Our Old Testament reading this morning from the Book of Deuteronomy invites us to think about what we are going to do when we finally achieve a goal or arrive at a destination.
Here in this story, the Israelites who have been wandering in the wilderness for almost 40 years now, are nearing the end of that long journey. They will soon be entering into the Promised Land. Along the way, they have experienced God’s guiding hand and they have been given the Ten Commandments along with many other laws that they are to follow as God’s people.
Moses, their leader is preparing them for when they will finally reach their destination. It’s one thing to prepare for a test, or practice for an upcoming game, or get ready to start a new job, but it’s another thing to actually live into that new reality when you finally arrive. This is why Moses in this scripture reading today, offers these important words of wisdom for when the Israelites actually do enter the Promised Land.
So Moses tells them that when they finally arrive, that they are to take the next steps in being God’s people in their new homeland. It’s one thing to prepare to be God’s people while traveling through the wilderness. It’s another thing to continue to be God’s people once they get settled.
I hear that this is often what happens to people when they retire, so I’m being told! My brother who has served as a Music Minister in our home church for the past 30 years, retired this past October. In the weeks leading up to his official retirement, my brother was intentional in calling it, not a retirement, but a renewal.
Retirement or Renewal?
He called it a renewal because for him, the word “retirement” sounded too much like an ending to a large part of his life. Instead of seeing it as an ending, he viewed that transition in his life as more of a beginning of something new. For him, it was the beginning of a renewal in his life by exploring new ways of living, reordering his days, and picking up some new ministry opportunities beyond his long and established role as a Church Music Director.
I like that. Renewal sounds so much better than retirement. My brother shared this with me as words of wisdom to consider as I prepare for my own retirement. Even if I continue to serve as a pastor of a church in retirement, there are new holy rhythms and opportunities to be explored. There are new steps of faith to take.
Moses was taking a similar approach in offering words of wisdom to the people as they were drawing closer to the Promised Land. I like that Moses didn’t simply give them a true or false final exam on all the commandments that were taught them over that 40 year time in the wilderness. For Moses, the people of God didn’t need more information. They now needed to know what their next steps might look like once they arrived.
So he says to them, that if they continue to love the Lord and walk in God’s ways, that they would become numerous and they will be blessed in the land that they are about to possess. Moses was in effect telling them, “Don’t think of it as a retirement from being wilderness travelers. Think of it as a renewal where you will be able to experience new blessings in being God’s people. Your walk with the Lord isn’t ending. It’s just beginning!”
And the good news is that they get to decide if they will see it as a retirement or as a renewal. Which will it be?
If they just want to retire and just be content that they don’t have to walk through a wilderness anymore, then they will miss out on the new blessings and the renewal that God has in store for them. Do you want to retire or be renewed, is basically what Moses is presenting to the people.
In one of the churches I served, the people had this wonderful vision of expanding their church facility to include a large multi-purpose room as well as renovate other parts of the church building. That dream would require a lot of work for them which included getting a building plan, a cost analysis, a vote of the congregation, a fundraising strategy, and then the actual construction and renovations that would be required.
In a way, those years of preparation reminded me of when the Israelites were traveling through the wilderness to the Promised Land. No, it didn’t take that church 40 years but it did take them a couple of years before everything was finally completed.
They were so happy to finally make it to the Promised Land! The newly constructed church building looked incredible. A new multi-purpose room, a newly expanded front entrance in the older part of the church, a newly remodeled education wing, a very spacious meeting room, and new staff offices.
Less than a year after the construction was completed, a tornado hit that church building, destroying half of that new multi-purpose room, leveling the entire new education wing, and damaging several of the older parts of the building including the sanctuary. The tornado hit the church during a choir rehearsal but thankfully, nobody was seriously injured.
In less than one year in the Promised Land, this congregation was faced with going back into the wilderness by having to worship at the high school on Sunday mornings and having Sunday School classes at the community senior citizen center. The Trustees needed to go back to the drawing board and go through this whole building process all over again.
As you would expect, this caused a lot of stress for the people of that church. The once positive spirit in that congregation slowly became more and more negative. People began arguing over every little detail about the new building program from what the color of carpet in the various rooms should be to possible staff changes including the current pastor who was serving at the time.
It was in this situation, that I was sent by the Bishop to serve as pastor of this church! Even though I went there with a lot of hope and energy to help that congregation make it back to the Promised Land, I quickly realized that it would take a lot longer than I had imagined.
As this 2nd construction phase was getting closer to completion, I felt a little bit like Moses who was trying to help God’s people begin to picture themselves living in the Promised Land. I tried my best to have us think more about the new ministries and programs we could start rather than just upon the sense of the tremendous loss that they had experienced from this major setback.
It took some time, more time than I had imagined, but we were eventually able to start a new ministry called “Common Cup” which was the name for a mid-week dinner at the church that included bible studies and classes for all ages. It was called “Common Cup” because we started partnering with 16 small United Methodist churches within a 15 mile radius of our church.
Pastors and lay people from each of these churches helped lead the classes and it was beneficial for the smaller churches since they often lack the resources and space needed for weekly church programs. And one of the reasons this new mid-week ministry worked so well was because our church had a massive parking lot!
Those Wednesday gatherings for Common Cup felt like we had finally arrived to the Promised Land because we were now entering the next steps of being the church following a long time of wandering and traveling through the wilderness of construction and stress. Sometimes, we need to start thinking about what are next steps will be once we arrive rather than just how to survive in the wilderness.
Since announcing my retirement a couple of months ago, I mean my renewal, I’ve been praying about the next steps that God is leading us here at Athens First in the months ahead.
The good news of our faith is that God is always leading and guiding us into a new future. God is always inviting us to think about the next steps for us once we arrive in the Promised Land. The church is never done dreaming, never done hoping, and never done visioning.
Actually, we are never fully in the Promised Land and we never fully leave the wilderness. Both are part of our journey of faith. The 40 years in the wilderness was how the people were formed and shaped to become God’s people. Those 40 years were how the people learned to trust God along the way.
We are always being shaped and formed into God’s image. In less than two weeks, we will observe Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the 40 day season of Lent. Those 40 days are to remind us of the 40 years in the wilderness.
But we also know that at the end of those 40 days, we will celebrate the joy of Easter and the good news of Jesus’ resurrection. Easter is a Promised Land moment where we celebrate Jesus’ victory over sin and death.
And every Easter, we are always faced with the question, “How will the good news of Easter and Jesus’ victory over the grave change and transform my life? What will be my next steps moving forward?”
A Lutheran pastor friend of mine told me one day how a Lutheran pastor knows if he or she preached a good sermon. He said that it it’s not about how creative the opening of the sermon was or how good the illustrations in the sermon are. He said that Lutheran pastors are taught that you know it was a good sermon if the sermon helps people to answer the question, “so what?”
I love that! I think Moses might have been Lutheran because he was asking the Israelites the same question. “So what are you going to do now? What are the next steps you’re going to take once you make it into the Promised Land? Are you going to chose life and love and obey God?”
As we stand ready to enter into the new renewal that God has in mind for us, we are left with this very important question, “What will our next steps be?”
Next Steps
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