The Whole Land

The Whole Land

Deuteronomy 34:1-8

November 17, 2019 • Mount Pleasant UMC

As many of you know, last Sunday evening, we got a call that Cathy’s mom, Sandy Cobbum, has suddenly and unexpectedly passed away. So, as you know or can imagine, that threw our week into a whirlwind. We didn’t head up to their house immediately because there was nothing for us to do, so at the start of the week, there was a lot of time for thinking and reflecting. Sandy was a woman who loved Jesus, no doubt about that, and she loved her family. There was nothing that made her happier than to have everyone together. I learned pretty early on that when you were wanting to leave their house, you had to start about a half hour earlier than the actual time you wanted to go because Sandy loved to take pictures. We would spend at least a half hour saying goodbye and taking various groupings of family pictures. I kept getting after her to back up her pictures, but she preferred to keep them all “safely” on her phone where she could go back to them time and time again. She loved her pictures.

As the week went on, we all in different ways spent time thinking about that word that always comes up at or near the end of a person’s life: legacy. For Sandy, her legacy is seen in her four kids, her thirteen grandchildren, and the hundreds upon hundreds of friends she had. You see, Sandy never met a stranger. Last summer, we were in Syracuse at an art and craft show, and we could hardly get down the sidewalk more than a few steps before Sandy stopped to talk to and introduce us to her “good friend.” If Sandy met you and didn’t yet know you, she would soon! And you would quickly become her “good friend.” As I said at her memorial service yesterday, her legacy will be found in the way we live out her influence in our lives. There’s a part of her that lives in each of us, her family, and in the lives of everyone she touched.

This morning, as we come to the end of Moses’ life, we’re turning to this story at the end of Deuteronomy because it has some questions to ask us and a point to make about Moses’ legacy and ours. As I hope you’ve seen throughout this series, even though he lived thousands of years ago, Moses’ life still has a lot to say to us. His life, and today his death, can still instruct us in what a living and dynamic faith lived out looks like.

Now, obviously, we’ve skipped a lot of the story. The last couple of weeks, we’ve been at Sinai, early in the Hebrews’ journey out of slavery and out of Egypt. In the passage we read this morning, they are almost ready to cross over into the promised land, the place God promised to bring them into forty years ago. Between those two points is about forty years of life in the wilderness. Their journey should have been a lot shorter, but when they first sent spies into the land, they refused to believe that God could make good on his promise to give them the land. The people there, they said, were giants, well-armed, threatening. Only Caleb and Joshua had the faith to encourage the people to move ahead, but because of that fear, that lack of trust, God told the people that none of them (except Caleb and Joshua) would actually enter the land. It wouldn’t happen until they were all dead and their children were of age. So they stayed in the wilderness for forty years. We sometimes call that period the “wandering in the wilderness,” but in reality, they didn’t wander all that much. After about a year at Sinai, they moved to a place called Kadesh Barnea, where they spent the next thirty-eight years. Then they traveled into what is modern Jordan, to Mount Nebo, which we will get to in a moment. But of the forty years in the wilderness, only about six months is actually spent “wandering” (cf. Hamilton, Moses, pg. 144). Still—forty years. I’m 52, so forty years is most of my life. While we zip right through it in the text, think about spending forty years in the desert. The heat. The sand. The same scenery day after day. The elders passing away. And though it may seem like forty years were wasted there, what’s actually happening is that God is continuing to shape them into the people he wants them to be. As I’ve said several times: God got them out of Egypt; that was the easy part. He uses the wilderness to get Egypt out of them.

Sometimes God has to do that with us. Sometimes we need a time of wilderness to focus us, shape us and mold us. Wilderness time is that time when it seems like we’re stuck, camped at Kadesh Barnea so to speak, waiting without any idea of what comes next. Wilderness time is that time when when it feels like everything we have depended on has been stripped away, and nothing seems familiar. Wilderness time is not fun, but it just may be the most necessary thing we’ll ever experience. Wilderness time might come with the death of a loved one, as it has in some respect in our family this week. Or it might come with the loss of a job or the betrayal of a friend. Wilderness time might feel like it will never end, and the thought of spending thirty-eight years in this one location is frightening. But one of the things I notice about in this story is how during the waiting, they became more and more like the God they worshipped. God continues to instruct them all throughout that time, showing them how they are to live. In this time, the laws and way of life God prescribed was internalized. When wilderness time comes to us—and if it hasn’t already, it will—we should train our soul to ask, “God, what do you have for me in this time? In what way do you want me to become more like you? How are you shaping me here in the wilderness?” In the wilderness, God makes us into his sons and daughters. 

There was one little incident, something that might have gone unnoticed except for the consequences. If you’re keeping up with the Scripture readings, you read about it this week in the book of Numbers. It happened soon after they arrived at Kadesh Barnea, and shortly after the death of Moses’ sister, Miriam, when the people got thirsty. Now, being thirsty can make you say and do things you might not otherwise do. When you are out of water, it has physical and psychological effects on otherwise normal people. And at Kadesh Barnea, there was not enough water, so just as they had before, the people began to grumble and complain and accuse Moses of bringing them out here to die. So Moses and his brother Aaron do what is right: they go ask God what they should do, and God responds. God tells them to speak to the rock in front of them and water will come out. That's it. It’s simple. Speak to the rock. So Moses goes back to the people, who are still grumbling and complaining, and the whining starts to get to him. It annoys him, so much so that he takes his staff and he strikes the rock rather than speaking to it. Water pours out, but Moses is in trouble. God tells him that because he disobeyed God’s command, he would not get to go into the Promised Land. And some people, scholars even, wonder why God is so harsh with Moses here. Why such a strict punishment for what seems to be a minor change to the plan? Well, it’s because of who gets the credit. Had Moses come and spoken to the rock, it would have been obvious that God had provided the people water. But because Moses strikes the rock, because he takes action, he gets the credit. The honor that should have gone to God goes to Moses. It’s a bad move on Moses’ part, and it will cost him the ultimate goal of their journey. Moses hasn’t quite gotten all of Egypt out of him, either (cf. Numbers 20:1-13).

So thirty-eight years pass from that moment, and we come to the passage we read this morning from the book of Deuteronomy. “Deuteronomy” means “second law,” but it’s not really a second or additional law as much as it is a restatement of God’s law. Deuteronomy is basically Moses’ farewell speech. It’s Moses reminding the people of all God has taught them, and how they are to live once they arrive in the Promised Land (cf. Hamilton 159). And it takes place at the foot of Mount Nebo. Moses spends thirty-three chapters saying everything he wants to say to the people. He is 120 years old, so he’s got a lot to say. But he is not the same man we encountered at the beginning of Exodus. He has grown, changed. One preacher said, “Moses spent forty years learning to be somebody, forty years learning to be nobody, and forty years showing what God could do with someone who had learned to be nobody” (qtd. in Goldingay, Numbers & Deuteronomy for Everyone, pg. 196). We’re told that, after his long speech, Moses turned away from the people and alone climbed Mount Nebo—which begs the question: did he ever get tired of climbing mountains? And did he know this would be his last climb? I suspect he did know, but he also knew he wasn’t really alone. Just as he had met God at the top of Mount Sinai forty years before, he was going again to meet God at the top of Mount Nebo.

Just a couple of years ago, I was privileged to stand at the top of Mount Nebo with my son and several other travelers. Now, we didn’t climb to the top; we took a bus. And we had to get past the souvenir peddlers that may have even been there when Moses came. But the view was worth it. The author of Deuteronomy tells us that from the top of that mountain, God showed Moses the whole land, and I’ve read some authors who say that was impossible. You can’t possibly see the whole land from up there. I would suggest that those who say such things probably haven’t stood on top of Mount Nebo. No, of course you can’t see the whole nation of Israel from there, but you can see a long, long way, and you can see it just as the author of the book describes it. If you look north, you see parts of Gilead and Dan. Look northwest and you can glimpse Naphtali, Ephraim and Manasseh. Look west and you’ll catch a view of Judah, and if you turn south you’ll see the area around Jericho (the City of Palms), and the Negev. By the way, no one has ever identified Zoar, but it must be somewhere around the Dead Sea (cf. Kalland, “Deuteronomy,” Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 3, pgs. 233, 235). Anyway, it’s just as described, and when I stood on that mountain, I could picture Moses soaking it all in. Did he see every plant and creek and sand dune? Well, I wouldn’t put it past God’s power to take Moses on a visual tour of the land from up there (sort of ancient virtual reality), but Moses wouldn’t have had to see everything. To stand on the mountain, to gaze toward your life’s goal, to know that it was not in vain—wouldn’t that be enough? It was for Moses.

The trip to the top of Mount Nebo gave Moses a vision and hope because ultimately the promised land wasn’t about a plot of ground. A lot of people thought it was. Some people still think it is. But what God was trying to do was to shape the people into his people. It wasn’t about the land, not really. It was about the heart. It was about the people grasping a vision of God’s kingdom, on earth as it is in heaven. The promised land was about helping people live the way God called them to live, a return to the way God intended creation to be from the very beginning. Jesus talked about it as “the kingdom of God.” That’s why Moses could come to the top of Mount Nebo and be satisfied. He could come to the end of his life with a sense that he had done all God had called him to, even if he didn’t get to set foot in the actual land. He could entrust the vision to the next generation, knowing that the story would go on (cf. Hamilton 171).

In some sense you could say Moses didn’t do all of the work. But that’s true of all of us. Our family has certainly been keenly aware of that this week. Sandy, my mother-in-law, had a profound impact on the people she met, and had she gone on living, she would have continued to do so. But her life came to an end last week and so her work is done. It's up to us to carry on. In a sense, as one Biblical scholar put it, “We die before our work is done, or before we could achieve all we wish we could achieve” (Goldingay 194). Moses’ vision of the whole land really asks us two questions. Can we have long-range vision? And can we entrust that vision to the next generation?

This congregation was established in this neighborhood in 1835, the first Methodist gathering in the area. By 1837, when Vigo County was “filling up” (as the account says), a building existed here known as Mount Pleasant Church. Next year, this church will have been serving this area for 185 years, and when I think about that, I can’t help but think that there have been a lot of churches and congregations that have come and gone in those 185 years. What has kept Mount Pleasant Church here has been a vision for the long haul, a mission that propels us forward. When this little church was established on this hill with just a few families, I’m guessing that no one had any idea there would one day sit a church that has somewhere between 400 and 500 regular participants. But through the years, the people of this church have had, like Moses, a vision that the kingdom of God might grow from this place and impact this community. For almost 185 years, we have sought to be faithful to the Scriptures and to the God who loves us, but if we’re going to continue for another 185 years or beyond (should Jesus tarry), we have to continue to invest ourselves in that vision. It’s a vision that takes us beyond our own preferences, our own desires, our own hopes.

We live in a world that prefers its own smaller vision of life and faith. What most people hang onto and call Christian faith today might be better called “Be Good, Feel Good.” Sociologist Christian Smith interviewed over three thousand teenagers, asking them about religion, faith and the church. Their core beliefs, Smith found, go something like this: A god exists who created the world and watches over life on earth. God wants people to be good, nice and fair to each other. The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about yourself. God is not involved in life except when we need him to fix a problem. And good people go to heaven when they die. Now, before we start thinking, “Those teenagers are a problem,” we should check ourselves and see how much of that we have believed or even currently believe. The next generation tends to reflect what they have been taught. This is the faith of our culture, and Smith summarized it this way: “Christianity is either degenerating into a pathetic version of itself or, more significantly, Christianity is actively being colonized and displaced by a quite different religious faith” (qtd. in Shaw, Generational IQ, pgs, 108-109). Here’s the thing: having a vision for the long haul, a vision beyond ourselves, means we embrace God’s vision for his people, not our own. We don’t get to pick and choose or alter the faith once delivered to the saints (cf. Jude 3). It’s important for us to hang onto that faith. Moses had given his life to helping the Hebrew people become the people of God, and he goes to the top of Mount Nebo knowing he has taught them everything he can.

And he stands there knowing as well that he can trust the next generation to carry on the faith. That’s the second question this time at Mount Nebo asks us: can we entrust the vision to the next generation? Deuteronomy says it quite plainly: “Now Joshua son of Nun was filled with the spirit of wisdom because Moses had laid his hands on him. So the Israelites listened to him and did what the Lord had commanded Moses” (34:9). Joshua, one of the original spies who believed they could take the land, would lead the people through the Jordan River and into the land. He wouldn’t be Moses, but he was committed to the same mission and same vision Moses had been—and, more importantly, the same God Moses had been dedicated to. We could learn from these two, to trust the next generation. Author Haydn Shaw says this is especially difficult in today’s world because, “for the first time in history, we have five generations in our families, churches and communities. Five. That’s a huge change, and it causes quite a shake-up because every generation is pushing to be heard and understood, to find their own way, to recover what they feel the previous generation fumbled away, and to work out their parents’ unfinished business…The reason we struggle with other generations is that we don’t understand them” (13).

I feel this when I go to Annual Conference or Conference-sponsored events. I still think of myself as one of the “young” pastors in the Conference…until I actually look in a mirror and remember that I’ve been doing this thing for almost 27 years (over half my life). If I’m honest, there are times when I resent the attention given to the truly “young” pastors, and there are times when I don’t understand them. And then I remember those who have gone before me, the generation that nurtured me into faith and into ministry. They probably felt and said the same things about me! Shaw’s words come back to me: “The reason we struggle with other generations is that we don’t understand them.” I wonder if Moses ever watched Joshua with his younger friends and shook his head. I wonder if Moses every told Joshua to turn down his music! I wonder if Moses ever told Joshua he should just wait his turn to be in leadership, or if he ever told him he didn’t have enough experience to do what he wanted to do. Could Moses trust the next generation to lead God’s people? Can we? Can we be faithful to do what God has called us to do and entrust the next generation to do the same?

The date was April 3, 1968. I wasn’t quite 10 months old, so I don’t remember it, but in Memphis, Tennessee, a man was delivering what would become his very last speech. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated the next day, but his final speech is a stirring call to vision and to passing the vision on to the next generation, to continuing the fight for civil rights whether King was with them or not. It’s eerie, to me, how prophetic King is in this short clip, but what strikes me even more is how he uses this story from Deuteronomy 34 to inspire his followers. Take a listen.

“I’ve been the mountaintop,” King says. “I may not get to the Promised Land with you,” and in fact he didn’t. Nor did Moses. But in neither case did the death of the leaders mean the death of a dream. Can we have a vision beyond ourselves, and can we trust those who come after us to carry it on?

And so Moses dies. His story ends, as all of ours will. Something happens to Moses, though, that happens to no one else in all of history. God buries Moses himself, and we’re told that no one knows where his grave is. That’s still true to this day. If you go with me to Israel and into Jordan in January 2021 (shameless plug), we will go to the top of Mount Nebo and view the Promised Land just as Moses did. We’ll visit the church there that is a memorial to Moses. We’ll look at the statue that remembers the serpents in the wilderness. But we won’t visit Moses’ grave, because no one yet knows where it is. And that’s, I think, as it should be. The location of his body is not what mattered; it was the teaching he gave, the directions he delivered from God that matters. The best way to remember Moses is not by putting flowers on his grave but by living the way he taught people to live (cf. Goldingay 197).

We began this morning by talking about legacy, the way we might be remembered. In the final verses in this chapter, there are two words used to describe Moses. The first is “servant” (34:5). But he is not a servant of the people; he is described specifically as a servant of God. Moses did first and foremost what he believed God called him and wanted him to do. There is no higher calling than to be a servant of God. And sometimes when you’re doing what God calls you to do, or you’re trying to be obedient to the heavenly vision (cf. Acts 26:19), you will be misunderstood, sometimes even by the people of God. But that’s okay. The early disciples certainly experienced that over and over again. Faithful followers of Jesus still experience that. We get told, “Can’t you just go along to get along?” It takes courage, strength and nerve to remember that we are, first and foremost, servants of God and not of other people. We live in a world where we hear a lot about leaders, but I think what we need is more servants—servants of God.

The final word that is attached to Moses, the other piece of his legacy, is the word “prophet” (34:10). Because we usually misunderstand that word today, we want to know when Moses predicted the future. But prophecy is not about predicting the future. The Biblical gift of prophecy is more about “forthtelling” and not foretelling. It’s about speaking the word of God needed for that moment in time. Sometimes the Biblical prophets predicted the future, that is true. They would say things like, “If you don’t change, this disaster will happen.” And it broke their hearts when they were right. Moses was a prophet—a reluctant prophet, as I’ve been saying—because he told the people what God wanted them to hear, what God needed them to hear, in that moment, in that time. He worked his whole life to get Egypt out of the people. He helped them begin to become the people of God they were called to be. And the author of Deuteronomy pronounces this judgment on Moses: “No prophet has arisen in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face…no one has ever shown the mighty power or performed the awesome deeds that Moses did in the sight of all Israel” (34:10-11). And no one did arise until the very son of God came to live and dwell and give his life for you and me. So, as we close this study on Moses today, let me ask you: how do you want to be remembered? Who is God calling you to be? And how are you aligning your life with that calling? When all is said and done, when you get a chance to view the whole land from the top of the mountain, what will God say to you? Let’s pray.