Proper 13: Questions in the Wilderness
Again, good morning! My name is TJ, and it is my great delight to be with you this morning. During the past couple of years, I’ve gotten to know your pastor, Fr. Morgan. And he has been such a sweet gift to me. When we hang, he often tells me how much he loves each of you. And he really loves and cherishes you. So it is my great honor to share this morning with you.
So friends, let’s pray:
Father, we thank you for these few moments around your Word.
Spirit, would you give us ears to hear, hearts that long to obey, and power to walk in your ways to the glory of your name. We pray all this in Jesus’ precious and holy name. Amen.
I serve as one of the priests at Incarnation, down the road in Alexandria. And something we like to do during the summer is start each of our sermons with a question for our kids. But this morning, I want to begin with a question for kids both young and old! So if you have a childlike heart, I invite you to wonder!
I want you to imagine being taken up in a helicopter, from right here in Springfield! And then drops us off on a desert island with no technology and no resources. And then the helicopter flies away – What’s the first thing you would do when we were stuck in the middle of no where? How would you react?
Today we are going to talk about questions that arise when we are in seasons that feel like the wilderness, like we are on a desert island with no technology and no resources.
Throughout my few, short decades of walking with Jesus, I’ve become convinced that throughout our lives, we’ll experience times and seasons that feel like all the different stories in the Bible.
We’ll have moments that feel like high, highs. We’ll feel like we are with Moses and the Israelites as they were freed from captivity in Egypt. Or maybe we’ll feel like Peter, James, and John, when they were on a mountain top with Jesus, and saw Jesus’ body radiate with uncreated light at his transfiguration.
And then, we’ll have seasons that feel like low, lows. I’ve had seasons when it feels like all I’m doing is wrestling with God in the night, like Jacob. Or maybe we’ll feel trapped, like the Israelites in Egypt, as they waited for 400 years for God to liberate them. Or maybe we’ll feel like Jesus’ disciples after Jesus after their Lord had died, just trying to make sense of the grief of this world.
And I’ve also become convinced that most of the time, in most of our lives with God, we often find ourselves feeling like when we live under God’s care, God often leads us into times, places, and seasons that feel like the wilderness.
Places of uncharted territory, invoking both feelings of wonder and mundanity.
Times that feel like the messy middle, provoking a sense of fear, anxiety, and scarcity.
Seasons where there are more questions than answers, leaving us feeling vulnerable and risky.
And this is the place where our lectionary readings meet us this morning, in the places of wilderness. And this morning, I want us to think about the kinds of questions that arise within us when we are in places and seasons that feel like wilderness.
Our new testament reading comes from the Apostle Paul’s letter to the ancient church in Rome. And these words are his concluding words – to the height of the heart of Paul’s theological vision – of how Jesus changed everything.
And throughout Paul’s letter to the Romans, Paul argues that salvation is here, because of Jesus. Sin, death, and hell no longer have the final word, rather God has the first and final Word, and his name is Jesus. And yet, Jesus has not finished what he has started. Our world is still waiting to be filled only with resurrection life. But until then, God is here – in and with us. And in this place and time of waiting, the Holy Spirit is present and working.
Or to use a different image from the book of Exodus, we are still awaiting the promised land. We are somewhere in between being freed from slavery in Egypt and making our way into the land of milk and honey. We are wandering in the wilderness with God.
And just like questions arose within the Israelites while they were wandering through the wilderness, questions will arise in us.
Our Psalm this morning, Psalm 78, shares with us that while Israel was wandering in the wilderness, that the questions that arose within their heart were questions against God – They questioned: “Can God [really] spread a table in the wilderness?” And who cares that Moses struck a rock and water gushed out, “Can God [really] also give us bread or provide meat for his people?”
And if we are all honest, we probably can’t point our fingers in judgement against the Israelities, because we’ve probably all asked questions like them.
And at some point, in all of our walks with Jesus, we will probably ask a question a lot like the Apostle Paul. Let’s listen to his words again. He writes:
Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all day long; we
are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.”
And here, Paul offers a very real question. He asks: When things get bad, when it feels like God is far away: Is God punishing us? Did God leave us?
In the ancient world’s imagination, bad times were signs of divine punishment. And our imaginations are probably not too far away from the ancient world’s imagination. We still live in a world of consequence. And we are all searching for meaningful answers, especially when life is painful, hard, and complex. And so, when we are walking through seasons that feel like wilderness, we will probably ask questions a lot like – Is God punishing me? And did God leave me?
And to emphasize his point here, Paul quotes Psalm 44, in which the nation of Israel is asking this very question. In the psalm, they cry out to God, “This isn’t adding up. We are experiencing somuch defeat and destruction all the time. But we have not forgotten you, God, or been false to your covenant. Help us.”
So in the context of pain and hardship, in the context of what feels like wilderness, in the context of the questions – Is God punishing me? And did God leave me? – Paul answers the questions with a “no.” He writes:
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
And in Paul’s response here, Paul does something weird. He does something that is not very Paul. Paul could have said, “Nothing will be able to separate us from God.” But rather he says, “Nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Typically, Paul associates love with the Father. And he associates Christ, the Messiah, the Son with grace. But here, Paul associates the messiah with Love.
It’s as if Paul is pointing our imagination back to the one who revealed himself as the God who is “ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love” (Nehemiah 9:17). The God we heard about in our Nehemiah passage, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jabob, the covenant making God, YHWH.
Here, Paul shows us that Jesus, the Messiah, Christ, is YHWH in flesh. The God who kept his word to Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and King David will continue to make good on his word.
For he is “ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.” And absolutely nothing - no experience, no past, no future, no power visible or invisible, no circumstance, no pain - can separate us from the God –
who proves his love for us,
first through Jesus,
and now the Holy Spirit,
even while we are in the wilderness,
wading through the messy middle,
waiting for Jesus to finish what he started.
Because of Jesus - God’s love, God’s promises, and our destiny and ultimate reality are set in stone. We are covered by Jesus’ blood. We are being made whole by Jesus’ body. We are filled and empowered with the Holy Spirit. And we are fully welcomed and received by the Father. Our small lives are being caught up into the life of the one, true, living God. And our destiny is set. We will embody resurrection life with the one who is Uncreated-Life forever. Nothing can ever change this. Nothing will separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Now, I want to finish with one final thought about “the wilderness” from our Gospel reading, when Jesus feeds 5000 men and their families. Matthew tells us that this story happens in “a desolate place.” Another translation for the word “desolate” is “wilderness.” The context of Jesus’s miracle of feeding the 5000 is in the wilderness.
And here, the disciples find themselves in the wilderness with Jesus and crowds (plural) of people. Jesus’ heart churns for the crowds of people who need healing, who hurt, who have no way to get what they are searching for. So Jesus tends to the people. And as suppertime approached, the disciples were getting hungry and tired. You can hear it in their voice.
And they exhort Jesus, “This is a desolate place, and the day is now over; send the crowds away to go into the villages and buy food for themselves” (14:15).
Now watch what Jesus, their teacher on life with God, does. Jesus said, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat” (14:15b).
And as the disciples looked into the wilderness and only saw the overwhelming needs of the crowds, they said to him, “We have only five loaves and two fish” (14:16). When the disciples looked into the wilderness and only saw desperation and overwhelming need, they only saw two fish and five loaves, seven items in total. They only saw resources that wouldn’t make a dent to address the situation before them. They only saw a little bit of the ordinary to meet an extraordinary need.
And I’ll be the first to confess that this week, I found myself sounding a whole like the disciples, “As I look at these things before me – in my work and in my life – what I saw is about five loaves and two fish.”
In the wilderness – when we are navigating unchartered territory, when we feel like we are in the messy middle, when we are in a season with more questions than answers – we’ll be tempted to look around and only see scarcity. We’ll be tempted to see only our finitude and our limits. Five loaves. Two fish. Seven items in total.
Now, watch what Jesus, their teacher on life with God – watch what he does. He says, “Bring them here to me” (v. 18).
And then, the disciples put their measly offering – five loaves and two fish into Jesus’ hands. But now, when they looked at their measly offering, they didn’t just see seven items. They saw seven items plus God. The disciples now count to eight.
Within the Bible, the number eight symbolizes new creation and resurrection. And here, we see our measly offerings, in the hands of God. And God can use whatever as means to usher in new creation and resurrection into our world.
And we often find that God especially loves to use what we bring to him.
I love the way New Testament scholar, Frederick Bruner, puts it:
The disciples think they have ‘nothing here’ except these seven items. But they are counting only the realities that impress them, not the Reality that should impress them most.
When Jesus’ disciple looked out into their overwhelming circumstances, they only saw their resources, and yet they neglected to see God among them.
Church Father, John Chrysostom, says this marvelously:
Note carefully [Jesus’s] the Teacher’s skill…He did not say “I give them” but “You give them.” For at this point their regard for him was essentially as to a man. They said to him, “We have only five loaves here and two fish.” At this point Mark adds, “They did not understand the saying, for their heart was hardened.”
Chrysostom’s words, “For … their regard for him was essentially as to a man,” may sum up one of the primary temptations as we wander in the wilderness, waiting for Jesus to come back.
When it looks like we and our resources are scarce, when the road looks too uncertain, too hard, too daunting and too long, when life and the world around us seems overwhelming and chaotic, we may be tempted to blind eyes to God who is with us. Or to count God as one who is just like us.
But the good news of God is that God is not just like us, but God became like us so that we might become like him, full of life and love for the sake of our neighbors.
So friends, no matter what season we are in - and especially if we are in a season that feels like the wilderness - may we remember that God has not abandoned us. Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. God is here among us and in us.
And our call to love God and our neighbors does not change, even when we are in seasons that feel scarce. And so may be disciples who always count to 8, who always bring the very little we have and place it into the hands of Jesus, ready for Jesus to do with us whatever he desires, knowing that God is making all things new and caring for all his creatures.
Friends, may it be so. Amen.
To end, I just want to invite us into a moment of silent prayer. Would you close your eyes and take a few deep breaths? And then when you are ready, would you ask God, “What’s one thing you want me to bring to you?”
