Give Me This Mountain

Joshua 14:6-15

October 25, 2020 • Mount Pleasant UMC

A few years ago, I started getting invitations from the Annual Conference to attend the annual “getting ready for retirement” seminar. And then, just this week, I got an invitation to a “Brunch with the Bishop” retiree Zoom meeting. I’m starting to wonder if they are trying to tell me something! When I turned 50, I started getting invitations from AARP to join their group, and that was followed by an invitation from our investment guy to “come in and talk about your retirement plans.” Seriously, is someone trying to tell me something? It is a bit amazing, isn’t it, that in our culture as soon as we start working, people start talking to us about retirement. In seminary, we were given advice on building our pensions and at our ordination, while the Conference was voting on whether or not to accept us, we were backstage filling out pension paperwork. When I googled “retirement,” two main themes came up: advice on how much to save and at what age to retire. That “age” thing got me to thinking: in the United Methodist Church, we have mandatory retirement for clergy at age 72, which means when I have to retire, I’ll still be younger than both of this year’s presidential candidates are right now!

Retirement is a national obsession, but there’s one book we’re all familiar with that doesn’t even mention it: the Bible. There is no retirement plan in the Scriptures—well, at least no retirement plan related to this world. Billy Graham once said, “I’m not going to retire until God retires me. I don’t find anybody in the Bible that retired. As long as there is a need for a proclamation of love and people need someone to turn to, I’m going to keep proclaiming the gospel.” And he did until Parkinson’s Disease sidelined him. Even then, after he left public ministry in 2005, he kept sharing his faith by writing and publishing for the last thirteen years of his life. Now, that doesn’t mean we don’t retire from our everyday job. Our system of work and economics are obviously different than they were in Biblical times. But I do think even in the midst of what we call “retirement” we’re still called to serve God in some way, and that means we can learn something from Caleb’s story in the book of Joshua, who even at age 85 was ready for a new adventure.

We’ve been walking together through the book of Joshua, whose theme (hopefully you remember) is found at the very beginning of the book: “Be strong and courageous” (1:6). The people of Israel, led by Joshua, have had to be both strong and courageous as they crossed the Jordan River and then conquered the city of Jericho where, as Pastor Rick reminded us last week, the walls came a’tumbling down. After that victory, they launched into a conquest of the Promised Land and, for the most part, when they are obedient to God, they win the battle. After all, that was the directive from God in the beginning: “Be careful to obey…” (1:7). There are some problems when people hoard stuff from the battle, and they make a bad treaty with the Gibeonites (in all fairness, they were tricked into it), but there’s also that awesome day when the sun stands still so that the Amorites can be defeated. Over and over, the writer wants us to know: “The Lord was fighting for Israel” (cf. 10:14). It wasn’t them; it was God. By the time we get to chapter 14, most of the Conquest is done, and for the next few chapters, Joshua will divide up the land between the various tribes of Israel. If you’re keeping up with the daily readings, you read a lot of that this past week. Each tribe got its share, just the amount they needed, but before that all begins, Caleb comes to Joshua with a request of his own: he wants a mountain.

Caleb, you might remember, is the other half of a spy team that also included Joshua. The two of them were the only two spies forty years earlier who believed that the Israelites could conquer the land, that God would be as good as his promise to give it to them if they obeyed. Caleb was not afraid of what the other spies called “giants in the land” (cf. Numbers 13:26-33). Why not? What made him different? It was his heart. In verse 8, he describes himself this way: “I followed the Lord my God wholeheartedly.” He’s described that way again in verses 9 and 14. Translators have a hard time with that phrase; it’s an odd thing to say in the original Hebrew. Literally, it should read something like this: “I filled up…after the Lord my God.” In other words, it means to fill up and walk behind, to follow after being satisfied in some way. So the best guess as to what Caleb is really saying here is something more like this: “My heart, my life contains nothing against God. My heart is full of God, completely for the Lord. There is no doubt in my heart; I am 100% on his side and therefore I will follow wherever he leads, without question” (cf. Goldingay, Joshua, Judges and Ruth for Everyone, pg. 66; Hubbard, NIV Application Commentary: Joshua, pg. 405; Madvig, “Joshua,” Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 3, pg. 324). And that “full-heartedness” or wholeheartedness continues. His faith was not just something he had and demonstrated all those years ago; he has continued through all these years to be and to grow as a man of faith (Bible Speaks Today Bible, pg. 292). Now, at age 85, he’s not done yet. His faith is as strong as it ever was, and he is not content to settle down on a farm and live out his days with his feet propped up watching the Home Shopping Network. No, Caleb wants a new challenge. He wants his inheritance; he wants the land God promised him. But he doesn’t ask for the easy, flat land. “Give me this hill country,” he says. “Give me this mountain. I want a challenge” (cf. 14:12).

Graham Kendrick, a British songwriter who is probably best known for writing “Shine, Jesus, Shine” many years ago (33 years ago, actually—it was new when I was in college!), more recently has imagined what Caleb might have been thinking and praying about in making this request, and what it might mean for us today. So I’ve asked John to share Kendrick’s song. Take a listen.

The people living on the mountain that Caleb wants were called the Anakites or the Anakim, which is really close to “Anakin” and that gets me to thinking about Star Wars…but I digress! The Anakites were primarily known for one thing: they were tall. (So was Anakin, now that I think of it). They were giant. Huge. In fact, the word came to be used to describe people who are “long-necked”—or, who were really tall. They were known as fierce warriors, mainly because they towered over their opponents and could easily intimidate them. That height was one of the main things that, years before, had scared most of the spies. But Caleb still isn’t scared of them. “The Lord helping me,” he tells Joshua, “I will drive them out just as he said” (14:12; cf. ZPEB, Vol. 1, pg. 152; New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. 1, pg. 144). And he apparently did. Though we don’t get any details, we are told that “Hebron has belonged to Caleb…ever since, because he followed the Lord, the God of Israel, wholeheartedly” (14:14).

When I read Caleb’s story, my first reaction is: I want to be like Caleb when I grow up! What a legacy he has left behind, a legacy of courage and a strong desire to serve God no matter what my age or physical situation. So let’s think about his example, and what he has to say to us here, many centuries later, in a different time and place. There are no Anakites for us to take on, though there certainly are battles to be fought, just generally not with swords and armor. The battles we fight most often today are with ideas and the prize is not land but the heart and soul of the next generation. I believe that part of the reason Caleb’s story was told and eventually written down is because of the way it inspired the next generation, the younger Israelites all around him. In the midst of these somewhat dry descriptions of the land divisions, here is the story of a man worth emulating. I want to be like Caleb when I grow up!

I do think Caleb’s story might speak differently to us as we pass through different ages and stages in our lives, though. For those of you who are older—and no, I’m not going to define “older,” I’ll let you do that—but for those who are older, I hope you hear in Caleb’s story a call not to quit, a reminder that we’re called to keep serving God at every age. In whatever way you can, keep doing what God calls you to do. The Bible does not say we quit at any particular age; our calling, as Billy Graham understood, is to keep serving until he calls us home. That may—probably will—look different at different points in our lives, but the call to serve remains the same. Many years ago, I had a wonderful lady named Pauline in my congregation. Since she was not able on her own to get to worship any more, I would call on Pauline every so often. When I did, I heard wonderful stories—usually the same stories every visit—and I was reminded of her deep roots of faith. But one day, Pauline stopped her storytelling and said to me, “You know, I can’t do much anymore, not like I used to. I’m not much use to the church.” And in a rare moment of wisdom I asked her, “Well, Pauline, can you pray?” Yes, she assured me, she could still pray. “Then pray for us,” I said. “We need that as much as ever. Your prayers will make a difference for all of us.” Pauline agreed that she would do that, and I believe she did, from that moment to the day she went home to be with the Lord at age 99. I also believe those may have been some of Pauline’s most significant days of service to her Lord as she spent her time in prayer, fighting the battles that needed to be fought. We are never “too old” to find ways to wholeheartedly serve the Lord.

I was inspired a few weeks ago when I saw a story online about former president Jimmy Carter celebrating another birthday. In these days of election anxiety, it’s good to see a positive story about a politician, isn’t it? And no matter what you think about or thought of Jimmy Carter as a president and whether or not you agree with his politics, I hope we can all agree that since leaving the White House, he has faithfully lived out what he believes. He has served with Habitat for Humanity, bringing that worthy organization more into the public eye, and today, at 96 years old, President Carter continues to teach Sunday School at his local church in Plains, Georgia. Ninety-six years old. Now, he doesn’t each every week, but the website of the church does promise that if you stay for Sunday School and for worship, he will stay as long as he needs to after the service to take pictures with people. Did I mention he’s ninety-six years old? And many Sundays out of the year, he continues to share his wisdom, his faith, his experience with those who get there early enough to find a seat in his Sunday School class. Give me a mountain! You’re never “too old” to serve God…or teach Sunday School!

Friends, if you are in that “older” category, don’t quit. We need your wisdom, your experience, your example. We need to hear the stories of how God has shown himself faithful to you, because that inspires and encourages the next generation. When I was serving at a little county church, on days when I needed perspective and a “faith-lift,” I would go visit Dorothy and Kenneth Torbet. They had been in the church most of their lives and they had seen good times and bad times. Dorothy often told me about when they had to pay the pastor in chickens; I told her I was glad those times had passed! But Dorothy had a faith that ran deep; she had spent her life learning to trust God “wholeheartedly” like Caleb did. And the stories she and Kenneth told would encourage not only me but all sorts of people in the church. They had seen God work in so many different ways over the years. We need people like that in our lives, for they show us how to be strong and courageous for the long haul. So, older folks, hear me on this: don’t quit. Don’t retire from serving Jesus and his church. We need you.

Now, let me offer a word to those of us who are middle-aged and younger. Caleb didn’t get to 85 and suddenly decide to follow God. Caleb’s actions in this story and his determination to take the mountain come from a lifetime of trusting and following and serving. For more than the forty years in the desert, Caleb has been faithful. He has loved God with his whole heart and he has done the best he knows how to do in serving God. Granted, Caleb’s time was different than ours. He didn’t have all the distractions we do—or did he? His distractions would have been different, no doubt, but certainly there would have been, all along the way, opportunities for him to turn away from God’s path onto his own. Others had done it in his time! That’s why they had spent 40 years in the desert! Caleb’s distractions may not have looked like career opportunities or dark places on the internet or buying the latest technological toys or filling up his life with constant activity, but they were distractions nonetheless. Yet Caleb says he filled his heart up with God first so there was no space leftover for all of those other things. What might it look like for us to fill our hearts first?

Andy Stanley, in his new book Better Decisions Fewer Regrets, suggests one way to approach this is to think of your life as a story. Too often, Stanley says, we focus on the decisions we need to make. We focus too much on the “now” of the decision that’s right in front of us. And so we respond to emotion or to urgency or to peer pressure or some other influence, rarely thinking too far out in regards to the consequences. “Story is later. Decisions are now,” Stanley writes. “We don’t think in terms of story because we’re distracted by the pressure and emotions we feel in the moment.” But what if we began thinking about our lives as a story that someday we will tell to our grandchildren? What do you want to make of your life? What story do you want to tell? Thinking of your life as a story impacts what you do and what you focus on now.

I mean, think about the people you know who are older than you and who have been examples to you. It doesn’t just have to be people who are in the church, though it certainly might be. But who are the people you look up to, the people of whom you say, “I want to be just like them when I grow up”? They didn’t get to be that way overnight; in each and every case, I can guarantee it’s been a lifelong process of “filling up” on the characteristics and the qualities they wanted to possess. If they’re folks in the church, it’s been a lifelong process of becoming more like Jesus. Here’s what that means: what you fill your life with now will determine who you will be in those later years. If you fill you life with busy-ness and wasting time and doing things that don’t matter, your life will probably seem pointless in the end. I’ve done so many funerals where the family members can’t remember a single significant thing about their loved one who has died. Sometimes the best I can get out of the family members is, “Well, they were a nice person.” Literally. And, sure, I want to be remembered as a nice person, but I want to be so much more than that. I want my life to matter. I want it to matter for Christ and his church. And that’s the difference. If you fill your life with things that draw you closer to God and closer to people, if you invest your life in the next generation, if you give yourself over to God’s mission in the world, if you care about serving “the least of these” and those who yet need to know Jesus, then in the end, your life will look a whole lot like Caleb’s. You see, Caleb’s story is a call to you and to me to live our lives in such a way now that maybe, just maybe, others will consider us “faithful” when we are older. Caleb’s example calls us to live life faithfully at every age.

Joshua’s and Caleb’s lives are a witness to the faithfulness of God (cf. Madvig 324). They are standing in a land promised six centuries before to their ancestor Abraham. Abraham himself wandered and lived in the land but the only piece of it he ever owned is the cave in which he and his wife and sons are buried. His descendants ended up in Egypt for four hundred years, eventually becoming slaves to the most powerful empire in the world at the time. No one thought they would ever get out of that situation. It was more likely the whole clan would die off before they could escape Egypt. And yet, God rescued them. They left slavery behind and even though it was a long journey, they made it through the desert—forty years in the desert! They doubted God, they questioned the way he did things, they railed against Moses, and do you know what? If I were God, I would have been tempted to take back my promise and just leave them to their own designs. But that’s not how God does things. He has been faithful to his promise, the promise that Joshua and Caleb believed in, the promise that has now been fulfilled. So when Caleb asks for a mountain, he is trusting in the God who has brought him this far. “Give me this mountain,” he says. “I believe God is as good as his promise.” God has been faithful to Caleb, and Caleb would be faithful to him.

If we’ve learned anything so far in this crazy year, I hope we’ve learned that God’s faithfulness is true. God is faithful, even when the world turns upside down. Even when everything seems out of control. God is faithful and will help us write a story in which we conquer the mountain, in which he gives us the mountain to conquer. Whatever your age, what story will your life tell? Will it be a story like Caleb’s? Will it be a testimony to God’s faithfulness and goodness? Let’s pray.