November 9, Pentecost 26, 2008
Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25
It is good to be back at St. Aidan’s after my week at CREDO. CREDO is a retreat for clergy in which a group of about thirty priests spend eight days being led through a process of reflection on their spiritual, physical and vocational well being. A part of the process involves separating us from the vain idea that the church couldn’t get along without us, so last Sunday while you folks were worshipping, the CREDO people and I were enjoying a whole morning of free time, with no worship service provided. It was kind of funny watching a bunch of clergy hanging around the conference center on All Saints’ Sunday trying to figure out what to do with themselves. Some tried to check e-mail on a bad satellite connection. Some read and reread the paper. I went fishing.
The heart of the retreat involved getting us out of our usual surroundings so we could reflect on ministry. A part of that reflection involved remembering, remembering the moments in our lives when we had been sure of God’s presence. I have always told people that I became a Christian because my parents had me baptized as a child, and that I remain a Christian because of a few moments in my life when I just knew God was. The leader of the session talked about such moments and about how, when we encounter God, the small world we live in expands around us leaving us with a sense of awe and wonder and belonging. The reason we were asked to spend time remembering such moments is that those are the moments-- times when God seems so near--that might define and inform our ministry if we let them. And that is certainly true for all of the baptized, not just clergy. We have to be intentional at times about remembering our core values, our best insights so that they can continue to point us in the direction we should go.
Every so often, we need to remember the basic beliefs that we would have shape our lives. People who practice religion do that remembering in ritual ways. It helps to speak words about our values and our beliefs in the presence of others who have gathered with us to do the same thing. Together we find a strength and resolve to live out our values that we cannot find on our own. There is a power in remembering together, in telling stories and living out actions that speak about deeper truths. In our worship we recall the moments when our ancestors in the faith encountered God. We recall the decisions they came to about the meaning of those encounters and we listen in that ancient wisdom for clues about our own experience. That kind of gathered remembering can help us establish the trajectory of our lives on what is really important.
It is an amazing and powerful thing when a people come together to rekindle their heritage and their hope for the future as they celebrate the vision and values that fueled their ancestors’ dreams.
Even if you didn’t vote for Barack Obama, I hope you have been able to enjoy at least a little bit of the historic nature of what just happened in our country. I was a teenager when Martin Luther King stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and made his "I have a dream" speach. My family liveed in Memphis when he was killed. I woke up one morning with helicopters and National Guard tents in my back yard because a black man wanted to attend Mississippi State University. Now, forty years later, the election of a black president gives me an incredible sense of living in history.....as history is being written. I have been captured by images on tv of black people crying on Tuesday night as the decision was announced....not just Jesse Jackson and Oprah Winfry, but people on the streets and in the park in Chicago....young people and old people. What so many of them said when they were interviewed was that this new event recalled the ideals of their parents and grandparents. The election rekindled in them a hope or passion that had been forgotten or maybe put away. Quite apart from the political agenda of the candidate, some of the hopes, dreams and values rekindled in this election have to do with the equality we as a people claim to believe in. Some of the passion of these last few days has to do with the election of a person who only fifty years ago would not have had basic civil rights in our country.
Mary and I were waiting to vote and we talked with a man who had worked the polling place for early balloting a few days before. He told of a hundred year old black woman who was wheeled into the polling place in a wheelchair. When they went to push her up to the voting machine, she stopped them and said, no. She wanted to walk. The poll worker said tears welled up in peoples’ eyes as they watched her make her way to the voting booth. The impromptu celebrations around the country on Tuesday night were out of proportion if they were simply about one candidate defeating another in an election. The celebrations had roots in remembered values and hard fought battles in the shaping of our nation’s vision.
It is an amazing thing when people come together to rekindle their heritage and their hope for the future as they celebrate the vision that fueled their ancestors’ dreams.
In the lesson from Hebrew scripture we heard a few minutes ago Joshua presided over just such a gathering at Shechem. Once inside the promised land, after triumphing over the Cananites in several battles, Joshua gathered the people in front of the great shrine and reminded them of their history. He recited the stories and recalled moments when God had been present in their lives and the lives of their ancestors. He spoke of the forty years of wandering in the desert and without reminding them of the covenant they had made at the beginning of that journey, he called on them to promise allegiance to the God who had delivered them. The people had had much to distract and occupy them in the years since they had set out. They had endured hardships. They had stumbled often over their own humanity in failing to be faithful. Now, they were being offered the chance to remember what had set them on their course--the values and dreams--and to say, yes, this is the way we choose. This is still our path.
The story of Joshua gathering the people at Shechem is considered one of the most important stories in Hebrew scripture. It is instructive in so many ways. We learn that sometimes the question has to be called: “choose this day whom you will serve.” We learn that the commitments we make to God we make in community. We hear that the good way we have chosen with our very best understanding of what is right must be chosen and claimed again......and again, and that choosing the right way forward involves remembering the road we have traveled. “Choose this day,” said Joshua, and the people answered, “we choose the God who has brought us this far.”
We are approaching the end of the Pentecost season, a season that is sometimes called the “so what?”season. After God arrives and redeems, the big question is so what. What meaning will this faith have for us? How will it be evident in our lives? This might be a good time to take stock and to do some remembering. When has God spoken or been a guide in your life? When have you known you were on the right path and how does that time of certainty relate to the present time? Are you walking the path you have chosen? Have you stopped recently to get your bearings? Who can help you find your way?
I suppose that some people whose candidate lost on Tuesday are beginning to ask questions about where they’ve been and where they might be going. That seems kind of obvious. When things aren’t going our way we might actually ask such questions. I think maybe the more challenging spiritual work comes when we think things are going our way. Maybe the people who are happy about the outcome of the election have even more reason to examine the direction in which they are headed. In this great Joshua story, it was right after their apparent victory that Joshua called the people to remain grounded in their best dreams and to recite the stories of where they had been.
It may be a while before I see the Lincoln Memorial and don’t think of this week and the historic gatherings only a few short decades ago. When I pass it I will remember that we are living in amazing times. I think too, that along with the voice of Martin echoing in those stones, I will hear the voice of Joshua reminding me that choosing is a lifelong responsibility. “Choose who you will serve. As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” JB