All Saints’ Day

Whenever I go on a trip, my level of anticipation and expectation is high. There is always a point at which I begin to figure out how much further I have to go, I wonder about the condition of my hotel room and I begin to think about the meeting or vacation I am traveling toward.

I wonder what the Israelites were thinking as they took those final steps toward the Jordan River? A few years ago, we would have described their preparations to cross over the River into the Land of Promise as a paradigm shift. They will have to think of themselves not as people on the way, but as inhabitants of the land that God had promised them. Today we might say that they are ready to move to the next level in their life of faith and community. However we describe it, this is the moment they have been waiting for over two generations. It is time to go.

I believe that as they cross over, their journey can teach us about ours as we move into the future God has for us. So as we watch and pay attention to their crossing, we may get some clues as to our own. Two things are important for us to see here.

They will cross over as they remember that God is with them. God says to the new leader, Joshua, “As I was with Moses, so I will be with you”. Already in the early verses of Joshua, God has told this new generation leader that he will never be alone and that he has no reason to be afraid. No one shall be able to stand against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will never leave you or forsake you” (Joshua 1.5).

We can hear God saying, “Listen, Joshua, The torch has been passed to you and I am about to make it clear that you are the one I have called to be the leader of these people now. You know the story, you’ve been present every step of the journey. I remember that day when it came time to spy out the land, to tell the people what waited for them. Ten of your team said ‘the land is too vast, and the people are too big. We are too small, and too afraid to go’. You Joshua, along with Caleb said, ‘we can take this land. Yes, it’s big, yes its people are huge, yes, there will be obstacles, but God’s got our back, and there is enough in this land to sustain us’”.

“Now it’s time for them to see that when Moses laid hands on you, he was doing as I led him to do. Now people will know that I have raised you to leadership”. I will be with you wherever you go. Joshua is part of the next generation of leadership and God gives him not only the authority to lead but a promise for him to hold on to as he does.

We live with the same promise. God is with us too. We need God’s presence with us now because the responsibility of getting across the river – Jordan then, into the next era of this congregation’s life is ours. You have heard me say several times, that God calls us forward, and that our future is not behind us, it is in front of us. It’s time to cross the River. We know it because we know that we cannot easily go back to the way it used to be. We can’t go back 50 years or 15 years, or 5 years. You remember every time the people of Israel wanted to go back to Egypt – they would get mad at Moses. But through each act of fear and retreat, Moses reminded the people that God had not abandoned then, but was there to lead them forward.

“Moses we are hungry – we had food in Egypt”. God gave them manna from heaven. “Moses we are thirsty – there was plenty of cool water in Egypt”. God provided water from a rock. “Moses, you were gone too long. And we really don’t know if we really want to keep this law you have given to us. So we melted our jewelry and your younger brother Aaron made this calf to worship”. Even then, Moses was there for the people and persuaded God to forgive the people and to remember their covenant they had made.

As God was with Moses, so God will be with Joshua. As God was with Joshua, and with every person we know who has kept the faith and told the story and made this journey, so God will be with us.

It is time for us to cross over from what we can be to what we will become. For the Israelites, they were about to cross from slavery to freedom; from being nomads to being a nation; from being no people to being God’s people. For us, we cannot go back but we can take what has been so good about our congregation’s history, and take it into the future. We are a loving community, we are accepting of all people, we have a willingness to take risks and welcome to this church in the name of Jesus Christ, those whom people who do not have our same understanding of inclusion would say don’t belong here. There is an evident care for all souls here. We are an understanding people. While I want everything we do to be excellent, I am glad to be in a church where people are allowed to make mistakes and are given an opportunity to correct those mistakes to the glory of God. That is the best of who we are.

It ‘s time for us to take all that is good and right about us and expand it to find and welcome people looking for a church like this one, and then to support this church with our talent and our money. It’s time to move from potential and possibility to awareness and action. We are off to a great start, there are outreach ministries here, there will be new study opportunities presented to you soon. The question is how willing are we to cross over the River from what is comfortable to what is compelling and is of the call of God in our lives. Remember the first thing God did was to assure Joshua that the people he led would know the presence of God. We have that assurance of God’s presence too.

Then second, God gives Joshua a task. It’s up to you, Joshua, to command the priests to lead the people by standing in the water. They are not in the water to soothe their aching feet, but to hold up the ark of the covenant. The ark was a chest, beautifully made of acacia wood and gold. The ark of the covenant was closely identified with the presence of God. It was a portable shrine that was meant to be carried before the people. Inside the ark was the two tablets of the law. If the ark was before the people, then God was before the people.

The priests went into the water and stood with the ark held high. As they did the water stopped flowing. It sounds a little like crossing the Red Sea doesn’t it? Once again God has led the people through their leader to the edge of the water. Then they were escaping Pharaoh. Now, as they enter the water, they are at the edge of the land of promise. Now it’s time to move, and by the miracle of God’s diving mercy, a dry place is made for them to cross and so they all do.

My understanding is that the crossing point was not very wide, it was less than a mile across, and normally the people could wade across without trouble. But the biblical account of this story tells us that it was the time of the spring floods. The river was not its usually low body of water. It was full and flowing. One writer put it this way:

They crossed over. The time of the year was spring, but the people also moved in another kind of time. They moved in kairos time, with leadership they trusted and with the presence of God before them. That made their time special. It was a moment like no other in their lives. It was God’s time breaking in and covering their time.

Can you imagine – some of the people who left Egypt living long enough to cross into the land God had promised knowing that the promise meant that God would also make a way for them. Can you imagine, children too young to remember their life in Egypt who grew up in the desert wilderness getting ready to cross over?

Can you imagine children born in the wilderness who only knew the journey, who every day heard the story, who shared the dream, who now will know the joy of those who have waited a lifetime to cross the Jordan?

They remind me of the first free elections for black South Africans in 1994. I remember pictures of long lines of people waiting to vote, included in the image of a man pushing his father in a wheelbarrow. The other image I hold is of Archbishop Desmond Tutu leaping and dancing, and praising God as he voted for the first time in his life. It was kairos time.

Can you imagine that we live in kairos time? We live in God’s time and it may be that God is telling us that it is time to cross over. As we stand on the edge of what God has in store for us, it is time to cross over.

It is time for us to move forward to cross over into even greater diversity here for those who want a loving relationship with Jesus Christ. It is time to cross over and continue to care about the community beyond these walls. Our ministry really does extend from our doorstep to the end of the earth. It begins here to be sure, but it spreads and it grows as we join our gifts to others and move into the Land of Promise.

It is time to cross over because the presence of God surrounds us and calls us to step into the water. For the Israelites at the edge of the Jordan the presence was in the Ark. For us, God is in the presence of the risen and living Christ who calls us to the waters of baptism and whose manna and water we receive at communion. That presence can, if we let it, enliven, embolden, and inspire us to claim ministries of reconciliation, inclusion, justice, hospitality, and hope.

I know that not all who begin the journey will cross with us. Some will die. In few minutes, we will call the names of men and women who during the past twelve months joined the hosts of saints who live in eternity. The symbols after some names describe our relationships. They were our spouses and parents, siblings and in-laws. They were grand parents, they were other family members, they were good friends. They were people we loved and who loved us. A part of us, the most faithful part of us believes that they rest in God from their labors. They are by blood and by spirit our ancestors. We are their legacy and we can rejoice today that as God was with them so God will be with us, so we trust God as they trusted God to be with them.

Others will be led to go elsewhere and we wish them every blessing in Jesus Christ. But we are right here, right now crossing over to new challenges, new people, new blessings. And our promise is that if we cross over and trust God to lead us, trust Jesus to save us, trust the Holy Spirit to keep us, God will trust us with this church, each other, and our future.

It is time for us to step into the water and cross over. My anticipation is great, my expectation is high, I am ready to cross over and move into God’s future. Come join me in this great movement with God. It will not always be easy. We may stumble a bit as we go, but we will get there.

And when we do we can praise God saying: