 Jeff Nelson |
Big
Tent Revival
Sermon:
Scripture: |
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Our story
begins in a place I bet we all have been, a place that life at
one time or another will bring us all through. The wilderness.
For Moses and his crew, the wilderness is that place somewhere
between Egypt and the Promised Land, somewhere between their
being liberated from bondage and the full realization of
God’s will for them. It’s a wandering place, a testing
place, a trying place. The wilderness is a vast unknown where
one never knows what danger lurks around the corner. As we
imagine Moses and his rag-tag followers looking out at this
unending unknown that surrounded them, we can easily
understand why they began to lose sight of where they were
going. Perhaps we can even empathize with their complaints. I
mean, in light of all the uncertainty that surrounded them,
all the unfamiliar that confronted them at every turn, it is
little wonder that these sojourners had forgotten all of the
miracles that had brought them into the wilderness in the
first place. Because let us not forget that this is the group
that had experienced some tremendous things. They had lived
through the seven plagues, and it was these same folks who had
suddenly found themselves traveling down an interstate that
went right through the Red Sea. Why, these very people had
actually seen bread raining from heaven and water being drawn
out of rock. Amazing, amazing stuff. But
perhaps just as amazing is that now, in the thick of the
wilderness, these very same people seem to have forgotten all
of the miracles that carried them to this point in their
journey. And not only have they forgotten what helped
to bring them this far, they seem to have forgotten who
has been with them all along. So this tells us something about
the overwhelming nature of the wilderness and the desperation
it can cause. Oh, but
wildernesses have a way of doing that, don’t they? And when
we find ourselves in there, in the wilderness, in the wild
unknown of life’s journeys, we can forget and become
panicked. We can get scared, nervous, anxious, uneasy, unsure. Once you
find yourself in the wilderness, all you know is that you are
lost. You cannot envision any way out of this mess. In fact,
you can’t even remember where you were going in the first
place. You are ready to give up, call it quits. Let’s just
go back to the way things were. Hey, back there, things might
not have been perfect, but they were better than this. I’ll tell
you the truth. There has been more than one occasion when I
have lifted my head up from the daily details and found myself
standing smack dab in the middle of the wilderness. I am sure
we have all had moments when we have just stood overwhelmed
with the tasks at hand. We might say to ourselves, “How am I
going to manage everything that is on my plate right now?”
Sometimes, in these wilderness moments, we literally
cannot see the forest through all the trees. You know these
trees. In fact, you know them by name. The trees in the
wilderness have names like career, family, kids, friends,
finances, relationships, college tests, home projects, work
projects, car maintenance, personal fitness, continuing
education, personal growth, spiritual development.…too many
trees, no clear path, no sense that there is a “promised
land” on the other side of this wilderness at all. These are
the moments in our lives that we, too, stand before God and
cry like Moses, “Why
do you treat me so badly?
Have I done something wrong to deserve all of this? Why
have you dumped this burden on me? …If this is the way you
are going to treat me, then you can go ahead and put me to
death right now. Go ahead and put me out of misery.”
(paraphrase of Numbers 11:11, 15) Just like
Moses, we can very quickly go from the burning bush to burning
out. The wilderness is a place we find ourselves standing in
more often than we would like. Because the wilderness can be such an uncertain and frightening place, I think there are three important things to remember about it. First, the wilderness is never our destination. It is not the end of the story. The wild uncertainty of the present moment is never a permanent fixture on life’s horizon, but simply the “in between” place that we travel through on our way from where we were to the place that God would have us be. The second
thing about the wilderness is that while it is not permanent,
it is also not avoidable. As much as we would like to walk to
avoid the wilderness, take a plane and fly right over it, skip
all of the rest of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy
and get to that first chapter of the book of Joshua and enter
this promised land, we just can’t do it. The wilderness
cannot be avoided. It is the place where we become the people
God has called us to be. The wilderness is the place where we
build the kind of community God has always intended us to live
in. The third
thing our scripture tells us about wilderness experiences is
that they are not just solo ventures, they are often field
trips where a whole busload of us feel too hungry and too
tired to continue on. Our story reminds us that sometimes
whole peoples, whole communities, can find themselves in the
thick of it, unsure of where to turn, how to proceed, and
uneasy about all the unknowns ahead of them. I say all
this about the wilderness because I think that as we continue
to wrestle with how to take the Sunday Night Alive ministry to
the next level, as we work to put in place the kind of
ministry that will grow both in size and depth, I am certain
that more often than not we will feel a little like we are in
the wilderness. In trying to answer the call God has given us,
we are indeed stepping out into uncharted territory. So many
questions. So many possibilities. So many uncertainties. How
do we create space for new people to join us? How do we get
the message out to the people who are yearning to know God’s
transforming love in their life? How do we use the new
building when it opens? How do we get the resources to really
grow? If we are not careful, we may find ourselves like the
Israelites in our story who wished they could just go back to
the way things had always been. Or maybe we’ll be like
Moses, overwhelmed, on the verge of burnout and ready to quit. So let us
look closely at our scripture tonight, because I think it has
a lot to say about people following God’s call to move into
the unknown. What does God tell Moses to do in the midst of
the wilderness, with the cries of hungry people ringing in his
ears and an overwhelmed feeling weighing down his shoulders?
God tells Moses to throw a party. That’s right, throw a
party right there in the wilderness. This isn’t just any old
party, either. No, it is a revival….a big tent revival, at
that. This party isn’t open to just anyone, either. No, it
actually has a rather exclusive invitation list. God responds
to Moses’ cries with a compelling suggestion. Instead of
giving Moses the axe, sending the people back to Egypt and
looking for new people to be his witness in the world, God
offers a different plan, to: Gather
for me seventy of the elders of Israel, whom you know to be
the elders of the people…bring them to the meeting tent and
have them take their place there with you. There you
have it. Throw up a tent and call a good old-fashioned prayer
meeting. But it is important to remember the purpose of this
big tent meeting. This was not a meeting just for the sake of
having a meeting. This was a meeting to help the people figure
out how to get themselves out of the woods. That’s important
to remember, because this is a great meeting tent we have
right here. This is a powerful place to gather, but I pray we
never meet here just for the sake of meeting. I pray that we
come to this meeting so that we, too, can get through the
wilderness. I pray that what happens here on Sunday makes a
difference come Monday. You know,
it is kind of like a football game. In a football game, there
is a lot of meeting going on. We call them huddles. In the
huddle, the team is given 30 seconds to call a play, get
organized, and make sure everybody knows where they are going.
These meetings are a necessary part of playing the game. But
you know what? Sixty thousand people don’t pay $35-$100 a
ticket to watch the huddle. They come to see if the huddle
makes any difference once the action gets started. The same is
true when it comes to church. The community around us—those
who don’t have a church home—look at us and wonder if our
meeting is going to make any difference once the action
starts. The true effectiveness of our ministry cannot be
measured by how well we do on Sunday. The test comes when we
leave this place and enter the world. God told Moses to call a
meeting so that they could bring the people to the other side
of the wilderness. We, too, must remember that we gather here
each Sunday so that we can help others find a way when there
seems to be no way. But
what about the guest list? Pretty exclusive, isn’t it? God
tells Moses to gather seventy elders from the community. So
what constitutes an elder, anyway? Gray hair and a few
wrinkles? Hardly.
In ancient Israel, the “elders” were the people to whom
the community turned for guidance, not because of their
individual talents but because of their wisdom. Wisdom,
that combination of knowledge, perception and judgment that
only comes after a lifetime of experience. Their
trustworthiness grew out of an openness that only comes from
the lessons of trial and error, from knowing both triumph and
failure. Elders were the ones whose opinions mattered greatly,
whose gifts and character were respected by the community.
What better people to gather with than these folks, people who
have been through life’s wildernesses before, people whose
wisdom could help the next generation find their way through
theirs as well. So
what did God tell Moses to do with the wise ones once they
showed up at the meeting tent? God told them to pray. God told
them to pray that the Spirit would be spread across the entire
community. God told them to stand firm and together
bear the burden of a starving people— people starved for
love, starved for connection, starved for a life full of
meaning. God wanted to teach young Moses that he was not in
this alone, but that his generation must learn to lean on the
faithful witness of those who had gone before them. Moses
needed to be reminded that he was a part of a powerful
community of people who walked the life of faith, through all
its ups and downs, joys and struggles. God called the elders
to the meeting tent to remind Moses that even though he was
being called into uncharted territory that would demand
innovation and new approaches, the Spirit that would get him
and the others through the wilderness was not new at all. The
faith that would sustain and deliver Moses was the same faith
that had sustained and delivered the elders. God brought the
elders to the meeting tent to help Moses remain connected to
his history. Since I
have been here at First Church, I have been amazed at the
powerful witness of the elders here. (I use the term
“elder” here intentionally, not as a distinction of age,
but as the title of honor that it is meant to carry.) They are
dedicated people who have built this church. Helped it to
grow. Helped it to change as the times demanded, while always
holding fast to God’s covenantal promises—the same
promises made to Moses somewhere between Egypt and the
Promised Land, the promise that God will never leave or
forsake us. As we
prepare for what is shaping up to be an exiting and
challenging year for the Sunday Night Alive ministry, this
story from the book of Numbers really speaks to me. So I have
done what it said to do. I have called our elders to join us
in the meeting tent. I have called them here to pray with us
and to pray for us. It is my hope that we remain connected to
the powerful witness of those who have led the way. And as we
venture out into new territory, may we never lose sight of the
faith that has sustained them and will sustain us. Helpful
exegesis of the Numbers text came from Kenda Creasy Dean and
Ron Foster in the book The God Bearing Life. I am indebted to Dr. Tony Evans of the Urban Alternative for the football illustration.
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