October 9, 2011 17th of Kingdomtide
How Great Thou Art: Wilderness Lessons
Fall Sermon Series in Numbers (1st in Series)
2 Corinthians 6:16 - 7:1, Numbers 4: 1-15
"Don't Touch"
This week we begin with the 1st installment of our fall sermon series called: How Great Thou Art: Wilderness Lessons. For the rest of October we will be focusing our attention on the Old Testament book of Numbers. I have enjoyed studying this forth book of the Jewish Pentateuch , also called the Torah, Book of Moses, or simply the Law. The Pentateuch includes Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.
I'm sure you will agree with me when I say most of us like to spend our time reading in Genesis and Exodus, but this month I hope we will all take the time to read through this Old Testament book of Numbers. If you are one of the many folks here at Pisgah to use the devotional guide found in your bulletin every week, you have noticed that the readings are taking you through Numbers.
The book of Numbers describes the years that the Israelites spent in the Sinai desert. Between the time the Hebrews left Mt. Sinai, (It was there that the Hebrews received the ten commandments and made their covenant with God), and embarked on the conquest of Canaan, an entire generation lives and dies in the wilderness. The book of Numbers counts them, tells us how they were organized, records their laws and narrates their adventures.
The wilderness years were very difficult for the Hebrew people. They often found themselves grumbling against Moses and in rebellion against God. They experienced devastating setbacks, and because of their disobedience, rebellion and fear, they were never allowed the right to enter the Promise Land. Rather they wandered the wilderness for 40 years.
Even so, God did not abandon them but used this period of time to show them and the following generation God's power, love and mercy. It was in the wilderness that the Hebrew people began to understand God's holiness. It was also there that they learned how to be obedient, so that they could mature as God's people and be ready for the victories which lay ahead.
Read Scripture: Numbers 4:1-15
I wonder if you have ever looked at the Old Testament Scriptures and thought to yourself, God was really sort of harsh in those days. In this section of Numbers we find that God has given Moses and Aaron some specific instructions about the tent of meeting, also known as the tabernacle, the place of worship and sacrifice. The instructions are very detailed on who can touch what when it comes to taking down the tent of meeting and moving it. There are certain things that certain people must not touch, or even look at, or else they will die. So I wonder have you ever said to yourself: what's up with that?
Before we get further into the Book of Numbers, let's lay a little groundwork. Just who were the Hebrews? Where did they come from? And why did God picked them to be God's chosen ones? Well, if we go all the way back into the 1st book of the Bible, Genesis, we have the story of Abraham. Abraham was the father, so to speak of all these people who are counted in this book of Numbers. We can follow the line down from Abraham to his son Isaac, from Isaac to his son Jacob. Jacob had 12 sons, one of them was Joseph. I'm sure we all remember the story of how Joseph was sold by his brothers into slavery in Egypt, and how he saved not only the Egyptians' lives but the lives of his own family from the 7 year famine.
Some 400 years later Joseph's family had grown to a huge number of people who had become enslaved in Egypt. God called Moses to rescued them and lead them out of bondage in Egypt. Of course this is a very brief summary of who these people were. The reason God was especially fond of them, rescued them, and set them on a course to the Promised Land, was because of the promises he made to their fathers.
But, let's look a bit closer at these people. It's easy sometimes for us to imagine them as a nation. Actually though, they were no more than slaves who had tribal affiliations. Before Moses came to Egypt and stood up to the Pharaoh on their behalf, they had no leader of any kind. As slaves they were told where they would work, where they would live and had no freedom of their own.
In some places we hear these people called Israelites, and that name comes from when Jacob was renamed by God as Israel (Gen 32:28), thus his descendents were called Israelites. In other places these people are called Hebrews. The word Hebrew actually derives from Afroasiatic word, ebreu, which has a few different meanings. 1) one from the other side 2) foreigner or alien or 3) nomadic traveler.
Imagine for a moment that you and your whole family and everyone you know are and have always been slaves, made to do the work of your masters every day. Suddenly, someone comes to speak on your behalf for your freedom. You began to see the force of God at work as this man performs miracles on behalf of God. He brings plagues upon the land: you witness the River Nile turned to blood, the land be covered with frogs, lice, and flies. You experience pestilence, boils, hail, locusts swarms, and darkness. I don't know about you, but even if I've never heard of this man Moses, I'd be ready to follow him...even through a sea if he led me through!
Yet even though this hoard of people followed Moses out of Egypt and across the Red Sea to freedom and safety that does not mean that they were a community much less a nation. For 400 years or more they had had no laws, no guides about God, no place or opportunity to worship and had only vaguely heard from one another the stories about their fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. This collective of people was a rag-tag bunch who had just been through a harrowing escape from slavery. All they really knew how to do...was to be slaves.
God knew their shape, and the legal system God devised, these laws and commandments were given as boundaries. Rather than trying to create harsh living conditions, God was attempting through Moses' leadership to teach these people how to be a holy nation. The instructions which God had given to Moses and Aaron were part of what's called the "Holiness Code." Throughout Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy we read the laws God gave in order to teach the Hebrew people how to be holy.
So, why was holiness so very important to God. We won't go in to the long answer, but the short answer is: because God is holy, God's people must be holy. It was important 1450 years before Christ. It was important in the 1st century when Jesus showed us what human holiness looks like. And it is important today for God's people to be holy.
There are a couple of ways to think about holiness. There is holiness of position, and holiness of condition. Holiness of position means the setting apart of a person or thing for use by God. This practice of setting aside certain things to be used of a god is found in many religions. Here at Pisgah we also practice the setting apart of things to be used of God.
This sanctuary when it was built was dedicated and set apart to be used by God, thereby giving it a position of holiness. Last year Terry Smith and Billy Fortenberry risked life and limb to place a beautiful white cross on top of the church entrance. But before they put it up there, we set it apart and dedicated it to be used by God. When I was ordained as an elder, it was the UMC's setting me apart to be used of God. Therefore all the things which are set apart and dedicated to God have a position of holiness.
But of course, there is more to holiness; there is holiness of condition. Holiness of condition comes from God's Holy Spirit working within something holy. You see... God had set apart the Hebrew people to be covenant with God. They had been given the position of holiness. And because of that God sanctified and declared them to be holy. But the Hebrews also needed conditioning. They needed to learn about who God was, what they needed to do to fulfill God's will, and how to live into their new identity, their set-apartness, God had given them. Their bodies, spirits, morals, ways and expressions of worship and sacrifice had to be conditioned.
I suppose God could have created humans as holy reflections of God's self, but God did not do that. God created humans to have a will of their own and God gave them the option to choose between good and evil. Therefore the Hebrews, and all of us who are set apart as God's people, must be conditioned to be holy, for we all have the opposite tendency...to be sinful and unholy.
As you read through the book of Numbers, you will notice that many times the people are punished when they are not obedient to God's conditioning hand, or to God's conditioning agent, Moses. The Kohathites were part of priestly Levite clan; they were chosen and set apart to do the work which did not involved seeing or handling the holy things within the tabernacle. The penalty of disobedience in this case was death. It wasn't that God thought any less of them and wanted to kill them off, but rather this law was given to teach them and all the Hebrews that being holy requires obedience to the commands of God.
When God's command is: don't touch, it means: don't touch! The Kohathites could have questioned God, could have whined to God, "why do they get to touch the holy articles and we can't?" Or they could have tried to figure out the reason behind God's command, which would've taken them at least 5 years seminary. But, I think, such whining, bargaining or stalling may have been seen by God as just another form of disobedience. To be holy means to follow God's commandments.
So, what wilderness lessons have we learned today. I'm sure we would all agree that God has not changed in God's holiness. Furthermore we have learned that all who are set apart as God's people are to be conditioned as holy.
We are very much like these ancient Hebrew people. We, like them have been slaves. We have not been slaves in the exact way as these Hebrew people, but we have certainly been enslaved by our sins and transgressions against God and others. And we too have found freedom in Jesus Christ, who came to earth, sacrificed his own life so that we could be saved.
The ancient Hebrews came through the potentially deadly waters of the Red Sea and stepped upon the dry land of freedom. We too have been through some deadly waters, the consequence of sin, and we have stepped into our new lives in Jesus Christ.
Praise be to God. Jesus has given us freedom from sin and death! He has also given us freedom from the penalty of breaking the laws that God used to condition the ancient Hebrews. The way you and I are conditioned to holiness is through God's Holy Spirit living within us. Just as God promised, the laws of holiness are written on our hearts (Je 31:33).
You and I have been set apart as God's people. As we came through the waters of baptism, we have been set apart in the position of holiness. The lives we live in the here and now give us the blessed opportunity to be conditioned as holy people. Through following God's commandments and being obedient to the will of God, we, like the ancient Hebrews, learn who God is, how to be Holy and how to live into the new identities we have been given.
Amen.
©2011 Judy H. Eurey
