TEXT: Deuteronomy 34:1-12
Seeing Beyond Ourselves
This has always been a conflicted
season for me. I love autumn – warm
colors splayed across cooling air; swirling gusts and fluttering leaves. I love sweaters, crisp apples fresh from the
trees, and the long-sleeved, goose-bumped incentive to make a steaming pot of
chili. Around the church I love the
renewed vitality after perennially sluggish summers.
But I have simultaneously dreaded the
business side of institutional life – budgeting and nominating to state it
plainly. Some of that is
irrational. Budgeting hasn’t always been painful – with inadequate
dollars forcing miserable choices in programming, sharing, and salaries – but
it has happened enough in my ministry
to leave a bitter taste in my mouth and a knot in my stomach. And despite a history of working with gifted
leaders, the prospect of identifying new ones for a coming year has always felt
perilous – who, if anyone, will say “yes”, and what kind of leaders will they
be?
It isn’t simply narcissistic. True, the questions and apprehensions strike
at the center of my livelihood and the character of my work, but mostly it has
to do with concern for the well-being of the church. What will be the shape of our ministry in the
year to come, and on what terms will it be guided and supported?
In other
words, autumn is all at once for me a thick stock of treasured memories, chunks
of special favorites, invigoration, and more than a peppery dash of panic-filled
sleepless nights – an unhealthy psychological stew.
But a new
perspective has begun to settle through my seasonal dis-ease. As I full-well know, but should have
internalized more operationally long before now, this isn’t finally my church –
or even “ours.” It is God’s church. And as has always happened among God’s people
– from Abraham, through Moses and Joshua and the Judges, in the voices of the
prophets and the confrontations of the apostles – God will raise up leaders to
guide God’s people, if God so chooses – in what could well be the person of any
one of us. And as for funding, we may indeed
eat the liturgical equivalent of macaroni and cheese every now and then rather
than the roast beef we’d prefer, but we’ll eat.
And we will serve. Regardless of
the budget, we’ll have church.
What I have come to appreciate in the
midst of all this transitional vulnerability is autumn’s invitation to revisit
our trust in the old hymn’s affirmation that “God is working his purpose out as
year succeeds to year…” If we believe
that, then the prayerful reflection and consecration of talents and tithes is
all about foreshadowing the concrete ways that God is working that purpose out
among us.
And
we are not unique. Dan Mosely is a
pastor and now faculty member at Christian Theological Seminary in
But, life is a process of change. And
changes engulf congregations. Some of those are internal changes such as change
in leadership. Others are external changes such as change in the political or
social environment of the neighborhood or the city. Some congregations are
located in contexts where there is rapid change while others exist in settings
where change is relatively slow.
The ability of a congregation to
exist over decades is directly related to its adaptability. It must regularly
ask itself who it is and how it can best serve in this particular context. It
must be able to adapt its self-understanding to address new and different
circumstances.”
If the need for such adaptability is
nothing unique, neither is it anything new.
As its own “congregation” of sorts, the people of
But Moses was – at least by some
counts – getting old. Deep down, I
suppose, they knew that he wouldn’t be drum-majoring their band forever. Still, it was hard to imagine anyone else out
in front of the parade. Who, after all,
could be “Moses” after Moses? Moses had
no doubt given it thought as well, but he had his own emotions to deal with,
too. The “brass ring” was almost within
reach, and he longed to seize it; longed to cross over into that good and broad
land that had been the subject of his imagination for lo these many decades and
travails. But it was not to be. And whether or not he understood it or
accepted it, he knew it.
There is in the background of this
text, you see, a bit of judgment – punishment if you will. Back in the earlier part of the story, when
the people were thirsty and Moses had complained to God on their behalf, God
had pointed out a rock at Meribah with instructions on how Moses was to loose
water from within it. Frankly, the story
is confusing – even to the writer of this morning’s account – but the end
result was a peeved God who promised to hold Moses accountable by prohibiting
him entrance into
But hard feelings seem softened
here. There is a gentler texture to the
conversation than harsh consequentialism.
Whatever lingers in the background, in the foreground is more the
natural fact of aging and transition.
Moses’ tasks are now over, despite his enduring vigor, and it is time
for new leadership to emerge.
And while the
original pronouncement will not be broken, it will, in the end, be just a
little bent. As a kind of going away
present, God treats Moses to a look from afar.
Moses climbs to the top of
If he is resentful, he doesn’t show
it. He simply stands there with the
mountain wind in his face and the people’s future in his heart, drinking it all
in. And with that last breath of
contentment – with his own Nunc dimittis
humming in his soul, Lord now lettest
thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word: for mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which
thou hast prepared…, Moses dies.
We can regret
it; even lament it – decrying the fact that after everything he had done on
God’s behalf, Moses was not able to enter the Promised Land – was not able to
finish the work he started. But it could
well be that the story’s greatest lesson to us is its implicit hint that any
truly great undertaking is more than a lifetime’s work. No matter the grandeur of the cathedral
built, or the complexity of the peace secured; no matter the effectiveness of
the parenting or the excellence of the career, a view of the Promised Land is the most we are likely to attain. We are born and we die with our work
incomplete.
But the story
is not finally a tragedy, after all. A
funny thing happens after Moses dies:
the people go on – mourning the loss, but sustaining the vision. The mantle of leadership now falls on Joshua,
who carries with him the spirit of his mentor, but also a charisma all his
own. None of which came as any
surprise. Moses had prepared for it
precisely so that the wheels could keep in motion beyond his steering. In the autumn of his days, Moses had considered
the seasons ahead and the work that still remained, and laying his hands on
Joshua some time before, Moses had ordained him to the task.
Bronze and gold, yellow and red, the
leaves all around us are releasing their grip and fluttering to the ground
where, uniting again, their mulched and composted legacy will provide the gift
of nourishment for the leaves that will bud and burst and green in their
place.
And it is autumn in the church, as
well. How are we preparing not only the
missional road that extends beyond us, but those disciples, as well, who will
travel it? How are we cultivating
leaders and making straight the crooked paths?
And in the language we’ve been practicing these past few weeks, what are
the pennies that we are planting in the cracks of the sidewalks and the crooks
of the trees – simple but profound acts of blessing and words of kindness and
counsel? What are the small and
seemingly insignificant gestures and examples of grace that perhaps some
unnoticed one will recognize and bend over to claim to their great
enrichment?
Moses stood wide-eyed on the
mountaintop and literally looked at the world beyond his reach. And while our elevation may be slightly less
panoramic, the missional moment is something of the same: how are we seeing beyond ourselves, and
preparing for the journey of others – both leaders and followers, children and
adults – who will extend our reach…
…with theirs?