Wilderness Wanderings

"If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations on earth. All these blessings will come on you and accompany you if you obey the Lord your God…" (Deuteronomy 28:1-2).

Today is Remembrance Day in Canada. I hope you will all take time to thank God for the freedom we have in this country and to ponder the cost of this freedom. I would encourage you to wonder if there is an erosion of freedoms in the so-called free world. Since this is not a cultural or political reflection, that is all I will say on that topic.

Let us turn to Deuteronomy 28 which the New International Version has divided into two sections: "Blessings for Obedience" and "Curses for Disobedience." These subtitles make it appear as if blessings and curses are simply opposites. Such a division also suggests that our relationship with God is basically 'quid pro quo'. If we obey God, we get all the blessings we can imagine.

Some versions of the "Prosperity Gospel" give the impression that the material blessings in this chapter will come pouring out of the heavenly slot machine if we press the right behavior buttons. Has that worked out for you? Real life tells us that this is not the way it works. And the Bible does not lay things out that neatly.

Clearly, if the curses happen, they will come as deserved punishment for Israel's disobedience. But there is no corresponding sense in which the blessings can be earned as a reward for obedience. The whole thrust of Deuteronomy protests this idea. Israel is bluntly warned to make no equations between military or material success and her own merits (8:17; 9:4-6).

Rather, God's blessing on God's people is already there in the very fact that they are God's people. It is intrinsic to the promise made to Abraham and to the covenant relationship. The blessing of God always initiates His relationship with the world. It is the way grace works. God's blessing is here to be enjoyed.

But here is the caveat: this grace and blessing can only be enjoyed by living in God's way in the land God is giving them. Obedience, therefore, like faith, is the road we travel to experience God's grace and blessing, not how we come to deserve them. Its like a gift. To enjoy it, one must unwrap it and use it in the way it is designed. If you leave it wrapped, you cannot enjoy it. Also, if you try to make a model car fly, you will crash and destroy it.

In Christ, the church's relationship with God is essentially the same as Israel's. We find it all over the book of Ephesians. It begins, "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight" (1:3-4). And later, "Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you" (4:32).

We do not need to earn God's grace. Its already ours. We get to unpack it and explore all its dimensions. So, are you living within the grace God has given you? Are you using it well? Are you loving as you have been loved? What is one thing can you do today to live more fully in the grace God has given you?

"Be very strong; be careful to obey all that is written in the Book of the Law of Moses, without turning aside to the right or to the left." (Joshua 23:6)

As I listened in to our devotion from yesterday, two things came to mind. The invitation to remember, and the invitation keep the balance between work and grace. Both of these are themes that flow throughout the biblical narrative.

The word remember shows up over 200 times in our bibles, and the allusion to memories, stories, and the ancient paths occur many times more. Our verse from today comes at the end of Joshua's life and ministry where he calls the Israelites together to remember everything that the Lord has done for them and to remember also the law and covenant they have promised to keep.

And as we enter into the New Testament, we find Jesus calling the church to the same. Whenever you eat the bread or drink the cup, he says, "do this in remembrance of me." And again: "the Holy Spirit… will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you."

So, remembering is necessary. But at the same time, memory alone is not sufficient. We also have to live this law, this story, and this identity that God has both given and reminded us of. For that, we need to walk with balance. We must "turn neither to the right nor to the left," but rather keep to the wise middle of covenantal obedience. This theme also runs throughout the Bible.

In the wisdom book of Ecclesiastes we find these words:

Do not be overrighteous, neither be overwise—why destroy yourself? Do not be overwicked, and do not be a fool—why die before your time? It is good to grasp the one and not let go of the other. Whoever fears God will avoid all extremes. (Ecclesiastes 7:16-18)

In the New Testament we find this same tension held in balance with word pairs like "law and grace," "grace and truth," "faith and works." Jesus' own incarnation keeps this balance perfectly between divine perfection and human limitation. It is his example we are called to imitate, his way in which we are called to walk. As we find male and female, Jew and Gentile, slave and free all reconciled together in Him.

In days of much polarization in society between those on the right and on the left: perhaps the church, remembering and following its Lord, is called neither to the right, nor to the left, but simply to hold the tension-laden space of the middle. This middle space is a place where all the extremes still exist in all their colour and vitality, but rather than tearing each other apart in a zero-sum game: in the Christian middle, these extremes are reconciled together in Christ.

I think of this particularly in light of the human sexuality conversation happening in the churches across the Western world, including our own. In a recent Banner article online, a CRC pastor who sits on one of the extremes in this conversation was quoted as saying: "Synod needs to make a decision, 'all in' on one side or the other. Trying to make everyone happy has not worked. One side is in serious error. If we try to make everyone happy, no one will be happy."

It makes me wonder: is holding the tension in the messy middle where no one is happy really such a bad thing? That seems to me to be exactly the place where God is doing his best work of reconciling all the extremes together in Christ as we remember and believe, walking out the meaning of His cross in confession, forgiveness, and loving one another well when it really counts.

This middle place is the place where grace and truth walk together. Where justice and peace kiss. Where we find the Jesus life by walking out the Jesus truth through the narrow middle of the Jesus way. It is indeed good to grasp the one without letting go of the other as we seek to walk faithfully, turning neither to the right nor to the left.

Moses and the elders of Israel commanded the people: "Keep all these commands that I give you today. When you have crossed the Jordan into the land the Lord your God is giving you, set up some large stones and coat them with plaster. Write on them all the words of this law when you have crossed over to enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, promised you (Deuteronomy 27:1-3).

As Moses prepares to take his leave of Israel (he will soon die), he stresses the covenant relationship between God and his people. He continually emphasizes that Israel must keep her side of the covenant: faithful living, obedience to Lord's law. Because we live post-resurrection and post-protestant reformation, I think it is valuable for us to pay particular attention to the end of the Book of Deuteronomy.

The resurrection of Jesus changed the dynamics of God's relationship with his people. Paul sums it up in Ephesians 2: "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast" (8-9). There is ample evidence of God's grace and capacity to forgive in the Old Testament, but in Christ God removed the barrier of sin that can stand between us and God. Paul writes, "He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification" (Romans 4:25).

The clarion call of the Protestant Reformation was that grace sustains and nourishes our relationship with God, removing all barriers between covenant partners. As we love to sing, "we stand forgiven at the cross." This is, of course, the great teaching of the New Testament which reverberated throughout Christendom during and after the reformation.

Yet, it is possible that the way in which we (preachers mostly) have communicated this wondrous truth has made Christians indifferent to faithful covenant partnership with God. It is possible that in rightly decrying 'works righteousness' Christians have developed a 'laissez faire' attitude towards God. Since God does all the work, why should we care about the way that we live? Why should we make an effort to respond to him?

Rarely, does anyone put it this bluntly, but the privilege of the devotion writer is to embellish. As we finish with Deuteronomy, we will encounter significant material dealing with blessings and curses. Moses is very concerned that Israel keeps the law. Under the guidance of the Spirit, he instructs Israel to create this stone monument to the law.

For us, such monuments are simply historical markers. But for Israel, it was meant to continually call her to keep covenant with God. Yet, here is the interesting thing. Moses instructs them to cover the stones in plaster and inscribe the law on the plaster. This was much easier that chiselling the law into the rocks and was easier to read. But the plaster would not last, it would fall off the rock. None of the writers I consulted knew why Israel was to inscribe the law on a surface that would disintegrate.

I wonder if it was so that Israel would need to re-establish the monument every few years. Was it in the hope that doing this would cause Israel to regularly renew her covenant with God? Joshua 8 records Israel setting up these stones and the writing of the law on them. After that, there is no record of Mount Ebal in the scriptures. There is no record that Israel ever put-up new plaster and rewrote the law. I wonder if we would have.

The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. (Genesis 2:15)

You may have heard in the news about COP26 these past few weeks. It's a United Nations climate change summit that happens every year for the past 26 years. As many nations in the world as can come together do come together to talk about climate change and the ways that they each, and together, can address these challenges.

Many of you will remember the Paris climate change conference called COP21, where a number of countries came together to sign the Paris Climate Change Agreement. And now at COP26, those same countries come back to update their commitments to keeping climate change and the warming of the globe at or below the target of 1.5 degrees of warming.

It's a tall order and one that seems well beyond our little daily lives. This is the world that's coming together to talk about these things and countries are the only ones who can come and participate in this "Conference Of the Parties" called COP26. So what role do we have?

Well, from the very beginning of the book of Genesis, it makes clear that our work is as stewards of God's creation. We hear that in the first chapter of Genesis as we are we are told that we are made in the image of God and are commanded to rule, to steward the land. But, we hear it, I think, more particularly in these words from Genesis 2:15.

First, we find that the Lord God took the man and put him in a particular place: the Garden of Eden. So, we're not just those who wander the world and make these high flying, abstract commitments, but we are people who live in a particular place in a particular time with particular work that we do. We are to understand this place where we are put as God's gift to us. It is the garden within which we carry out our ruling and stewarding work for God's creation. God has placed me right here in Hamilton, and perhaps he's taken you and put you in Caledonia, or Brantford, or somewhere else in Hamilton. But that is our garden: the place we work out our stewardship of the earth.

The person was put in the garden in order to do two things. To work it and take care of it. The word for work and take care of are words that are pictures, pictures with deep resonance throughout the Old Testament. One of these words is the word for observe, or keep, like we're commanded to keep and observe the Torah: the commands of God. The other word is a word that's often used for worship in the Bible.

And so these words give the sense that we have an almost priestly duty here, not just to work the ground and take care of it, but really to serve it as an act of worship. We are to serve as priests for the ground and for the earth.

So the question: how are you serving as a priest in the place--your garden--where God has put you? Not just serving as a priest before God and among your neighbors, but also to and for the creation? Do you actions bring healing and redemption to the ground you walk?

A special, extended Sunday Sermon edition of Wilderness Wanderings! The text is Revelation 15 from the New International Version of the Bible. Dive In discussion questions are below for further reflection!

To see this sermon in the context of the worship service it comes from, find it here on YouTube. Or, head to our website to connect with the worshiping community of Immanuel CRC: immanuelministries.ca

Dive In Questions

1. When you read Revelation, do you look for the large picture or the small details?
2. Where does theme of judgement begin in Revelation? What has caused you to cry 'how long'? What do you do in response? What does John call us to do?
3. What is the context for judgement? Why does that matter?
4. Where do these visions take place? Why does this matter? How does it change how we view judgement? Why does God come in judgement?

You have declared this day that the Lord is your God and that you will walk in obedience to him, that you will keep his decrees, commands and laws—that you will listen to him. And the Lord has declared this day that you are his people, his treasured possession as he promised, and that you are to keep all his commands (Deuteronomy 26:17-18).

Aspects of God's covenant with Israel are woven throughout this chapter of Deuteronomy. Now, covenant is not a common word these days, but lays at the heart of the biblical story, so there is value in recovering it from time to time.

In the ancient world, when a small and weak nation was being threatened with extinction by a larger people, it would sometimes ask an even stronger king to come to its aid. With this request she would establish a covenant with the powerful nation. Essentially the smaller people would promise to pay taxes in exchange for protection. Quid pro quo.

God's covenant with Israel is modelled on this common practice among ancient peoples. There are several books comparing these human covenants with God's relationship with Israel. While similar, there are significant modifications in the biblical covenant, maybe most dramatic is this: God's patience. In the human covenants, if the weaker nation neglected its obligations, the stronger would make quick work in enforcing its rights or wiping out the covenant breakers. The Bible details God's patience with Israel's unfaithfulness.

But there is something else in our text that strikes me as rather unique in God's covenant. "And the Lord has declared this day that you are his people, his treasured possession as he promised…" I doubt this kind of language is found in the ancient covenants. Israel is God's treasured possession; a deep love lies at the heart of this divine covenant. A love demonstrated in exquisite fashion in Christ's death on the cross.

In this chapter, Israel is to remember their beginning as a nation. God, seeing Israel abused by the Egyptians, came to rescue them. Taking them from a place of tremendous adversity, he carried them through the desert and settled them in this land 'flowing with milk and honey.' God still calls his church to remember what he has done for us, bringing us to the sacraments of baptism and Supper. This is also why he calls us to worship him regularly as a community of faith. We are not to forget that he has rescued us from the domain of Satan.

But the truly astonishing aspect of God's covenant with Israel is that it is not a 'quid pro quo' relationship. Israel is God's treasured possession. And Israel is to gather the first fruits of the harvest into a basket and place 'the basket before the Lord their God and bow down before him. Then the people and the Levites and the foreigners residing among them would rejoice in all the good things the Lord their God has given to them" (cf. 26:10-11).

Biblical religion does not deal in fear or coercion or uncertainty but in joy and security. Israel is to rejoice in all the blessings God gives, to rejoice in her relationship with God; that God names her, "my treasured possession". This joy is also expressed in further obedience. Jesus put this altogether for us in John 15 where love, joy and obedience are connected to our being the friends of God.

Whatever forces and attitudes have shaped our relationship with God up to this point in our lives, God is calling us, as he called Israel of old, into a relationship of friendship, characterized by love, joy and obedience. We are his treasured possession, and we are to rejoice in him. Enjoy your religion!

I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. (Philippians 1:3-6)

Yesterday I had opportunity to participate in the Reformed Church of America's Commission on Christian Unity. That's a group that reports to their General Synod.

Many of you are likely not aware of what has been happening in the Reformed Church of America lately, but like the Christian Reformed Church, they have been immersed in really hard conversations around human sexuality.

Just this past month they had their General Synod, and at that General Synod meeting, they agreed to have a gracious separation and to allow churches that wish to leave the denomination to do so in gracious ways where they wouldn't kick or stab each other in the back as they parted ways, but rather would part in peace: recognizing the disagreements and the depth of division that remains irreconcilable at this time.

So, meeting with this Commission on Christian Unity yesterday, I was surprised and heartened to find these words from Philippians 1 being read at the beginning of the meeting. As different people reported back on how the meeting felt, they said they were also surprised at how gracious, warm, and hospitable the conversation was—how understanding everyone was, and how they were able to listen to one another. I was encouraged by that.

Our church (the CRC) will be facing this hard conversation this next summer and it's possible that there will be some splits and divisions that pop out of our church as well in due course, but these words remind me that he who began a good work in us will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. The church still belongs to Christ and so do we. No matter the hard conversations or divisions that we face, Jesus will continue to preserve his church. Thanks be to God. I hope that you too are encouraged by that fact.

"Do not have two differing weights in your bag—one heavy, one light. Do not have two differing measures in your house—one large, one small. You must have accurate and honest weights and measures, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you. For the Lord your God detests anyone who does these things, anyone who deals dishonestly" (Deuteronomy 25:13-16).

Let me begin with two snippets. Yesterday, there was an article in the news about minimum wage. Its going to be raised to $15 an hour, up from $14.35. The same article indicated that a living wage in Hamilton is now $17.20. Thus, currently, those making minimum wage in our city are making nearly $3 less than needed to live in this city.

I have no experience in government policy making, nor in how the living wage is calculated. However, it is easy enough to understand that even at $17.20 an hour, one will find it very difficult to live in this city.

Recently, someone asked me why ministers appear to get away with so many sins. It seemed to this woman that only sexual sins were worthy of a clergy's status to be revoked. There were many other sins, she listed alcoholism and greed as two examples, that were serious enough for a minister to be removed from office.

These two snippets came to mind as I read through Deuteronomy 25. Its full of laws that ensured that the Israelites would live well in the land. God's people were to live with the profound reality that each person was created in the image of God, each was significant. And their society could only flourish if everyone was able to participate in that flourishing.

Out text is about honesty in business, in buying and selling. The people were to keep their greed in check; they were to be more concerned with treating people well than with turning a profit. Honest dealings with each other would keep God's blessings flowing.

Dishonesty, says our text, is something God detests. Some of the older English translations read, 'its an abomination.' We might ask, "Is it really such a big deal?" Well, God seems to think so. Dishonest business dealings are pared with sexual perversion and idolatry, as abominations. So, it's a pretty big deal. As a pastor, the elders have asked me to help them confront people who have committed sexual sins and idolatry, but never on issues of economic injustice. Trust me, such sins were being committed. Why do we not take them as seriously?

I recognize that we live in a very different context than Israel. But the fact that more and more people are being left out of economic success ought to trouble God's people. If it is within our sphere of influence to ensure that people are paid enough to live, we need to make sure that happens. If we have access to the wheels of politics, we need to use those avenues.

Many of us may not have access to levers that reshape injustices in our culture. But all of us have the capacity to pray to the God of heaven and earth who is deeply invested in these issues. We sometimes say, 'at least we can pray.' But that denies what prayer is. It is not a matter of last resort. It is the tool that we all have, and it is a mighty tool. Take some time to pray through the Lord's prayer from the perspective of today's text. As you pray, think about economic issues in the world today, and the injustices many people face. Pray that God will bring his kingdom of shalom in those places.

And he told them this parable: "The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. He thought to himself, 'What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.' Then he said, 'This is what I'll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. And I'll say to myself, "You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry."' But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?' "This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God." (Luke 12:16-21)

The text from yesterday's devotion on leaving fallen wheat for gleaners from Deuteronomy, and others like it, is exactly the backdrop that Jesus had in mind when he spoke this parable.

In it, a common problem occurs: a rich man is blessed with an abundant harvest, far in excess of what he needs. The same happened to many of us through this COVID season as our bank accounts and portfolios went surprisingly and significantly up. So, the rich man asks the obvious question: "What shall I do?"

And he decides to do what many of us have done: he does some home renovations. "I'll tear down my barns and build bigger ones," he says, "and then I'll say to myself, 'Self, you have plenty of grain laid up for many years, Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.'" Again, we do the same. We think to ourselves, if I can't store my surplus cash in a cruise or foreign vacation right now, I guess I'll have to store it in my home renovation instead so that I have a fine place built for many years to come. The point in any case, is to arrive, and take life easy.

The sharp words from Jesus indicate his thoughts on the matter, though: "Fool! This very night your life is demanded from you," he says, "Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?"

Ouch. So is Jesus against wealth, vacations, and home renos? Not per se. In this parable Jesus emphasises the words "I," my," and "self." The rich man is all alone and quite content that way: he never discusses with nor thinks of anyone else: not God, and not his neighbours either. It's a conversation with just me, myself, and I. His wealth has isolated him from community.

But according to the law—wealth is communal. Firstly, land is not owned. It is an inheritance given by God in trust—but the land can be lost due to mismanagement—the land can "spit you out." So wealth is merely a trusteeship, and therefore has firstly to do with the God who has granted the trust.

Secondly, land is held in trust for the sake of the community, not just for the person whose name happens to be on the deed. If you've been given a trust, you had better make sure that payments continue to flow to the proper recipients. In this case: those without homes, land, or money. The Biblical conviction is that the bellies of the poor is best place to store your surplus grain.

This is about more than generosity and giving. It is a question of lifestyle. Will you curtail your lifestyle for the sake of your neighbour in a tent? Would you forgo a trip or a bigger house, skip a night out or refrain from toys and entertainment for them? If not: then in what sense do you love your neighbour as you love yourself?

The wisdom of the world says that we should act like the rich barn builder. Jesus says that's foolish, and offers a wisdom in response that looks foolish to the rest of the world. The Christian goal is not about building assets to a nice retirement full of travel and leisure or even keeping up with the Jones'. No, you must keep a lifestyle that is humble enough to be able to truly love God first, and your neighbour as yourself. Never does Jesus draw a line to say what that lifestyle is, but if your wealth is a barrier to either of those things, then it may be time to distribute the trust.

"When you are harvesting in your field and you overlook a sheaf, do not go back to get it. Leave it for the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands" (Deuteronomy 24:19).

This chapter of Deuteronomy is filled with miscellaneous laws, like soup made from leftovers in one's refrigerator. Without a unifying theme and rooted Israelite life, we are tempted to toss them aside like unwanted Halloween candy.

Determining what to do with such a list of laws is complicated with various proposals on offer. Our text, rooted in an agricultural setting, is foreign to our urban context. However, if we lift the cover just slightly, we might find something of value here.

Some laws are written as principles, others as applications of a principle. I suggest that our text is a mixture of these two. So let us examine it for a moment. Israelite farmers harvested grain this way: first, the reapers would go through the field with some form of scythe leaving the grain laying on the ground; they were followed by those who gathered the fallen stalks and tied them into sheaves; later the sheaves would be carried to the threshing floor.

Both those who tied the grain into sheaves and those who gathered the sheaves did not get all the grain on the initial pass. God tells the farmers not to go over the field a second time, leaving the rest to 'the foreigner, fatherless and widows.' Keeping this command is central to the story told in the book of Ruth. In the Hebrew, it literally says, 'leave it behind for it belongs to the foreigner, fatherless and widows."

Who are the foreigners, fatherless and widows? They are those without land. The landless had no income. Remember that the land is God's gift to Israel for their flourishing. Those without land cannot flourish. If the Israelites will be openhanded to the landless God will bless them with abundance. The application and principle are in our text.

So, how do we apply this principle to our urban context?

A two-step process is helpful. First, we must check the attitude of our hearts towards our possessions, especially our money. We can test our hearts with this question: does our stuff belong to us or to the Lord? Psalm 24 opens with these famous words, "the earth is the Lords and everything in it!" Does that include our stuff?

The second step is to examine our budget. Are we setting aside some money to help the poor? Do we support World Renew, Neighbour to Neighbour, Mission Services, etc.? The poor will not come to the fields we don't own, but they will go to such agencies. I wonder if it would also be a good discipline for us to designate some money to give to the poor that we meet. What would it do for us if we looked someone in the eye, saying, "This is for you, may you be blessed?" Such conduct will likely help us to grow more compassionate.

Think of some other ways to practice this principle in your life. It is said that we teach the heart by practice. We become openhanded with practice. So how will you practice?