There are probably many times in our lives where we can say we have just wandered through life. Where we have gone from place to place seeking out a destination. Where huge road blocks have caused us to go a different direction. This can be a physical wandering, a spiritual wandering, or even relationally wandering. Wandering is probably something many of us can relate to. It is when we look back over those times of wandering where we say the phrase, ?the journey is the destination.? I think if the people in our story for today heard the phrase, ?the journey is the destination,? they might have thrown a fit. They might be able to find some good moments on their journey and they might have been relieved they finally made it to the destination, but I don?t think they really enjoyed their journey. But overall, what our Scripture lesson for today shows us is that the Israelites remember how much they complained, blamed one another and God, and tried to do things against God?s will. They also remember that God was with them, God gave them promises, and Moses advocated for them all along the way.? I invite you to pray with me over the sermon titled, ?Wandering.?
I was 12 years old. And my brother was 8. We had gone out to Sun City, Arizona to see my grandparents. We were with them for a week and it was a great trip. Driving golf carts, visiting the Grand Canyon, and playing croquet. After a great week with my grandparents, my mom, brother, and I boarded a plane back home. Our connecting flight was at the Dallas/Ft. Worth Airport. We landed at the airport and heard the news about our flight being delayed. So we begin the long time of waiting in the airport. After getting some food, going up and down the escalators, riding around on the train, we had wasted a total of an hour of our time. At this point, we learned the flight was delayed over 4 hours and we had to figure out how to kill time. Then we checked every phone booth for quarters in every terminal we could get to. Then we played games and read books. After that, we had killed another hour in the airport?only 2-3 more to go! As a parent, I am sure you can imagine how terrible this whole experience was for my mother. She tried to keep us entertained and involved in some sort of activity for the whole time, but she was just as irritated and frustrated as we were with being stuck in the Dallas Airport. The question, ?Mom, is our plane here yet?? was probably said about 300 times. Then the big moment happened and we were able to board the plane. Because of the situation, they moved the three of us to first class. So mom and Brian sat together and I sat behind them. After what felt like FOREVER, the plane started to leave the airport. After about 20 minutes of being in the air, mom switched seats with me because we were driving the man next to me crazy. We finally made it back to the Tampa airport, got in the car, and drove another hour and half home. We had finally reached our destination.
In those early days of travel, I started to learn there are some things in our control, and other things that are not in our control. While I wish I could have learned to apply this philosophy to the rest of my life, I have not always done so. Because a majority of time when things get out of control, where confusion happens, when trust is broken, when questions arise, when fear creeps in, where doubt is overwhelming?the blaming begins. We go into the place of playing the victim and it is not pretty. We do this instead of taking ownership and responsibility actions (or inactions).
And this is where we are in our story for today.? Throughout of scripture lesson for today, there is a bunch of whiney, ungrateful, fearful, demanding, disobedient, untrusting, unfaithful people. In addition, the guidelines the people were given, were constantly being broken, denied, and reasoned away. I think the longest amount of time they could follow God?s guidelines was 3 days. The Israelites blamed God for everything, instead of recognizing and seeing how much God had given, shared, protected, and remained with them.
After a year of wandering around and preparing to go into the Promised Land, God wanted Moses to send people to scout out the Promised Land. So representatives from the 12 tribes are sent out to explore the land of the milk and honey for 40 days. They realized the land was everything God had promised, everything heard from the stories of their ancestors?but it was inhabited. The people looked like giants. So instead of trusting God to provide, protect, and guide them, the people once again blamed God for taking them into the desert, into a place to be slaughtered, and criedto be back in slavery again. The Israelites allowed for the giants of the land to block them from trusting in God and living into the promise of God. Only Caleb and Joshua accepted the promise, remembered how God had worked, and trusted fully in God to bring them into this land. But their faith was not enough for all the other tribes. Because everyone else blamed God, didn?t trust, doubted, etc?God punished the people to 40 years of wandering in the desert. Talk about huge consequencesnot trusting in God or believing in the promise?
Because of this, the people wandered and wandered and wandered. The generation that doubted God, blamed God, and didn?t accept responsibilities for their actions started to die off?and their children were left. The source of their wandering was their lack of faith and trust in God. The people were not able to internalize all the amazing things God had done and was doing to get them to the Promised Land. It never seemed like God was doing enough.
I sometimes wonder what would have happened if the Israelites started to change their story. Where instead of blaming God for everything that was wrong, they started thinking that maybe what our parents did wasn?t the right thing to do. Maybe how they worshipped, wasn?t the way we are suppose to do this. Maybe if we sit and pray and learn from Moses more about God, we could change our story, change the outcome of our lives, change the direction our people are going, and live into the promise God was giving them. What if the people worked on their relationship with God instead of assuming they knew what that meant?
As I read through the chapter in The Story, I fell in love with these words from Moses. Moses was getting ready to let the people go into the Promise Land, hand everything over to Joshua to lead the people there, and die. I invite you to listen to these words.
Moses summoned all the Israelites and said to them:
Your eyes have seen all that the Lord did in Egypt to Pharaoh, to all his officials and to tall his land. With your own eyes you saw those great trials, those signs and great wonders. But to this day the Lord has not given you a mind that understands or eyes that see or ears that hear. Yet the Lord says, ?During the forty years that I led you through the wilderness, your clothes did not wear out, nor did the sandals on your feet. You ate no bread and drank no wine or other fermented drink. I did this so that you might know that I am the Lord your God.?
Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for your or beyond your reach. It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, ?Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?? Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, ?Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?? No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.
See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. For I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess.
But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.
This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Then Moses summoned Joshua and said to him in the presence of all Israel, ?Be strong and courageous, for you must go with this people into the land that the Lord swore to their ancestors to give them, and you must divide ti among them as their inheritance. The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you, he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.?
We have all gone on different journeys. We have all wandered in life. We have all blamed others for the situations we are in. We have all had something that seemed like a giant in the way of what we have felt we needed to do. We have all accepted the stories of faith from other people without reading them ourselves. We have all acted the way the Israelites acted towards God. But just like God wanted to be with the people then, God still wants to be with us now. Even when we wander and blame, even when we don?t accept responsibility for our actions and are unwilling to own our situations. Even when something giant blocks our path and we take a different one. God desires to be in relationship with us. We have a choice to continue to wander, blame, and doubt. We have a choice to continue living out the same story that we have heard from others. But wouldn?t the journey be better if we honestly sought out that relationship with God, sat at the feet of God every day, stood in the presence of God every day, and lived out our faith by sharing God with those we meet? That would be putting our faith in God, trusting in God?s plan, living out life as God intended, and changing the story of our lives and making our story, God?s story. I wonder, where would be in our lives and as a congregation if we all did that?