Courage to Stand Still; Joshua 3:7-17

Rev. George Miller
Joshua 3:7-17
Nov 5, 2017

Veteran TV actress Jenifer Lewis has stated “The elevator to success is broken; take the stairs.”

How true are these words. Success can take a year, 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, 40.

40 years.

That’s a long time. A lot can take place.

Think of what life was like 40 years ago. No cell phones. No Google. Diet Coke did not exist for another 5 years.

Fleetwood Mac’s infamous album “Rumors” is released on vinyl because there is no such thing as CDs or iTunes.

“Three’s Company” made its debut on ABC during a time in which there were only about 7 stations. No cable, live-streaming or Netflix. You adjusted the antenna on your TV to get better reception and your children were the remote.

Jimmy Carter is President. The world’s 1st all-in-one home computer debuts, and an unknown movie called “Star Wars” opens.

If you’re like me, you enjoy our paper’s daily column that shares all the “On-This-Day” events.

It makes history a bit more real. It also makes me realize that things I grew up taking for granted are relatively recent in the span of human history.

For example, as Millie Grime shared a few weeks ago, women in the United States did not get the right to vote until 1920.

People of two different races were not legally allowed to be husband and wife until 1967.

That’s just 3 years before I was born.

40 years from now, I wonder if some preacher will say “Can you believe it wasn’t until June 26, 2015 that same-sex marriage was legal in the U.S.?”

To which someone in the congregation will be thinking, “Yeah, and by June 27 they also got the right to be divorced!”

These events are revolutionary.

We can look at such moments in time and say that there was a before and after; there was a way in which things used to be done and a way they are done now.

On paper, such things can give the impression of an easy transition. But that is rarely the case. Usually there is some type of symbolic river to cross.

Often times, things that we take for granted, like women having the right to vote, came about thanks to the actions of those who paid a great price.

Reggae singer Jimmy Cliff sang “there are many rivers to cross.”

If there is anything we learn from history and from scripture is that it’s not unusual to take a long, long time to get to the other side of the river.

And on a day in which we are honoring All Saints, we should give thanks to those who faithfully took those steps forward, knowing they were not easy.

Take for example today’s reading.

The Israelites are about to enter the Promised Land after wandering through the wilderness for forty years.

4 decades ago their ancestors were freed from slavery and lead across the Red Sea waters.

They camped out by Mt. Sinai, where they were given the Law and taught the commandments.

Moses led them through the wilderness towards the Promised Land in which they experienced how God could and would provide food and water for them.

But something went wrong.

Numbers 13-14 tells us that the people were poised to enter the Promised Land. The ancestors were right on the cusp of true freedom…but then they became scared.

As the story goes, God had them send 12 of their leaders to check out the land the Lord had promised the people.

It was harvest time. The land was filled with plenty. Grapes big and abundant, milk and honey for all.

But there were also people who lived there who were much taller them they, so 10 of the leaders became afraid.

Though God had set them free, parted the Red Sea waters and filled their bellies with food, 10 of the 12 leaders decided to give the people a bad, and fear-based, report.

They said that the land devoured its inhabitants and its citizens seemed tall and strong.

And though God had promised them the land, though God had performed amazing deeds of deliverance, the people believed the false report of 10 fear-based individuals.

The people became scared. They rebelled. They cried and they wept.

Their behavior saddens Moses.

It saddens Joshua who says to the people “Don’t listen to their fearful reports, the land is good. God is pleased with us. Do not be afraid: we are on the verge of being blessed.”

But the ancestors were afraid. They complain that it would’ve been better to die as slaves in Egypt.

They think of turning back, threatening to kill anyone who tries to move them forward into God’s Promised Land.

This angers God. God feels hurt and despised.

As a consequence to their unfounded fears and unfaithful lies, God decides the people will wander the dessert for 40 years before their children will get a second chance to enter the Promised Land.

For 4 decades they struggle, they live, they die, they wait, when all God wanted to give them was paradise.

It is not until the next generation comes along that God’s people get to finally enter the land of milk and honey.

As we heard in today’s reading, God gives clear directions to Joshua and the priests and the people follow.

The priests carry the arc of the covenant into the Jordan River and when the soles of their feet rest in the river, the water stops flowing, and a path of dry ground is created for the people to journey across to the other side.

And they all do so, without a hitch, without complaint, without a quarrel, without a “what if?’ or a “woe is me.”

Perhaps that was the true miracle, not that the water had stopped flowing. But that after 40 years the people had finally learned how to trust God

The result: they are wilderness travelers no more; they are people of the Promised Land. Grounded in God, able to establish roots.

That’s how it is sometimes, isn’t it?

The things we fear the most, or have been taught by others to fear, are sometimes nothing more than just a river to cross, trusting God to keep us dry.

Like allowing women to vote or people of different races to marry.

To get from here to there took working together. It took some people to simply stand still.

It took trust in the Lord and believing in the promise.

It took courage.

You know, images of courage occur throughout the stories of our spiritual ancestors; stories designed to show us how to find and to have courage in the Lord.

As Christians, our ultimate example of courage would be Jesus Christ.

Jesus was a man of courage.

Jesus showed courage by fraternizing with those who were seen as “not one of us.” He wasn’t afraid to reach out to those who were seen as different.

Jesus wasn’t afraid to be close to someone who was unwell, or to touch the hands of someone who was sick.

He was willing to be seen talking with those of questionable morals or those deemed too dangerous for society.

Jesus had great courage. How else could he talk to a Samaritan woman at the well? Or walk across rough seas in the middle of a storm? Or stand before a multitude of hungry folk?

Jesus, like Joshua, was a person of faith, a person of action.

He was a person who showed courage by reaching out to folks when the world around them would not.

Jesus would meet people where they were, when they were here, on one side of the river, and he would metaphorically take them to there, the other side in which they experienced spiritual, physical, and social healing.

Where did this courage of Christ come from?

His relationship with God. His understanding of scripture. Knowing the stories of the saints and ancestors who came before him.

His ability to sometimes be still.

His sense of justice, kindness, and humility.

His sense that who we are now is not always who we are capable of being.

Knowing that each of us deserve the chance to grow, to learn, and to cross over to the other side.

The feet of the saints from oh so long ago led us out of the wilderness, and into the Promised Land.

And the feat of our ancestors is that although they were often afraid and unsure, they did learn how to trust the Lord, and in trust, they were able to move forward in faith and action.

We too are following in the feet of our ancestors.

Some are the saints who came long ago. Some are our immediate relatives.

Some are those who helped to shape the denomination, those who worked hard to build this specific church; some are even amongst us today.

Regardless if they knew it or not, what they did and have done took courage, courage based on faith and an understanding of God’s grace and love for all.

In conclusion, each person, each community has many, many moments in which they come to a symbolic river and are invited by God to cross over into something wonderful, something new, and yes, perhaps even something scary.

But may none of that stop us from getting our own feet a little wet, trusting that in God the path ahead will be doable.

And with the grace of Christ, we have the chance to go from here to there with feet of faith that moves us forward into feats of faith.

For that, we can say amen and “Amen!”