Moving Forward
“Lord, make us part of what you are doing in your world. Put us within the flow of your Spirit. Help us to do the things that you are blessing in this present age.”
At the beginning of the Book of Deuteronomy the people of God have wandered close to 40 years in the wilderness and desert. They went through some tough, faith stretching times. They struggled at times to be obedient and faithful to God’s commands and at the same time the Lord provided for their needs. Not everyone passed the test and many of those who had left Egypt wouldn’t live to see the Promised Land. After wandering around for so long, we hear these words in Deuteronomy 2:1-3 (NASB, 1995), where Moses says: “Then we turned and set out for the wilderness by the way to the Red Sea, as the LORD spoke to me, and circled Mount Seir for many days. “And the LORD spoke to me, saying, ‘You have circled this mountain long enough. Now turn north,”
December 1, 2013
Deuteronomy 2:1-3, Isaiah 2:1-5, Moving Forward
Doug Scalise, Brewster Baptist Church
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Have you ever felt like your life was going in circles? Have you had times when each day and week or even month and year seemed to be like the last and the view never changed? Perhaps when you’re young and so much can change from year to year this doesn’t happen as much as when you get to be my age. On Thanksgiving Day we were discussing my nephew Pietro’s upcoming wedding in June, my nephew Gabe’s pending induction into the army in January, Greg’s college search and graduating from high school next June, and Nathan’s college experience and his excitement about going to the Panama Jazz Festival in January. When you’re younger there are a lot of big milestones that are life shaping and life altering that come around every few years. But when you get to be older, sometimes life can feel like being stuck in a very busy rotary and being unable to get out of it. When that happens, depending on our perspective, life can start to fall into a comfortable, familiar pattern or a boring rut. It’s like the movie Groundhog Day in which every day Bill Murray’s character wakes up it is Ground Hog Day in Puxatawney, Pennsylvania.
Even this time of year can feel a little bit like going around in a circle. It’s the same thing every year from Thanksgiving to New Year’s. On Thanksgiving you get together with family or friends and most likely eat the exact same things you ate the year before. The day after giving thanks for all our blessings, tens of millions of people go shopping and stand outside in the cold to buy more things to be thankful for because what they have isn’t enough. I know some people will tell me they get some good deals, but you do have to appreciate the irony of the busiest shopping day of the year following “Thanksgiving.” Then we go through the four week dash to Christmas with more shopping, cards, cooking, parties, concerts and other special events almost all of which are a lot of fun, I enjoy them, until we savor a few quiet moments late on Christmas Day to let it all sink in. Some of us enjoy a lighter week or time off from Christmas to New Year’s and then we come around the corner to a New Year and the journey begins again. Many people have their own traditions and routines as they go through the holidays.
Routines can be our friend. Doctors tell us that it is good for us to have consistent routines and habits; it’s better for us to go to bed and get up at the same time every day, to eat and exercise at the same time every day; it helps us to function better and feel better. While routines can be beneficial and helpful, ruts are not. The difference between a routine and a rut is that a routine helps us to be at our best and a rut prevents us from moving forward and being our best. Having routines of eating, exercising, sleeping, worshiping, on a consistent basis helps us to be healthier and better people. The type of rut I’m talking about has nothing to do with deer; but comes from a track worn by a wheel or by habitual passage; a rut is a usual or fixed practice; especially a monotonous one.
In the Bible, there are a number of times when God’s people get into a rut, perhaps none worse than during the Exodus when they were wandering around in the wilderness. Today’s brief scripture from Deuteronomy is about a key moment that happens for God’s people to get them out of the monotonous phase they’ve been in. The Lord says to Moses, after they had circled Mount Seir for many days. ‘You have circled this mountain long enough. Now turn north,” There are times in life when the Lord speaks these words to us as well. We get in a rut, going in circles around our own particular mountain. We go around it for days and days and it gets familiar. We know the view from every side. We know what it looks like from the north, south, east, and west. We know every angle and line. It may sound boring, but we know what to expect, we know what to do, we know we can do it because we have circled around this way before, we know what’s coming around the bend. There is nothing to fear, been there, done that, but there also may not be as much to look forward to or to anticipate.
When we start circling the mountain as the people of God part of what happens is that our faith can start to atrophy and weaken because we really don’t need God to get through your day, we know what to do and we do it. The less unexpected life is the less we may feel like we need God’s help to get through it. Unlike a merry go round, God’s people aren’t meant to go through life simply going around in a circle. So much of the Bible describes life and faith as a journey and if we’re going to move forward in life and faith, if we’re going to get anywhere, we can’t simply go around in circles. There comes a time when the Lord says, ‘You have circled this mountain long enough. Now turn north,” Is there anyone here today who feels that way? If you’ve been circling a mountain maybe the Lord is telling you, “Now, turn north.”
I feel this is where our church is today. I’ve been praying, reading, thinking, discussing and wrestling for over a year with how to move BBC off the plateau we’ve been on for over a decade. Now don’t misunderstand me, God has blessed us greatly. We’re in the top 2% of churches in the United States both in terms of size and age; there are very few churches in the entire country for whom that is true. Most of the largest churches are much younger, and most of the older churches are much smaller. Bill Easum who consulted with us two weeks ago commended a great deal about our church including our worship, hospitality, the number of our volunteers, and the leadership of our laity which has enabled us to do so much even though he believes our church has been understaffed for years.
In a sense, our church has been circling the mountain for a few years now and it’s time for us to go north and try some new things. Bill Easum has described “the way north.” His recommendations even though they won’ be achieved easily or painlessly are the path we’re going to follow. Bill has consulted with over 500 churches through the years; there isn’t much he hasn’t seen. I had to ask myself as we began the process, “Am I willing to risk what we have, for the possibility that God may have more in store for us if we’re willing to trust the Lord, and step out of the comfortable and the familiar.” Bill Easum asked me when I picked him up on November 15 and we were driving to the church for the first time, “How seriously do you want me take this?” I looked at him and said, “Very seriously, I want you to tell us, based on your wisdom and experience, what we need to do.” He was asking because he knows change is hard, especially for people who love their church and are deeply invested in it, like so many of us.
Spiritually speaking, part of “going north and moving forward” means leaving the familiar, the comfortable, and the expected. We need the Lord more in unfamiliar territory because we don’t know what’s coming; we don’t know what lies over the next hill or around the next corner. But part of life and part of faith is having the trust and the courage to let go of what we know so that we can enter into God’s future. What is has to give way in order for what will be to have a chance to emerge. I read an article recently called, 11 Things I Wish Every Parent Knew by Dr. Steven Cowan. In the article Dr. Cowan states, “Life is a process of constantly giving way. Things pushed past their prime transform into something else. Just as spring gives way to summer, so is each stage of development a process of letting go. Crawling gives way to walking. Babbling gives way to speaking. Childhood gives way to adolescence. By breathing in, you breathe out. By eating, you poop. Each season, each stage, each little rhythm of our life is a matter of letting go. This allows us to get rid of what we don’t need to make room in our lives for new information. Learning to let go is not always easy and each child has his own adaptive style and timing.”
Learning to let go is not always easy and each of us has our own adaptive style and timing. Sometimes unless we let go of the things we’re clinging to, our hands can’t be open to receive the new things God has for us. I believe that God has good things in store for BBC and for all of us. We have been up against the 500 barrier for years; we’ve been stuck in a rut in our development. If we’re going to move to the next stage of development, there will be things we need to let go of that may not be easy for some of us. As Dr. Cowan said, “Each season, each stage, each little rhythm of our life is a matter of letting go.”
Letting go is a constant theme in the Bible. Noah and his family, Abraham and Sarah, Moses and the people during the Exodus, the Israelites after their nation was conquered, the disciples leaving their nets, Mary the mother of Jesus, Paul leaving his former life; all of them would have missed out on God’s future if they weren’t willing to give up their present and the familiar, their hopes, dreams, and plans to risk trusting God for the future and “going north.” I hope that we all will be able to pray our way through this season of letting go and change so we can receive the new things God wants to do in us and through BBC. I sincerely hope everyone will go with us as the church journeys forward into the future.
In Deuteronomy, Moses seeks to lead God’s people away from a mountain. The Isaiah scripture that began the service is a vision of a time when all people will come to the mountain of God. “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths. come, let us walk in the light of the Lord.
That is the invitation that is given frequently in the Bible, the invitation to walk in God’s paths and in the light of the Lord. We do so trusting that’s the best way to go. We want to be a faithful, disciple-making church that reaches out to those not yet connected to God. Throughout the Bible, the invitation is given and some choose to accept it and others don’t. Jeremiah 6:16, “Thus says the Lord: Stand at the crossroads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way lies; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.” We’ve circled this mountain long enough, we’re going north.
“Lord, make us part of what you are doing in your world. Put us within the flow of your Spirit. Help us to do the things that you are blessing in this present age.”