Father in Heaven, Lord we humbly thank you for your many gifts of grace upon us. Father we ask you to forgive us when we have forgotten to include you in our live, and pray that you will help us to be stronger in you. Amen!
Message: A Festival of Grace, & a Hope for More!
As Moses and the children of Israel in today’s message reading confirm, the name of Israel does indeed mean to struggle with God. And the children of Israel, just like you and I today do indeed struggle with God on all sorts of things. Our struggle with sin, greed, fear and ego, or those hard to answer questions that life brings our way.
Questions like why do bad things happen in life, why are some relationships so hard to enjoy, or why do some bad people seem to enjoy life so much more than a lot of us common people trying to do good? Another hard question might be; what is the meaning of this life of ours?
This time of year, is a good time to take a little time for reflection, and thinking out some of those questions that are as old as people walking this earth. All temporary walks in the scheme of things.
Peter had it right when he instructs us from 1 Peter 1:24-25
24 For, “All people are like grass,
and all their glory is like the flowers of the field;
the grass withers and the flowers fall,
25 but the word of the Lord endures forever.”
Fragile, and short lived in this existence indeed. As temporary monuments to the beauty God creates in this world, we are given a chance to radiate gratitude from reflection, or wither in self-abasement, jealousy, and ego.
Yes, Fall is a good time for reflection, and a time that many of our Jewish Friends invest of themselves deeply spiritually. In fact, right now is the celebration of the festival of Booths and Tabernacles is taking place for the Children of Israel. This year it runs from 20-27 September, and is also referred as Sukkoth, which means booths, or temporary shelters. This is done to remember the 40 years in the wilderness when Israel lived in temporary shelters (booths), and worshiped in the Tabernacle (a tent).
Sukkoth follows five days after the most sacred day of the Year Yom Kippur, or the Day of Atonement, which follows right after the Jewish New Year Rash a Shonna. You get the idea, a time for asking for forgiveness, and reflection. The dates vary each year based on Lunar position, and before you get too critical, these guys determine the timeframe for our Easter (which is Passover), each year. And now you know why Easter (our Passover) moves around and changes dates each year.
The idea of the Jewish observance of these holidays comes from God in Leviticus. Sukkoth is mandated like other festivals in Leviticus 23, for Sukkoth specifically verses 42-43
42 Live in temporary shelters for seven days: All native-born Israelites are to live in such shelters 43 so your descendants will know that I had the Israelites live in temporary shelters when I brought them out of Egypt. I am the Lord your God…
So why am I telling you all about Jewish Holidays, when we are not Jewish? Because the children of God, who have been and are a blessing to the world, who gave us ethical monotheism (one God who truly rules the universe, not your money, house, stuff, or good looks that are all temporary), the those chosen people think it important. And so, we honor them and God by understanding our Lord a little more today.
This is not to say the children of Israel are perfect people of God. They are just like you and me, who battle sin within themselves today just like yesterday. Reminding me of today’s “Message Reading” from Numbers chapter 11:4-6, 10-15, 24-32
4 The rabble with them began to crave other food, and again the Israelites started wailing and said, “If only we had meat to eat! 5 We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost—also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic. 6 But now we have lost our appetite; we never see anything but this manna!”
**Side Note: Just like when going on a summer trip when we were kids; I’m thirsty. I’m hungry. are we there yet? She’s breathing on me. Hay Mom; He is doing something disgusting, again! I want to go home.
Let me emphasize the Children of Israel really do reflect all of us who continue to complain when we have been given opportunities that other people can’t even begin to comprehend let alone dream about. The opportunities in our lives far outshine the challenges many of us are facing, but we only realize many of these blessings, when we get in the practice of sharing our lives truly with the Lord, day in and day out. Yes a real relationship with Him!
10 Moses heard the people of every family wailing at the entrance to their tents. The Lord became exceedingly angry, and Moses was troubled. 11 He asked the Lord, “Why have you brought this trouble on your servant? What have I done to displease you that you put the burden of all these people on me? 12 Did I conceive all these people? Did I give them birth? Why do you tell me to carry them in my arms, as a nurse carries an infant, to the land you promised on oath to their ancestors? 13 Where can I get meat for all these people? They keep wailing to me, ‘Give us meat to eat!’ 14 I cannot carry all these people by myself; the burden is too heavy for me. 15 If this is how you are going to treat me, please go ahead and kill me—if I have found favor in your eyes—and do not let me face my own ruin.”
**Side Note Again: Now Moses gets to play the complainer to God. You can almost hear God say; would you like some cheese to go with all of your whine? Maybe a medium Cheddar Tillamook cheese from Oregon? Just saying… It’s hard not to feel for Moses, he is like the only adult in a KinderCare Campus of 4-year-olds. Moses needs a Va-kay, and God is listening in spite of the whine… Well God gives Moses a plan of attack and gives him some help. Continuing now with verse 24;
24 So Moses went out and told the people what the Lord had said. He brought together seventy of their elders and had them stand around the tent. 25 Then the Lord came down in the cloud and spoke with him, and he took some of the power of the Spirit that was on him and put it on the seventy elders. When the Spirit rested on them, they prophesied—but did not do so again.
26 However, two men, whose names were Eldad and Medad, had remained in the camp. They were listed among the elders, but did not go out to the tent. Yet the Spirit also rested on them, and they prophesied in the camp. 27 A young man ran and told Moses, “Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.”
28 Joshua son of Nun, who had been Moses’ aide since youth, spoke up and said, “Moses, my lord, stop them!”
29 But Moses replied, “Are you jealous for my sake? I wish that all the Lord’s people were prophets and that the Lord would put his Spirit on them!” 30 Then Moses and the elders of Israel returned to the camp.
**Side Note once again; I am reminded of the passage from last week’s message out of Mark 9:39-40;
39 “Do not stop him,” Jesus said. “For no one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me, 40 for whoever is not against us is for us.
We seem to as people in general exclude others into a us and them. We flawed humans even try to make the serving of God, exclusive for the select few. Which is Hogwash! Regardless of serving God in Moses’ day or with the Disciples in the Gospel, the more people serving God, working for His divine plan, the better. As shown consistently through scripture. If all of Israel had been able to prophesize and then follow what God had revealed personally, perhaps the children of Israel wouldn’t have had to wonder in the wilderness for 40 years and living in Sukkahs, temporary shelters. Continuing with Numbers with, 11:31-32;
31 Now a wind went out from the Lord and drove quail in from the sea. It scattered them up to two cubits deep all around the camp, as far as a day’s walk in any direction. 32 All that day and night and all the next day the people went out and gathered quail. No one gathered less than ten homers. Then they spread them out all around the camp.
I almost titled today’s message; “Looks Like Meat is Back on The Table”. But that would have overlooked the greater miracle that is a life in the Lord generally, and the blessing we experience personally. Hence; “A Festival of Grace, And a Hope for More!”
The 40 years that the children of Israel; God’s family, living day to day on the graces and the provisions of God, show all of us today how steadfast the Lord is in our lives. God was actually showing a whole generation of people first hand in the wilderness, and you and I today through scripture, how to live a life with and in the Lord. How to grow with Him, share with Him, grieve and celebrate with the Lord. How to count on God for everything!
Additionally, the who idea of the children of Israel choosing to live for a week each year in a Sukkah (a booth or a shanty), reminds us all that this life is really a temporary proposition, and a gift of grace that God gives. Our very bodies are shacks of temporary duration and the Lord sustains in us life at His will.
Another title for today could have been; “God’s Festival of Shacks”. Because for 40 years Israel lived in a shanty town of Booths and had a Tabernacle (Tent) for a Temple. And yet God once again takes the apparent foolishness to the world, and makes life beautiful!Like a festival of ongoing Grace! Thank you, Lord! I hope I get more! I hope we get more!
Today I also included a verse from the Gospel in today’s message readings from Matthew 5:17;
17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.
Perhaps we aid the Lord in fulfilling His commands when we reflect on the festival that our Jewish friends are observing. Remembering where the people of God come from. From nothing alone, to everything with and in Him who sustains, comforts, and heals. In all ages including the here and now.
The celebration and observance of Sukkoth reminds us. Yes, and I would say the celebration of shacks, but the forts we used to build out in the woods when I was a kid, or the lean two structures that you find sometimes down by the viaduct, are dwellings compared to the temporary nature of the Sukkots, or booths that reflect the temporary structures of our very bodies that make up this wonderful life.
Maybe, when we as Christians take a moment to reflect on just how fragile our lives can be at times, we will be drawn to reflect along with our friends “The Children of Israel”, on how good God is, and how often the Lord has been there in our times of need.
This is what David wrote about in our Call to Worship reading this morning from Psalm 124;
1 If the Lord had not been on our side—
let Israel say—
2 if the Lord had not been on our side
when people attacked us,
3 they would have swallowed us alive
when their anger flared against us;
4 the flood would have engulfed us,
the torrent would have swept over us,
5 the raging waters
would have swept us away.
6 Praise be to the Lord,
who has not let us be torn by their teeth.
7 We have escaped like a bird
from the fowler’s snare;
the snare has been broken,
and we have escaped.
8 Our help is in the name of the Lord,
the Maker of heaven and earth.
This is known as a “Psalm of Assent”. It was sung along with several other Psalms (Psalms 120-134), by the congregations of Israel as they walked up to the Temple in Jerusalem, to worship our God.
We must never lose sight of the fact that, what we know from scripture study, the children of Israel knew on a personal level, and lived their expressions of thanks in the Lord. I hope and pray our Church might also live this experience more fully with each other and with our God, like the examples the Lord has provided, “The children of Israel”.
May we in a personal way be in the business of thanking, praising, and living our lives in and with our Lord. When we do, our Lord fulfills once again all of those expressions of majesty in and throughout scripture through our very temporary, but beautiful lives.
My hope and prayer for you this week as you explore your beautiful lives, is that you get a moment or two for reflection on just how incredible our God is, was, and will forever be. Amen!
Benediction; Romans 5:1-5 and Numbers 6:24-26
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God.
3 Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope.
5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.