Rev. George Miller
June 7, 2026
Numbers 35:1-13
This week, our Administrative Assistant
Extraordinaire sent a video of her grandbaby walking.
There she is, a happy confident infant in
red who takes 14 wibbly wobbly steps before “plop” she falls. Without a tear or ounce of fear, she gets
right back up again to joyfully, innocently take many, many more steps.
Oh the places she will go! Today the safety of the kitchen with its baby
gates and Grandma’s love as boundaries.
Maybe next week the outer banks of the living room and outside with bug spray
to keep the bites away.
The beauty of boundaries that allow our
loved ones to be safe, to learn how to walk, to take chances, fall and get back
up, to be bare foot and dressed in bright red.
Creating a system of secure spaces so that
folk are welcome, able to walk, fall, get back up is beautiful, nuanced, and complicated.
Our graduates today know what that is
like- to start the school year not knowing what you don’t know, learning,
failing, succeeding, completing, and degreeing.
Today’s Scripture is designed for people
who are embarking in something new, uncertain, scary.
So God, being God, conversates with them, sharing
wisdom and a vision for how they are to start the next phase of their religious
life.
Numbers takes place after the Israelites
received their freedom. God is taking
them to the Promised Land. They are in
an in-between time, and like newborns, they are walking on unsteady feet.
God prepares them with wisdom and instruction,
ways to live and prepare for controversies.
In Ch. 34, God refers to Canaan as their
inheritance, defined by its boundaries.
The south is a wilderness, the east slopes to the Dead Sea, the west
connects with the coast of the Great Sea, and the north runs along Mount
Horr.
The Levites, who are the spiritual spine
of Isreal, are to be given land to tend livestock and grow their own food. This land is to come from the other tribes,
according to their own abundance, so that the land is given in proportion.
From this land, the Levites are to create
48 places of refuge; places of fertile pastureland for people in need of sanctuary.
God designates these 42 towns and 6 cities as a place to go if you innocently,
accidently, kill someone.
This idea of asylum existed all over the
ancient world. It’s spoken about in
Joshua 20-21, yet there is no way to know if these places operated as God
intended.
This scripture may be one of those moments
in which we can say “Theologically, this is what God intended, and God’s
Kingdom is supposed to look like, but did it really happen?”
Did
the tribes actually divvy up their land so the plentiful gave more and the
limited gave little?
Did 42 towns of refuge and 6 cities of
sanctuary exist? We don’t know, but we
do know there was the intent to create a system based on spaces for integrity, due
process, and fair play.
Today’s scripture ties so well into
another scripture that we explored August 24, Psalm 18:2, which reads “The Lord is my rock, my fortress,
and my deliverer, my God, my rock in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the
horn of my salvation, my stronghold.”
The Lord is my rock. In Hebrew, there is more than one word for
rock. There is “tsur” which means the
rock you stand upon.
There is “sela” which is the rock you run
to for refuge. Imagine a rocky shelter
you can go to during a storm or time of danger.
Imagine this rock, this “tsur,” this
“sela” being the place you can stand upon
and walk across even if you have wibbly wobbly feet.
Imagine this rock, this “tsur” being the
place you can build upon, like a degree you take into the world.
Imagine this rock being a place you can
step inside of, be a part of when the world feels unsteady, when you need
refuge from hard-to-navigate moments.
That’s what some come to church for, what
they yearn for in their relationship with Christ, what they hope for when they
enter the limestone structure of St. Lucas.
This sense of having steady ground to
exist, a secure space to be.
This sense of steady, secure ground to
exist can also be what PRIDE Month is about for our sisters and brothers,
nieces and nephews, parents, cousins, and grandbabies who are members of the
LGBTQ community.
The notion of PRIDE began in 1970 after people had endured
enough of not being able to gather, dance, fall in love, and just be
themselves without threat of arrest.
PRIDE has become a time to be seen, to
have stories heard, to celebrate. It is
a time for those who have felt weary, uncertain, unable to exhale to experience
joy and a sanctuary of acceptance.
Isn’t that what we all want? To be seen.
To be heard. To be part of a
family. To have friends who get us. To dance with the one we love. To have a place to sip a beer, share a
pretzel, talk about our day.
PRIDE is a time for the LGBTQ community to
come together, mindful of the foundation built by those who’ve come before,
seeking what every human heart yearns for: safety and a sense of welcome.
And when it comes to how one celebrates
PRIDE, it can depend on where one is in life.
Those who are new can be a bit uncertain. Those who’ve found their legs may go all out
in bright colors. Those who’ve been at it
for awhile may be a bit subdued because every day is PRIDE for them.
The same can apply to individual churches,
like those in the UCC, and the St. Louis Association.
Some houses of worship are awash in colors
of the rainbow, from their websites to their outside signs, with month-long
sermon series.
Some may make a passing mention; some no
words at all.
I see PRIDE the same as I see Black
History Month, Women’s History Month, Grandparents Day- a time to lift up and
acknowledge people as people, who they are, what’s been done, what it
means.
Not lifting one above another but saying
that in Christ we all deserve to be seen, be acknowledged, have our story
known.
Today’s reading is about creating spaces
of refuge for people in need of fair play and steady ground.
Its original intention was designed for
one specific group of folk, but perhaps in Christ can we extend it-
-To those who are just beginning their
lives, wibbly wobbly, navigating their legs to the floor.
-Those who are learning and growing, graduating,
and moving up in the world.
-
Those
who are discerning who they are, how they identify.
What is the space God wants us to be, as individuals
and as a church, for those who seek that
rock, a refuge, a place to stand and a place to build?
How wide are we willing to envision? What does being a place of refuge look
like? What boundaries are to be put in
place?
In Christ’s teachings and mercy may we
continue to discern these questions together.
Amen and amen.
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