupied) chosen land and God s providential work to help make their victory a reality. Military action and political take over are one of the realities of our Scripture. We must admit that this is an ancient book with an ancient politics. When one nation wants what another has, namely its land, it takes it! And if God is on your side, even better! That s the basic premise here. But historically we have really abused these texts. You can see the obvious political dangers associated with placing ourselves in the shoes of Joshua, Caleb, and the Israelites. That s a dangerous game. Many, many people have gotten a vision for God s calling to some sort of take over in a similar vein as Israel s return to Canaan. In 1095 Pope Urban II called Christians to bear arms in support of the Byzantine Empire s attempt to recover the Holy Land. This began 500 years of Eastern & Western Christians crusading the Middle East at war with Muslims and really, anyone who crossed their paths. Historians are largely divided on how to qualify the many, varied details of the Crusades. Motives, victors, and sides are all a little blurry. But at the risk of oversimplification, we can say that 500 years worth of wars across Europe and the Middle East were motivated by a basic Christian sentiment regarding what land was/is rightfully theirs. Historians figures somewhere between 1.5 and 2 million peopled died. The Crusades were a vision of Christian conquest, but I m not sure it was from God. In the United States, even more so here in Fort Smith, we are intensely aware of how the progression of the European civilization that eventually became the United States including the abuse, death and dislocation of countless Native Americans. As with the Crusades, we don t want to paint with too broad of stroke, but we know much of colonization was spurned on by a Christian ethos of taking the land for God, often leavening tribes, communities, families etc. wrecked in their path. European colonization and mission as a vision has deeply hurt many parts of our world; I m not sure it was from God. Just in the last 100 years, our world was marked by one of the most horrendous tragedies ever. Hitler and his Nazi party promised a return to glory for his native land, Germany. He cast a broad and powerful vision, shaped by Christian rhetoric and supported by a national church. And somewhere between 5 6 million Jews paid the price. Nazism as lead by Adolf Hitler was a vision with unfortunate Christian ties, but it most certainly was not from God. 4

5 Many people of faith have taken the stance of Joshua and Caleb and twisted it to fit their vision. And millions of innocent people have died unnecessary deaths. There is no doubt that a compelling vision tied to the vocabulary of our faith will produce results. But it is often the case that the results are not consistent with the character of the God whose name is being proclaimed. Crusades. Displacement and abuse of Native Americans. Nazism. Those were powerful and compelling visions associated with Christianity. And yet they were deeply antithetical to the hope of our faith. No one doubts the power or importance of vision. The question is whose vision? Which vision? Like many of you, I have been following the news surrounding the death of Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel. He died yesterday at age 87. He was a brilliant man on every level. Author. International News Correspondent. Nobel Laureate. College Professor in religion and philosophy. He wrote a great deal about the details of the Nazi internment camp in his translated book, Night. He is one of the great champions of international peace in the past century. Many, many people count Wiesel s teaching as deeply influential. He was a remarkable human being who had witnessed first hand humanity at its worst. In reading yesterday and preparing for today, I came across a short essay he wrote for NPR in a reflection on his time in an internment camp and his life testifying to what he saw. The closing lines of his essay read this way, How can we therefore speak, unless we believe that our words have meaning, that our words will help others to prevent my past from becoming another person's another peoples' future. Yes, our stories are essential essential to memory. I believe that the witnesses, especially the survivors, have the most important role. They can simply say, in the words of the prophet, "I was there." What is a witness if not someone who has a tale to tell and lives only with one haunting desire: to tell it. Without memory, there is no culture. Without memory, there would be no civilization, no society, no future. After all, God is God because he remembers. When we talk about vision we almost always mean the person who has the ability to see what s next and helps to get us there. These are leaders because they tell the rest of us what to do. 1 god who remembers 5

6 These are wildly popular concepts in Christianity today. Everyone is looking to catch or cast a vision. We are all told we should be visionary leaders. But I wonder Maybe that notion of is not good enough anymore. Perhaps the vision we need today isn t the one that proclaims what s next. Perhaps the vision we need today is the one that calls us backward instead of forward. Look! Look at what we did back then. Look at what we have done to one another across history. Look at the mistakes we ve made. Our failures are plentiful. Perhaps by looking back, even at some of our uglier moments, we might gain some humility about looking ahead. We might be less quick to proclaim what s next. Maybe we need leaders more familiar and troubled by our past than excited about their vision for the future. And If we look far enough back, even past our failures, we might run into Jesus. Perhaps his is the vision we so desperately need and can t seem to find anywhere else. Maybe that s why we keep showing up here each Sunday. The visions we are force fed everyday on television and on the internet just won t do. You may vote for Trump or Clinton or Sanders or Whoever. But we need something more, something wildly different. And we come here, to worship, to find it. That s why you are here this morning. You haven t come to hear what s next. I have no idea what s going to come next. You ve come to hear from Jesus. To pray the Lord s Prayer. To share in the Apostle's Creed. To join in the words of The Great Thanksgiving. Many of you know those words by heart. You came today to hear the story of our faith in the Triune God. And you come back each week to get swept up in the vision of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob creator of heaven and earth. Whose Son Jesus Christ suffered, died, and rose for the salvation of us gathered here and for the sake of the world. Whose Spirit continues to guide the ministry of the church so that God s will would be done on earth as it is in heaven. Our faith is rooted in these teachings, centered around the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Each week we remind ourselves that this is who God is for us and for the world. For us, for Christians, vision is the simple act of remembering who God is. Over and over again. Until we can see nothing else. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. 6