In Land God Gives
First Congregational Church Evanston
February 25, 2007 (First Sunday in Lent)
Deuteronomy 26: 1-11; Luke 4: 1–13
Rev. Dr. James E. Roghair, Interim Pastor
Introduction to Old Testament Lesson
Wednesday of this week many of us gathered around the tables of Pilgrim Hall to observe, with Christians of many places and traditions, Ash Wednesday, the traditional beginning of Lent. Today we observe the first Sunday of Lent. For some, the observation of Lent is deeply ingrained. For others it is a rather foreign matter. I understand both.
I suggest that a 40-day journey toward Jerusalem and the Cross is of spiritual value to us, regardless of its relationship to any particular calendar days. And so, I invite you to consider this day as the beginning of a journey. Surely the story of Jesus’ temptation is an appropriate place to begin such a journey. But today I would like to take you back many generations before Jesus to begin the journey with the faith in God’s Covenant. We go back to the Hebrew book of Deuteronomy.
I will read a thanksgiving liturgy: the way an Israelite family was instructed to bring to the altar of the Lord God the first fruits of land. Yearly, as they bring the first of the harvest, they are to recite an ancient creed that reminds them of the gracious gift of God to their ancestors and to them – God’s covenant gift of the land.
I invite you to follow along in the pew Bibles – imagining what it would be like to be there making that thanksgiving offering before the altar.
Deuteronomy 26:1-11 (NRSV)
26:1 When you have come into the land that the Lord your
God is giving you as an inheritance to possess, and you possess it, and
settle in it,
2 you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which
you harvest from the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and you
shall put it in a basket and go to the place that the Lord your God will
choose as a dwelling for his name.
3 You shall go to the priest who is in office at that time, and say to him,
“Today I declare to the Lord your God that I have come into the land
that the Lord swore to our ancestors to give us.”
4 When the priest takes the basket from your hand and sets it down before
the altar of the Lord your God,
5you shall make this response before the Lord your God: “A wandering
Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien,
few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous.
6 When the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard
labor on us,
7 we cried to the Lord, the God of our ancestors; the Lord heard our voice
and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression.
8 The Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched
arm, with a terrifying display of power, and with signs and wonders;
9 and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing
with milk and honey.
10 So now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground that you, O Lord,
have given me.” You shall set it down before the Lord your God and
bow down before the Lord your God.
11 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.
A Hunter’s First Caribou
When I was living among the Iñupiaq Eskimoes the children were being trained in traditional ways – as much as possible in their schools where English was the primary language spoken, and in their homes where TV was a common commodity, and in their community where alcohol and drugs were prevalent. Parents and grandparents were trying their best to teach the youngsters the values of the old ways.
A young man would learn to hunt by watching his father or uncle hunting. Traditionally there wouldn’t be many words of instruction, but the young person would gather the information needed by simply watching. Finally the time came when he would be handed the gun and he would get his first caribou – meat for the family.
You can imagine the excitement that a 12-year old would have in being able to bring home meat that the family would enjoy so much. You can imagine how he would want to dig into the meat and gorge himself – filled with pride at his accomplishment.
Yes, we can imagine that, but that was not the tradition. Doing that would lift the boy up too much, it would build his sense of pride too much. No, the tradition was that the young hunter’s first caribou was to be given to one of the elders – perhaps his grandmother or an aunt. It was not for him, but for him to share.
The game that he had hunted was a gift to him – God’s gift – and in thanksgiving he was to gift it to someone else. I saw in this practice a great parallel to the first fruits practice of the ancient Hebrews. The Hebrew family is not to sit down and gorge themselves on the harvest, at least not until they have taken the very first of the harvest to the altar.
At the altar they confess their faith – remembering how God had taken a wandering Aramean – one who was vulnerable and homeless – their ancestor Jacob – and turned Jacob into a Nation. Remembering how they were enslaved by the Egyptians, but then freed by the mighty hand of God and given a land of inheritance.
The literary setting of this Deuteronomy passage is while the Children of Israel are still in the wilderness – before they have actually set foot on the soil of the promised land. It seems to be very prescient. But the book of Deuteronomy was not written at the time of Moses, but much later. It reflects a time when the Israelites were actually losing some of their land to foreign invaders. So, Deuteronomy puts a spiritual twist on the possession of land.
The land never belonged to the Israelites because they were more worthy than others, or because they were more clever. The land belonged to them because God had granted them the grace to possess it. It was God’s gift. And the appropriate response to the gift of the land was thanksgiving. The words of the liturgy are, God “brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. So now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground that you, O Lord, have given me.”
This thankful approach to the gift of God is where I hope we can begin the journey of Lent toward Jerusalem. Any other approach leads us off in the wrong direction.
The Journey of Thanksgiving Begins with Land
I am reading a book by Timothy Egan called The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl, a book which Walter Cronkite describes as “can’t-put-it-down history.” It tells the story of the horrendous 1930's experiences of people living in the Panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma, Southeast Colorado, Northeast New Mexico, and Western Kansas.
The Native Americans whose lives were centered around the bison were driven off the land, which they had been promised as a sanctuary for all time. The Bison were then rounded up and killed. The grasses that had held the dry land in place for thousands of years was plowed up. It was planted to wheat. There were a few good years of wheat, and more and more of the land was plowed – nearly all of the land. There was almost none of the grass left to hold the soil in place. Then came the dry years and the wind. The dirt went into the air. There was no wheat – they couldn’t even grow gardens. People died of dust pneumonia. They died of lack of food. Hopes were lost. It was a terrible economic, ecological and human disaster.
I mention this piece of history in relationship to the story in Deuteronomy, because what happened in the High Plains demonstrates, a human pride which presumes that human beings can do whatever they want with the earth. The history of the Plains reminds us that any gift of God has to be cared for and worked with. It cannot simply be used up, without dire consequences. This disaster was not primarily individual human sin – though there was surely some of that, and not only an individual human disaster – though there was much of that. It was a collective sin and a massive ecological disaster.
Many individuals were caught up in it in many ways. People were lied to about what they would find when they got out there to settle. Some were looking for honest homes in which to grow their families. Others were only interested in getting rich quick. Some didn’t know any better, others ignored better judgement. The whole world suffered as a result.
The Worst Hard Time is a wonderfully written history, and I would commend it any of you. It is more than a good book about some terrible mistakes made in the past. It is a metaphor for the whole earth. We are becoming aware of the effects that human activity is having on global warming. In what way do we as individuals, we as Western Christians, we as citizens of God’s Realm – in what ways do we show our gratitude to God for God’s gifts to us? The ancient Hebrews brought their first fruits to the altar recited words of thanksgiving for their covenant relationship with God.
Our Church Council has this week voted to be a co-sponsor with other religious groups in Evanston of the Community Celebration of Earth Week on Sunday afternoon April 29 at Beth Emet. That is a tiny step of taking our place in this issue. Perhaps it can be a part of our own journey toward Jerusalem, as well.
The Temptations of Jesus
Perhaps we can understand Jesus’ journey toward Jerusalem to begin with his temptation. We read of his lonely confrontation with evil. The story may seem exotic and far removed, but as we look at Jesus’ temptations, perhaps we share more of them than is at first apparent.
Jesus was tempted to turn stones into bread. Wouldn't it be wonderful if he could. Jesus was very hungry from his long fast, so was the temptation just to help himself – to satisfy his own longing for something to eat? Perhaps. Of course that would have defeated his reason for being on the fast. He was trying to gain the spiritual strength to go forward on this difficult journey that was before him. But Jesus may also have been tempted to make enough bread for all of the hungry people of his community.
You and I might be tempted to make bread for everyone, too, if we thought we could do it. “However, the problem in the world is not that we do not have an adequate supply of bread. The problem is that we do not have a distribution system that faithfully shares the abundance we do have... too many have too little, too few have too much, and the price on the wrapper that goes around the bread is more than the farmer gets for the wheat that goes into the bread.”
The journey of Lent reminds us to think on these things. When we worship, we know that we do not live by bread alone, but bread is important in the life of the world. How do we do our part? The children are receiving an offering for Heifer International to share good food around the world. That is an important thing for us all to do.
Besides the stones to bread temptation, Jesus was tempted to take a political route. Whether or not he could have become the earthly ruler, we will never know, but surely, the temptation was there. “Of course, all the kingdoms come at a price. All you have to do is to stop worship as we know it and everything will be fine. All you have to do is to no longer make daily bread the aim; stop praying, ‘thy kingdom come.’ Make sure that those who trespass somehow into your territory know about it in no uncertain terms before you even think of owning up to the number of times you have trespassed against them.”
“Would any of the kingdoms of the world be worth very much if we lived in a world like that?” Jesus answered from Scripture, “Worship the Lord your God, and serve only God.” When are we tempted to turn our worship away from God?
Jesus’ “final temptation” was to seek total “protection from all of the exposure that the rest of the world has. Of course, thoroughgoing protection will result in complete disconnection from the reality of life as the rest of us experience it. Who would want to go and worship at that altar? It is tempting to be super human but the promises of God come to a head in the one who is fully human – Jesus the Christ.” (Quotations in this section from Emphasis, Jan.-Feb. 2007)
The Journey for First Congregational Church
Members and friends of First Congregational Church, God invites you on a spiritual journey. A journey that is grounded in thanksgiving. As the Israelites brought in the first fruits of the harvest, as a reminder that God had given them the land and all of the fruit of the land, so God invites you to look at this church which God has given to you. It is not yours to possess because you are so worthy or so special, it is God’s gracious gift to you, even when you were not worthy! How can you show that thanksgiving?
The temptations that Jesus went through are surely temptations that we can recognize. We may be tempted to try to meet our own personal and family needs and wants – to find bread among the stones of life. Or we may be tempted to fix the problems of the world by feeding the hungry, and that is good and a satisfying thing to do. But how does the hunger of the world fit in with the whole fabric of the life of the world? And how do we fit into it? What is the ministry and mission of this church to a world of immigrant issues and war – of chronic hunger and a thirst for clean water?
None of us and no congregation can do everything that needs to be done, but how do we take our place in a world of need? We are called to resist the temptation to misplace our worship of God, or to think we are supposed to be above or beyond the rest of the world. But the journey to Jerusalem – Jesus leading the way – draws us deeply into the needs of the world.
May this season of Lent be a time of prayer for you individually – you as a congregation. May you be encouraged to recognize the gifts of God and offer them back to God.
A First Fruits Story
I want to close with a little story from one of the churches I served. There was a woman, a rather new member, and who had spent time in a different church – not mainline Protestant. She was looking for a new job. It was urgent and she was nearly desperate. She was in our prayers.
But one day she came in to my office to give me a substantial check for the church. I don’t remember how much it was. But for someone who was just scraping by, it seemed very significant.
When I questioned her, she said she had indeed gotten a new job. And this check that she brought in was the first fruits: It was her first pay check. She was giving to God (through the church) – her offering of thanksgiving.
I nearly cried. I was pleased and happy for her job – but even more for the depth of her faith and commitment.
May God grant all of us faith and commitment.
Amen.
Last Updated: Wednesday, February 6, 2008