“PROMISES YOU CAN’T KEEP

A LOVE YOU CAN’T ESCAPE”

Scripture Lesson:  Joshua 24: 1-8, 11, 14-25

Dr. Matthew Brown

November 6, 2005

A few Sunday’s ago Katie shared with you the curious experience of a group of concert-goers who had gathered to hear a new symphonic work but were greeted by 3 minutes and 47 seconds (?) of silence.  An odd evening to be sure.

Imagine, though, another fine evening for a concert.  The elegantly dressed, erudite crowd gathers under the glistening crystal chandeliers of symphony hall.  After the concert master has led the musicians through their final tunings, the world renowned conductor donned in the requisite tailored tuxedo ascends the podium and the players lift their instruments to their appointed positions, and in that brief moment of silence before the orchestra’s first note, you are so pleased with yourself, with your station in life, with your level of sophistication.

Aren’t you the urbane and cultured one?  Indeed you are well read, able to offer New Yorker references in cocktail party conversations.  You know what’s happening on the Tokyo exchange.  You are conversant with scores of software programs.  You know to laugh when somebody speaks of Wagner’s sense of humor.  You know to smile approvingly at the mention of Masterpiece Theater and you know to frown at the mention of Pimp My Ride.   Yes, in that instant you are thinking you are the apogee of cosmopolitanism

.

But what if that brief moment of silent self-satisfaction is broken by the sound of a roomful of first year saxophone players wheezing their out of tune way through Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star?

But wait a minute; this is a renowned professional orchestra.  These musicians have dedicated their lives to the art of music.  They have been diligently studying their craft since the time their parents were reading them Hop on Pop and Pat the Bunny.  They were trained at Oberlin, Juliard, the Boston Conservatory.  Their resumes mention the mastery of Bach, Stravinsky, Brahms, Respighi, and Mozart.  Music is the air they breathe.

You would not hear intolerably shrill notes emanating from their instruments unless some eccentric Bartok-like composer had written them down that way.  Their teachers, their mentors, their disciplined studies had prepared them for these public moments and the world is enriched through their art and their effort.

No one, besides maybe the producers of Monty Python, would ever think of putting an unstudied, ill-equipped orchestra before so distinguished a crowd.  But chew on this thought for a moment.  Whether it is a sanctuary framed with stained glass or plantation shutters, whether its architecture speaks of medieval cathedrals or future fellowship halls, each Sabbath we (meaning everyone in this place) gather as the players in an orchestra with God as our audience.  Have we learned our part?  Or does our participation come across as polished as those first year saxophone and clarinet players?  Does our worship (what we are all doing together) witness to lives dedicated to knowing and studying and following the God to whom we direct our attention in these sacred moments?  Or do our lives before God resemble the piano student who shows up at the teacher’s house without her fingers having touched the keys since the last lesson; that student who just can’t get out of Book 1?

Let me frame this question in another context.  On Monday morning, whether we’re conscious of it or not, we rise to face the day as those who say they’ve been claimed by the love of Christ.  But do our days reflect the uncompromising love of Christ?  Do the teachings of Christ inform the decisions we make and influence the way we approach the world and the people around us?  Do our neighbors, peers, colleagues see in us some vague glimpse of the One who was so compassionate, so full of mercy?

Or, does our day to day existence, while built upon so much education, refinement, and sophistication, actually reflect a first grader’s understanding of the God revealed in Jesus Christ?  O, we know how to study.  We possess a great body of knowledge.  We’ve passed the bar exam, the CPA exam, the medical boards.  We’ve studied economic theory and chaos theory.  But can you tell me what the beatitudes are?  Where do I find the Sermon on the Mount?  Can you distinguish Jacob from Joshua?  Can you complete this sentence?  “Be not conformed to this world...”  When you hear the names Peter, Paul, and Mary are you drawn to New Testament Stories or are you thinkin’ bad hair and a folk tune?

We know so much about so many things.  We know so little about the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joshua.

We can sing Amazing Grace, but how are we going to recognize the signs of grace without having learned the language?

Each day we have routines:  certain papers we read, certain periodicals on which we rely, certain habits without which we feel lost.  But where are the spiritual disciplines of scripture, prayer, service, worship, contemplation, conversation?

Are you numbered among those who walk around with this vague acknowledgement that there is a God and that we’ve got some kind of life insurance policy in Jesus when we die, and that’s as far as faith extends? 

You know there are a whole lot of people who pride themselves in the assumption that this whole idea of seeking Christ’s presence and will in the day to day is a bit beneath them.

In a sermon at Duke Chapel some thirty years ago, Myron Augsburger, a leader in the Mennonite Church told of the following encounter.  Augsburger was out in the Midwest and a university professor came to the meeting and after the service said to Augsburger, “I am an honest intellectual agnostic.”  Augsburger complimented him for honesty, and said, “ You are a thinking man and you have a right to your position.”  But then Augsburger challenged the professor to try one simple experiment.  He said, “every day for thirty days pray honestly this little prayer:  ‘God, if You are around help me to recognize the evidence for You today.’”  Augsburger asked the professor to do that for thirty days and if nothing happened to forget the whole thing. 

You know what the professor said?  “Preacher, I am afraid to do that: something might happen!”  So much of the intellectual arrogance I see may well be fear of meaning and purpose beyond an address and a job. 

Where is God in your day to day?

That is the question that Joshua is putting before the people who have assumed possession of the land God had promised to them.  Joshua is very straightforward in telling the Israelites that their current life situation is totally dependent on the grace of God.  “...It was not by your sword or by your bow.  I gave you a land on which you had not labored, and cities which you had not built, and you dwell therein;  you eat the fruit of vineyards and olive yards which you did not plant.”

Joshua did not want them to live with the mistaken notion that so many people live with today.  Our own Kim Lee put it well when she said that these words of Joshua formed an important message for “all those who were born on third base and assume they’ve hit a triple.”

Joshua makes no bones about what God has done, and he wastes no words in telling the people what God desires in response.  God desires no nodding acknowledgement.  Rather, God desires the whole you. 

“Choose this day whom you will serve..,” Joshua challenges, because every day you are going to be serving something or someone.  And the people, you’ll notice are almost too quick to respond.  “Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord, to serve other gods.”  “Won’t happen here.  You can count on us.”

There is an arrogance in their response here that Joshua recognizes and confronts.  “You cannot serve the Lord.”  “You’re just not up to it.” “You’re too selfish, too glib, too self-assured.”

When I’m talking with couples preparing for marriage, somewhere in the conversation, I’ll usually say something like, “You are preparing to stand before God and a group of people and make a bunch of promises you are just not equipped to keep.  So whatcha gonna do?”

Whether we’re talking marriage covenants or faith covenants, we humans are not nearly as good at promise keeping as we are at promise breaking, and so Joshua wants the people to understand that ol’ hymn line, “Twas grace that brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.”

You know, no one can question that there is a whole lot of zeal in religion today.  Zeal that would lead one to assume that a suicide bomb is an act of faith.  Zeal that clogs courtrooms with venomous debates about commandment displays and public prayers.  Zeal that would demean, ostracize, and label rather than listen.  Zeal in gaining political power.  That’s what generally comes to mind when you associate the word zeal with religion.

And it seems that so much of that religious zeal is misplaced.  I would propose that what Joshua is calling for and what Jesus affirms is a different direction for our zeal.  What if we were zealous in asking God to guide us, asking God to help us keep the promises we cannot hope to keep by ourselves.

I want to share with you a morning prayer written long ago by the great Scottish preacher and teacher William Barclay.  It is from an out of print book that was given to me by a dear friend at the beginning of my ministry, and call me naive, but I just but wonder what a difference it would make if we were zealous in lifting up prayers such as this instead of all the self-righteous religious rhetoric that is polluting our world today.  Listen to the simple, spiritual humility of

Barclay’s prayer:

O God, give me the things which will make me able to live well today.

Give me A sense of proportion, that I may see what is important and what is not important, and that I may not get all hot and bothered about things which do not matter; A sense of humor,

that I may learn to laugh, and especially to laugh at myself, and not to take myself too seriously;

A sense of responsibility, that I may look on each task as something which I am doing for the general good and for you. Give me, A new sensitiveness of spirit, that I may see when I am hurting people, and that I may not blindly and thoughtlessly trample on the feelings of others.

Give me, too, a continual awareness of the presence of Jesus, that I may do nothing which it would grieve him to see, and nothing which it would hurt him to hear...

This is where our zeal needs to find focus.  How might these prayers influence a hurting, polarized, and paranoid world?  How might these prayers empower us to keep the promises, the covenants that we can’t seem to hold onto on our own.

Garrison Keillor once told the story of a businessman sitting on the front stoop of the family home he shares with his wife and children.  He was waiting to go on a business trip.  Recently, he had been flirting with a colleague who was also going on the trip and this colleague has been giving signals that she’d be open to the possibility of his advances, the possibility of an affair. 

The businessman is sitting there relishing the thought and anticipating the possibility, when by the grace of God, a mailman stops and drops off the mail.  A simple, seemingly mundane and routine event, but the businessman is suddenly struck with the thought, “What if the mailman didn’t keep his promise to deliver the mail?  What if the garbage man didn’t keep his promise to pick up the garbage?  What if...  The businessman picked up his bag and went back inside.

On this day we use the language of dedication, commitment, pledges, and promises.

It is one thing to blithely make Sunday morning commitments about who you will serve in this life.  “Far be it from us that we would forsake the Lord,” the Israelites smugly said.  It is quite another thing to live with those promises from day to day.  Where does God fit in your tomorrow?  May the greatest thing we do each day be the humble prayer that God would empower us beyond our ability to keep the promise.   Amen.