Delivered by Rev Dr John Evans
on Sunday 14 March, 2010
Joshua 5:9-12
Psalm 32
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
The story of the two sons and their father is one of the great stories of Jesus. It resonates with us at many levels. We each have been the younger son – desperate to have our own freedom and try life, but wondered if there is still a place for us “at home”; or we have been the elder son, jealous, miffed that “exceptions are made” or someone else seems to be treated more lavishly than we are. Or the perhaps there has been the heartache of a relationship breakdown, and the daily looking out for, hoping for a return, and a reconciled relationship. It is a story of God’s love and grace – of why indeed Jesus eats with the sinners and the lost. However, ponder this – what happens the next day when the party is over? The roasted heifer has been polished off, and things return to normal in this household?
The older son – does he continue in his grumpiness; does the father settles down to a more regular routine. And what would the younger son do? The climax in the story has been reached – what happens next? The hoped for, longed for event finally came to pass – what happens next?
So our longed for church anniversary comes – what happens when it is all done and dusted? Leaning from the past; preparing for our future – our motto for our celebrations – what will it actually mean?
During the week I meet with my neighbouring colleague Rev Dr Doug Miller – minister of Wesley, Lonsdale St. I was aware that congregation had celebrated a 150th anniversary of their church building, just a year or so ago. I asked Doug –“what advice did he have for us?” He thought for a while, and then said, that “the anniversary actually means something after the event”.
And isn’t this is true in all fields of human activity. A sporting team will put everything into winning that grand final – but what then? Or we will plan for the party, the celebration – the wedding, the big birthday or anniversary – but what then? Or we will look with great anticipation to the birth of a child, or retirement or long service leave – and it will be amazing and wonderful while it last – but what then? Normal life.
In fact as you reflect on life – we are drawn forward in life by anticipating what the next event might be, finishing school, work, finding life’s companion, and so on – or depending on you age – trying to avoid events. Goals, targets, even wishes and hopes, are what draws us forward.
Obviously there is something here about our personal maturity that we do not place all our hopes into one event and we become obsessive about it. This is not to say that goal is a bad thing – a goal can give us our identity and offer to us meaning. But what happens the next day?
I think we will find these few verses from Joshua helpful and instructive. Our reading, in a very understated way, simply records that the Israelites, after wandering in the wilderness for 40 years since their amazing escape from slavery in Egypt, finally make it to the promised land. The point of their journeying has come to pass – they have just crossed the Jordan, indeed in a way reminiscent of crossing the Red Sea to avoid the pursuing Egyptians, and they celebrate in their new land, this much promised land, their first Passover.
Here is not a personal story of what does one do when one reaches the goal, here is a national saga. This nation was literally forged in the adversity of Egypt; offered the hope and freedom of a new land, and then bound together and with God in a structure of law and custom, a covenant. And all of sudden they were there! Of course, with hindsight, we know it turned out to be far more complicated – there were for example, other people living in this promised land, and these others resisted fiercely these interlopers. Establishing life in this land took generations beyond this historic moment at Gilgal: which as we are told means the place where the disgrace of Egypt was rolled away from them. However, at that moment – they were there! They were in the promised land.
So what happens.
They celebrate the Passover – it was again the date and the time to do this. It would have been a fitting, emotionally charged celebration. They would have recalled the freedom that God had won for them, in leaving Egypt – and they were free – free at last. But it, at least as recorded in Joshua, was not an exuberant occasion. It was for example, very different to when the Ark of the Covenant is bought into Jerusalem with much singing and dancing and much joy. Here there is just one verse:
“While the Israelites were camped in Gilgal they kept the Passover in the evening on the fourteenth day of the month in the plains of Jericho.” (Joshua 5:10)
That is it. One can almost sense a foreboding here – the goal has been reached, but somehow, we now have to make sense of this new life we have been given. Freedom and the promise has been fulfilled, but how will we now live our life? This rather sombre, flat, perhaps ordinary story must now continue. So the day after the Passover, they ate their first meal derived from their new land. “On that very day they ate the produce of the land”. Then there comes this fascinating detail – if you like the theme of this sermon:
“The manna ceased on the day they ate the produce of the land.” (12)
You will recall that in the great saga of escape from Egypt, the Israelites had no food. Yahweh provided food – some sticky substance that was found each morning on the desert which they could eat and survive these wanderings towards their Promised Land. I find this an amazingly vivid image to remind us of the issue of what do we do when God’s love and grace is fulfilled and the manna ceases; or we reach that destination or goal, or event or celebration, and the manna ceases. You to that point have been carried along in knowledge of the spirit of God – and the manna ceases. The prodigal returns – what has sustained the hope to that point is not needed. The manna ceases.
Our story has some clues.
In the first part of Joshua 5 we have the Adults Only section of the chapter, which our lectionary has spared us. There was a mass circumcision. Yes that is right, we are told that many flint knives are made, and all the males were circumcised. Perhaps this could explain why there were subdued celebrations, however, it showed more. Circumcision is a ritual, a rite of identity of being a Jew, an outward sign of being a child of God. This custom and ritual was not practiced while the Israelites were fleeing Egypt and seeking the Promised Land. As Joshua says “the males had not been circumcised on the way”.(7)
Once the manna ceases, ritual and custom resume or re-present the struggle and then the victory. Life, which according to Joshua settles down very quickly to just a normal routine – “they ate the crops of the land Canaan that year” – is punctuated with reminders, rituals, practices which represent the great events and realities of their life.
Of course we as Christians see this most obviously in the sacrament of Holy Communion. We are reminded that “when the manna ceases” this time it is knowing that through Christ’s life, death and resurrection we are brought into a new relationship with God, that bread and wine – interestingly manna if you like – reminds us of that great moment of our salvation and redemption.
It is why we have wedding anniversaries and birthdays, why the premiership winning side each five years gathers to relive that moment of glory, or diggers march on Anzac day, or why we have a church anniversary. God’s grace was shown once in coming into being: we need to be reminded that now the manna has ceased – we can get on with living a routine and ordinary life in the land of Canaan, but every so often it is important to be reminded of God’s presence and support in the past – at that moment.
Ritual, customs and traditions thus can be helpful, but I worry if there is nothing else in people’s lives except rituals, customs and traditions. This is where our other reading from 2 Corinthians may be helpful.
Paul, in our passage begins by focusing on that moment in time: if you like, that dreadful phrase beloved of preachers 25 years ago – “the Christ event”. And as Paul says: “even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view we know him no longer in that way.” We are not people who personally knew Jesus, nor were we there at the cross or tomb or Jerusalem for Pentecost or whatever. But there is still that sense – that moment in time when we “were in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away, and every thing become new.”
How does that moment continue? What do we make of that moment in the ordinariness of life?
Ordinary life does continue; we will need to feed ourselves in the land of Canaan. We can worship God, and appreciate the sacraments we have; like the sacrament of Holy Communion. Such is a tangible and vivid reminder of who we are amidst such ordinariness of humdrum living. Paul however, goes further
“God reconciled us to God’s own self through Christ, and has given to us the ministry of reconciliation” (18.) And he goes on and says “we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal though us.”
Here is a remarkable feature of Christianity and sometimes, perhaps often, it gets us into trouble. Our faith is not just one in which there is a quiet reflection; and a ritual, religious, recall of a central tenet of the faith. Christianity has an activist element. We can call it evangelism, or we could call it Christian service. When the manna ceases – we are called to share our faith, to serve others, have this ministry of reconciliation, be ambassadors for Christ. This is like as we pray, “Forgives us our sin as we forgive those who sin against us.” There is always this double aspect – seeking and renewing our relationship with God; but at the same time sharing with the world something of what that understanding of God means.
It hopefully means that the younger son, the day after that party, might be seeking reconciliation with his older brother, or may be helping those who seek a home in a far country and have none – or in someway assisting the victims of that famine in the land.
For us after the 11 April – in a sense, will be business as usual in serving others and witnessing to the gospel, but we trust with just an added edge of insight and enthusiasm gleaned from our reflection on and celebrating the past.
What will we all do when the manna ceases?
