The Bible Year, Week 4 (February 2, 2022)

I am amazed at how quickly we are moving through the Bible. We finished Genesis back on Wednesday, January 19. Just eleven days later, on Sunday, January 30, we finished Exodus.  And we are already ten chapters into Leviticus.
 
The first 15 chapters of Exodus tell the foundational story of Israel. God delivers his people by bringing them through the waters of the sea and into the wilderness. So now what?  

Well, now on to the Promised Land. It was 250 miles from where they left Egypt to the land that God had promised Abraham. Given the number of Israelites – all ages of men, women and children, plus their possessions and livestock – perhaps two to three months would be needed to make the journey. 

So why did it take them 40 years?  
 
The problem is that the shortest route would take them right into the land of the Philistines who would most likely kill them all. And the shortest route would take them through the most arid parts of the Sinai desert where they would likely perish anyway. There are no short cuts to the Promised Land.  They must take a longer, winding route. But even that longer route might only require 6 months. 

The fact that it took them 40 years tells us that something else is going on. Their time in the wilderness is not just a physical journey, it is a spiritual one.
 
They have been in Egypt for 400 years. They haven’t learned what it means to be God’s people again. They haven’t learned what it means to trust in God. While they may know God’s promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and they certainly know how God saved them from slavery in Egypt, they do not yet know how to live in response to all that God has done and promised.
 
And we see that lack of trust immediately after the exodus. At the beginning of chapter 16, we read their complaints about their hunger, wishing God had just put them to death back in Egypt rather than bringing them out to the wilderness to die.  And in chapter 17, they make the same complaint about being thirsty.
 
In both cases God intervenes. Most famously by given the Israelites “manna” to eat. Manna literally means “what is it?” They had no clue exactly what it was they were eating, only that God was providing for their needs each day. But manna came with conditions. They could only collect enough for one day at a time and trust that God will provide for the next day. They have to learn to trust God. It’s hard.  And they fail.
 
Trusting that God will provide is difficult – then and now.
 
In Chapter 19, Moses leads Israel to the foot of Mount Sinai. God invites the people of Israel to enter into a covenant relationship. This covenant builds on God’s promises to Abraham all the way back in Genesis 12 when God promises to bless Abraham so that through his family, God would restore his blessing to all creation in an act of redemption and restoration.
 
That promise is the foundation of this new covenant with Israel. But now they have a part to play too. They are called to live in a very particular way.  God says you will be a kingdom of priests for me, which means that they will become God's representatives and show all of the other peoples what God is truly like. In order to fulfill their end of the covenant, Israel must live by God’s laws and be faithful to the justice and righteousness, the compassion and the generosity of God.
 
The people of Israel respond emphatically: Everything that the Lord has said we will do. So in cloud, lighting and thunder, God’s presence appears on top of Mount Sinai, and Moses goes up into that presence. There he receives the 10 Commandments which serve as the basic terms of the Covenant. These commandments show how the Israelites and God are going to be in relationship with each other.

 
The first four commandments are ways we are to honor God: 
·      You must have no other gods before me.
·      Do not make an idol for yourself
·      Do not use the Lord your God’s name in vain
·      Remember the Sabbath day and treat it as holy
 
The last six are the ways we honor our relationships with each other:
·      Honor your father and your mother
·      Do not kill
·      Do not commit adultery
·      Do not steal
·      Do not testify falsely against your neighbor
·      Do not desire what your neighbor has
 
Beyond those basics, even more laws are given. We have laws about Israel’s worship, about how they are to live together and treat one another. Some seem like good common sense. Others seem harsh. Still others are difficult for us to read at all, such as, the laws about the treatment of slaves, including instructions for when, not if, a man sells his daughter into slavery.
 
And the punishment for violating many of these laws, including not keeping the Sabbath day holy, is death. It’s a wonder that any of the Israelites made it out of the wilderness alive.
 
One of the Bible Year resources is a weekly podcast from Hyde Park UMC. For the week about the 10 Commandments, they interviewed Dr. Bo Adams from Candler School of Theology at Emory University.  He said that back in that culture they needed certain guardrails to encourage them not to harm themselves or others and to honor God. Those guardrails are unique to that ancient culture. But the impulse behind the laws, even if they do not apply in the same way today, are important to hold on to.  
 
Even in Jesus’ day, so many of the conflicts he has with the Pharisees are around interpreting and applying the laws in their own day and age.  Some commandments Jesus makes harder: murder and adultery for example (see Matthews 5-7). Some he re-frames, such as when he said: Sabbath was created for us; we weren’t created for the Sabbath (Mark 2:27)

In Matthew 22, Jesus is asked what the greatest commandment is. He first quotes Deuteronomy 6:5 - Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your being, and all your strength.  Then he quotes Leviticus 18:19 – You must love your neighbor as yourself.
 
You see, Jesus lifts up the impulse behind all of the laws of God: that we may love God and love our neighbor. Those are our guardrails today.  In every age and in every culture, the church discerns together what it means to love God with all that we are and love our neighbors as ourselves. The Ten Commandments are a good place to start. But Jesus draws us deeper into a heart that is overflowing with love, even love for our enemies. (Matthew 4:43-44)
 
We can learn a lot about our relationship with God and the life of faith from reading these Old Testament stories. These ancient stories are our stories too.
 
We affirm that God is still present with us even now.  We don’t have to build a tabernacle. God made a home among us in Jesus Christ, and is present with us now through the Holy Spirit.
 
But we should also pay attention to the experience of being in the wilderness. As I said, it was as much a spiritual journey as a physical one.  And our own spiritual journeys will take us through the wilderness. There are now shortcuts.
 
We give our lives to Christ and we seek to live a good life, but things still fall apart. We go through divorces. We have trouble with our kids or with our aging parents. We have difficult relationships. We lose our job or hit dead-ends in our career. Life brings troubles of its own. And often we are our own worst enemy, just like the Israelites.
 
And we pray to God. Why? Why me? How long will I struggle? How long will I be lonely? How long until I get some answers and know which way to go?
 
What do all these wilderness experiences have in common? They are all hard. They are annoying. They are frustrating. They are exhausting. They are necessary. Because there are ways that we grow spiritually and emotionally that can only happen in the wilderness.
 
Only in the wilderness can we really learn what it means to trust in God to provide all that we need for today. And trust that God will be there for us tomorrow, even if we don’t know what tomorrow will bring.
 
Only in the wilderness can we learn the resilience necessary to deal with all of life's ups and downs. Only in the wilderness can we find healing for our body, mind and soul. Only there can we learn to forgive and be forgiven.
 
I find comfort in these words from Magrey DeVega:
 
You may feel like you are wandering right now,
   but you are not lost.
You may feel like you are going nowhere,
   but God is showing you the very next step.
And when the time is right, you'll get the next step after that
   and the next step after that.
You may feel like you are surrounded by a vast wasteland
   but you are never truly alone.
 
The wilderness is the only way to the Promised Land.
It’s the only way to new life.
It’s the only way to resurrection. 

 
+++
 
A few notes and reminders:

• Our Pastor's Bible Study meets every Wednesday night at 5:30 pm in-person (FLC) and online (Zoom). I hope you will join us!

• I also encourage you to join the Ocala FUMC The Bible Year Small Group on Facebook. The group allows for ongoing discussion of the daily readings.

• The Sunday sermons may be a helpful resource as we move through the readings. You can watch the full sermon on YouTube (CLICK HERE)

• Remember to check our website regularly for additional resources and updates (CLICK HERE)

• Remember the great teaching videos at The Bible Project! I find the Book Overviews the most helpful. You will notice I often use this material in the summaries I share in my sermons.  

• The Bible Year videos on Amplify are also a great place to find weekly summaries of our readings.