2023-10-30
Brooke Strong
Sermon Text...
10-29-23 Sermon
We Don’t Always Get to the Promised Land
Rev. Betsy Wooster
Our scripture passage from the book of Deuteronomy finds Moses at the end of his life, when the people have almost, but not quite, reached the promised land.
Deuteronomy 34:1-12
Then Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, which is opposite Jericho, and the Lord showed him the whole land: Gilead as far as Dan, 2all Naphtali, the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the Western Sea, 3the Negeb, and the Plain—that is, the valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees—as far as Zoar. 4The Lord said to him, ‘This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, “I will give it to your descendants”; I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not cross over there.’ 5Then Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there in the land of Moab, at the Lord’s command. 6He was buried in a valley in the land of Moab, opposite Beth-peor, but no one knows his burial place to this day. 7Moses was one hundred and twenty years old when he died; his sight was unimpaired and his vigour had not abated. 8The Israelites wept for Moses in the plains of Moab for thirty days; then the period of mourning for Moses was ended. 9Joshua, 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.10 Never since has there arisen a prophet in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face. 11He was unequalled for all the signs and wonders that the Lord sent him to perform in the land of Egypt, against Pharaoh and all his servants and his entire land, 12and for all the mighty deeds and all the terrifying displays of power that Moses performed in the sight of all Israel.
Let us pray. O God, take my lips and speak through them;
Take our minds and think through them;
Take our hearts and set them on fire. Amen.
There’s a lot going on in this passage. First of all, it helps to have some sense of the geography being referenced. God sent Moses to the top of Mt. Nebo to look out over the vast land that had been promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob before him.
Mt. Nebo is east of the Jordan River, about 17 miles from the city of Jericho on the other side. For context, if the promised land were Cleveland, Ohio, (just sayin’!), if there were a mountain in Chagrin Falls that was tall enough, you could look out on a clear day across I-271 and see the land of Cleveland about 17 miles to the northwest, just as Moses looked out across the Jordan river from Mt. Nebo and saw the city of Jericho in the Promised Land. After years of camping and traveling in the wilderness, Moses was so close. Moses’ vision of the promised land came from the covenant that God had given to him. A covenant promising to the people a land of milk and honey, where people live in security, with enough to eat, and freedom to live out their faith. It would be a place of safety for not only the people of Israel, but also for the foreigners who would travel and live in their midst. This vision was all part of the Covenant that God gave to Moses in the books of Genesis through Deuteronomy.
After all that Moses had risked and hoped for, all with a goal of getting the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt to the land that God had promised, he doesn’t make it. After years in the wilderness, the people were close enough to the land that God had promised them, just close enough that Moses could climb a mountain and see it for himself at the end of his life. How often do the things that we hope for and give our life’s work to remain unfinished?
Is it a tragedy and an unfairness not to be there when the vision is fulfilled? Or is there something inspiring and extraordinary about giving your life to a part of the journey and blessing those who will come after you? How many parents, many of you included, have sacrificed and worked for their children and grandchildren to have a safer and healthier life?
Parents who worked hard to move out of poverty, working difficult jobs in order to feed their children, working night and day to make that move possible, parents who immigrated to a new culture and language, Black families joining the great migration out of the Jim Crow south to the cities of the north and west. Sometimes we work toward God’s vision, but mostly don’t get to see it fulfilled in our lifetime. But our children may see it, and they will have new visions for the future. And by children, I mean all those whom we touch in the next generation, which we all do, whether we are parents or not.
We can have hope and trust in God’s vision even if we know that we won’t see it completed in our lifetime. It’s a good and beautiful thing to be a part of that journey, to be able to be like Moses and look back and say, “look how far we’ve come,” and one day hand it to the next generation to take the next steps. Like Moses, we are trying to reach the fulfillment of God’s vision for us and for the world.
I think that part of God’s vision for us is for all people to have freedom to pursue their gifts without being confined by discrimination or rigid gender roles. My grandmother was called to be a teacher, which was one of the few professions available to women at that time, but only as long as she was single. In that time and place, a married woman was expected to focus only on home and family. And so, our family story was that our grandmother, who loved teaching and music, stayed in her profession long enough to buy her own baby grand piano before she married my grandfather and retired from professional education. She made him wait! Her name was Hilda Margaret Minteer. She continued to teach children in the church all of her life, as many of you have heard me say before. I often wonder if under different circumstances, in a different time, my grandmother would have become a minister, like me.
I’m grateful that I had more freedom and opportunities in my life than my grandmother or my mother did, but even so, I did not actually know any women ministers until I was an adult. I didn’t have a female minister role model when I was growing up. Think of how meaningful it is that for years now, children in this church have known both women and men as their ministers. God yearns for both men and women to be free from expectations that narrow what they can do or who they can be. And thanks be to God we are getting close, but I hope for my granddaughter, Ada, that she and her peers will grow up in a world that is even more affirming of what God calls each of them to be.
I am thinking about more than one “Martin Luther” on this Reformation Sunday. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Junior remembered Moses’ story on Mt. Nebo in his speech the day before he was assassinated. On April 3rd, 1968, Dr. King spoke to sanitation workers who were looking for better pay and working conditions in Memphis. It was a part of God’s vision for racial and economic justice. Please forgive my inability to match Dr. King’s eloquence as I share part of his speech with you. Here is part of what he said that day:
“Well, I don’t know what will happen now; we’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really 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 so 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.”
God bless Dr. King and this blessing he gave for the work of justice to continue without him. Such self-awareness. Such courage. Dr. King tried to lead the world, and the people, from inequity to equity, but the vision wasn’t yet fulfilled, and though there has been good progress since his leadership in the 1950s and 60s, it is not yet fulfilled in the world for us today.
Not everything is always a steady progress. More like gain a little, little lose a little, or gain a little, lose a lot. Living in the world can be disheartening when God’s vision seems a long way away, and we seem to be moving farther away. We can take courage remembering that our lives are one part of a long narrative of God’s people being led by God to a vision for what the world can be, for what our lives and the lives of our children can be. It is a profound gift to be given a vision of something meaningful ahead, a vision in which our hopes and convictions are confirmed.
As it was for Moses and Dr. King, such a vision is a powerful motivator for us. Moses, the greatest of all prophets in our faith, is our guide as we look toward a future that we won’t reach ourselves, and as we bless those who will continue the journey, just as Moses blessed Joshua to lead his people to the promised land. Here is another thing to consider: Maybe it’s not completely true that Moses didn’t make it to the promised land. Maybe his earthly death, by the grace of God, was the route to the promised land he so deserved. Maybe the vast vision he was given on the mountain top was a road to the ultimate promised land, as it was also a vision for Joshua and God’s people to finally cross over to the land that was promised them.
The place of belonging, where God’s family would settle down in a land of plenty, a land without want, a land where love takes hold and wars cease. Maybe even in death we can be a part of God’s vision made complete. Moses saw the vision for himself as he was dying, while also giving his people a vision they would receive as they continued their journey without him.
That’s a vision that I want when my time comes. A vision that we will pass on to our children. A vision in which they will thrive, in which they will love and be loved. A vision where they can look to God and be strong and care for each other for the rest of their lives. I want to bless Ada with this vision after I am gone, along with all of the future generations of our extended family. When the time comes, we will all be fully together again, our children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, along with our parents and all those whom we have loved in our lives, and maybe some we have not loved enough - all together with the generations that passed before and after us.
Whom do you want to bless? Maybe your children. Maybe the children and youth of this Church. Maybe those in your profession who are just getting started in your field of work. Maybe those younger than you who will walk into the future without us and do their best to continue living out the vision of love and justice for all people. The blessings are endless, with plenty of room for all of us to offer them.
The vision that God gave Moses is given to us.
The generations before us left us a legacy of love, a love that endures despite the hard twists and turns of life. A hope that carries on and does not die. I am grateful, eternally grateful, for this gift, which we will one day pass on ourselves, and so on, and so on, and so on, as the generations that follow us will one day stand on that same mountain top and be blessed by God. Amen.