It is most appropriate to have the Joshua story of crossing the Jordan as our Old Testament
lesson for this Sunday on which we celebrate All Saints Day. The symbolism of that chapter has always been closely
linked to Judeao-Christian ideas about the transition from life in this world to life in the next, for in truth,
the reality of a "river" to a desert people, like the reality of confronting the subject of life beyond
life as we know it, is an image filled with both promise and terror. Imagine that your whole existence has consisted
of wandering in sandy dunes, dependent on the occasional pool of water or seasonal rainfall for daily survival.
In all the years of your life you have never seen the ocean, or encountered a body of water as big as say the "Sea"
of Galilee, which is really little more than a lake seventeen miles in circumference. Though the landscape of your
life is filled with its own uncertainties to be sure, encountering a "river" is encountering another
world, whose depth is uncertain, whose bottom is unstable, and whose power can pull you under and sweep you away
as if you had never been. Rivers were viewed by primitive people as natural barriers to hidden worlds, and so to
stand on "Jordan's stormy banks and cast a wishful eye" is to view from the relative safety of your present
existence all that still might be both good and bad.
And isn't that how we feel when we confront the reality of death? The great liberator from pain and injustice,
freeing us for existence in another world where everything is perfect and beautiful or perhaps the end of meaning,
emptiness and an eternal silence.
By contrast, the reality of Matthew's community following the fall of Jerusalem and the dissolution of the Sadducsaic
priesthood was also like confronting a new world, slowly being revealed. A long-standing power group which had
consisted of wealthy aristocratic families was gone, and the influence of the pharisees with all their new interpretations
and understanding of the law had expanded out of a need for order and direction. In a relatively short time they
had jockeyed their circumstances of being in demand to include certain demands of their own, expecting more courtesies,
respect, and fanfare to herald their presence.
Matthew condemned this principle of "elitism" and includes these warnings against such practices as being
an important part of Jesus' message to his disciples. There is no place for either sitting back in smug judgment
of anyone, or for imagining that being a follower of the Messiah will automatically protect one from falling into
the very patterns abhorred in others. Matthew is very grounded. He hears the word of Jesus for his generation and
it has abiding worth.
We, too, are to avoid playing games with titles. It appears that "rabbi" first became a title of honor
in the period when Matthew was writing, so the mention of "rabbi" is particularly apt. "Father,"
"reverend," "pastor" and "teacher" are some of the later options. We Protestants
sometimes cluck our tongues at Catholics for using the word "Father" to address their clergy, but this
verse should cause us to review our own use of honorific titles. Where do we get the word, "Reverend",
which the dictionary defines as "worthy of reverence; deserving to be revered"? Doesn't that offend in
the same way that "Rabbi" or "Father" do? What about the various ranks of "Reverend"
-- the "Very", the "Most", the "Reverend Mister", or the "Reverend Doctor"?
For that matter, can't the word "Professor" suggest the same kind of superiority and importance? What
about military chaplains, who are supposed to be called "Chaplain," but who sometimes enjoy being called
"Captain" --or "Major" -- or "Colonel"?
Even the word "Pastor" can be used in a context where it conveys more power and prestige as opposed to
pastoral function. All titles, even "husband", "wife", "father", or "mother"
can become little more than hot buttons for confrontation about relative importance. Few of us have pure hearts
when it comes to coveting honor. All of us Protestants, Catholics, Orthodox, and Jews -- have need to hear this
warning about our common value in the eyes of God.
As time went on the poor Pharisees were particularly concerned about the wearing of phylacteries - small leather
cases in which were four strips of parchment containing Exodus 13 verses 1-10 and verses 11-16, Deuteronomy 6 verses
4-9, 11, and 13-21. Here is a description: "That for the head was to consist of a box with four compartments,
each containing a slip of parchment inscribed with one of the four passages. Each of these strips was to be tied
up with a well-washed hair from a calf's tail; lest, if tied with wool or thread, any fungal growth should ever
pollute them. The phylactery of the arm was to contain a single slip, with the same four passages written in four
columns of seven lines each. The black leather straps by which they were fastened were wound seven times round
the arm and three times round the hand. They were reverenced by the rabbis as highly as the scriptures, and, like
them, might be rescued from the flames on a sabbath without offending God."
It is true that in Deut. 6.4-9 we hear Moses saying, "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love
the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that
I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home
and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and
bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the door-frames of your houses and on your gates." But was such
literal compliance what God was looking for?
People are asking similar questions today, as traditional understandings seem to be slipping away. In a time when
children and young people especially have been asked to go, in little more than a year's time, from watching the
twin towers fall, to worrying about powdery substances in the daily mail, to almost daily reports of missing and
abused children, to the escalating talk of the threat of war and weapons of mass destruction, to the simple act
of opening the front door for fear of being shot at random.
What is it we are supposed to believe? What happened to civility and honor? Is anyone ever safe anymore? The land
on the other side of this murky crossing is only dimly viewed, and the question being asked is: "Is God really
out there in this strange future we are about to enter or not?"
As was the case with Joshua, so it is with life itself there is nothing in our experience to prepare us for that
crossing. If we are to cross, it will be a miracle of God. What we can do is stride right into the water as they
did, and those who have been taught, the priests of God, must go first! In Protestantism we teach "the priesthood
of all believers." We teach by example, but there have always been those who shirk their duty.
Sensitive to that age-old perversion of priestly responsibility, Paul reminds the church at Thessalonica that he
went out of his way to demonstrate that his only interest in them was to deliver to them the word of God, the path
through the waters. "You remember our labor and toil, brothers and sisters; we worked night and day, so that
we might not burden any of you while we proclaimed to you the gospel of God." (1 Thessalonians 2:9)
Jesus says in so many words that if we are not all priests, we are not any priests: "...you are not to be
called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all students. And call no one your father on earth, for you
have one Father--the one in heaven. Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Messiah."
(Matthew 23:8-10)
The contrast between those priests who stepped into the rushing Jordan water and remained there with the Ark of
the Covenant until all Israel had passed by, as opposed to those who heaped burdens on the shoulders of
others, is a call to self- examination. May this introspection free us from merely serving an institution and empower
us to renew our faith in the presence and power of God. For it is God who "turns a desert into pools of water,
a parched land into springs of water.
Who lets the hungry live, so that they establish a town to live in; they sow fields, and plant vineyards, and gain
a fruitful yield." (Psalm 107:35-37)
We celebrate today the lives of those who lived in such a way as to inspire us, and who now rest from their labors
secure in God's love. They bore the love of God as surely as the priests before them bore the ark. They held their
ground as many passed them by, and they have received a reward not yet fully glimpsed by those of us who remain.
It is now our time and our turn.
What Jesus said regarding the use of titles was very similar to what he said in refusing even the use of the word
"good" in reference to himself. He knew that the only one who is perfect and good is God. "Saints"
are not perfect people, but they are holy people because they know God's salvation in Jesus Christ, they are members
of the community of believers; and, they seek to live what they profess in word and in deed.
Garrison Keillor once said, "If you think just coming to church on a Sunday and sitting in a pew will make
you Christian, go out to your garage and sit down and see if that makes you a car!" The signs of crossing
over are everywhere God is being revealed daily, but only to those with eyes to see. May we not miss it, and may
we also become the evidence that others seek!
An African grandmother brought newborn triplet grandchildren to a mission baby fold in Nyadiri. Their mother had
died in childbirth and the grandmother was superstition ridden, fearful of the terrible revenge which she believed
evil spirits would wreak upon a multiple birth. She had named the babies, "Why were we left?" "How
shall we grow?" and "What will make us happy?"
Perhaps contained in those names are the questions we as the church need to reflect on as we work to answer that
grandmother's questions:
1. Why were we left-why are we here, what are we called to being doing.
2. How shall we grow-a corporate question, not one of individual growth, but how shall we "grow" this
world in loving and caring ways?
3. And what will make us happy? Again, not an individual, but corporate pondering. What will make us cheer and
want to sing for joy to the world, and how will we make the world happy in the most blessed sense.
The love of God surrounds us the saints of our lives call us forth and we stand as a witness to the world sent
out by the love and promises of God, strengthened by the clouds of witnesses that have gone before and who walk
with us now. Thanks be to God for all who have led us to this time and place.
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