Lent III

Reformation, Media

Larry V. Smoose

The wilderness has always been a place of trial and testing for God’s people.  It is the furnace that forges character and molds the discipline necessary to survive the struggles and challenges of life.  It was in the wilderness that Jesus was tempted by the devil and drew upon God’s Word to set his course of ministry – learning that we do not live by bread alone, we should not test God and our purpose is to serve God alone. 

The wilderness experience that defines all wilderness events is the great Exodus of the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt and toward the promised land.  They had no idea that the journey would eventually require 40 years.  In fact, there is no way that it should have required 40 years based on distance alone.  It was not because Moses did not know the way and was too proud to stop and ask for direction.  Indeed, at the very beginning of the journey, when they arrive at Sinai, God gives them the directions which, if followed, would not only provide the most direct route to the promised land, but would teach them how to live in community – how to prosper through an understanding of life that flows from God and allows the entire community to flourish when honest, trust, fidelity and respect for life, family and property are honored. 

Ten commandments – ten practices that order life in a healthy pattern and help you negotiate through the wilderness of life.  It was when this compass of God’s ways was lost that the wilderness journey became extended.  Almost immediately after receiving the commandments, the people began to worship another god – how do we forget so quickly?  And so the trek through the wilderness became much longer than anticipated.  It became a time of discernment – a time of renewal of purpose – a time to define who they were as a people – a time to realize that God would be with them, guide them and provide for them even in the wilderness – and see them through. 

For my parents, their first wilderness experience was the Great Depression.  They were teenagers in those years.  My mother remembered how she and her younger sister would be sent during the summer months to live with an aunt who lived in New Jersey because her parents could not afford enough food for all of them, and her mother’s sister did not have any children of her own.  My father, who had an engineer-like mind could never get the education to follow that pathway in his life.   But it was this wilderness journey that shaped and tempered their lives. 

Their’s was not a faith memorized from textbooks or compartmentalized and relegated to an hour of formality on Sunday.  It was a faith lived out each day on the journey of life, tested as they raised four children, faced illnesses and faced the ups and downs of every day life.   But the lessons learned in the wilderness were an important part of their faith.  Other commandments, based on God’s Word and centered in Biblical principles of stewardship provided the insights they needed to not only negotiate that wilderness, but to prosper and thrive with the confidence that God would always be with them, guide them and provide for them. 

It seems to me, as we journey through our own economic wilderness today,  that we might benefit from a review of the commandments of economic stewardship that helped my parents and others like them.  The trials of this journey are not yet totally evident, and the amount of time we will be in this wilderness is unknown, but just as God guided and took care of the Israelites during their journey, just as God strengthened Jesus and in the midst of temptation came and ministered to him, so God will guide us and see us through this time of uncertainty and peril.  Along the way, he gives us commandments as our compass on this journey and teaches us how to prosper and flourish even in the wilderness. 

• I am the Lord your God, Creator of all that exists and giver of all that you have, you shall have no other gods before me.  Or, as Jesus said, you cannot serve two masters: for you will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other.  You cannot serve God and wealth.
• Be happy with what you have or you will never have enough.  Is life not more than food, and the body more than clothing?  Consider the birds of the air, they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them.  I share a room with two brothers, I had my share of secondhand clothes, all six of us shared one bathroom – I never thought of it as suffering or being deprived.  We need a perspective on what is important in life.
• Remember that Sabbath day – it provides time to give thanks to God who has given you all that you have.
• Honor your parents and those who have helped you to get to where you are today – no one does it all on their own and everyone can be a helping hand to others. 
• Do not steal, do not use your power to increase your own salary, if it is at the expense of others, and give a fair days work for a fair days wage.  Entitlement is a recipe for a purposeless life.
• Do not live beyond your means through borrowing and credit or entice others to live beyond their means.  But rejoice when others prosper and help encourage the well being of all people.
• Do not give in to greed.  Rather seek opportunities to use the wealth God has given you to help others and be generous to those in need.  Gratitude is the key to contentment.
• Do not curry favor from those who will reward you or compromise your standards and values for the sake of material gain. 
• Do not covet anything that is your neighbor’s
• Save a portion of all that you have, for those unforeseen times when you may not have enough.

Just as we are not able always to follow the original ten commandments, so we will sometimes struggle with these.  But I think that my parents journey through the wilderness of the 1930’s and early 1940’s helped them understand the importance of these lessons of stewardship.  No matter how much or how little they had, they were content, they were always helping others and always generous.  Sometimes I know they worried and they weren’t always able to save as much as they might like.  But they knew they were blessed by God in many ways, happier than a lot of people who had more money, and faithful, always faithful in their love of God. 

The wilderness has always been a place of trial and testing for God’s people.  It is the furnace that forges character and molds the discipline necessary to survive the struggles and challenges of life.  And the lessons of that first wilderness still remain true today.  Flowing from God, life in community flourishes for it values relationships; respects life, family, and property; and is steeped in honesty, trust and fidelity.   Perhaps this very moment God is at work, freeing us from our slavery to materialism, allowing us to pass through a sea of red ink and taking us on a wilderness journey of economic distress in order to bring us back to the promised land, where God’s ways once again become our ways.

Amen.