I find it terribly interesting to be human, particularly
the irrational parts of being human.  For instance, I am  quite
capable of articulating the difference between God and the Church.
Here, I’ll prove it to you:  God is the creator of all that is, and
the grounding source of love that universe is build on.  The Church
is a gathering of people who have learned about God largely through
Jesus of Nazareth and try to be responsive to God, including in
sharing in the effort to make the world more loving.

OK.  I know there is a difference.  I believe myself to
be rock solid on the difference.

Except that many, many, MANY times in my life, I’ve
gotten confused between the two.  When the Church (big C) has messed
up, has proven itself to be entirely too human, has broken my heart,
and has failed to be what I think it should be – I’ve responded by
getting distant with God, as if the failures of the Church are God’s
fault.  I’ve done this repeatedly in my life, and I don’t seem to be
capable of remembering the difference between the two, even though I
already know it (mentally).

This seems like a particularly good time to remember
that God is God, and the denomination, the Annual Conference, even
this local church are not.  God is dependable, steadfast, and loving;
even when God’s people “turn away and our love fails.”  Holiness
is present, even when we don’t feel loved or heard by God’s people.
The Spirit offers us rest, support, and abundance; even when life is
feeling frenetic, unhinged, and scarce.  The Divine calls us to
healing, to wholeness, to authenticity, to full life; even when at
the same time we hear voices telling us to form ourselves into
something we just aren’t.

God is God, and God is GOOD.  God’s steadfast love
endures forever, and it is enough.  

In the language of the Psalm, God is our refuge, our
fortress, our dwelling place, our shelter.  We are at home in God,
and we are safe.  We can relax with the Holy One, we can trust in
God’s love, and goodness, and desire for our well-being.  We don’t
have to fight to be “enough” or different than how we really are.
We aren’t competing against each other for God’s love, because it is
not a finite quality.  Our natural state is “beloved by God.”  We
don’t have to earn it or compete for it.  It already is.

That, dear ones, is how grace works.  Just in case it
has been a while since you’ve remembered the nuances of grace, grace
is a word for God’s unconditional love for all of creation, and it is
God’s nature to be loving, to be full of grace.  Grace isn’t earned,
it just is, because it is God’s essence.  As followers of John
Wesley, even talk about various forms of grace including previenent
grace, the grace that comes before (like someone wearing too much
scent).  Previenent grace is God’s love for a person that comes
before that person is aware of God, or of God’s love.  

Wesleyan theology says that later on, if we become aware
of God, and of God’s love, and decide to work with God for good in
the world, we are impacted by “sanctifying grace”, also known as
the process of sanctification.   This is the process by which things
that are not loving in us are allowed to wilt away, while love takes
deeper and deeper root in us.  It is the process of letting our lives
be defined by God’s grace for us and for others.  It is letting love
take over.  The idea of John Wesley is that the work of Christians in
their own lives is to be sanctified, to become every more loving
until love is all that is left.  

I like that part 😉  

Deuteronomy is … it is many things at once.  Walter
Bruggemann, in his commentary on Deuteronomy, often talks about how
the text criss-crosses generations.  He says, “The rhetoric works
so that the speaker who is a belated rememberer of an old event
becomes a present tense participant in that old event.  In
‘liturgical time,’ the gap between past time and present time is
overcome, and present-tense characters become involved in remembered
events.”¹
This gets even more criss-crossed when we attempt to put this text
into context.

Deuteronomy places itself on the far side of the river
from the Promised Land, it is a series of speeches by Moses to the
people before they finally enter the Land.  So, from that
perspective, this series of instructions of what to do with the first
fruits of the land – the promised land – is a future tense
reality.  Within the text, the people are dreaming of living in the
land, and haven’t gotten there yet.  Yet, the instructions are for
what people will say with their tithes, and the words people are
saying reflect back on the process of getting to (and into the land)
which in the story hasn’t happened yet.

If you want to add more layers (which clearly I do),
think about the fact that this was likely written down during the
exile – so a person who once lived in the land  but did no longer,
was writing down the  words of one who never lived in the land, to
those who would enter the land, about what they would say when they
got produce out of the land, about their history before they got to
the land.   Which is to say, I think Brueggemann is right, and there
are ways that time gets messy in these texts 😉

I’m interested, as well, in the fact that re-telling in
this liturgical way of the entrance into the Promised Land doesn’t
talk about the wandering in the desert.  It is huge theme in
Deuteronomy, where it is said time and time again that the people
needed to learn that they could rely on God before they could be
ready to deal with the abundance of life in the Promised Land, so
they wouldn’t think it had come to them from their own doing.  It
also functioned to led the old generation pass away, so that those
who had known the oppression of slavery were not the ones who build a
new thing. However, none of that is mentioned in this particular
piece, even though the rest of the history is.

Bishop Karen Oliveto posted on Facebook this week, “You
can take people out of Egypt but the main task of liberation is to
take Egypt out of the people. Perhaps this is why wilderness
wandering is necessary in our journey?”  That was when I noticed
that this particular text glosses over the wandering.  Perhaps it
doesn’t have to be named here, because in the idea that the person is
giving first fruits, we know they haven’t forgotten the lessons of
the wandering.  In any case, remembering that the wandering exists to
teach us liberation is definitely of use!

I’m struck by the way the Promised Land is constructed
as being itself a refuge, throughout the Bible.   Granted, just like
churches, it is an often broken one, and just like churches it gets
confused with God.  When the people lost the land they took it to
mean they’d lost God’s favor.  Yet, it might be easier to read this
text with awareness that land IS sacred, and that means land is HOLY,
and certainly for those who have been without land, land is a refuge
onto which they can build a life.  Space can become home, it can
reflect God’s own home-like attributes.

Did you hear the end of the passage?  After the first
fruits have been given and the past has been remembered, it says,
“Then you, together with the Levites and the aliens who reside
among you, shall celebrate with all the bounty that the LORD your God
has given to you and to your house.”  I LOVE this part.  After all
the labor of growing and harvesting the food, after all the
remembering (and bouncing around in time) the end game is a feast of
bounty to which ALL are invited.   All, including those without land.
All, including those who don’t know or worship God.  Those with
plenty, those without, those set aside to do God’s work, those who
are doing normal daily work, those who don’t have work – ALL the
people are coming to the feast.  The work that is given to God is
meant to be redistributed so that everyone can access it together.  

That Promised Land, the one the people were waiting to
enter?  It wasn’t meant to just be a refuge for them.  It was meant
to be a refuge for all.  The “law” of the Torah seeks to ensure
that widows, and orphans, those without someone powerful to care for
them, will still have enough.  The Torah seeks to ensure that
outsiders – the foreigners, the immigrants, the refugees –  will be
welcome and cared for. The Torah OBSESSES over the poor, and puts in
place practices that will prevent long term poverty and allow people
to be lifted up.  The land isn’t meant to be a refuge for some, or
for the lucky, or for those who do right.  It was designed to be a
refuge for all – a refuge that reflects God’s nature.

Now, after fussing over these texts sufficiently, I want
to get a bit practical.  God IS our refuge, and an excellent refuge
at that, but we are not always prepared to receive the goodness of
God’s gifts because we tend not to pay attention them.  We are
something, maybe too busy, too distracted, or too scared.  (Scared
because we’ve been around broken humans enough to be afraid that God
isn’t as loving as we’d hope, since humans often aren’t.)

However, the rest, the refuge, the HOME that God IS for
us, is a gift to us that we can receive if we make time and space to
do so.  I, personally, am best able to connect with this gift when I
practice Centering Prayer.  Centering Prayer is “just” being,
breathing in and out, and letting thoughts float away without
judgment or attachment.  It is a type of prayer that takes practice,
but it is transformative.  Other times, to access the rest, the
refuge, the home that God IS, I need to be in physical places where I
feel safe; other times I need to be with those with whom I can laugh.
Still other times, a quiet walk in the woods, a good deep cry, or
some time coloring mandalas will make space within me to let God’s
gifts in.  What helps you?  Are you doing it?  Do you need help
finding new or different ways to let God’s rest, refuge, offer of
home take hold in you?  If you do, let’s talk.

Because the world doesn’t need us exhausted, aimless,
and scared.   God and the world most need people being sanctified by
grace, and I think we should make space to let God help us be those
people!   Amen

1Walter
Brueggemann, Deuteronomy
(Nashville:
Abingdon Press, 2001)

Rev. Sara E. Baron
First United Methodist Church of Schenectady
603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305
Pronouns: she/her/hers
http://fumcschenectady.org/

https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

March 10, 2019