Sermons

"Desert Days"

Delivered from the Pulpit of First Congregational Church

of Anchorage by The Reverend Mark E. Long

on January 22, 2010

Lections:  Ex. 13.20-22; 16:1-3, 11-12; 17:1-2, 5-7

                  Col. 2.6-7

                  Lk. 19.11-27

We all have days from time to time that don't deliver to us the best of our lives.  This is Mark the optimist talking.  Truth is there are days that bring us a hell on earth - almost more than we can bear.  This is not Mark the pessimist talking, but Mark the realist.  It is just how things are, and we all know it.  We may not want to dwell on it, for sure, but we all know life deals its hands often with little notice of who are the good guys and who are less than good.  If it were not so Rabbi Kushner would not have had a number one bestseller with the title, "When Bad Things Happen to Good People."[1]

These hands are dealt unevenly and even fall heaviest on those, at times, least able to bear their burdens.  Any year brings its tragedies - personal and collective - not all of them are people getting in their own way.  Landslides, tsunamis, earthquakes are simply nature being nature and sometimes people, sadly, simply get in the way.

There is a song I used to sing in the days when I played with the idea of serving God with my voice differently.  I won't sing it; I don't know, actually, if I can anymore.  The song was sung by Larnelle Harris, a very popular recording artist in evangelical circles in the late 80's.  I started humming the song Tuesday morning and came to the point where the lyrics shaped the title and my thoughts this morning.

In the desert of my days

There came no cooling rain

And the burning sun stopped me without mercy

And I cried out at the time,

"I must be paying for some crime"

And in my loneliness it seemed nobody heard me

And the days were weeks

The weeks were months

The months seemed years

In the dust and the sand

The thirsty man battles fear

Praying help would appear

In the desert of my years

There fell no rain only tears

As I struggled on with hope alone to cling to

The rugged hills all looked the same

Across the endless dry terrain

And to the silent skies

I cried, "my God where are You?"

And the days were weeks

The weeks were months

The months seemed years

In the dust and sand the thirsty man battles fear

Praying help would appear

In our "desert days," we have those who take these occasions to tell us that God is punishing us for a range of perceived misbehaviors - lifestyles, political choices, or ideas of God, Jesus, or Bible - because they don't mesh with theirs.  As if the desert isn't bad enough, we have to share air with these voices that cry "pox on your house" so often and so blindly that they miss when things begin to turn.

Rather like some of the Israelites of the Exodus story.  Here is this rag tag bunch of former slaves longing for the days of slavery which they just left; they whine about missing the "good old days" because their present situation finds them hungry and scared.

Maybe they should be forgiven for their fearful reaction in the face of hunger?  These circumstances would try the best of us.  But wait - don't forget what they have experienced recently.  They watch as the Red Sea splits open for them to walk across the sea bed, and stand in amazement as the sea swallows up their Egyptian pursuers.  Remember also that they have been led around by a "pillar of cloud" by day and a "pillar of fire" by night; the story tells us the Lord is in both.

So shouldn't they have a bit more faith in where their next meal is coming from?  Instead they complain and whine about how much better they were in Egypt, oh yeah, that's right - where you were a slave.

"Oh people, where is your faith in what you have seen?"  The Lord hears their complaining and provides for their next meal, and the meal after that and on it goes.  The Lord provides food that falls out of the sky mixing with the dew each morning.  And so satisfies the people.  Of course not, there is no satisfying these people no matter what they experience of God's presence with them.

They come to a place where there is no water.  Rather than trusting that the God that brings food to them every morning will provide for their thirst; they complain and whine some more.  They get so confused that they blame Moses and tell him to "give us water to drink."  Like Moses could just tap on a rock and out it gushes.  Well, this is what happened but not because it was Moses' idea.  He was just following the instructions of the Lord.  "Go on ahead of the people . . . take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile . . . [now] go.  I [the Lord] will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb.  Strike the rock, and water will come out of it . . . ."  It did; so the people's faith is steadfast from there on.

Not these people - it is not too many more pages into the story before Moses' delay in coming off the mountain at Sinai has them trading in their gold bracelets to build a golden idol on which to hang their fate rather than the God that has put handprints all over their experiences.

How can it be after all the evidence of God with them, do they say "Is the Lord among us or not?"  How can they; how can we? 

Hope may be wishful thinking or believing at times but when the evidence of God's action is all around us we should be getting on our knees to give thanks, not complaining or whining about the next thing that we don't seem to have.  Faith is the catalyst for more faith.  As Luke says in conclusion to a perplexing parable, "I tell you, to all those who have, more will be given; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away."  Even the seed of your faith will become a distant memory.

The Israelites coming out of Egypt got a lot of chances but in time the Lord tired of their faithlessness, their failure to notice what had been given to them, and their decision to complain and whine for the next thing rather than to show gratitude for the evidence all around them of the Lord's presence.  The Israelites had to wander around in the wilderness for forty years until a faithless and disobedient generation died before the Lord would allow the rest of the people to enter into the "land of milk and honey."  Yes, faithlessness has a price, even as faith has a reward.

The desert is a place where we become confused about what is in our best interest.  Fear can turn us around wrong very quickly as we cling to the way we think things work which keep our eyes from seeing what God does among us.

It may be hard to see God in the midst of the rubble, hunger, thirst and grief.  It may be hard to see God working to put together broken dreams.  But if we raise up faith enough to see a hint of presence and keep looking, keep hoping to see; then Exodus tells me we will see the hand of God more alive in our deserts than anywhere else.

As the songs says:

And then He came to me

In a cool and gentle breeze

And in a healing rain I heard Him say, "I love you."

I've been here my child

Every weary mile

Though there must've been times

When it seemed like I'd forgotten you

But I carried you through

The barren desert to

The land of milk and honey now before you

Yes, I carried you through

The barren desert to

The land of milk and honey

The land of milk and honey

The land of milk and honey

Now before you.

If you want to see more, give thanks for what you can see and have faith that you will see more.  For those that see, more will be given; for those that see nothing, well, there will come a day when even the desire to see will be taken away.

This is how I see it having seen enough of God's presence in my life to keep looking to see more.  Amen.