“A Tough Ticket, A
Gracious Gatekeeper”
Old Testament
Lesson: Deuteronomy 34: 1-12
New Testament
Lesson: Romans 5: 1-2
Dr. Matthew Brown
Deuteronomy is known as one
of the Books of the Law, containing within it many of the statutes and
ordinances that would form the framework for the nascent people of God. Some you have heard. Many you have not. And I am quite certain that you have not been
privy to this commandment recently discovered by a dear former colleague
(Robert Smith) of mine in the midst of one of “those” days.
“Thou shalt not drop this thy
cell phone into thy tub, nor into thy sink nor toilet. Thou shalt not soak it like cornbread in
buttermilk, nor shalt thou dunk it into thy steaming hot sweetened coffee,
neither with creamer nor without creamer shall it be dunked. For such, you may have doughnuts of every
kind, sweetened grease for sating thine appetite. See, the god of munch has given you these for
food. But for these tasks of sending and
receiving [communication] I have made this new fangled thing and sold it unto
thee.
If thou shalt keep this
commandment thy device shall work for thee until it quits. And the time appointed for its failure shall
not be known to thee. But if thou break
this law, and shall dunk thy device, it shall surely fail thee even in that
moment. And though thou shouldst fret
thine heart, and disassemble, and dry, and weep bitterly, yet shall it fail
thee utterly, even in thy time of need.
. . . For you shall remember this day when I did not
deliver you from the folly of your ways.”
Yes, it seems my friend had a
baaad day, the eloquent description of which brings to mind many morbid
memories of similar sinister days that have marked our calendars, days when we
were not delivered from the folly of our ways.
The grape juice stain on your
favorite slacks in a most unfortunate spot.
The crinkle in your bumper from when you were looking in the wrong
direction at just the wrong time. The
word from upstairs that the boss would like to see you, now! The estranged friend who looks straight
through you in the grocery store aisle.
While we live in a society
that tends to relish the role of the victim and far too easily absolves itself
of guilt whatever the circumstance, an honest self examination would
necessitate our owning up to the distress or judgment we have brought upon
ourselves with no one else to blame.
“The fault,” Shakespeare says, “is not in our stars, but in ourselves.”
We have been delivered from
much in our lives, certainly more than we are aware or would even acknowledge,
but there is always that from which we have not been delivered, and so often it
is the folly of our own making.
You can still visualize the
pained expression on the face of the person you hurt, the employer you let
down, the friend you betrayed, the child whose hopes you dashed. You daily deal with the loneliness, the
isolation, the pain, the debt wrought by no one else but you.
We carry with us the
consequences, the scars, and hopefully the lessons of those bad days, days we
would certainly like to redo, consequences we would certainly choose to
mitigate, but on we must go with the burdens we have brought upon ourselves.
In our passage today we see
Moses facing, and literally seeing, the consequences of his own folly. Once again he is called upon to climb a
mountain, but on the peak of this mountain, he does not receive the call to
lead or the gift of the law. No, on this
mountain peak, the Lord directs Moses’ attention to the Promised Land that he
shall not enter.
40 years. For 40 years Moses had been diligently
performing this labor. For 40 years
Moses had abided this recalcitrant, bellyaching, stiff-necked people. And when most people would be setting their
new gold watch, getting tipsy at their testimonial dinner, and signing the
contract on their Promised Land condo, ol’ mountain man Moses is looking down
the slope at the land for which he had so labored but will not know. That’s gotta hurt!
For a reason as to why Moses
is denied entry into the promised land we are directed to a place that became
known as Meribah, which means contention, which alludes to the fact that this
was yet another one of those places where the people were found to be
complaining. Imagine that!
If we’ve learned anything in
our journey through the Exodus tradition, we’ve learned that we humans are a
lot better at complaining than we are at coping. Well, this time, like a child who gets within
eyesight of a Coke machine, the people have suddenly become thirsty. (You ever noticed that? You can pass by a hundred water fountains and
not hear a peep. But one sight of a
Mountain Dew label, and suddenly they are dying of thirst. Well the wilderness wanderers are thirsty and
cranky. And, of course, they surmise
that it must be Moses’ fault, so let the whining commence.
“We wish we’d died when the
rest of our brothers died before God.
Why did you haul this congregation of God out here into this wilderness
to die, people and cattle alike? And why
did you take us out of
Now, if you’re a leader and
you believe in what you are doing, and you know that this is all for the
people’s good, do you think all the complaining and whining would get on your
nerves maybe just a bit?
Well, once again the Lord
provides for the people, just as God did at Rephidim, just as God did with the
manna and the quail, just as God did when the Egyptians were closing in on them
at the
But filled with the
understandable frustration of all these years of contending with these grouchy
travelers, Moses gets a little self-righteous and arrogant, saying, “Listen,
rebels! Do we have to bring water out of
this rock for you?” Oops! While that comment may sound innocent enough
to our ears, Moses has become guilty of that indiscretion that we must so often
admit, taking credit for what the Lord is doing. Is it you, Moses, or is it God who is
bringing that water forth from the rock?
O, what a cautionary tale
this should be in our time when so much of Christian witness is marked by
self-righteousness, self-importance, and self-congratulation. You know what happens when you put six
preachers in a single room? It won’t
happen because their egos would never fit in there together.
Preachers can be the worst
when it comes to that lethal combination of religion and arrogance, but it’s
certainly not an exclusive club. Whether
it’s a candidate talking about religion and policy, a school board member
talking about curriculum, a columnist or radio host on a religious rant, a
neighbor preachin’ at a party, or the guy with the “in your face” religious bumper sticker at the stoplight,
I’m not seeing humility, I’m not sensing the gracious love of Christ. No, it’s all about power, arrogance,
self-righteousness, and conquest. And, I
don’t understand how such arrogant attitudes would ever draw someone to the
love of Jesus.
In Ecclesiastes it is
written, “Pride is hateful before God and man.”
The Apostle Paul said, “I bid every one among you not to think of
himself more highly than he ought to think.”
We must never confuse ourselves with the true giver of the gift.
The Lord says to Moses,
“Because you... didn’t treat me with holy reverence in front of the People of
Israel, you two aren’t going to lead this company into the land...”
And so, today we find Moses
literally on the precipice of the Promised Land, but he will not go in. This one with whom, the text tells us, the
great prophets cannot even compare will not gain entrance to that place of
promise.
I don’t know about you, but I
read this text and I’m thinkin’, “If Moses isn’t getting a ticket for the
promised land, what chance do I have?”
Place my resume by that of Moses, and I know I’m going to be getting one
of those, “It was nice to meet with you, but...” letters. Have you ever received one of those? “We are grateful for your application,
but...” “We enjoyed our conversation,
however, another candidate seemed a better fit for our organization/for our
team...”
If Moses isn’t gettin’ in, I
don’t stand a chance! If Moses’ mis-step
was taking credit for something that wasn’t his, what about all the times I’ve
denied credit for something I should have confessed? If Moses isn’t worthy, who is?
And yet, Paul says, “We have
peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Through him we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and
we rejoice in our hope of sharing the glory of God.”
Not even Moses could attain
righteousness in the sight of God, and yet, God’s love is such that through
Christ God chose to view us as righteous and worthy of entry, our guilty hearts
sprinkled clean, though we had done nothing to deserve it and everything to be
denied it.
Now, when you have been the
recipient of an undeserved gift, how did it make you feel? What emotions did it inspire?
Maybe it was an uncle, who
out of the clear blue gave you this marvelous gift, and forever thereafter, he
was your hero. Maybe it was that special
aunt who one winter spirited you away on a wondrous journey to the big city,
shopping, theatre, new sumptuous foods you had never tasted. O how you loved her. The grace of an undeserved gift produces joy
and undying thankfulness instead of arrogance and self-importance.
Faith is just such a gift,
and in this view, the fruit of faith is gratitude instead of attitude.
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